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Keeping the Cross in focus this Good Friday

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 12:00 AM ET , Friday, Apr 10, 2009
Tags: Columns, Deep Doctrine Magic: Biblical Theology



Christianity moves on — not only the cause of Christ but the topic including the name, in the NarniaWeb forum. There the discussion had recently shifted to demons and spiritual warfare, which is highly interesting especially when people begin posting about their Paranormal Experiences. I’m particularly fond of the demonoid-shape seen under the street light. Ugh.

But it’s not Halloween, it’s Good Friday, and recently others — myself included — showed inclinations of moving on to other topics. That began after one relative newcomer to the forum, named “Light in the Dark,” recently said this:

How could a Demon just work its’ [sic] way into you, without your permission, if God, a much more powerful Being, can’t?

Apparently this is a very reasonable and understandable point, given the default view of many evangelicals that God does not reach out to sinners until sinners first reach out to God.

In response, The Black Glove (who has posted here as Roccondil) very briefly asked:

What do you mean “can’t”?

Later, TBG posted a summary of the “Five Points of Calvinism,” also known as the Doctrines of Grace. It’s here that I would like to pick up, followed by my own remarks, edited from a lengthy post yesterday, about the centrality of the Gospel and seeking the Bible’s big picture of Christ and Him crucified — above all other issues that may relate to the Gospel but are not as vital.




Debating demons


I know demons are out there, but I strongly suspect many false teachings about them may originate from demons themselves. If I were a demon, anyway, I would like to pad my résumé just a little. I think many of demonic teachings exaggerate their powers and thus exalt themselves and their own abilities, and take Christians’ minds of their true mission and focus, which is Christ and the Gospel.

The Christian life isn’t all Scripture-studying and personal growth. But it’s not all or even mostly spiritual-warfare and 24/7 battles and supernatural occurrences either.

If it were, Christ and the New Testament writers would have spent a lot more time teaching about how to take part in spiritual warfare.

But in the Bible, we only have a few references to the work of Satan, standing firm against his dark schemes, fighting the prince and power of the air, etc. That includes tangling with demons from time to time, maybe even in more “paranormal” ways here and there. And indeed it’s necessary to discuss such things at time. But to stay so fixated isn’t healthy.

I daresay demons are like spoiled children: they’ll take any attention, either positive or negative. So I would prefer to give them as little attention as possible.

The majority of Christ’s teachings, and Paul’s and others apostles’ later letters, was about Christ, Him crucified, the doctrines associated with His plans — including predestination — and the way we should live our lives in the light of His Grace.

And a re-emphasis on that topic would seem even more fitting, given the significance of tomorrow. It is again “Good Friday,” remembered and even celebrated by Christ-followers who know that about 2,000 years ago, Christ died to save His people not just from influence by demons, or suffering or illness or any of that, but the death in sin that would otherwise separate rebel humans forever from the God Who created them to know Himself.

Again, that is what kills people — not demons. Sin. Teachings against God. Rebellion against God. Only He provides a way for people to be saved — and then only He saves them.




Five points that point to the Cross


[The Black Glove wrote:]

LITD, here’s what I (and I think Dr. Ransom) believe (as defined at the Synod of Dort in 1619):

Total Depravity: man has free will, the ability to choose between options, but because of Adam’s sin, has fallen and is radically corrupt to a degree where he will never choose God unless he is regenerated (born again) by the Holy Spirit.

Unconditional Election: before the beginning of time, God chose some individuals out of the whole of humanity to be His people, regardless of race, social background, or anything that they would do, but because he foreknew them as people and foreloved them.

Limited Atonement: When Christ died on the cross, He died for His people, and for no others.

Irresistible Grace: in the course of the life of one of His elect, God calls that person to Himself with an inward call that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, causes Him to be born again, and where before, that person is spiritually dead, now he or she is alive.

Perseverance of the Saints: Once a person has been regenerated, they will choose Christ, because now they understand and are filled with love for God. This person will not fall from grace, but will persevere to the end by the power of the Holy Spirit.

That, in short, is the doctrine of predestination. Many people find this stuff harsh and cruel of God—I find it merciful that he would save any at all. Once I admitted Total Depravity, everything else fell into place because suddenly I realized that without regeneration first, no one would ever come to God.

Thanks so much for the summary, TBG! That was the what we believe, to be sure, and yes, I completely agree. Now here is a little about why, adapted from a sermon by John Piper (available on MP3, and based on his article “Ten Effects of Believing the Five Points of Calvinism”).

As part of an awesome overview of what is commonly called “Calvinism,” Piper offers a summary of the spiritual fruits that result from this big-picture, God-centered way of Scripture study and real-world results. I can highly recommend his nine-part series (available in both readable and listenable forms) that covers the doctrines much better than the more-amateur-level pundits here could — though we certainly enjoy passing along these truths and doing our best to point to Christ and His deep doctrinal magic!

1. These truths make me stand in awe of God and lead me into the depth of true God-centered worship.

[. . .]

2. These truths help protect me from trifling with divine things.

[. . .]

3. These truths make me marvel at my own salvation.

[. . .]

4. These truths make me alert to man-centered substitutes that pose as good news.

[. . .]

5. These truths make me groan over the indescribable disease of our secular, God-belittling culture.

[. . .]

6. These truths make me confident that the work which God planned and began, he will finish - both globally and personally.

[. . .]

7. These truths make me see everything in the light of God’s sovereign purposes - that from him and through him and to him are all things, to him be glory forever and ever.

[. . .]

