Are all sins equal?

Have you, like me, grown up hearing that “all sins are equal” in God’s economy? A few years ago I started wondering if this were true. What does the Bible really say?

All of our sins, no matter how trivial, are equal in the sense that they separate us from God. Mother Teresa’s sins make her not good enough to get to heaven just as do the sins of Jeffrey Dalmer. But, let’s imagine for a second that one day Mother Teresa had some unkind words for one of the people she was ministering to (I don’t know that she ever did). Would her sin be “equal” to Jeffrey Dalmer cutting up little boys and eating them?

My husband likes to say that all sins are equal in the sense that we deserve the wrath of God for any of them, but not equal in consequence. I like that explanation.

While pondering this question, the only thing I could think of biblically (besides the fact that differing sins had very distinct responses in Old Testament times) was the verses from Proverbs that mention things God hates: “There are six things the Lord HATES, seven that are DETESTABLE to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.” Proverbs is not heavy on theology, though, so this wasn’t enough to settle the question for me.

Today, when I decided I wanted the answer to this question NOW, I let Google become my Bible Study tool.

Is that scary, or what?!

But honestly, through Googling, I found some very helpful commentary on this subject, with lots of verses to look up for further study.

The first link I clicked was to Got Questions where found this good answer. Basically, the author states that people formed this theology of all sins being equal from Matthew 5:21-28, where Jesus equates lusting after a woman to committing adultery, and committing murder with having hatred in your heart. I hadn’t realized it before, but this probably is the verse people use to say all sins are equal.

In this situation, Jesus was saying that the heart of lust is the same heart that commits adultery. The Jews at the time were promoting a “It’s OK to Look if You Don’t Touch” philosophy. Jesus was letting them know that God saw their heart, and looking was touching in heart intent (A blog I later read explained it as lust and adultery are both violations of the same commandment). What Jesus wasn’t saying in these passages is that that lusting after a woman is equal to committing murder, or even that adultery itself is on par with committing murder. He’s not lumping all sins together but showing that the heart is truly where sin takes place.

In fact, I have recently come to see these verses in Matthew 5 as a way of warning from God. If I harbor bitterness and anger in my heart, leaving them unchecked, I daily grow more and more into someone who could commit a murder. I don’t think most people wake up and have the sudden urge for adultery or murder, but often these sins occur after giving lust and hatred time to build up and fester until they burst! This thought has caused me to have a healthy fear of lust and anger and other sinful thoughts — knowing that I am “totally depraved” and that allowing these sins to run rampant could easily lead to more hazardous actions. I am capable of heinous sins because my heart is inherently sinful. Jesus reminds me that the ugliness in my heart needs to be put to death just as vehemently as outward sinful actions.

Google led me next to Bob Pratico’s blog (hadn’t heard of him before now but I bookmarked him to come back and read more!). I followed a link from Bob’s blog over to Reclaiming the Mind, where C Michael Patton gives his answer to the question he was posed at an ordination interview, “Are all sins really equal in God’s sight?” He first offers this practical point:

“I often ask people who say that all sin is equal in the sight of God if they live according to their theology. Think about this. If all sin is really equal in the sight of God, and one really believes this, then God’s consternation and anger will be equal for whatever sin we commit. Equally important is the fact that our relational disposition before God should suffer from the conviction of the Holy Spirit for all sins equally. Most Christians understand what it means to have a conscience weighed down by unrepentant sin. But this weighing down normally only comes from those sins that we perceive to be more severe. However, if it is true that all sin is equal in the sight of God and one actually lived according to that theology, they should be just as troubled spiritually and just as repentant before God when they break the speed limit as when they commit adultery. After all, breaking the speed limit, even by 1mph, is breaking the law and breaking the law is sin (Rom 13).

“This, of course, nobody does. We all see speeding down the road as water under the bridge of God. Apparently our conscious bears us witness that it is not as bad as other things, even if we confess differently.”

