The Doctrines of Grace
Part Three
by
Dr. Jay Worth Allen
The practical application of the teaching of Scripture is so needed today. What value is Biblical knowledge or understanding, if they exert no vital influence upon our conduct? God has given His Word not only for our information, but as a Principle to walk by, and every chapter in it contains important rules for us to appropriate and put into practice. The Doctrines of Grace which is before us supplies a timely case in point.
It is absolutely essential for every Born-Again Believer to learn the scriptural difference between their relationship to the Flesh and to the Spirit. Only from the Pauline epistles will the Holy Spirit minister these Christian truths. Then, when established and hid with Christ in God, the Believer can be ministered to by the remainder of the Word without being drawn from their position in Christ, Who is their Life.
Most everyone has a knowledge of God, yet, our knowledge may be based on what we have been told by men, rather than what we know from the Spirit of God, which dwells within us. Denominations were sired by men. The Church was birthed by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost; kept by the promises of God, through His Spirit, until the day of redemption – our resurrection — as the bride of Christ.
Today we have many untaught, Unregenerate men (and unscriptural women) occupying the pulpits of our Christian Churches, and, “another gospel” (Galatians 1:6) is being widely circulated. Multitudes of preachers, who have neither “tasted that the Lord is gracious,” nor have “the fear of the Lord” in them, have, because of various Natural motives and considerations, invaded the sacred Calling of the ministry, and out of the abundance of their corrupt hearts they are speaking. Being blind themselves, they are leading the blind into the ditch. They have no love for the Great Shepherd or His flock. They are themselves “of the world” and therefore “the world hears them” (1 John 4:5) – preaching what is acceptable to man’s Fallen human nature, and, as like attracts like, they gather around themselves a company of admirers who flatter and support them. They bring in just enough of God’s Truth to deceive the unwary and give the appearance of orthodoxy to their message, but not sufficient of the Truth, especially the searching portions thereof, to render their hearers uncomfortable by destroying their False peace. They will name the name of Christ, but will not preach Him. They will mention the Gospel, but will not expound it.
Men in this day and age have stopped preaching what the early church called, kerygma — a Greek word in origin, meaning the proclamation of the significance of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ: Christ died for the sins of His elect; He was raised from the dead on the third day; He now sits at the right hand of the Father, who is on the throne of Heaven; believers believe Him . . . and are saved. That’s what the early church believed and taught: kerygma. (Peter in Acts 2, Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.)
Kerygma is the basic unity of the Gospels. No matter to what extent the Gospel writers differ in their linguistic emphasis, they all proclaim kerygma. Mark’s portrayal of Jesus as the suffering Messiah differs from Matthew’s picture of the Lord as the fulfillment of Jewish hopes. Luke’s depiction of Jesus as champion of the poor, outcast, and sinners, varies slightly from the first two, and John’s account gives us an image altogether different from either of the first three, in that he speaks to our Salvation as having already been obtained. Yet – kerygmatically – all of the Gospels are the same: the Elect, the Believers, have been redeemed through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ! That simple fact is lost in Arminianism, but it is preached faithfully in Calvinism.
John Calvin, the theologian of the Reformers and patriarch of the Calvinists’ dictum, was born at Noyon, Picardy, on 10 July 1509. Calvin is second only to Arminius in the extent of his Doctrinal influence upon the Church today. Sometime between April 1532 and November 1533, he renounced the Roman Church and adopted the Protestant faith. Then in 1536, he wrote his epoch-making treatise, The Institutes of the Christian Religion.
Calvin recognized the Scriptures as the ultimate authority; religious, personal, social and political. His tenets are Bible-based; the authority of the Bible replacing the power of the Papacy, the State, or man.
Calvin’s, “What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever,” is the beginning of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. The statement was formulated long after Calvin’s death, and is the manifesto of Scottish and English Puritanism. I added it here because it reflects the spirit of John Calvin so well.
Calvin worked along two lines, which were to dominate his whole life: the establishment of purity of Doctrine and purity of Living. The core of Calvin’s teaching is seen in the five Doctrinal points known as the T.U.L.I.P. — Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace and Perseverance of the saints. The core of the Arminian teaching is seen in the D.A.I.S.Y. — “He loves me. He loves me not . . . et cetera, et cetera.”
Calvin believed that any infraction of the Word of God is sin – “all have sinned and fall short” – and that there is SIN into which all men (human beings) are born into from their father, the first man, Adam, and are, by nature, at enmity with God from that birth. Which is why man needed a Savior. Which is where we will begin next week: the Total Depravity of man.
written 28 December 2010 / published The County Journal 13 January 2011.
© dr. jay & miss diana ministries, inc
