What the gospel isn't
Brother D_____,
I wrote out my thoughts concerning our difference of understanding. Please, correct me if I misunderstand what you were saying Tuesday night. As I understood you to say:
1) The Law of God is in everyone’s heart when they are born.
2) Everyone is in the Book of life when they are born and remain there until they disqualify themselves and get blotted out.
Here is what I came up with. There might be more, but I just can’t think of it now. Please, let me know of your answer to my statement.
When we say the law is in the heart what does the Bible mean? Does it mean that we are all obedient to God? Converted? Saved? Is every soul not really lost until finding the Savior, but just in need of some refining? Or are they all lost the day they are conceived?
Or, does the Law in the heart mean that I love the Law? I love to serve God and man? Do most people love to serve God and man? Or some people? Or is it a very small remnant that ever has the love for the truth?
Are we born with obedience in our hearts, or are we born rebels, grabbing our twin by the foot? If everyone were born obedient, why the need for the second birth? The human heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked—at birth. We were born in sin and shapen in iniquity. How can the Law be in every desperately wicked heart?
When David said, “I delight to do Thy will, Thy law is in my heart,” as I understand it, he was speaking for himself as the standard for the world to attain to. In other words, the world was not there. Even then, he was more accurately speaking of Christ (the holy seed) rather than himself.
While Christ told the apostles that their names were written in heaven because they were responding to the Redeemer from sin, the religious leaders and careless multitudes heard different words addressed to them. “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? … and think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” (Matt. 3:7-9). Their names had never been written in heaven. The Law had never been in their heart.
They might have been born “Jews by nature” (Gal. 2:15), but they knew “not the scriptures, neither the power of God.” (Mk. 12:24).
The Reformers’ issue on the condition of human nature differed sharply with the humanist Papists. The Reformers said that there was nothing in us to recommend us to God. We were in the pit of sin and that only through the special work of the Holy Spirit through our appropriating by faith Christ’s robe of righteousness could we ever be acceptable to God. The Romanists said, No, we are pretty bad but there is a little bit of natural goodness in us and that just needs to be refined and sprinkled with a little holy water and blessed with a few hale Marys. The two views represent righteousness by faith, and righteousness by works. Neither side could be reconciled because they held two opposing doctrines.
The Lord describes human nature thus:
“There is none righteous, no, not one:
There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”
Before being saved by God’s kindness and love, Paul struggled to put the Law of God in his heart and it got him nowhere. “If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good….
For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not….
I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.”
All Paul’s effort to put the Law in his heart was only intellectual assent, which can never save the soul. The heart was unregenerated despite his most pious efforts to be obedient. This has been the plight of so many thousands of souls enslaved by false religion through the ages.
It is not enough to perceive the loving-kindness of God, to see the benevolence, the fatherly tenderness, of His character. It is not enough to discern the wisdom and justice of His law, to see that it is founded upon the eternal principle of love. Paul the apostle saw all this when he exclaimed, “I consent unto the law that it is good.” “The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” But he added, in the bitterness of his soul-anguish and despair, “I am carnal, sold under sin.” Romans 7:16, 12, 14. He longed for the purity, the righteousness, to which in himself he was powerless to attain, and cried out, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?” Romans 7:24, margin. Such is the cry that has gone up from burdened hearts in all lands and in all ages. To all, there is but one answer, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” John 1:29. Steps to Christ, p.19.
It took a personal experience with Jesus to open his heart to receive the Law of God and the power of God to overcome sin. Until he was reconciled to God by the death of His Son, he could not be saved by His life as he saw it in the Law. (Rom. 5:10). Once reconciled and justified, then Christ’s living example of divine love for fallen man was a powerful force to sanctify and seal Paul.
As concerns the blotting of names from the book of life:
The work of the investigative judgment and the blotting out of sins is to be accomplished before the second advent of the Lord. Since the dead are to be judged out of the things written in the books, it is impossible that the sins of men should be blotted out until after the judgment at which their cases are to be investigated. But the apostle Peter distinctly states that the sins of believers will be blotted out “when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and He shall send Jesus Christ.” Acts 3:19, 20. When the investigative judgment closes, Christ will come, and His reward will be with Him to give to every man as his work shall be. Great Controversy, p.485.
At the time appointed for the judgment—the close of the 2300 days, in 1844—began the work of investigation and blotting out of sins. All who have ever taken upon themselves the name of Christ must pass its searching scrutiny. Both the living and the dead are to be judged “out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.” Great Controversy, p.486.
Here we see that the names in the book of life are only those who have ever been converted under the influence of the Holy Spirit. For example, King Saul, Balaam, Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and Judas Iscariot, Ananias and Sapphira, etc. will fail in the investigative judgment and be blotted out of the book into which their names had been written when they were first converted to Christ. As far as we know, Ham, Cush, Nimrod, Pharaoh of Moses’ day, all the people who abandoned the church in John’s day, etc. were never in the book of life. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” (1Jn. 2:19).