Patton goes on,

“Next (and more importantly) I think that it is biblical and necessary to say that some sins are more grievous in the sight of God than others. This also translates into the non-politically correct assumption that some people are sinners to a greater degree than others. Even though Protestants may not agree with the theology behind the Roman Catholic distinction between mortal and venial sins, there are many instances in the Scriptures where degrees of sin are distinguished.” Patton gives several scripture references worth looking into (please click over and check them out) that give examples of scripture distinguishing sins, e.g., some sins are listed as “abominations” to the Lord (indicating others as not as severe), Jesus telling Pilate the Jewish leaders’ sin was worse than Pilate’s, Christ referring to the “weighter things of the Law” (implying some things are heavier than others), and the fact that unforgiveness is often referred to as a more terrible sin than others.

The last link I had time to investigate (before I had to go make dinner for the family) led me to Christianity Today where I found All Sins are Not Equal by well-known author J.I. Packer. Packer agrees that “No sins are small when committed against a great and generous God. Beyond this, however, the gravity of each transgression depends on varying factors.” Packer goes through examples in scripture where sins are mentioned as having more gravity if they are committed by those who know better, those in the public eye, those who cause other Christians (notably “weak” brethren) to stumble, how much the person acts in regard to deliberate defiance to God, whether they act with disregard to conscience or correction by others, whether they join existing sin with hypocrisy, or whether they bring others into sin with them.

I’m planning to look up the many verses listed in the links I found for further study this evening. But I suppose my conclusion thus far is that any and all sins make us filthy in the eyes of God, and we need the blood of Jesus to cover that mess. Sins are any and all detestable to God. However, if God doesn’t treat every sin as equal — in gravity nor in consequence — then I don’t think we should expect Christians to do so.

I’d love to hear what you think…

Total Truth, Worldview Introduction

(To help myself think through Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey, I’ve decided to “blog” my notes while reading. You can find Total Truth available for browsing and searching here, or order yourself a copy here. To follow along with me, read about the intro here.)

Pearcey defines a “worldview” as the mental map that tells us how to navigate the world effectively. A worldview is not the same as a formal philosophy, for these are limited to those who consciously decide what and how they shall think. Every single person in the world holds a worldview.

From page 23 of the Introduction,

“The term worldview is a translation of the German word Weltanschauung, which means a way of looking at the world (Welt = world; schauen = to look). German Romanticism developed the idea that cultures are complex wholes, where a certain outlook on life, or spirit of the age, is expressed across the board — in art, literature, and social institutions as well as in formal philosophy. The best way to understand the products of any culture, then, is to grasp the underlying worldview being expressed.”

“Worldview” is becoming a buzz word among Christians, but Pearcey warns that “genuine worldview thinking is far more than a mental strategy or a new spin on current events.” Worldview thinking is a deepening of our spiritual character and begins with a willingness to be taught by God. The thrust behind worldview studies should be loving God with all of our hearts, souls, strength, and minds (Luke 10:27) “One way that we acknowledge [God's] Lordship is to interpret every aspect of creation in the light of His truth. God’s Word becomes a set of glasses offering a new perspective on all our thoughts and actions.” (TT, p 24)

To develop a biblical worldview, we can begin to asking the same fundamental questions every philosophy or ideology has to answer(from p25):

1. CREATION: How did it all begin? Where did we come from?

2. FALL: What went wrong? What is the source of evil and suffering?

3. REDEMPTION: What can we do about it? How can the world be set right again?

We can learn to apply this grid to everything we perceive.

(I love how similar this is to the “worldview” training our family has been receiving through Truthquest History. Michelle Miller asks the student to constantly ask what the 2 Big Beliefs were of any people group in history — what did they believe about God and what did they believe about others. It is amazing how much easier history is to understand when reading about it through this grid. I recently posted an online review about my love for Truthquest at The Old Schoolhouse store, if you are at interested in these guides!)

Total Truth, Divided Concept of Truth Introduction

I began reading Total Truth by Nancy Pearcy over a year ago. Full of wonderfully-enlightening earth-shattering truth, the book somehow still ended up on a bookshelf collecting dust.

I’ve decided it is time to dive in again. To make sure that I can wrap my mind around what I am reading, I plan to summarize bits and pieces of my readings here on One Beggar’s Bread. I hope dropping these few crumbs of Total Truth will whet your appetite for more!

