Introduction
How can the teachings of the Bible be packed into
a small book like this? Consider that the entire Bible can be summarized in one
word — “Christ.” Consider that its doctrines can be enclosed in the words —
“Law and Gospel,” or the simple words (profound though they be) — “Sin and
Grace.”
You will grow to appreciate the features of this
book that make it so thoroughly Christian, so soundly Scriptural, and so
characteristically Lutheran. It is filled with Bible verses; not just
references, but verses printed out in their entirety. It is clear, for the Holy
Scriptures are clear themselves. It is concise (brief), precise (exact), and
incisive (penetrating) in its presentation. Its conciseness is the fruit of
many years of faithful teaching in sermons, Bible Classes, confirmation classes
(youth and adult), and seminary instruction. Its preciseness can be attributed
to the painstaking study and labors so typical of its author. Its incisiveness
has one cause only — the Word of God, the Sword of the Spirit, is a two-edged
sword.
You will learn the reason that “theological” words
such as “vicarious,” “objective and subjective,” and “imputation” are used, and
how they alone express as accurately as possible the simple, yet deep, truths
which they convey.
You are about to experience sitting at the feet of
a great teacher as his only student, receiving through him, the saving truth
that makes you free. I say, a great teacher, because he himself does not
intrude upon the matters under discussion. The divine truth is laid before you
in a straightforward and unbiased manner. It is instructive, convincing, and
comforting, not because of the manner of presentation, but because of the
matter that is presented. The manner is indeed pleasant, which adds to the
attractiveness, appeal, and usefulness of this little book. Its contents are
orthodox (correct-teaching), which is a commendation to the reader, a tribute
to its author, and is satisfying fulfillment of a need felt by pastors and
teachers who desire an instruction manual, and by maturing Christians who
desire a book for review and comfort. May this little book be found and happily
used to the fulfillment of that need, to the joy of many souls, and to the
ultimate Glory of God.
Sheldon T. Twenge
Ascension of Our Lord, 1978
The Christian Church has not worked out its
teachings by a process of gradual development in the course of time, leading to
several historically justified systems of doctrine, among which we Lutherans
regard that system contained in our distinctive creeds or confessional writings
as preferable to the rest. All that our Confessions teach concerning Christian
doctrine every Christian knows and believes, because it is found clearly
revealed in the Word of the Prophets and Apostles. And that Word, as it is the
means whereby every Christian has been brought to faith, is also the only
source from which he draws the truth upon which his faith rests. Biblical truth
is God-given truth, and Christian faith is God-given faith. And as God is one,
so the truth which He reveals is one, and so the faith which He bestows
receives the one truth which He reveals. All Christians do believe in one true
God, and they believe what He teaches them in His one true Word. Therefore if
all Christians would duly study God’s written Word, truly confess with their
lips the faith of their heart, and avoid all human teachings which conflict
therewith, all Christians would join in the orthodox confession, that is, in
the correct confession of the Biblical truth. The writer prays that this little
book may through its use of God’s Word aid some children of God in making a
clear and heartfelt confession of the full truth of God’s Word.
W. H. McLaughlin
In all ages and in all places
every individual who has ever come to faith in Christ has come to such faith
through the inspired Word of the apostles, and every one who ever shall believe
in Him until the end of time will be brought to faith in no other way. The
Savior tells us so in His high-priestly prayer, John 17:20: “Neither pray I for
these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their Word.”
This being so, no Christian has ever engaged in any “quest for the historical
Jesus” somewhere apart from that apostolic Word which first brought Christ to
him and brought him to Christ, as Jesus Christ said that it should do. He knows
no Christ but the Christ of the Messianic prophecies, of the Gospels, and of
the apostolic Epistles.
Knowing the living and true
Son of God, his Savior, from Scripture alone, it does not and cannot occur to a
Christian, in so far as he is a true believer in Christ, to derive any
Christian doctrine from any other source than the written Word of God, or the
Bible. Therefore also the teaching concerning the nature and characteristics of
Holy Scripture will be sought nowhere else than in Scripture itself. The
Christian will believe what the Bible says concerning itself; and he will not
regard this as “reasoning in a circle” any more than he would regard it as
“reasoning in a circle” to believe that there is a sun in the heavens because
he sees it shining there. By the word of the Gospel in Holy Scripture “God, who
commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).
In John 16:13–15 our Lord
directs us to the Holy Spirit, whom He will send from the Father, as the only
authoritative Teacher of all Christian doctrine: “When He, the Spirit of truth,
is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself;
but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will show you things
to come. He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of mine and shall show it
unto you. All things that the Father hath are Mine: therefore said I, that He
shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto you.”
This divine Teacher is the
Author of Holy Scripture. The human penmen — prophets, evangelists, and
apostles — did not undertake to write Scripture of their own accord, but were
“moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:21), and therefore that which they “spake”
(which includes what they spake in writing: “prophecy of the Scripture,”
v. 20) was from God, whenever they spake by the impulse of the Holy Spirit; He
was the real Author of Scripture.
We call Him the real Author
because His own Word, in 2 Tim.
The emphasis on the Holy
Spirit’s authorship of the words of the Bible, which is brought out by the word
“Scripture” in 2 Tim. 3:16, is even more strongly stressed in 1 Cor. 2:13,
where St. Paul says of his (and the other apostles’) inspired speaking and
writing: “Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom
teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.”
A Christian, in so far as he
is a Christian, cannot and will not deny “verbal inspiration” when that term is
explained, as in our Catechism (Question 10), to mean “that God the Holy Ghost moved
the holy men to write, and put into their minds, the very thoughts
which they expressed and the very words which they wrote.” For just this
— nothing more and nothing less — is what God’s Word says about itself.
More briefly we may mention
the four chief properties or characteristics of Holy Scripture, which will be
denied by no one who has acknowledged the Bible to be God’s inspired Word,
together with some of the chief proof-passages by which they are established.