Its wrong to believe that everyone can enter or be born holy without striving for the kingdom, laboring to enter into its rest. We must all wrestle like Jacob wrestled in order to receive the new God-given name of Overcomer. True, many outside the Advent message are converted and in the book of life. But, that doesn’t mean everyone is born loving obedience. We are all born rebels at heart, and we are born without the Law of God in our hearts.
But having said that, there is something we have retained since our fall into sin—that is, the longing to be loved. This has been tarnished, but still remains. And from this the Spirit works to develop in us the longing to love and to purify our longing to be loved. To love and be loved is the one last vestige of God’s image naturally in us at birth, and it is this faculty that the Spirit manipulates for our redemption, and has since the fall of man. If we will focus all our effort toward learning how we are loved by God, first and foremost, and then, secondarily, how we can love others, then the Spirit will eventually create surrender in our corrupt hearts and transform our heart through the gift of full faith in Jesus’ love. Our devil will flee away and pride will flee with it; peace will flood into its place; submission and obedience will finally be doables. Reconciled and justified, we are on the path to sanctification and glorification.
The law alone could not accomplish this miraculous change from rebellion to child-likeness. “What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,” worked His power into us when we cooperated with Him. Its not until we receive Him that we have the power to become the sons of God; and the religious leaders and moral multitudes proved that searching the scriptures and being lawyers and putting the law in their hearts did not guarantee that Jesus was received with the law.
Its not about how beautifully or earnestly the sinner worships God that saves him or her. Its not about how much scripture we memorize or how well we keep the laws of health that save us. Its not about the natural-born love to be good that puts us in a right standing before God and saves us. Everything of salvation depends on God’s work to save, our patient waiting for Him to get through to us, and on the right action of our will. That right action is in our seeking out the great love of God for us in our study of His word and nature and life experiences; it is through talking and listening to Him, through serving others with Him—all in the one and only effort to learn of His great love for us, for me personally—and then responding in kind to Him and to those around us.
D_____, please respond in writing if you have the time. I don’t think we’ll be able to give the subject its proper study if we try to talk after the prayer meeting is disbanded. I love you, brother, and N_____ and S_____.
David
I wrote out my thoughts concerning our difference of understanding. Please, correct me if I misunderstand what you were saying Tuesday night. As I understood you to say:
1) The Law of God is in everyone’s heart when they are born.
2) Everyone is in the Book of life when they are born and remain there until they disqualify themselves and get blotted out.
Here is what I came up with. There might be more, but I just can’t think of it now. Please, let me know of your answer to my statement.
When we say the law is in the heart what does the Bible mean? Does it mean that we are all obedient to God? Converted? Saved? Is every soul not really lost until finding the Savior, but just in need of some refining? Or are they all lost the day they are conceived?
Or, does the Law in the heart mean that I love the Law? I love to serve God and man? Do most people love to serve God and man? Or some people? Or is it a very small remnant that ever has the love for the truth?
Are we born with obedience in our hearts, or are we born rebels, grabbing our twin by the foot? If everyone were born obedient, why the need for the second birth? The human heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked—at birth. We were born in sin and shapen in iniquity. How can the Law be in every desperately wicked heart?
When David said, “I delight to do Thy will, Thy law is in my heart,” as I understand it, he was speaking for himself as the standard for the world to attain to. In other words, the world was not there. Even then, he was more accurately speaking of Christ (the holy seed) rather than himself.
While Christ told the apostles that their names were written in heaven because they were responding to the Redeemer from sin, the religious leaders and careless multitudes heard different words addressed to them. “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? … and think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” (Matt. 3:7-9). Their names had never been written in heaven. The Law had never been in their heart.
They might have been born “Jews by nature” (Gal. 2:15), but they knew “not the scriptures, neither the power of God.” (Mk. 12:24).
The Reformers’ issue on the condition of human nature differed sharply with the humanist Papists. The Reformers said that there was nothing in us to recommend us to God. We were in the pit of sin and that only through the special work of the Holy Spirit through our appropriating by faith Christ’s robe of righteousness could we ever be acceptable to God. The Romanists said, No, we are pretty bad but there is a little bit of natural goodness in us and that just needs to be refined and sprinkled with a little holy water and blessed with a few hale Marys. The two views represent righteousness by faith, and righteousness by works. Neither side could be reconciled because they held two opposing doctrines.
The Lord describes human nature thus:
“There is none righteous, no, not one:
There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”
Before being saved by God’s kindness and love, Paul struggled to put the Law of God in his heart and it got him nowhere. “If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good….