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Nancy Pearcey says the first step toward developing a Christian worldview is to overcome the sharp divide between heart and brain. She says the dichotomy in our minds that separates certain things into a sacred realm and a secular realm is the greatest barrier to liberating the power of the gospel across the whole of culture today.

With modernization has come this separation of ideas into the private sphere of personal preferences (family, church, relationships, sex) and the public sphere of “scientific” knowledge and “value-free” institutions (the state, academia, large corporations). Another way to explain this is thinking of a separation of everything into either a values sector of individual choices or a facts sector that is binding on everyone.

Religion is no longer considered an objective truth to submit to, no longer belonging to the “facts” or “public” sector, but is only a matter of personal taste left to our own choice. Because religion has been relegated to the value sphere, it is completely removed from the realm of true and false. Where many people would never attack religion directly or try to prove it wrong, they use this incredibly powerful weapon to de-legitimize the biblical perspective. The biblical perspective has been rendered impotent.

As a Christian, you may have wondered why when you intend to assert an objective moral truth important to the health of society (regarding abortion, bioethics, homosexuality etc.), the secularist friend you are speaking with thinks you are merely revealing your subjective bias. The secularist mindset sees your assertion as a “power grab.” How dare you try to push your subjective ideas on to me?

Lesslie Newbigin, author of A Word in Season: Perspectives on Christian World Missions and missionary to India for 40 years states that the divided concept of truth is the number one factor in “the cultural captivity of the gospel.” Upon Mr. Newbigin’s return to the West, he was able to see clearly the way Christian truth has become marginalized. Newbigin noticed that ANY position labeled religion is placed in the values sector — where it is no longer regarded as objective knowledge.

We need to liberate the gospel from its cultural captivity, restoring it to the status of public truth (TT, p22) The church has accommodated this fact-value dichotomy, sitting idly by while the gospel is put into a cage. Michael Goheen says, “Only by recovering a holistic view of total truth can we set the gospel free to become a redemptive force across all of life.”

Is the Sky falling? Emerging Church in the News

Are you keeping up with the Emerging Church movement?

Here a few recent stories to mull over:

An Excellent review of Rob Bell’s book entitled Velvet Elvis

The A-Team’s Book Review of An Emergent Manifesto of Hope

The View from Solomon’s Porch video

Sean McDowell discusses abortion with Emergent Church “leader” Tony Jones

I am grateful for some of the questions and ideas posed by the emerging church movement. It is high time we as the Body of Christ wake up to some of the philosophical mistakes we made in the “modern” age (i.e. giving humanism and secularism equal or greater credence than biblicism, seeing the church as a business institution instead of a family, etc.). I like the missional focus of the Emerging Church; I like the push toward hospitality; I like the ideas of community life.

But the red flags raised by this loose-knit group of emergent are not few.

The most frightful trend in the Emerging Church is a very low view of scripture (i.e. the Bible is not inerrant, the idea God has been put into a box by creeds, “Sola Scripturas” and even by scripture itself, etc.).

I think the main problem with the Emerging Church is that it notices the negativity of the modern age and responds with the negativity of the postmodern age. Postmodern despair is rooted in a lack of answers — only questions, questions, more questions, and uncertainty. The God of the Bible and historic Christianity brings hope that Postmodern thought cannot provide. Slaves to a post-modern worldview need to know that they have a Rock to stand on, that there is Truth to be found.

After reading the above-mentioned review of Velvet Elvis the other evening, I began to have an almost-panic attack as I crawled into bed with my husband. I leaned over to him and declared, “The Church, as we knew it as children, is either dead…or crazy.”

I earnestly “feel” that these are the two categories into which The Church is splitting.

Of course, my mind tells me that throughout history, in the bleakest of times, the Lord continued to accomplish His will. What looks bleak from my human perspective is all a part of His plan. He is in control. He is at work. He loves His Church and continues to purify her and love her and use her to bring glory to Himself.

I just can’t shake the feeling of impending doom.

The sky is falling.

I pray I am as wrong as Chicken Little.

