The Divine Initiative in Applying Grace 2 (end)

The content of regeneration

The Reformation was in the first place a rediscovery of the biblical gospel of free grace. For the Reformers the Scriptures were their final authority. Having said the Reformation can also be seen as an Augustinian revival. In Augustine the Reformers found a faithful guide with regard to the sovereign working of the Holy Spirit in renewing man.

By nature man is unable and unwilling to serve the living God with his whole heart. In regeneration men inward being is completely renewed by the Holy Spirit. Among the Reformed confessional standard the Canons of Dort speak not only explicitly but also quite extensive on the manner of regeneration.

The third and fourth canon deal with the total depravity of man and the irresistible work of the Holy Spirit. They make clear that the fact the Holy Spirits works irresistibly does not mean that mean is renewed against his will. Just the reverse is the case in regeneration man is made able and willing to flee to Christ and to glorify and honour God.

His mind is enlightened so that he heartily approves with the way of salvation revealed in the gospel. He desires are cleansed so that God as revealed in Christ becomes his chief joy and desire. His will that was first rebellious is made new. By the working of the Holy Spirit man is transformed. He does not serve the Lord against his will, but with his whole heart. Regeneration is the same thing as effectual calling.

By nature man can at best serve the Lord outwardly just as the rich young ruler and as the apostle Paul before his conversion. The maximum natural man can achieve that he is blameless with regard of the righteousness that is in the law, whereby the law is only taken in its outward sense. The Lord commands us not just to serve him outwardly but with all whole heart. Children can obey commands of their parents just because they love them but for the commands themselves. For example they go to a shop in obedience to a command of their parents although they preferred other activities.

When we are made new by the Holy Spirit in regeneration we not only begin to love God but also his commandments. The image of God is restored in us. We began to desire what God desires and to hate what God hates. William Cowper aptly stated the reality in a hymn from which I quote three stanzas:

How long beneath the law I lay,

In bondage and distress!

I toiled the precept to obey,

But toiled without success.

Then to abstain from outward sin

Was more than I could do;

Now, if I feel its power within,

I feel I hate it too.

Then, all my servile works were done

A righteousness to raise;

Now, freely chosen in the Son,

I freely choose his ways.

The total transformation brought about by regeneration

In regeneration the outward call of the gospel that reaches our ears transforms our heart by the inward working of the Holy Spirit. The fathers of Dort described this change in the following words. ‘It is evidently a supernatural work, most powerful, and at the same time most delightful, astonishing, mysterious, and ineffable; not inferior in efficacy to creation or the resurrection from the dead, as the Scripture inspired by the Author of this work decla-res; so that all in whose heart God works in this marvellous manner are certainly, infallibly, and effectually regenerated, and do actually believe. Whereupon the will thus renewed is not only actuated and influenced by God, but in consequence of this influence becomes itself active. Wherefore also man himself is rightly said to believe and repent by virtue of that grace received.’

Being effectually called we hear the voice of the good Shepard with joy and gladness. We begin to know his voice as the voice of our Master. We listen again how the fathers of Dordt made clear how we can know that we are regenerated by the powerful operation of Holy Spirit. They testified: ‘The manner of this opera-tion cannot be fully comprehended by believers in this life. Nevertheless, they are satisfied to know and experience that by this grace of God they are enabled to believe with the heart and to love their Saviour.’

By nature man willingly serves the sinful desires of the flesh. His will is directed to sin. In regeneration the will that was bound is made free. Man, who first willingly lived a life of sin, begins to live for God. The opening of the ten commandments ‘I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of Egypt, out of the land of bondage’ is very significant in this respect.
A Christian is translated from the power of sin and darkness into the realm of light and grace. Therefore God’s commandments are longer grievous for him. A Christian is made free to serve to Lord. Serving the living Lord by faith in Jesus Christ is real freedom.

The desires of a Christian are essentially different form the desires of a natural man. Our hearts are set on Christ and on the things of above. Things we once hated, we begin to love and things we once loved, we begin to hate and despise. At the same time we must say that the putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new man begun in regeneration is a lifelong struggle. Until our death we have a sinful nature. We never can serve the Lord is this life as we really desire to do.

A Christian is not longer what he once was, but he is at the same time not yet what he once will become. A Christian has a delight in the law of God, because the Holy Spirit dwells in him. For that reason he abhors himself because of the remainders of indwelling sin. In the power of the Holy Spirit we learn to fight against our sinful nature and the desires of our sinful flesh. That is the reason that a Christian longs to be with Christ and expects the second coming of his Lord. William Cowper testified:

But when this lisping, stammering tongue

Lies silent in the grave,

Then, in a nobler, sweeter song,

I’ll sing thy power to save.