That God’s Word carries the divine
authority of God Himself, who cannot lie (Titus 1:2), claiming full assent to
all its teachings as the only infallible and inerrant source and standard of
doctrine, is acknowledged by all Christians, as by those at Thessalonica, to
whom St. Paul writes: “When ye received the Word of God which ye heard of us,
ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God”
(1 Thess. 2:13). Therefore, as it is written in John 10:35: “The Scripture
cannot be broken.”
That the Bible is clear is
sufficiently evident from Psalm 119:105: “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and
a light unto my path.” If anything in Holy Scripture seems obscure to a
Christian he will lay the blame for this not upon God but upon himself,
remembering that not God’s light, but the heart into which it shines, is dark;
the sure word of prophecy being called (in 2 Peter 1:19) “a light that shineth
in a dark place.”
As to the divine effectiveness
of God’s Word to accomplish its purpose in our salvation, we need only refer to
Rom. 1:16: “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; for it is the power of
God unto salvation to every one that believeth;” and 2 Tim. 3:15: The
Scriptures “are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in
Christ Jesus.”
The perfection or sufficiency
of the Bible for all the Christian’s spiritual needs is proclaimed in 2 Tim.
3:16, 17, which declares that Scripture “is profitable for doctrine, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God
may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”
Every Christian experiences
the truth of our Savior’s words (Luke 11:28): “Blessed are they that hear the
Word of God and keep it;” and of His blessed promise: “If ye continue in My
Word, then are ye My disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you free,” John 8:31, 32.
“We all believe in one true
God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” So we often sing in our orthodox Lutheran
churches. But this statement is not merely a line from a Lutheran hymn; the
hymn itself is a metrical form of an ecumenical (or world wide), catholic (or
universal) creed which all Christians in the world have confessed since the
earliest Christian centuries, which indeed the Christians (or believers in the
promised Messiah) believed and confessed even before God’s Son came in the
flesh, on the basis of the revelation of this doctrine in the Old Testament.
There never has been a child of God, nor ever will be, in whose heart there has
not lived this faith in the Father, who sent His Son to be our Savior, to whom
the Holy Spirit testifies in the Gospel of our salvation, one eternal God in
three coeternal and coequal Persons — and this for the simple reason that, as
Luther puts it so forcibly in his “Battle Hymn of the Reformation:” “There’s
none other God.” Any so-called “god” aside from the Holy Trinity is an idol of
the sinful human imagination and has no real existence. This is the clear
statement of Holy Scripture, which all true Christians receive as God’s own
Word: “Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: he that
acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also” (1 John
Every Christian believes in
one true God, and confesses one only God who is infinite (unlimited), and
beside whom, therefore, there can be no other God: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord
our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deut. 6:4, 5). He recognizes in
the false worship with which he is surrounded, not only in heathen lands, but
in so-called “Christian countries” like our own, that “there be that are called
gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many and lords many),” 1
Cor. 8:5; yet he cannot regard any of this false worship as being really
addressed after all to the one true God, because God Himself does not so regard
it. It is God who says: “All the gods of the nations are idols: but the Lord
made the heavens,” Psalm 96:5. It is God who says: “The things which the
Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God,” 1 Cor.
Every Christian believes in
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. He finds this triune God (three Persons in one
divine Being) revealed on the very first page of his Bible, where God is said
to create all things through His Word, that Word being explained in the first
chapter of St. John’s Gospel as being in the beginning with God, and as being
Himself God, through whom all things were made, “and without Him was not any
thing made that was made” (John 1:1–3). The same Word, we are told in the
fourteenth verse of this chapter, “was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we
beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of
grace and truth.” That is our Lord Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the
Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary. As for the
Spirit, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, the first chapter of
Genesis tells us that “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,” thus
participating in the work of creation. Later in this chapter (v. 26), in
connection with the plan of the Holy Trinity to create man, we are told that
God said: “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.” Of such
testimonies to the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity the Old Testament
Scriptures are full, so that to give a mere listing of them would exceed the
limits of this summary. One very familiar passage is the Trinitarian
benediction customarily pronounced at the close of our Morning Service, taken
from the Book of Numbers, ch. 6, vv. 24–26.
The New Testament is even more
clear and explicit in identifying the one true God as three distinct, but
inseparable, coeternal and coequal persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This
manifestation is given in visible and audible form at the baptism of Jesus,
where the Word made flesh stands in the Jordan, the Father speaks from heaven,
proclaiming Him as His beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased, and the Holy
Spirit descends upon Him in the form of a dove (Matt. 3:16, 17). In the
baptismal formula, commanded for the use of His disciples until the end of the
world, our Lord tells them to baptize “in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” Matt. 28:19, thus naming the three Persons of the
one God (“name,” not “names”) in the customary order. In that benediction,
however, which we commonly call the Apostolic Benediction (2 Cor. 13:14), the
order of naming the Father and the Son is reversed, thus showing the complete
equality, the one Essence or Being, of the three Persons: “The grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be
with you all.” On this and other passages of Holy Scripture is based the
admirably clear statement of our “Athanasian Creed:” “And in this Trinity none
is before or after other; none is greater or less than another; but the whole
three Persons are coeternal together and coequal, so that in all things, as is
aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshiped.”
Of this faith the concluding sentence of the Athanasian Creed correctly states:
“which except a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved.” Please
read this entire Creed, as you will find it on page 53 of your Lutheran
Hymnal.
The personal distinctions within the Holy Trinity are
defined in Holy Scripture as follows: The Father eternally begets the Son, and
the Son is from eternity begotten of the Father (Psalm 2:7; also the many New
Testament passages where Jesus is called the “only-begotten Son of the Father” —
knowingly and intentionally falsified in the RSV, but correctly translated from
the original Greek in our King James Version); the Holy Ghost from eternity
proceeds from the Father and the Son (John 15:26: “Who proceedeth from the
Father;” not, however, from the Father alone but also from the Son, being called
“the Spirit of God’s Son” and “the Spirit of Christ,” Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:9).