(to view a bit of my thought-processes so far on the emerging church mystery, see Calvinism with a Heart and Legs, Resurging Church, Homosexuality and Emerging Church and Marc Driscoll’s Apology for said-discussion, Post-Christian America, Postmodernism and Os Guinness, and The Emerging Delusion. I am still researching. Thoughts and/or links you have on this subject would be greatly appreciated in the comments!)

Emerjeans

 

This ad absolutely cracked me up.

Although there are many things I LIKE about the Emerging Church (in particular their call to re-examine the Modern Church and a call to simplify), the “meet people where they are at” thing can be spread on a little too thick. I was reminded about the good ‘ol days, when husband and I met while doing a well-known evangelistic youth ministry on public school campuses. I certainly saw no theological problem with getting girls to our meetings by telling them names of all the cute boys who would be there. This was one of my main tactics — get them there any way I could, then hit them with the gospel.

Sneaky.

And yet God was faithful and good — He always is, even when I am stupid — He DID bring several of these gals to Himself.

I’m somehow at the place now here I see the Gospel itself as a powerful-enough tool to not need our marketing skills added on to it. It seems to me that in the Emerging Church’s disgust at the marketing skills of the business age, they have turned to the kinder, gentler marketing tactics of a Postmodern Era.

(I saw this ad, with other hysterical ads, at The Sacred Sandwich. Heard about the Sacred Sandwich on Josiah Ministries.)

Calvinism by Any Other Name

I have discovered over the past year or two that Calvinists aren’t who I used to think they were.

It isn’t that I have recently “become a Calvinist” so much as I have recently realized the word “Calvinism” is much closer to what I used to refer to as “Biblicism” (term taken from Mom and Dad to simply mean taking the Bible at its word). I used to equate Calvinism with Pre-Determinism and Fatalism, thinking that Calvinists believed man had NO free will and we were all like robots acting out a pre-made script. I haven’t found this to be true with your average man’s Calvinism. In fact, all the mainstream Calvinists that I have read and/or come into contact with believe in both God’s sovereignty AND man’s free will. While considering the Biblical tension between the two…Calvinists acknowedge God’s sovereignty always trumps, and that man’s free will begins from a sinful place.

What kind of God would we have if His sovereignty didn’t trump? A God we were bigger than, a God we could control. That’s silly, isn’t it? The idea of a God with His hands tied — or of humans not inherently sinful — certainly doesn’t square with historic Christian faith nor with the Word of God.

In this way, I think a HUGE percentage of The Church is more “Calvinist” than they realize, although many would be horrified to use this term. Whether you use the word Calvinist, or Biblicist, I don’t care! As long as we keep God on His Throne, that’s what matters.

I really appreciate the way Al Mohler answered TIME magazine in regard to recent questions about a recent brush with death and his Calvinist theology. Please take a look at his interview and see if you don’t agree that Calvinism is pretty well in the center of Biblical theology.

(HT: Irish Calvinist)

Seeker Sensitivity v. Hospitality

I recently posted on how I feel God is beginning to cultivate hospitality within me (slowly yet surely).

This interesting article from Leadership Journal says that the Church has thrown out hospitality in favor of being seeker-sensitive. The author makes a few interesting points, and I thought I’d pass it on to you as food for thought.

Here’s an excerpt (read the whole thing here):

“…in the modern age the church abandoned the traditional language of loving strangers in favor of a new dialect. We called it ’seeker sensitivity.’ The seeker church movement has taken the Bedouin and monastic idea of hospitality (host first, ask questions later) and reversed it. Now, thanks to the influence of business practices and marketing, the church tries to discover everything possible about its target guests, and then hosts according to their predetermined expectations. The result has been a radical shift in the way Christians worship and express their devotion to Christ, and a dehumanizing of Christian hospitality.

“Where market research replaces the simple call to love strangers, the responsibility to be hospitable is no longer felt by individual members of the church—the music, sermon, and worship service have all been test-engineered to do the job instead. Market analysis has also shown that many people prefer to visit a church anonymously, so seeker-driven churches will often avoid identifying newcomers. Jesus may be among us in the form of a stranger, but we would never know it unless he filled out a response card.”

If you would like to further investigate this way of thinking regarding hospitality, I highly recommend a book which seems to stem from a similar point of view — Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition.