The Divine Initiative in Applying Grace 1

Introduction

When the gospel is preached that must be done with the command to repent and believe. The aim of the presentation of the gospel is always that listeners may be won for Christ, that they learn to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. All who hear the gospel are commanded to repent and believe. They are held responsible.

Their responsibility is not founded upon their ability, but upon their duty. God as Creator has the right to ask obedience from his creatures and especially from man whom he made in his image. The fact that man has lost the image of God in the fall does not alter that fact. The gospel itself is because of its glorious message worthy of all acceptation. The greatest sin is the sin of unbelief.

Does the command of repent and believe presuppose that man has the ability and inclination to accept the message of the gospel? The biblical answer is: no. Man by nature is dead in tres-passes and sins. Man needs the gospel not because he is free, but because he is bound.

Man needs the gospel not because he is bound and can release himself, but because he is bound and he cannot release himself. The gospel is the message that ‘God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved).’ (Ephesians 2, 4-5).

 

The person of the Holy Spirit

How is this mighty change in man brought about? How is a man changed from an enemy of God into a friend? To answer this question we must direct our attention to the third person in the Holy Trinity, namely the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity is the cornerstone of the Christian faith. Without believing the doctrine of Trinity and without knowing the triune God we cannot be saved.

Each of the persons of the Trinity plays his own part in the salvation of the sinner. The Father elected his church before the foundation of the world. He is the origin of our salvation. The Son purchased the salvation of his church by his blood. He is the our Surety and our only Mediator. The Spirit applies the salvation foreordained by the Father and purchased by Christ to our hearts. He makes sinners alive with Christ. The triune God is the God of complete salvation.

We believe in the triune God and in the godhead and personality of the Holy Spirit, because God has revealed himself so in his Word. But what is the experimental and practical value of these doctrines? Do they have any experimental and practical value? Certainly.

We believe in the godhead of Jesus Christ. For only because the Lord Jesus is of the same essence of the Father, he could bear the weight of the anger of God against sin. Every true Christian knows in his life of the burning question: ‘How can I be right with God?’ All true Christians have found rest in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who is more than a man and than a creature, yea he is God to be praised forever, God revealed in the flesh.

Every true Christian knows by experience that he could not come to Christ in his own strength. So he learns the truth of the fact that the Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force, but the Divine Person who opens our hearts and works faith in it. A Christian knows himself as a brand plucked out the fire.

 

The example of Augustine

The mighty change wrought in man when the Holy Spirit unites him to Christ is called in the Scriptures new birth or regeneration. In church history we have a great example of such a mighty change in the church father Augustine. It is not without reason that I call your attention to Augustine.

I completely agree with John Owen when he states in his Pneumatologia, or A Discour­se concer­ning the Holy Spirit: ‘for I must say, that, in my judgment, there is none among the ancient or modern divines unto this day, who, either in the declarations of their own experiences, or their directions unto others, have equalled, much less outgone him, in an accurate search and observation of all the secret actings of the Spirit of God on the minds and souls of men, both towards and in their recovery or conversion.’ In the sixth chapter of the third book of A Discour­se concer­ning the Holy Spirit Owen gives an ample reproduction of the conversion of Augustine as related by Augustine himself in his Confessiones.

When he was nineteen Augustine left the Christian Church. The Church could not give answers to his intellectual questions with regard to the relation between God and evil, between the Old Testament and the New and about the character of several biblical stories especially in the Old Testament. He joined the cult of the Manicheans, but in the course of years he found out that also the Manicheans could not give rational answers to his searching questions.

Just as the Catholic Church they finally expected to accept things on authority. That was one of the reasons that Augustine again began to attend the services of the Christian Church. In the Christian Church Augustine had already in his youth heard about the Scriptures and their final authority. Augustine was not about thirty and lived in Milan. In Milan he heard the bishop Ambrosius preach. He was deeply impressed by the way Ambrosius expounded the Scriptures and especially the Old Testament.

In the seventh chapter of his Confessiones Augustine relates how his intellectual reservations against the message of the Scriptures disappeared. He became fully persuaded of the divine content of the message of the Scriptures. But there was yet another and still greater problem.

Augustine did not want to change his worldly lifestyle. He realised that he did not live to the glory of God. In a certain sense he wanted to be converted, but at the same time he did not want that he was converted that very day, because he could not part with his sins. He tells us that he wanted to be converted tomorrow, but the next day the situation was exactly the same. It was always tomorrow and not today.