8. These truths make me hopeful that God has the will, the right, and the power to answer prayer that people be changed.

Here I break the quote for a quick note: you simply must listen to Piper’s audio adaptation of this article, in which he fleshes out even more of the parts I’ve cut out for this excerpt.

For this eighth subheading, Piper relates a shocking account of bad theology and practice in which a church leader actually saw the point of not praying for an unbeliever’s salvation because you would in effect be asking God to overrule this person’s free will! And indeed, that is the logical conclusion of such overemphasis on man’s freedom rather than God’s!

9. These truths reminds me that evangelism is absolutely essential for people to come to Christ and be saved, and that there is great hope for success in leading people to faith, but that conversion is not finally dependent on me or limited by the hardness of the unbeliever.

[. . .]

10. These truths make me sure that God will triumph in the end.

[. . .]

Putting them altogether: God gets the glory and we get the joy.

To that I would add a few obvious truths as well:

  • I believe in the “five points” because God has used them to draw me even closer to His truth and Grace, focusing on Him much more effectively, and even when I don’t desire Him like I should, wanting to want to desire Him.


Of course, I am not suggesting someone who disbelieves the doctrines of Grace is not a Christian, or even a shallow Christian. But for me, this is how God has worked, to bring me into even more engagement of my mind and heart with Him — not politics and morals and Taking Back the Culture and Raising Good Families along with, or even more important than, the gospel way back there somewhere holding up all these other things. No way.

Now more than ever I have less reason to swap the Gospel for related truths. Christ is central. His Cross is central. It should never be replaced by any Christianity-And-Something-Else substitute.

  • I believe in the “five points” not just because they make sense, or make me feel intellectually cool, but because they are solidly based in Scripture and make the “big picture” of the Bible come alive.


To further this, I’ll close with a quote from pastor and teacher Alistair Begg, who on the radio yesterday (I love this man!) was talking about “Getting the Big Picture” of the Bible, as opposed to being familiar with certain verses here and there (and often out of context).

Of course, some verses taken in isolation do seem to support the “free willie” view of overemphasis on man’s freedom rather than God’s. But the big picture of Scripture, and huge chunks of passages such as Ephesians 1-2 and Romans 8-9, solidly support God’s freedom and sovereignty, way above the idea of man’s freedom to choose to limit God.

Begg taught about the two men on the road to Emmaus who were suddenly visited by the now-resurrected Christ, though at first they were kept from recognizing Him. Jesus began talking with them, and they expressed disappointment that the Man they were sure was their Savior had been ripped away from them and horribly killed on a cross. In response, Jesus mildly chastises them, and points to the big picture of Scripture as being all about Him. He gave a sermon, right there on the road, and an expositional, big-picture sermon at that.

And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

Luke 24: 25-27 (ESV)

Begg contrasted the way Christ went through Scriptures expositionally — reading meanings out from them, rather than reading one’s opinions into them with a less systematic approach — with his encounter with a woman who held to “Jehovah’s Witnesses” notions. Begg then brought home the point that Christians are so guilty of the same kinds of shallow proof-text wars. Instead, they ought to seek the Bible’s systematic, big picture.

(I’m quoting directly as I re-listen to the podcast):

The way to be able to deal with the Jehovah’s Witness, with the Mormon, is not the way it is usually suggested in the books in the bookstore. “If they say this; you say that. They say this, you say that.” So what it ends up being is a big proof-text thing. “Well, I think, that, zzt, dt, zzt, dt —” [Inarticulate garbles] So it’s like chess, you see. And you move the thing and eventually one of the two of you gets frustrated, flips the chessboard right on the floor. “Forget the whole thing!” Isn’t that how it goes? “Look, get out of my house, I got to cut my grass. Go on! Get outta here.”

Right? Or maybe that’s only me.

But here’s the deal. Before we criticize them, some of us are hanging by our fingernails with a proof-text Christianity. We’ve got about three or four verses that we understand and have memorized, and the rest of the Bible — we don’t have a clue what we’re doing with it.

And we need the explanation that Jesus provided in this systematic, Biblical exposition. We need the information that comes by the studying of the Bible. That’s why we study it in books. That’s why we’re going all the way through Luke’s gospel [in Begg’s sermon series]. That’s why when we turn from this [Luke 24] and go back into other things, we’re gonna work our way systematically through them. Why? To prevent us from doing the very thing that others are tempted to do to us.

The necessity of the big picture — Genesis all the way to Revelation — is the story of God’s amazing Grace.

It’s the story of the fact that God has purposed from all of eternity to redeem a people that are His own, and that it is the utterly undeserved privilege of all who believe to even be included in that great company.

That in Genesis, when Adam and Eve discover their nakedness, and they hide from God, God comes and pursues them. And discovering them in all of their nakedness, He provides them with a covering for their nakedness — pointing out in the very infancy of things that there will eventually come a day when He will provide a robe of righteousness, the very robe of His Son, so that we may, in royal robes we don’t deserve, live to serve His majesty.

That all those big, amazing, dramatic stories in Leviticus and on, about this — the sacrificial system and blood and smoke and curtains and bells and all of these things — they’re all pointing to the fact that God is wholly Other than us, that He cannot tolerate to look upon sin. That because He’s so incredibly holy, sin must be punished, because He is so amazingly loving, He provides for sinners a sacrifice of atonement.

So that from the very beginning all the way to the end, the focus is ultimately found in Jesus. Who are you talking about? We’re talking about Jesus of Nazareth.

[Paraphrasing Jesus to the two travelers in Luke 24] “Well, it doesn’t seem to be doing you much good, does it? You’re too slow to believe all that the prophets have written.”

You got the big picture? The awfulness of sin, and the deep, deep love of God combining to make Calvary inevitable?


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