Catechism, smatechism?

My dad recently emailed me this post from Bob’s Blog, about how re-introducing catechisms into our churches’ ministries to children should be a “no-brainer.” It’s a very informative read, and if you are at all curious about catechisms, I adjure you to take the time to read this post and Bob’s promised series on catechism.

Bob quotes John Murray, Assistant Editor of Banner of Truth Magazine as saying:

“It is surely an indictment of the Church today that in dealing with the subject of catechizing we have to begin by explaining the very meaning of the term. What was looked on as a necessary and beneficial practice by the early church and by the Reformers has now fallen into such disuse among Christian people that very few seem to have any understanding or appreciation of the subject. And yet we believe it is to the discontinuance of this practice that we can trace much of the doctrinal ignorance, confusion and instability so characteristic of modern Christianity.”

Wow. Mr. Murray may just have a point — at least about the lack of understanding or appreciation in today’s Church for the practice of catechism. Although I was raised in a born-again family with parents in full-time ministry (mostly Baptist churches), I didn’t really know what catechism was until went to a Christian Middle School that was affiliated with a Lutheran Church. Even then, I only knew it was something many of my friends had to “do” to become a full-fledged adult in the Lutheran Church, and I didn’t realize exactly what it was they were “doing.” My friends from Baptist churches seemed to have a better handle on Christian doctrine and truth than those involved in more liturgical churches, so the idea of catechism was not a draw to me at the time.

As parents, my husband and I have recently considered the idea of teaching our children from catechisms, and possibly memorizing one or more of them. The first time we really gave it some thought was when we read this fabulous article on family worship (see pages 6 through 16 of this very large .pdf file). Though the article resonated with me, I sort of wrote off the idea of catechism as “Presbyterian Thing.” I thought, “Catechism, smatechism.” I planned to teach my children plenty of scripture, and didn’t understand why someone else’s take on scripture would be of value to us.

The more my husband and I have considered catechisms, the more we have found there is to like. Instead of being a replacement for scripture, I see that catechisms can be used to organize scripture, and help with memorization of scriptural truths. I still don’t think catechisms are NECESSARY to teaching children or new believers about theology, but now I see they can indeed be very helpful (along with creeds). The conclusion I’ve come to is that if one sees catechism as his/her servant, not becoming a slave to the catechism (and not letting the Word of God become secondary to it), it can be quite useful for teaching your children systematic theology.

We haven’t yet used any of the following ideas concerning catechism, but thought I would share what direction we are looking toward. Hopefully these ideas will be helpful to you as well:

From Crown and Covenant, we found a devotional book called Training Hearts, Teaching Minds that looks fabulous. Training Hearts, Teaching Minds focuses on each question/answer of the Westminster Shorter Catechism for one week at a time, reading scripture and devotionals on different aspects of that question/answere each day of the week. (Not long ago, Training Hearts and catechisms in general sparked a lively discussion on the Choosing Home blog.)

Somehow (I can’t remember how!), I came across this Small Catechism for Preschoolers, homemade by a dad for his little kiddos. I love this idea, using scripture as the answers to the catechism questions — you can’t go wrong with scripture. I’m thinking about re-writing it using our favorite Bible version, the ESV.

I have heard about this little CD, Why Can’t I See God by Judy Rogers, that is based on the Westminster Shorter Catechism. It is a little goofy, but I think my kids would like it, especially my son-who-makes-up-songs-wherever-he-goes. Please, leave a link in the comments section if you know of other catechism resources that may be helpful to our family.

**Please forgive any error on the idea of or misuse of the spelling of “catechism” — I am still figuring this stuff out. For example, is the word Catechism a noun or a verb, a body of words or a class you take, should it always be capitalized or only with with a proper name attached?? ACK!

Free Will and Calvinism

Investigating the relationship between God’s Sovereignty and Free Will (see Calvinism with a Heart and Legs) brought me back to JollyBlogger’s blog today. For awhile, on my old blog, I had stolen JollyBlogger’s blog quote by C.S. Lewis:

Grace substitutes a full, childlike, and delighted acceptance of our Need, a joy in total dependence. We become like Jolly Beggars.