Augustine confesses honestly that this meant that he did not want really to be converted. When conversion to God was really his deepest desire, that would be a sign that he was converted already. Augustine realised that the problem was that to live for God was not his chief desire and felt that he could not change himself. Only God can change our inward being. As a bishop Augustine taught that we have to pray: ‘O God, give me what Thou commands me and than command me what Thou will.’ Realising our helplessness and inability to change ourselves we have to ask that the Lord in his sovereign power and might makes us a new man.

In the eight chapter of the Confessiones Augustine has told us in a moving way how that mighty change was effected in his own life. In the garden of a villa he was discussing with his friend Alypius their unwillingness to make a real choice and how they until that day had again and again delayed their conversion to God.

‘I flung myself down, how, I know not, under a certain fig-tree, giving free course to my tears, and the streams of mine eyes gushed out, an acceptable sacrifice unto Thee. And, not indeed in these words, yet to this effect, spoke I much unto Thee, “But Thou, O Lord, how long?” “How long, Lord? Wilt Thou be angry for ever? Oh, remember not against us former iniquities;” for I felt that I was enthralled by them. I sent up these sorrowful cries, “how long, how long? Tomorrow, and tomorrow? Why not now? Why is there not this hour an end to my uncleanness?” I was saying these things and weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when, lo, I heard the voice as of a boy or girl, I know not which, coming from a neighbouring house, chanting, and oft repeating, “Take up and read; take up and read.” Immediately my countenance was changed, and I began most earnestly to consider whether it was usual for children in any kind of game to sing such words; nor could I remember ever to have heard the like. So, restraining the torrent of my tears, I rose up, interpreting it no other way than as a command to me from Heaven to open the book, and to read the first chapter I should light upon. For I had heard of Antony, that, accidentally coming in whilst the gospel was being read, he received the admonition as if what was read were addressed to him, “Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me.” And by such oracle was he forthwith converted unto Thee. So quickly I returned to the place where Alypius was sitting; for there had I put down the volume of the apostles, when I rose thence. I grasped, opened, and in silence read that paragraph on which my eyes first fell, “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” No further would I read, nor did I need; for instantly, as the sentence ended, by a light, as it were, of security infused into my heart, all the gloom of doubt vanished away.’

As every Christian before him and after him Augustine recognizes in the portrait of the prodigal son his own portrait. In first instance this son did not want to stay at home. He found the presence of his father unbearable. But when he finally came back the presence of his father became his chief joy. Not because his father was changed, but he was changed himself. For a Christian it is good to be near unto God.

 

John Bunyan and his Relevance for Today 4 (end)

A few themes out of the works of Bunyan 2              
         Especially his works Come and Welcome to Christ and The Jerusalem Sinner Saved show us the moving and compassionate way in which Bunyan preached the gospel. In the titles as such we feel already something of the moving way in which Bunyan preached the gospel.

       Bunyan did not preach the free offer at the expense of the prea­ching of the law. According to his opinion the preaching of the go­spel has no content without the preaching of the law. In Grace Aboun­ding he says about his way of preaching:

 

In my preaching of the Word I took special notice of this one thing that the Lord did lead me to begin where his Word begins with sinners; that is to con­demn all flesh and to open and alle­ge that the curse of God by the law doth belong to and lay hold on all men as they come into the world because of sin.

   

       The reason why the law must be preached he stated once as follows:

 

       So long as sinners can make a life out of anything below Christ, so long they will not close with Christ.

 

       I also want to make some remarks on Bunyan's view on the relation between faith and assurance. In The Pilgrim's Progress the cross is not place directly alongside the wicket gate. Why not? Because closing with Christ for life and salvation is not the same as having the full assurance of faith. In the life of most Christians there is a distance in time between coming to Christ and coming to full assurance. When you are under a sound gospel preaching, normally the distance will not be very long.

       Intentionally Bunyan has placed the house of Inter­pre­ter between the wicket gate and the cross. In The Pilgrim's Prog­ress, the Wicket Gate is a symbol for Christ. The first part of The Pilgrim's Pro­gress is a symbolical expression of the puritan view of effec­tual calling. Convinced of his misery Christian leaves the city of Destruc­tion and flees to the wicket gate. Evangelist pointed him to the wicket gate.

       Bunyan did not only speak about faith and justification, but also about sanctifica­tion. True gospel-holiness flows form justifying and saving faith. Bunyan also stressed self-examination. He called people to self-examination when they professed that they belonged to Christ. He did not call men to self-examination before coming to Christ.