We do not wish to anticipate some later chapters of this
book by giving in detail at this place the Scriptural evidence for the Christian
faith in the full and perfect deity of each Person of the Godhead. But we may at
least mention one passage for each Person. While no false teachers, except the
fools who profess to be atheists, deny the Godhead of the Father, yet none
except true Christians even know the Father, for there is no God the Father
except “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 15:6; 2 Cor. 1:3, etc.): “No
man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of
the Father, He hath declared Him,” John 1:18. Every Christian worships Jesus
Christ as true God, equal with the Father: “Christ, who is over all, God blessed
for ever,” Rom. 9:5. (Here the RSV text deliberately mistranslates, giving the
correct rendering of the Greek, in agreement with the KJV, only in a foot-note,
though no other translation is at all admissible). Every Christian worships the
Holy Ghost as true God, equal with the Father and the Son: “Know ye not that ye
are the
The Christian believes that the Holy Trinity “in the
beginning” (when time began) created the heaven and the earth out of nothing.
That which is stated in Heb. 11:3 is an article of faith for every true
Christian: “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word
of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”
Every Christian receives the first two chapters of Genesis
as the Creator’s own historical account of His own work of creation, and hence
the only authentic history of creation which is or ever will be available to
man. He finds this divine “Natural History” poetically embellished in the divine
poetry of Psalm 104, and divinely confirmed and doctrinally expounded in the
inspired Prologue of St. John’s Gospel (ch. 1:1–14, especially vv. 1–3).
God’s own account of the history of creation, as He gave it
to Moses, clearly reveals the identity of the Creator, the time employed in the
work of creation, and the sequence in which the various types of creatures were
produced by the creative Word. The first topic, the identity of the Creator,
specifically, the truth that the creation is a work of the Holy Trinity as such,
not to be distributed among the three Persons or attributed to one Person only,
has been treated in the third paragraph of the previous chapter of this book, to
which the reader is herewith referred.
The second topic, the chronology of creation, is accurately
described by the Creator as a period of six days, each consisting of evening and
of morning. This is so before the creation of the sun and other heavenly bodies
on the fourth day, as well as after. These are not
“days of God” (compare 2 Peter 3:8), who exists outside of time in an eternal
present, but days of the earth, days of creation.
What we are to think of the millions of years comprised in the so-called
“geological ages” is clear. They are pure fiction, the fabrication of ignorance
which insists on speaking of what it cannot know apart from the revelation which
it refuses to accept.
The third topic, the sequence of the “six days work,” is
outlined in Genesis, chapter one, with a clarity which leaves nothing to be
desired. One of the most notable points in this connection is that briefly
referred to above, namely, that light, as well as the variation of light and
darkness (“the evening and the morning”), existed before those celestial bodies
which we are accustomed to regard as the sole source of the light illuminating
our earth were brought into being. All human theories, therefore, which regard
the earth’s existence as a part of the “solar system” as dependent upon the sun,
especially the absurd fable which represents the earth as a particle thrown off
from the sun and gradually cooling through countless aeons into the terrestrial
globe upon which we dwell, are discredited as having no ground in fact and
entirely unacceptable to Christian faith. Those who imagine that the Scripture
passages, approximately sixty in number, in which the earth is said to stand
still, and the sun and all stars are said to move, may be “interpreted” in such
a way as if really the reverse were the case, we may leave to pursue their
fruitless endeavors alone. The Christian way is simply to accept Holy Scripture
as it reads.
Another exceedingly important point in the sequence of
creative activity on the third, fifth, and sixth days is found in the constantly
recurring phrases: “after his kind,” “after their kind” (Gen. 1:11, 12, 21, 24,
25). These phrases, then, are used of the various forms of vegetable and animal
life upon which God has bestowed the power of reproducing their kind. According
to God’s Word He created each species (to use the scientific term which
corresponds to the Hebrew word translated “kind”) as a
species and capable of reproducing only its own species. Every “scientific”
theory of evolution, which teaches the transition or transmutation of one
species into another, is irreconcilable with God’s Word, and hence with the
Christian faith. That organic evolution is also irreconcilable with the
ascertainable facts of nature has been scientifically proved by Christian
writers with the specific learning requisite for this task; but such
demonstration is beyond the scope of this book, which rests upon Scripture proof
alone. Let us only add that we cannot be satisfied with the compromise of
so-called “theistic evolution,” according to which some writers are willing to
admit that God made the world, but assert that evolution correctly describes the
“process” of His activity. God tells us in Genesis, chapter one, not only that
“God created the heaven and the earth” (verse 1), but also that the “process” or
“method” which He used was not organic evolution but the direct and separate
creation of each species “after his kind.”
The account of the six days work in Genesis 1 and 2 omits
any mention of the foremost invisible creatures of
God, the angels, but Scripture is full of testimonies to their existence,
nature, and activities. Since, however, they are creatures of God (“By Him were
all things created that are in heaven and that are
in earth, visible and invisible,” Col. 1:16), they
cannot have been in existence before the first day of creation, when there was
only the uncreated eternal God, and they must have been created before the end
of the sixth day, since then “the heavens and the earth were finished, and all
the host of them,” Gen. 2:1. The Bible also does not inform us as to the exact
time when a large number of the angels rebelled against God, and “kept not their
first estate, but left their own habitation” (Jude 6). This must have occurred
before the fall of man, since the latter was brought about through the
temptation of Satan. The existence, incurably sinful nature, and hopeless
abandonment of the fallen angels, or devils, under their prince, “that old
serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan” (Rev. 20:2), is all clearly taught in
Holy Scripture. These evil spirits were also created good and holy (Gen. 1:31:
“And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good”); but
they turned themselves from God of their own accord, and became enemies of God
and man.