For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not….
I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.”
All Paul’s effort to put the Law in his heart was only intellectual assent, which can never save the soul. The heart was unregenerated despite his most pious efforts to be obedient. This has been the plight of so many thousands of souls enslaved by false religion through the ages.
It is not enough to perceive the loving-kindness of God, to see the benevolence, the fatherly tenderness, of His character. It is not enough to discern the wisdom and justice of His law, to see that it is founded upon the eternal principle of love. Paul the apostle saw all this when he exclaimed, “I consent unto the law that it is good.” “The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” But he added, in the bitterness of his soul-anguish and despair, “I am carnal, sold under sin.” Romans 7:16, 12, 14. He longed for the purity, the righteousness, to which in himself he was powerless to attain, and cried out, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?” Romans 7:24, margin. Such is the cry that has gone up from burdened hearts in all lands and in all ages. To all, there is but one answer, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” John 1:29. Steps to Christ, p.19.
It took a personal experience with Jesus to open his heart to receive the Law of God and the power of God to overcome sin. Until he was reconciled to God by the death of His Son, he could not be saved by His life as he saw it in the Law. (Rom. 5:10). Once reconciled and justified, then Christ’s living example of divine love for fallen man was a powerful force to sanctify and seal Paul.
As concerns the blotting of names from the book of life:
The work of the investigative judgment and the blotting out of sins is to be accomplished before the second advent of the Lord. Since the dead are to be judged out of the things written in the books, it is impossible that the sins of men should be blotted out until after the judgment at which their cases are to be investigated. But the apostle Peter distinctly states that the sins of believers will be blotted out “when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and He shall send Jesus Christ.” Acts 3:19, 20. When the investigative judgment closes, Christ will come, and His reward will be with Him to give to every man as his work shall be. Great Controversy, p.485.
At the time appointed for the judgment—the close of the 2300 days, in 1844—began the work of investigation and blotting out of sins. All who have ever taken upon themselves the name of Christ must pass its searching scrutiny. Both the living and the dead are to be judged “out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.” Great Controversy, p.486.
Here we see that the names in the book of life are only those who have ever been converted under the influence of the Holy Spirit. For example, King Saul, Balaam, Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and Judas Iscariot, Ananias and Sapphira, etc. will fail in the investigative judgment and be blotted out of the book into which their names had been written when they were first converted to Christ. As far as we know, Ham, Cush, Nimrod, Pharaoh of Moses’ day, all the people who abandoned the church in John’s day, etc. were never in the book of life. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” (1Jn. 2:19).
Its wrong to believe that everyone can enter or be born holy without striving for the kingdom, laboring to enter into its rest. We must all wrestle like Jacob wrestled in order to receive the new God-given name of Overcomer. True, many outside the Advent message are converted and in the book of life. But, that doesn’t mean everyone is born loving obedience. We are all born rebels at heart, and we are born without the Law of God in our hearts.
But having said that, there is something we have retained since our fall into sin—that is, the longing to be loved. This has been tarnished, but still remains. And from this the Spirit works to develop in us the longing to love and to purify our longing to be loved. To love and be loved is the one last vestige of God’s image naturally in us at birth, and it is this faculty that the Spirit manipulates for our redemption, and has since the fall of man. If we will focus all our effort toward learning how we are loved by God, first and foremost, and then, secondarily, how we can love others, then the Spirit will eventually create surrender in our corrupt hearts and transform our heart through the gift of full faith in Jesus’ love. Our devil will flee away and pride will flee with it; peace will flood into its place; submission and obedience will finally be doables. Reconciled and justified, we are on the path to sanctification and glorification.
The law alone could not accomplish this miraculous change from rebellion to child-likeness. “What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,” worked His power into us when we cooperated with Him. Its not until we receive Him that we have the power to become the sons of God; and the religious leaders and moral multitudes proved that searching the scriptures and being lawyers and putting the law in their hearts did not guarantee that Jesus was received with the law.
Its not about how beautifully or earnestly the sinner worships God that saves him or her. Its not about how much scripture we memorize or how well we keep the laws of health that save us. Its not about the natural-born love to be good that puts us in a right standing before God and saves us. Everything of salvation depends on God’s work to save, our patient waiting for Him to get through to us, and on the right action of our will. That right action is in our seeking out the great love of God for us in our study of His word and nature and life experiences; it is through talking and listening to Him, through serving others with Him—all in the one and only effort to learn of His great love for us, for me personally—and then responding in kind to Him and to those around us.
D_____, please respond in writing if you have the time. I don’t think we’ll be able to give the subject its proper study if we try to talk after the prayer meeting is disbanded. I love you, brother, and N_____ and S_____.
David
posted by David | 5:28 AM
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