       We can also learn from Bunyan that a Christian always remains a student of Christ. It is not possible to comprehend the richness of Christ. There are always many reasons to pray for the light and wisdom of the Holy Spirit. It is remarkable that in The Pilgrim’s Progress Christian is confronted with the severest struggles after he had been at the Cross and lost his burden there. Bunyan wants us to show that the strength of a Christian does not lay in his faith or conversion as such, but in Christ in whom he believes and in God to whom he has dedicated his life.

       Bunyan portrays all children of God as poor beggars in themselves. Real assurance and growth in grace makes a man humble. Bunyan also makes clear to us that how severe the struggles of a Christian may be, it is impossible that a Christian will loose his faith. Real faith is a gift of God. And the gifts of God are without repentance. When a man goes in his life through the wicket gate, he will finally pass through the gates of heaven into eternal glory. Even in the river of death Christian was severely assaulted by the devil. Hopeful tried to encourage him and said:

 

       Brother, I see the gate, and men standing to receive us.

       Christian answered:

       It is you, it is you they wait for; you have been Hopeful ever
       since I knew you.

       But finally Christian brake out with a loud voice:

O, I see him again, and he tells me, When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee. (Isaiah 43:2).

        The Lord loosened his bonds. In this way, Bunyan makes it clear that the children of God are more than conquerors through him that loved them.

       Much more could be said about Bunyan. Bunyan was a preaching with a burning compassion in souls for the Saviour. In Grace Abounding it says:

 

 It pleased me nothing to see people drink in opinions if they seemed ignorant of Christ, and the worth of their own salvation, sound con­viction of sin, especially for unbelief, and a heart set on fire to be saved by Christ with a strong breathing after a truly sanctified soul, that was it what delighted me.

 

       O must I explain you further the relevance of Bunyan for today. May God give the church preachers with the same spirit Bunyan had. O that the preaching may be blessed and that souls are set on fire to be save by Christ and Christ alone. When that is the case we are a pilgrim on earth. Then heaven where we shall see the Lamb that was slain and where God is all in all will be our final home.

       A pilgrim knows of sorrow after God and joy in God. One day God will wipe away all tears and the joy of God’s people will be a joy that passes all understanding. Here we receive some foretastes. There we receive the fullness of joy and gladness. O my dear friends, let us pray that the Lord grants us both sorrow after him and joy in him in this life, that we may enjoy the full glory in the eternal life and not be eternally separated from him.

 

John Bunyan and his Relevance for Today 3

A few themes out of the works of Bunyan 1       

         The first thing I would mention in this connection is the strong sense of eternity. When Christian left the City of Destruction he put­ted his fingers in his ears and cried: "Life, life, eternal life". Speaking about the message of the Bible Bunyan writes in one of his books:

       All its doctrines, counsels, encouragements, threatenings and judgements have a look one way or other upon with respect to the next world.

 

       Bunyan spoke clear about the reality of everlasting punishment. He said to them that came to hear him: 

Be willing to see the worst of thy condition. It is better to see it here than in hell, for thou must see thy misery here or the­re. 

       I gave another quotation: 

       For when men come to see the things of another world, what a God, what a Christ and a heaven is to be enjoyed, and when they see it is possible for them to have a share in it, I tell you it will make the run through thick and thin to enjoy it.
 

       As I already noted the strong sense of eternity was not specific Reformed or Prot­estant, but the answer Bunyan gave one the question how a man can find peace with God was the Biblical and Reformed ans­wer. Bunyan preached Christ and his righteous­ness as the only ground of salvation and justification. Christ is, to use the expression of Bunyan a public of common person. As the surety and representative of his church he bore the sins of his people. He died and rose again for them.
        We get a share in Christ and his work, when we lay hold on him. We must receiver Christ on his own terms. That means we have to recei­ve him freely. God justifies persons who are in themselves ungodly. Bunyan stressed that Christ is not a second Moses. The gospel is not a new law but it is the fulfilment of the law.

       Bunyan wanted to preach the free offer of Christ as powerful as pos­sible. He denied that a man must be assured of the sincerity of his faith or his intentions before coming to Christ. In his work, The Pharisee and the Publican, he writes among others:  

Again, I, in the first acts of my faith, when I am come to Christ, do not accept of him, because I know I am righteous, either with imputed right­eous­ness, or with that which is inherent: both these, as to my present privilege in them, may be hidden from mine eyes, and I only put upon taking of encoura­gement to close with Christ for life and righteousness, as he is set forth to be a propiti­ation before mine eyes, in the word of the truth of the gospel; to which word I adhere as, or because I find, I want peace with God in my soul, and because I am convinced, that the means of peace is not to be found any where but in Jesus Christ.