Nowhere is the lie of organic evolution more disastrous in
its effects than when it is applied (as all
evolutionists do apply it) to the origin of man. The Biblical teaching
concerning the origin of man is crystal clear and sufficiently comprehensive:
“And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; and let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over
the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth
upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created
He him; male and female created He them” Gen. 1:26, 27. As “God is a Spirit”
(John
As Gen. 1:27, quoted above, shows, this image of God was
imparted both to man and woman in their creation. This spiritual equality,
however, does not rule out a difference in the God-appointed sphere of activity
of the sexes and a God-ordained subjection of the woman to the man, as taught in
1 Tim. 2:11–14 with reference to the very order of creation before the fall as
well as to conditions as they obtain from that sad event on till the end of
time: “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a
woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For
Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being
deceived was in the transgression.”
With this “transgression” we begin the next chapter, which
deals with the subject of “Sin.” Therein we shall perceive the enormous
difference between man as he is born into the world today and man as he was
created.
All who believe in the one true God, and in His only Son,
Jesus Christ, and redemption through His blood, certainly believe the Biblical
doctrine of sin. For none can believe in Christ as Redeemer without believing in
that from which He redeemed us; and there is no knowledge of Jesus the Savior
without the knowledge of sin. Our Lord Himself clearly points out this necessary
connection when He says: “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that
are sick” (Matt.
What is sin? The clearest and briefest definition is given
in 1 John 3:4: “Sin is the transgression of the law.” In the creation God wrote
His Law into man’s heart; and though this natural knowledge of the Law has been
dimmed in consequence of inborn sin (of which you will read more later in this
chapter), it may readily be shown that man daily transgresses also that remnant
of the divine Law to which his conscience bears witness. That we may be left the
more utterly without excuse, God has clearly revealed His Law through Moses,
briefly summarizing it in the Ten Commandments, and causes it to be proclaimed
to us in order to sharpen our knowledge of His just demands and so deepen our
knowledge of sin. Only that which is contrary to God’s holy Law is sin; but
everything which steps beyond the bounds of this Law, in desire, thought, word,
or deed, is sin. “We daily sin much and indeed deserve nothing but punishment.”
(From Luther’s Small Catechism. Explanation of the Fifth Petition).
The Bible, however, not only tells us what sin is, but also
how sin was brought into the world and what a hold it has obtained upon our
nature. The prince of the fallen angels, who “kept not their first estate” (Jude
6), as mentioned in the previous chapter, called the Devil and Satan (Rev.
20:2), seduced our first parents into unbelief and disobedience to God, which
radically ruined their nature, depriving them of their concreated righteousness,
and so also depriving of righteousness the human nature shared with them by all
their descendants, corrupting the stream, as it were, at its source. The devil
made a beginning with sin (1 John 3:8: “The devil sinneth from the beginning”),
and the consenting will of Adam, the father of our race, brought sin into the
world (Rom. 5:12: “By one man sin entered into the world”). The history of the
fall and its immediate consequences is to be read in the third chapter of
Genesis.
Romans 5:12, just quoted, continues: “And death by sin.”
Death, spiritual, temporal, and eternal, is both the immediate and ultimate
consequence of sin. “The wages of sin is death,” Rom.
The immediate and continuing effect of Adam’s sin upon his
descendants is called original or inherited sin. It is the total corruption of
our entire human nature. Psalm 51:5: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in
sin did my mother conceive me.” John 3:6: “That which is born of the flesh is
flesh.” This total depravity of our whole human nature involves both a
deprivation or loss to human nature as it was originally created and also an
evil inclination or positive evil state and tendency which human nature acquired
in the fall and which inheres in the nature inherited by us all. In the fall man
lost the original righteousness (“image of God”) in which God had created him,
and is thus by nature without true fear, love, and trust in God, destitute of
all righteousness: “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good
thing,” Rom. 7:18. Positively, man is inclined only to evil: “The imagination of
man’s heart is evil from his youth,” Gen. 8:21. Whatever we desire, think,
speak, or do, of ourselves, by the prompting of our own original nature, is
“only evil continually,” Gen. 6:5. “There is none that doeth good, no, not one,”
Rom.
Looking a little
more deeply into the Biblical teaching concerning original sin, we perceive that
it embraces two things: hereditary guilt, the guilt of the one sin of Adam which
God imputes to all men; and hereditary corruption, which in consequence of the imputation of
Adam’s guilt is transmitted to all his descendants through the natural descent
from the first fallen pair. In short, original sin means that we are both counted guilty of Adam’s sin and inherently corrupt in our own inherited human nature.
The Scripture proof for the first (imputed guilt) is clearly furnished by Rom.
5:18a: “By the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation,” and
Rom. 5:19a: “By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners.” If this imputed guilt should seem harsh to us, let us recall
that it is the correlative of the precious doctrine which lies at the heart of
the way of salvation, the doctrine of the imputed
righteousness of Christ. To perceive this connection between the Scriptural
doctrine of original sin and our blessed hope of forgiveness, life, and
salvation look at Rom. 5:18, 19 in its entirety: “Therefore as by the offense of
one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of
One the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one
man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many
be made righteous.” The Scripture proof for the second (inherited corruption) is
Psalm 51:5: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive
me,” and John 3:6: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” Only this Bible
teaching, which every Christian will and must believe on the basis of God’s
Word, is a factual and realistic description and explanation of human nature as
it actually is. Every system of education and every psychology of human behavior
which fails to recognize these basic truths is utterly unrealistic and woefully
at variance with the facts of experience as well as with the truth of Scripture.
Original sin is
the prolific source of all actual sins. It is the underlying cause of which all
sorts of actual sins are simply the natural result. Actual sins are variously
classified in accordance with Scripture, the most familiar categories under
which they are grouped being expressed by the terms: sins of commission (see
James
The next chapter
deals with the “only hope for sinful mortals:” Saving Grace.
