It has been my experience, that ultimately, the question of Christ's LORDSHIP over the believer's life, and by extension, the church's life, boils down to the question of the human will's submission to God's sovereign grace.
One way to approach this deadly debate which has been raging since the time of Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), and and right through to today's secularist approach to Scriptures, is by way of the believer's personal narrative (once known, and sometimes still known, as the 'testimony') of sanctification.
When engaged in conversation and fellowship with other believers. it is not too long before you hear the believer moan and groan over all of life's besetting and bewildering circumstances. Much complaining will be heard about external factors affecting the believer, and nary a reference to how God figures in these circumstances.
As we listen, and really listen to this 'fellowship', one gets the distinct sense that this 'believer' really has not experienced, or is experiencing the living reality of the Risen Christ, dwelling in their hearts by faith.
And why should it not be this way? After all, much circumstances surround the nascent days of the believer. Indeed, the believer became a believer believing that Christ was going to take away all of their problems in life. Life was going to be a bed of roses, so the preacher preached. Jesus was here to give us peace, in the midst of testing and trials. And Jesus is here to give us our hearts' desires. All one needed to do was to 'accept Christ' into your heart. You just had to do only that. The decision is in your hands, and the choice is all yours.
And of course, since it was your decision, and the choice is all yours, then, it stood to reason that the way you continue on in the 'Christian life', was to do more decisions, and choices, by the sheer strength of your will.
During the height of the Reformation in Europe in the early 16th century, Martin Luther was fighting tooth and nail for God's sovereign grace in making a person righteous. He had re-discovered the glorious gospel of Christ's righteousness being imputed to fallen mankind through the sheer grace of the LORD Jesus Christ. It was all of grace, so that it would be all of grace, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the gift given by the Father as prayed by the Son.
Proud humans would have nothing to do with a religion or faith which did not have to depend on the human will. And at that time, the great Renaissance thinker and philosopher, Desiderius Erasmus (1466 - 1536), had already made a name for himself in pushing for reforms, even in the Roman Catholic church. Erasmus and Luther had grudging liking for each other until Erasmus refuted Luther's 'justification by grace only' teaching, with his book, De libero arbitrio (On the Freedom of the Will) (Read more: http://www.notablebiographies.com/Du-Fi/Erasmus-Desiderius.html#ixzz3HPhEZV6i)
In response, Luther put to pen one of his best works (even in his own estimate!), as a response, 'De Servo Arbitero' (On the Bondage of the Will).
Here is a choice quotation from that book (translated version), "Sect. IX. — THIS, therefore, is also essentially necessary and wholesome for Christians to know: That God foreknows nothing by contingency, but that He foresees, purposes, and does all things according to His immutable, eternal, and infallible will. By this thunderbolt, “Freewill” is thrown prostrate, and utterly dashed to pieces. Those, therefore, who would assert “Free-will,” must either deny this thunderbolt, or pretend not to see it, or push it from them." (pg 36, electronic version).
Many believers put Gal 2:20, where Paul exclaims that he is 'crucified with Christ' into a realm of spirituality which we can never ascribe to in this lifetime of ours. Yet, when our will is utterly and totally submitted to Christ, this is a living reality.
But how does a believer arrive at this place of 100% utter and total surrender of the will to Christ's Lordship? The answer is in meditating upon the glorious gospel of Christ, and its chief doctrine of justification by faith in union with Christ alone, through grace alone.
Many people jump the gun when justification in union with Christ alone is preached. They jump the gun and do not wait for the preacher/teacher to reach the part where Christ's work of justification, and the union of His Person with the sinner then makes of that sinner, a new creation (2 Cor 5:17). Now, in that new creation, life is lived by the faith of the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us (Gal 2:20). Here's where the grace of God, mediated by the Holy Spirit dwelling in and with us, gives us the power and might to work for God, and His glory alone. God does not give grace for man to work out man's glory!
This truth is so strange to evangelicals ears today. Having been brought up on semi-Pelagian half-truths, they finally cannot see how God is God and supremely sovereign in His grace to choose, predestine, elect, call, justify, sanctify and then to glorify the lost sheep. They cannot accept what Paul says clearly in Eph 2 and Colossians 2 that we are 'dead' in our sin and trespasses. Dead people cannot 'decide for Christ'! Dead people cannot 'accept Christ'! They must first be quickened or born again through the Word (water), and the Spirit, from above, to be 'in the Spirit'.
I am convinced that we shall see a gospel-initiated and gospel-sustained revival of Acts proportions once pastors and preachers preach this gospel, the faith once delivered unto the fathers, as Jude puts it. A gospel with Christ at its center; a gospel which is not diluted of difficult doctrines like predestination, election, God's sovereign grace, and man's responsibility, uncounfounded, and un-confused.
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