John Bunyan and his Relevance for Today 1

Introduction      
        John Bunyan is one of the most important persons out of the history of the church. His work The Pilgrim's Progress is read all over the world. It is read in all circles, Reformed, Baptist, Pres-byterian, Lutheran and so on.Who was John Bunyan? In Dutch, we have a proverb: "He curses as a tin­ker". That proverb goes back to John Bunyan who became, after he had left school, a tinker just as a father. As a young man, Bunyan was known for his cursing and swearing. That is the one side. At the other side John Bunyan is the author of the most widely read Christian book after the Bible: The Pilgrim's Progress.
        How is this possible? I can give the answer with the title of his autobiography: Grace Aboun­ding to the Chief of Sinners. John Bunyan was a sinner saved by grace. In his life, he has severely struggled with the heart-burning question: How can I get peace with God? By God grace, he found the answer. He became for others a guide to Christ. He speaks still to us after he has died through his many writings, especially through The Pilgrim's Prog­ress.

       John Bunyan was in more than one respect a child of his time. He was a seven­teenth-century Englishman. But we must also say that in what he has written he crosses the bounds of the century in which he lived. He brought a message that is still relevant for today. The most important question which we can ever ask is: How can I find peace with God? There is only one answer.
       The answer Bunyan found by the grace of God. The answer God which thought him and that answer is: That we are right in the sight of God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.God imputes the righte­ousness of Jesus Christs to the sinner who puts his trust in Christ as his Saviour. Also in our time the law must be preached that sinners began to realize that God is angry with them every day. The gospel must be proclaimed in all its freeness and its fullness that woun­ded consciences might be healed.

       The Spirit God teaches sinners the same lessons in every age. Buny­an experi­enced that in a very remarkable way. It was in the period that he was in a state of deep concern about his soul. While he was going through such a dark valley, spiri­tually, he laid hands on an old volume of Luther's commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians. It ama­zed him that a man who had lived about a century before him could ful­ly enter his condition and had a similar experience. He came to appreciate Luther greatly. As it says in Grace Abounding:

       I do prefer this book of Martin Luther upon the Galatians, excepting the Holy Bible, before all the books that ever I have seen, as most fit for a wounded conscience.

       He was amazed that Luther who had lived a century earlier knew exactly of his trials and his burden. I quote again Grace Abounding:

       I found my condition in his experience so largely and profoundly handled as if his book had been written of my heart. This made me marvel; for thus thought I, this man could not know anything of the state of Christians now, but must needs write and speak the experience of former days.

       What Bunyan said of the commentary of Luther on the Galatians can be said of his own works, too: They speak of the state of Christians of all places and all ages. In his writings the question is answered how a sinner can find peace with God. God's way of salvation that never changes, is proclaimed in them. Bunyan is known all over the world by his work The Pilgrim's Progress. That work is also when we view it from the viewpoint of literature of a very high quality. It is characterised as an allegory. An allegory is a story in which each detail has a meaning. We are right when we say that The Pilgrim’s Progress is an allegory, but in fact it is more than that. We must say that it is a parable like the parable of the prodigal son.

      From the viewpoint of literature, the strength of such a parable is that the reader can identify himself with the main-person out of the parable. These must be also be the case on a much deeper level. Will it be well for eternity we must recognise ourselves in the prodigal son. When that is not the case, we are just like his elder brother. When that never changes, we are lost forever. Reading The Pilgrim’s Progress, the reader can identify himself with Chris­tian and his struggles, sorrows and joys. The Lord knows that with regard to many people during the centuries that was also true on the spiritual level. May that be with you too, dear friends.

     Besides The Pilgrim's Pro­gress Bunyan wrote quite a lot of other books. I name especially the second part of The Pilgrim’s Progress. You can say that the first part of The Pilgrim’s Progress reflect the experiences of Bunyan as a man and a Christian and that in the second part we see his as a pastor. Mr. Great-Heart is portrayed as a model for the pastor. In the second part of The Pilgrim’s Progress Bunyan pays great attention to the great diversity that there is in the life of faith. We see him here as a pastor of souls. He wanted to be a mr. Great-Heart for his own flock. He had a special love for Christians who are weak in faith and assurance. I quoted already Grace Abounding. I can also mention Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ, The Jerusalem Sinner Saved, The Doctrine of Law and Gospel Unfolded.