Grace is love. But
this specific term does not denote love bestowed upon an object worthy of such
love and rightly entitled to it, as the love of husband and wife, parent and
child, friend and friend. Grace is love bestowed upon the unworthy.
Specifically, the saving grace of God is His divine forgiving love bestowed upon
poor unworthy sinners. Every Christian believes in this divine grace, for
Christianity is the religion of grace, and Christian faith is trust and
confidence in the saving grace of the triune God.
The Biblical
doctrine of grace presupposes the sinful condition of all men by nature, of
which we spoke in the previous chapter of this book. Being conceived and born in
sin and utterly unable to help themselves out of this condition, all men are in
need of grace. The Law way to salvation is closed to sinful mortals, as we read:
“As many as are of the works of the Law are under the curse” (Gal.
We may now, on the
basis of Scripture testimony, define saving grace as the gracious favor or
forgiving love (forgiveness of sins) which God for Christ’s sake has in His
heart toward all sinful mankind, and which moved Him to do everything that was
necessary in order to save us from sin and Satan, make us His children, and take
us to heaven. This grace is attested in the Gospel and is to be believed by all
men on the authority of the Gospel.
The grace of God,
as we have said, is free grace. We have done and can do nothing to merit it. Yet
God did not bestow it arbitrarily, in such a way as to violate His immutable
justice. Rather did His grace move Him to provide a way to reconcile His own
just anger against sinful men by the vicarious sacrifice of His own Son, so that
without violating His justice He might lay His anger by and give free course to
His grace. “We are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in
His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past,
through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time His
righteousness: that He might be just, and the Justifier of him which believeth
in Jesus” (Rom. 3:24–26). Thus God’s grace both provides the Savior and is based
upon the Savior’s work. To imagine a forgiving love of God toward men aside from
“the cost,” as Luther calls it, namely, the sacrifice of Christ on
It is surely
already sufficiently evident that divine grace is not something poured into us and inherent in us,
as the Papists falsely teach, but a gracious disposition in the heart of God. Therefore grace is contrasted with
our works and with everything which is ours. When we say that God bestows His
grace on us we mean that He exercises His forgiving love toward us. Grace agrees
with faith, for it is by faith that we receive God’s grace, that is, believe
that God is gracious to us: “Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by
grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed” (Rom.
Having considered
the central meaning of divine grace, as God’s way of salvation, in contrast to
all humanly contrived work-righteousness, we may now proceed to enumerate the
characteristics of saving grace, as they are enumerated in Holy Scripture:
A. Saving grace is
grace in Christ. As grace is denied when human merit is united with it (
B. Saving grace is
universal grace. We have already said that God’s free grace is as universal as
man’s need for it. It is most important that we hold this truth fast. For if
even one human being were excluded from God’s gracious will of salvation, each
one whose conscience has been aroused by God’s Law to a knowledge of sin would
necessarily conclude that he himself must be that unhappy being; and thus faith
in God’s grace would be impossible. Holy Scripture proves the universality of
God’s saving grace in three classes of texts:
a). Texts which
say that God’s grace extends to all men: Titus 2:11: “For the grace of God that
bringeth salvation to all men, hath appeared” (marginal reading of the KJV). 1
Tim. 2:4: “Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of
the truth.” John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave his only
begotten Son.” 1 John 2:2: “And He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for
ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”
b). Texts which
say that God’s grace extends to each and every man: 2 Peter 3:9: “The Lord is
not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
Ezek. 33:11: “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of
the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.”
c). Texts which
say that God’s grace extends also to those who ultimately perish: 2 Peter 2:1:
“Even denying the Lord that bought them, and
bringing upon themselves swift destruction.” Matt. 23:37: “O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto
thee, how often would I have gathered thy children
together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not.” No soul of man is ever lost because of a
deficiency in God’s grace, but only because of his rejection of the grace which
is meant for him too.
C. Saving grace is
serious and efficacious grace. God has truly set His heart on the conversion of
all men and puts His full power into the means of grace to effect His purpose.
Christ has commanded His church to go into all the world and preach the Gospel
to every creature (Mark
When the Christian
hears or reads or thinks of the universal, serious, and efficacious saving grace
of God in Christ Jesus, his heart must break forth in joyful song:
“By grace! This
ground of our salvation,
As long as God is true,
endures:
What saints have
penned by inspiration,
What God by His own Word
assures,
What all our faith
must rest upon,
Is grace, free grace, through His dear
Son.”
(Cf. Lutheran Hymnal, Hymn 373, stanza 5)
“What think ye of
Christ? whose Son is He?” This most important question is asked by our Lord
Jesus Christ Himself (Matt.
Luther gives this
same answer in his Small Catechism: “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God,
begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin
Mary, is my Lord.” And every Christian of all ages, including the believers who
lived in the days before God’s Son came in the flesh, agrees in this confession
concerning the God-man. David, for instance, not only calls Him Lord, in the One
Hundred Tenth Psalm before quoted, but he also clearly expresses his faith in
the two-fold nature of this Lord, in 2 Samuel 7:19b, as correctly translated
from the Hebrew in Luther’s German Bible: “This is the manner of a Man who is
the Lord Jehovah.”
The blessed season
of Advent and Christmas has its place in the Church Year for the special purpose
of stressing this all-important Bible teaching of the Incarnation, or the coming
of the eternal Son of God into the flesh. Therefore only a Christian knows the
meaning of Christmas. And every Christian who kneels in worship at the manger of
“It is an
altogether false assumption that the Christian Church arrived at the true
knowledge of the Person of Christ only in the course of time, and that before
the ecclesiastical terms were coined this knowledge was lacking. Luther is
perfectly right when he sets forth that the true doctrine of the Person of
Christ was known and believed in Christendom from the very beginning, before any
council passed any resolution, on the basis of the clear
statements of Scripture. All that our Confessions teach concerning the
Person of Christ every Christian knows and believes because it is found clearly
revealed in the Word of the Prophets and Apostles.
