A New Family

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boice_1_2Author – James Montgomery Boice held a B.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Theology from the University of Basel in Switzerland. He was the pastor of the Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia and was the author of many books, including three volumes in the series, “Foundations of the Christian Faith”. This article is taken from volume three of that same series, entitled Awakening to God.

In the opening pages of A Place for You, the noted Swiss psychologist Paul Tournier tells of a young man he once counseled. He grew up in a religious home, but it was unhappy. Eventually there was a divorce. This produced unfortunate psychological symptoms in the young man’s life. He developed an acute sense of failure, first in not reconciling his parents, then in his studies, then in an inability to settle down and achieve in any area of life. At last he came to see Tournier. They talked, and on one occasion, as if summing up his thought, the young man explained, “Basically, I’m always looking for a place—for somewhere to be.”1 The need for a place is virtually universal. On the human level the principle is easy to discern. “The child who has been able to grow up harmoniously in a healthy home finds a welcome everywhere. In infancy all he needs is a stick placed across two chairs to make himself a house, in which he feels quite at home. Later on, wherever he goes, he will be able to make any place his own, without any effort on his part. For him it will not be a matter of seeking, but of choosing.” On the other hand, “when the family is such that the child cannot fit himself into it properly, he looks everywhere for some other place, leading a wandering existence, incapable of settling down anywhere. His tragedy is that he carries about within himself this fundamental incapacity for any real attachment.”2 On the spiritual level, the problem is detected in the alienation from God we feel as a result of the Fall and of our own deliberate sins. Saint Augustine once wrote, “Thou hast formed us for thyself….” That is our true place. But he added in frank recognition of our dilemma and sin, “And our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.”3

God has dealt with this great problem of alienation through adoption, taking a person from one family (or no family) and placing him or her in a new family—the family of God. Sometimes adoption has been thought of merely as one aspect of justification or as only another way of stating what happens in regeneration. But adoption is nevertheless much more than either of these other acts of grace. “Justification means our acceptance with God as righteous and the bestowal of the title to everlasting life. Regeneration is the renewing of our hearts after the image of God. But these blessings in themselves, however precious they are, do not indicate what is conferred by the act of adoption. By adoption the redeemed become sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty; they are introduced into and given the privileges of God’s family.”4

Only adoption suggests the new family relationship which is ours in Christ and points to the privileges of that relationship. “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom. 8:14-17). Continue reading →

TULIP – by Dr. John Gerstner

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T – TOTAL DEPRAVITY

When man first sinned he died (Genesis 2:17). Now man is spiritually dead, not well, not sick, not even terminally ill, but dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1). His depravity pertaining to all aspects of his personality is total. This is not to be confused with UTTER depravity, for there is room for deprovement. Consequently this slave of sin (John 8:34), exploits every opportunity to sin in every area of his being: in thought, word and deed, by commission and omission, and even his good works are bad (Genesis 6:5). Total depravity is our one original contribution to TULIP. We are the dirty soil in which God plants His flower, and from our filth, produces a thing of divine beauty.

U – UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION
If man is as depraved as the Bible says he is, his divine election to salvation would have to be as unconditional as the Bible says it is (Rom. 9:15). How could totally depraved persons exercise faith in a God they hate, or behave virtuously while averse to virtue? If it were a matter of foreseeing, what would God foresee but sin and unbelief unless He elected to rescue some of the deservedly perishing? The election to salvation is absolutely unconditional, but the salvation is not, faith being its prerequisite and good works its post-requisite.

L – LIMITED ATONEMENT
The atonement is the means by which God brings totally depraved but unconditionally elect persons to Himself without violence to His own inexorable holiness. His mercy constrains Him to save and His holiness restrains Him from saving unjustly. So God became man in Christ that He could pay the price of sin and remained God. He did not empty Himself of deity when He became incarnate so that the purchase was infinite in value. Thus the atonement was unlimited in its sufficiency, as in its offer, and limited only in its specific design, for those who believe (John 3:16). Those who believe are the elect (Rom. 8:30). “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy” at once explains the unconditional character of election and the limited-ness of the atonement.

I – IRRESISTIBLE GRACE
The infinitely precious atonement would be of no value because totally depraved persons even though elect, are utterly hostile to God unless something was done to them in grace that corresponded to what was done for them in the atonement. Saving grace need not only to be provided but applied by means of union with Christ and regeneration. This divine grace is irresistible or efficacious because it mercifully changes the depraved soul. When a person is born again from above by the Spirit, he, as a new creature finds it as natural (that is irresistible) to come to Christ as in his depravity he finds it natural (that is irresistible) to flee from Him (John 3:3-8). Grace is irresistible not by being against man’s will but by recreating his will.

P – PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
The purpose of God would still fail if the last one of Christ’s sheep were not brought and kept within His fold (John 17:20, 21; 2 Pet. 3:9). So the saints must be persevering and this could only be possible or certain by God’s preserving. Having put His hand to the plow God never turns back (Phil. 1:6). Because He does not, neither do His saints (Phil. 2:11, 12). The perseverance by the saints is the consequence of the preservation of the saints. Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus on whom our faith depends from beginning to end (Heb. 12:2).