JollyBlogger wrote a little series explaining Calvinism. I absolutely love his Intro to the Five Points of Calvinism where he explains, humbly and logically, why we end up using words like Calvinism as “theolgical shorthand” out of courtesy and necessity, to explain a theological position and not to identify ourselves with a man. One of his posts in this series is called Total Depravity and Free Will, and I thought I’d share a little of his point of view with you:

First of all, I want to address a comment that is commonly made in evangelical circles. The comment goes something like this “God is a gentleman and there is one thing He will never do - He will never violate a person’s free will.” I’ve heard variations on this in many places and I have to admit that I think it is one of the most ludicrous things that a Christian could say.

Anyone who has ever prayed for God to change a person’s heart has prayed that God would “violate” that person’s free will. Which parent, who has a child who is walking away from the faith really wants God to not interfere with that child’s will.

Certainly we have biblical examples like God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart and the proverbial statement that the heart of the king is in the hands of the Lord, and He turns it whatever way He wishes. But having said that, all of the questions are not answered.

We Calvinists affirm that man has a free will. The question gets into just what do the effects total depravity (or radical corruption as I like to call it) do to a person’s will and how does God apply His will to our will.

JollyBlogger speaks of his seminary president who taught that we always need to stay within the center of biblical tension. In other words, though the Bible does not contradict itself, there are paradoxes and seeming polarities in scripture. JollyBlogger explains that the Bible affirms human freedom AND God’s Sovereignty. (If this Calvinism doesn’t sound like Biblicism to you, I will be surprised).

He notes the Westminister Confession (which is well-known as a “Calvinist” Confession) that states in Chapter 9, Section 1:

God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that it is neither forced, nor, by any absolute necessity of nature, determined to good, or evil. (Matt. 17:12, James 1:14, Deut. 30:19)

He goes on to explain how our sinful natures affect — or define — our free will:

So, in this regard, biblically, we have to affirm human freedom and God’s sovereignty. This may sound like I am giving away the farm and basically taking a non-Calvinist view. However, I would ask the non-Calvinists to carefully consider how they define human freedom. I’ve written on this before, but I’ll repeat my assertion that freedom is always circumscribed in some way. Our freedom is always bound by our nature….every man has absolute freedom to do what he wants to do, but due to the presence of sin, natural man will never want to believe in Christ unto salvation. That is the problem – we have a “wanter” that doesn’t want God. This is the real crux of the free will debate. Calvinists believe the bible teaches that man, in his natural state, just doesn’t want to believe savingly in Christ. And his “wanter” can only be changed by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit.

Man has a free will, but this freedom is dependent upon the sovereign grace of God. Yet God sovereignly orchestrates all of the events of this life, even the free choices of man according to His purposes. Even in our freedom, we have never willed or done anything that is not according to God’s purpose. Yet, the choices have been ours. The Westminster Confession chapter 5 on providence speaks of this: Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; (Acts 2:23) yet, by the same providence, He ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently. (Gen. 8:22, Jer. 31:35, Exod. 21:13, Deut. 19:5, I Kings 22:28,34, Isa. 10:6–7)

Notice, that though God’s will is immutable and infallible, He causes things to come to pass according to the nature of second causes – necessarily, freely or contingently.

JollyBlogger admits that not all Calvinists are happy with his explanations of free will, but says that these guys are not the norm. From my personal experience, I would agree with him. NONE of the Calvinists I have met or read in the past few years embrace a determinism or fatalism of which his critics esteem:

I want to address a particular issue that comes up more from the Calvinistic side. On another blog I shared a few of my thoughts on this in a comment, and there were some who took issue with my position. They seemed to think my view of sovereignty was a little weak. From what I gathered, I think they didn’t think that my view did justice to the principle of the kings heart being in the hand of the Lord, that the Lord might turn it whatever way He chooses. I think my critics on that blog have the impression that we are puppets on a string, and not only does God control our every action, but even the thoughts and intentions of our hearts.

To me, this is a level of determinism that approaches fatalism and goes beyond what even the historic Calvnistic creeds would affirm. I see that view as a hyper-Calvinistic view that most Calvinists wouldn’t affirm.