“The Christian
believes that there are two natures in Christ, for he reads or hears that the
eternal Son of God became man through the Virgin Mary (Gal. 4:4, 5; John 1:1, 2,
14). He does not doubt the unity of the Person, for he reads in Scripture that
one and the same Jesus presents Himself as the Son of Man and the Son of the
living God (Matt. 16:13–17). He entertains no doubt about the real communion of
natures, for Scripture tells him that the fulness of the Godhead dwells not
beside, but in the human nature of Christ as in its body (Col. 2:9). He
believes, on the testimony of Scripture, that the Lord of Glory was crucified (1
Cor. 2:8) and that this gives to the suffering and death of Christ its value
(Rom.
“The Christian
further believes, on the testimony of Scripture, that to Christ was given, here
in time, according to His human nature, omnipotence, omniscience, etc. (Matt.
28: 18; Matt. 11:27; John 3:34, 35). The thought is foreign to his mind that the
omnipotence, omniscience, etc., of which Scripture speaks, may designate merely
‘finite, great gifts.’ And when Christ promises His Church that He will be with her always even unto the end of the
world (Matt. 28:20), he cannot but think of this Savior as being present, not
without and outside of His human nature, but with and within it, i.e., he
ascribes to Christ also according to His human nature omnipotence, omniscience,
and, equally so, omnipresence.
“And when
Scripture states that the Son of God appeared in the flesh to destroy, through
His activity in the assumed flesh, and through the assumed flesh, the works of
the devil, and to save mankind (1 John 3:8; Heb. 2:14, 15), the Christian
understands this to mean exactly that Christ performs His official acts as
Prophet, Priest, and King not beside, but in and through, the assumed human
nature, i.e., according to both natures.
“He repudiates the
notion that the finite is not capable of the infinite, for Scripture has
convinced him that the Son of God did actually become partaker of flesh and
blood, that therefore the Infinite has been united with the finite into one
Person. This short summary, based on clear Scripture passages, contains the
entire doctrine of Christ’s Person in its farthest reaches — and all of it is
intelligible to every Christian.”
As a clinching
demonstration of the main thesis of this entire book: that Lutheran doctrine is
simply Christian doctrine, which every true Christian, as a Christian, believes,
let me present a quotation from a Christian theologian, who does not belong to
the Lutheran Church but to a denomination which officially disputes against the
doctrine of the Person of Christ presented in our Lutheran Confessions, in which
he shows the vital necessity of just this Biblical doctrine for our faith in
Christ as our Redeemer.
Dr. Alan A.
MacRae, President, Faith Theological Seminary (Bible Presbyterian),
“The second person
of the Trinity entered the womb of a virgin and she conceived a son. The eternal
One took on Himself human flesh. He was God, the infinite One. He was God, the
sinless One. He had no sin of His own which must be dealt with. As man, He could
pay the penalty of sin. As God He had the power to make this payment. Through
the miracle of the Virgin Birth the God-man came into existence, and only thus
could we be saved. All that we need for salvation is simple faith in the
atonement of Christ. He, the sinless One, died for our sins. But if we are truly
saved, we will go on to become true servants of God, and to do this we must
understand something of the infinite mystery of the Incarnation. Only through
the Virgin Birth could the power of the infinite God be made available to man in
his dire need. The Virgin Birth is vital to belief in a Christ who is capable of
being our Redeemer.” The above quotation is Biblical, Lutheran, i.e., Christian,
doctrine.
Every Christian
believes that when the eternal Son of God, “true God, begotten of the Father
from eternity,” came into the flesh, became “true man, born of the Virgin Mary,”
He entered into human flesh not without, divested of, His divine attributes, but
with all His divine attributes intact; for it is written: “In Him dwelleth all
the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9). The fullness of the Godhead does
not exclude but includes omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, etc. Therefore
it will not enter the believing mind to suppose that Christ in His state of
humiliation should have lost possession of anything pertaining to His Godhead,
to His divine nature, much less that He should have laid aside that Godhead as
such. If, as some false teachers have ventured to assert, Christ laid aside His
divine nature when He humbled Himself and reassumed it when He entered His state
of exaltation, then He is not and never was the God-man, and the personal union,
so clearly taught in Scripture, as we saw in the preceding article, would never
have taken place. The Christian position over against such an error is clearly
defined in 1 John 4:2, 3: “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that
confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit
that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and
this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come;
and even now already is it in the world.”
Whoever believes
“that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh” will therefore not be tempted to
suppose that He abdicated His throne on high when He came on earth to die or
that the Infant born in Bethlehem is other than the Godhead veiled in flesh.
This “veiling,” then, cannot consist in the loss of anything that is essentially
His from eternity, but only in the temporary and voluntary refraining from the
full use through His human nature of those divine attributes which were
communicated to His human nature when the Word was made flesh and dwelt among
us.
In full accordance
with this Scriptural teaching on the Person and States of Christ, we read in two
of the most precisely worded answers in the Explanation of Luther’s Small
Catechism commonly used among us the following definitions: “Christ’s State of
Humiliation consisted in this, that according to His human nature, Christ did not
always and not fully use the divine attributes
communicated to His human nature. Christ’s State of
While all this,
however, may be, and indeed must be, entirely clear to the Christian on the
basis of Holy Writ, there is still a possibility that one may unwittingly
confuse Christ’s humbling Himself with the incarnation itself, since the two
coincide in time. But this confusion would logically lead to a consequence which
no believing Christian would be willing to draw, namely: If Christ’s humbling
Himself consisted in His becoming man, then His exaltation would consist in His
ceasing to be man. This inference would contradict everything that Scripture
says concerning Christ’s coming into the flesh, which produced an eternal union
between the Second Person of the Holy Trinity and our human nature. It is Jesus,
who “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin,” who now
intercedes for us at the throne of the Majesty on high (Heb.
The logical
sequence of incarnation and humiliation is taught most clearly in that great
passage, which more than any other in Scripture teaches us all we need to know
of the States of Christ, Phil. 2:5–11; for there, as in the definitions quoted
from our Catechism, we are told that both humiliation and exaltation took place
in and according to the human nature of Christ, which prior to the incarnation
did not exist. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who,
being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made
Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made
in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself,
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also
hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: that at
the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in
earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
“Being in the form
of God” does not refer to the Son’s eternal divine existence before the
incarnation, but it means that when the Son of God was made man, divine
attributes, majesty, and glory were given to the human nature. This “form of
God,” then, He actually possessed throughout His state of humiliation.
Occasionally, as in His miracles, He gave men a glimpse of this form of God, but
as a general rule men who came into casual contact with Him in His earthly life
did not perceive this in Him but regarded Him as an ordinary man like other men,
or at best as a great prophet like one of the prophets of old or a teacher come
from God (Matt. 16:13, 14; John 3:2). The glory which His disciples saw in Him
(John
To speak in detail
of the several acts of Christ’s humiliation: “Conceived by the Holy Ghost; born
of the Virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead, and
buried;” and of His exaltation: “He descended into hell; the third day He rose
again from the dead; He ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of
God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the
dead” — this would indeed be a delightful task, but it would lead far beyond the
limits to which this brief summary of Christian doctrine has confined itself. We
shall therefore proceed, God willing, to consider in the next chapter of this
book the Office and Work of Christ, especially His Priestly Office, specifically
the Vicarious Atonement, as wrought by His active and passive obedience.
The fundamental doctrine of Biblical Christianity which
forms our topic is usually treated, in more detailed presentations of Christian
doctrine, as a subheading under the general subject of Christ’s three-fold
office: a). His prophetic office, in which He during the days of His flesh by
word and deed proclaimed Himself as the Son of God and the Savior of the world,
and throughout the ages as supreme Prophet stands behind all prophets,
evangelists, and apostles through whom He has revealed Himself, as well as all
preachers of the Gospel who proclaim His truth in its purity in full accord with
inspired Scripture; b). His priestly office, in which He, both priest and
sacrifice, in His active and passive obedience offered Himself without spot to
God as the one atoning sacrifice for the sins of all men (the specific theme of
this present exposition), and still intercedes for us at the throne of grace;
c). and His kingly office, which as kingdom of power extends over all creatures,
as kingdom of grace embraces Christ’s Church militant upon earth, and as kingdom
of glory rules the Church triumphant in heaven, including the holy angels, unto
all eternity.
We now concentrate our attention upon the central act of
the office and work of Christ for our salvation, as sketched above: His
vicarious atonement or substitutionary satisfaction for all sinners, which He
carried out, as our High Priest, in His spotless life and His innocent
sufferings and death for us. We offer first a brief definition of the vicarious
satisfaction, which we shall then analyze into its component parts, as a
convenient frame-work for the grouping of the precious Scripture texts upon
which this central doctrine of our most holy faith is based.
Definition: Vicarious satisfaction
means that Christ vicariously (in the place of man) rendered to God, who was
wroth over the sins of man, a satisfaction which changed His wrath into grace
toward men.
1. The immutable justice of God which pronounces the
sentence of eternal damnation upon all transgressors of His Law, the wrath of
God against sin and sinners. It is only upon the dark background of the wrath of
God (“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” Heb.
“But the deepest stroke that pierced Him
Was the stroke that Justice gave.”
That is also the meaning of Isaiah 53:4–6: “Surely He hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him
stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was
wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our
iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon
Him; and with His
stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have
gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
All this came upon Him because “He was numbered with the transgressors” (compare
Mark
2. The willing obedience of Christ in accepting the
obligation in man’s stead both to keep the Law and to bear the punishment the
Law exacts of the transgressors. The three passages of Scripture which
(especially in the original Greek) bring out this substitutionary idea most
clearly are Matt. 20:28 and Mark 10:45 (identical in wording): “Even as the Son
of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many” (literally: “in
the place of many,” “in the stead of many”); also 1 Tim. 2:6: “Who gave Himself
a ransom for all” (literally: “a substitutionary ransom for all”).
As our willing Substitute and Redeemer Christ rendered full
obedience in two respects: a). By doing — by keeping
perfectly for us the Law of God, which we were
obligated to keep but unable to keep; b). By
suffering, by enduring for us the full penalty
of our transgressions, by suffering for us in His infinite Person, as the
God-man, during the days of His flesh and especially in those last bitter hours
upon Calvary, all that we should have suffered throughout eternity in hell. The
very voice of this unimaginable and infinite suffering of the God-man as our
Substitute is heard in His fourth word from the cross: “My God, My God, why hast
Thou forsaken Me?” (Psalm 22:1; Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34).
“Deserted! God could separate from His own essence rather;
And Adam’s sins have swept between the righteous Son
and Father;
Yea, once Immanuel’s orphaned cry His
universe hath shaken,
It went up single, echoless: ‘My
God, I am forsaken!’
It went up from the Holy’s lips,
amid His lost creation,
That of the lost, no son should
use those words of desolation.”
(Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Cowper’s Grave.”)
This is indeed the very suffering of hell itself when He
for our sins is forsaken. And this suffering of which He could say at the end of
those three dread hours of darkness: “It is finished” (John
“Oh, man’s capacity
For spiritual
sorrow, corporal pain!
Who has explored the deepmost of
that sea,
With heavy links of a far-fathoming
chain?
“That melancholy lead,
Let down in
guilty and in innocent hold,
Yea, into childish hands
delivered,
Leaves the sequestered floor unreached,
untold.