What do you think of JollyBlogger’s attempt at explaining how Free Will fits into the Doctrines of Grace? In my experience, Calvinist friends have mirrored JollyBlogger on this issue. For me, Calvinism has not turned out to be as extreme as I once thought it was — rather, it has turned out to be very close to what some term “Biblicism.”

Here’s a few other Calvinists’ take on Free Will:

R.C. Sproul:

God is sovereign. Man is free. Man’s freedom is limited, however, by God’s sovereignty. God’s sovereignty is not limited by man’s freedom. This is simply to say that man is not God. God is free and man is free. But God is more free than a man. Man’s freedom is always and everywhere subordinate to God’s freedom. If we reverse these we pass from theism to atheism, from Christianity to humanism, from Christ to Anti-christ.

Douglas Wilson has a remarkable argument that our “will” — our choice of actions — comes from our hearts (Matthew 12:33-37). Jesus doesn’t give us a new will when we become Christians, rather he gives us a new heart — meaning you’ll soon see a Christian who begins making new choices not because he was given a different status of will, but because he is acting out of his new heart.He goes on to say:

No man is capable of making a choice contrary to the strongest desire of his heart. This is an inexorable law; there are no exceptions — even God’s choices proceed from His immutable and holy nature. A person may certainly has other desires, and they may be very strong desires (Romans 7:18-23). But what he finally does is what he wanted to do most, and he is therefore responsible for the choice.If the choice were not his strongest desire, he would not have chosen it. Let us return to our example of the bowl of cockroaches for a moment. Suppose a man said, in order to refute this teaching, that he didn’t want to eat a cockroach, but that he was going to do so anyway — so there. Is this a refutation? Not at all. It simply means that his will acted on the basis of his strongest desire, which is now to win the debate.

If we take these factors together, we see that it is nonsense to talk of a free will, as though there were this autonomous thing inside of us, capable of acting in any direction, regardless of the motives of the heart. If there could be such a thing — a creature who made choices not determined by the desires of its heart — we would not applaud this creature as a paragon of free will, but would rather pity it as a collection of random, arbitrary, insane choices. Such a creature would not be, and could not be, a free and responsible agent. We would recoil in horror from an exhibition of such autonomous free will. Choices made apart from the desires of the heart? They would be an exhibition, not of freedom, but of insanity. “Why did you throw the vase against the wall?” “Because I wanted to go for a walk.”

So a far more Biblical way of speaking is to speak of free men, and not of free will. And what is a free man? He is someone who is free from external compulsion and is consequently at liberty to do what his heart desires. This is a natural liberty, and all men are in possession of it. It is the only kind of liberty possible for us, and it is a gift to us from God. Under the superintendence of God, all men, Christian and non-Christian, have the freedom to turn left or right, to choose chocolate or vanilla, or to move to this city or that one — depending entirely upon what they want to do. The foreordination of God does not violate this; it is the cause of this — but more on this in a moment.

Notice that this natural liberty is not the same thing as the freedom from sin, i.e. moral liberty. In Romans 6:20,22, Paul makes the distinction between natural liberty and moral liberty. He says:

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness… But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.

Slavery to sin is true slavery, but even sin does not negate natural liberty — the slave to sin is free from righteousness, but is still not free from his own desires. This slave to sin is one who loves sin, and consequently obeys it. As a creature, he is free to do what he wants, which is to continue in sin. But he is not free to desire righteousness. Why is he not free to do right? Because his sinful heart does not love what is right. Like all men, he is not free to choose what is repulsive to him, and true godliness is repulsive to him. So in the realm of morality, he is therefore free in a limited sense — free from the control of righteousness. When God, by grace, liberates him from the bondage of his own sin-loving heart, he is then a slave to God. As a slave to righteousness, the Christian freely, out of a new heart, follows Christ.

Driscoll’s Apology

Remember the post on the Marc Driscoll/Brian McLaren Throwdown, Round I over the issue of Homesexuality and The Church?

You’ll find a sincere and humble apology here from Driscoll, for his “harsh words and personal attacks,” with no compromise on theology. Gotta dig Driscoll.