“One only has explored
The
deepmost; but He did not die of it.
Not yet, not yet He
died. Man’s human Lord
Touched the extreme; it is not
infinite.
“But over the abyss
Of
God’s capacity for woe He strayed
One hesitating hour; what gulf was this?
Forsaken He went down, and was afraid.”
The Scripture testimony to this willing obedience of our
Savior is fittingly divided, as before mentioned, into two groups of texts:
a). His obedience by doing,
commonly called the active obedience: Matt. 5:17:
“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to
destroy, but to fulfill.” (N.B. “Fulfilling” the Law
means keeping it, obeying the commandments of God.
This we were obligated to do, but could not do because of our sinful corruption.
This Christ, being Himself God, was not obligated to do, but did for us, as our
Substitute). Gal. 4:4, 5: “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth
His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the
law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” The eternal Son of God, the Lawgiver, became incarnate, born of a woman, in order
that He might come down under the Law with us, and
in our stead render that perfect obedience to the Law which we were unable to
render.
b). His obedience by suffering,
commonly called the passive obedience: Gal. 3:13:
“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us:
for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Deut.
3. God lays His anger by. The vicarious satisfaction which
Christ rendered by His active and passive obedience has resulted in appeasing
God’s wrath against men, has set aside God’s judgment of condemnation and put in
its place a judgment of universal justification. God has forgiven all the sins
of all men for the sake of Christ’s substitutional obedience and death, and has
sealed this universal amnesty by raising Him from the dead. As His condemnation
was the penalty for our sins meted out to our Substitute (“the stroke that
Justice gave;” “the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all,” Is. 53:6; “He
was delivered for our offenses”), so when He was justified (from our sins, not
His own, for He had none) by His resurrection from the dead, this was really our
justification, the assurance that God was fully satisfied with the satisfaction
He had rendered for us, that for Christ’s sake our sins are forgiven: Rom. 4:25: “He was delivered for our
offenses, and was raised again for our justification.” Rom.
“He shows to man His treasure
Of
judgment, truth, and righteousness,
His love beyond all measure,
His
yearning pity o‘er distress,
Nor treats us as we merit,
But
lays His anger by.
The humble, contrite spirit
Finds
His compassion nigh;
And high as heaven above us,
As
break from close of day,
So far, since He doth love us,
He
puts our sins away.”
(Lutheran
Hymnal, Hymn 34, stanza 2)
Every Christian
believes that he became one by a gracious act of God, that God made him a
believer, gave him his faith, even as we read, Philippians 1:29: “Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake.” No
Christian approaches God as did the Pharisee in the parable with the boast:
“God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men are” (Luke
What, then, is
conversion? Conversion is the bestowal of faith. God gives us faith, and thereby
converts us. In Acts
The efficient
cause of conversion, the Bestower of faith, is God alone. Man does not
accomplish, but undergoes conversion. The Scripture proof for the truth that God
alone by His almighty grace, without any cooperation whatever on the part of the
man being converted, effects or accomplishes conversion is so abundant and so
clear that our purpose will best be served by a simple listing of the main
passages without comment, and without any further attempt at classification than
merely to distinguish the proofs for the negative (that man can not and does not
accomplish his own conversion or assist in it) and the proofs for the positive
fact that God’s grace alone works conversion in us:
a).
Negative:
John 6:44: “No man
can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him.”
1 Cor. 2:14: “The
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are
foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned.”
b).
Positive:
Phil. 1:29: “For
unto you it is given ... to believe on Him.”
Eph. 1:19, 20:
“Who believe according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in
Christ when He raised Him from the dead.”
Col. 2:12: “Ye are
risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God” (i.e., “through the
faith which God wrought” — compare preceding passage), “who hath raised Him from
the dead.”
2 Cor. 4:6: “For
God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our
hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ.”
Thus we see that
the working of faith in man’s heart, dead as it is to God by nature (Eph. 2:1,
5), is as mighty a work of God as the raising of Christ from the dead, that the
creation of the light of faith in man’s sin-darkened heart (1 Cor. 2:14) is as
mighty a work of God as His commanding the light to shine out of darkness on the
first day of creation.
The means through
which God effects conversion is the Gospel, the Word of reconciliation, the good
news of the grace of God in Christ Jesus, which produces faith in the
forgiveness of sins that it proclaims. The Law cannot convert, for by the Law is
the knowledge of sin (Rom.
Rom.
John 5:39: “Search
the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they
which testify of Me” (Christ).
John 17:20:
“Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me
through their Word” (through the Apostolic preaching of the Gospel).
The inner motions
of the heart which go to make up conversion are: a), the terrors of conscience
which arise from the knowledge of sin engendered by the Law (Acts
Conversion
therefore, that is, the creation of faith in the grace of God, takes place in
that moment in which the Holy Ghost, after rousing the terrors of conscience,
kindles a spark of faith in the heart of the sinner, or awakens a desire for the
grace of God in Christ. The preparation for conversion may extend over a longer
or shorter period of time, but not so conversion itself; it always takes place
instantaneously. There is no intermediate state between the state of sin and the
state of grace, between spiritual death and spiritual life, between being in an
unconverted state and being converted. Scripture rules out any such intermediate
state by recognizing only two classes of men, in such passages, for instance, as
John 3:6, 18, 36, and Mark 16:16. Since according to Scripture no such
intermediate state exists, all possibility of man contributing something of his
own toward the blessed result is completely ruled out. The moment there is the
least spark of spiritual life, of longing for grace, of turning toward God, in a
man’s heart, God has already converted him, and that by grace alone, without any
cooperation on man’s part.
Despite the fact, however, that in every case converting grace works with all the power of divine omnipotence (see Eph. 1:19; Col. 2:12; 2 Cor. 4:6, above, in positive Scripture proof for the fact that God’s grace alone works conversion in us), nevertheless man can still prevent his conversion. In Mat