709 East 57th Street; Loveland, CO 80538
Services: 9:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. June through August)
Vol. 7, No. 14 Pastor: Rev. Garry Eriks Phone: (970) 667-9481
Homepage on Internet: http://www.prca.org
Contents:
One Final Coming of Christ
Vexing the Spirit (1)
Who Hardens
Men's Hearts? (1)
There are those who believe in more than one personal and visible coming of the Lord Jesus Christ before the end of the world. Both Premillennialism and Dispensationalism teach multiple comings of Christ contrary to the clear testimony of Scripture (we will be explaining these views in more detail in other issues).
Premillennialism teaches a coming of Christ prior to the establishment of His millennial kingdom, that is, some thousand years before the end of the world" - thus the name "Premillennialism," - "before the thousand years." This coming is referred to as the "rapture." That premillennial coming is followed a thousand years later by another personal and visible coming of Christ for judgment and to create the new heavens and earth.
Dispensationalism not only believes in a rapture, but holds to a third personal and visible coming of Christ called the "revelation." This coming, according to them, is "with His saints" (I Thess. 3:13; Jude 14), and follows the rapture by several years.
We believe that Scripture teaches only ONE personal and visible coming of Christ after His incarnation and before the end of the world. The passages used to prove a premillennial rapture and a "revelation" do not speak of anything but the coming of Christ at the very end of the world, therefore.
Jude, 14, 15, a passage that speaks of a coming of Christ with his saints, in fact is speaking of the coming of Christ for judgment at the very end of the world. We read there that "the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all." That this judgment is the final judgment of all creatures is clear from the previous verses, for Jude in verses 6 and 7 speaks both of "the judgment of the great day" and of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire, a picture of the end of all things (cf. II Pet. 2:3-7).
I Thess. 3:13, the other passage that speaks of Christ coming with His saints, and I Thess. 4:15-18, the main Scripture reference to the rapture, are also very clearly speaking of the end of all things. The coming of the Lord described in these passages is accompanied by the sound of a trumpet, elsewhere referred to as the LAST trump (I Cor. 15:52). It is not followed by a thousand years of history and then a another trumpet summoning men to judgment and announcing the resurrection.
So too, I Thess. 3 and 4, in speaking of the coming of the Lord, makes it clear that this is followed by the eternal glory of the saints with Christ: "and so shall we ever be with the Lord" (4:18; cf. also Rev. 21: 3; 22:4). His coming in I Thess. 3, 4 is not followed by a thousand years of rule on earth and only then the eternal heavenly bliss of the saints.
Finally, there are a number of passages that link the "rapture" with the final judgment and not with events a thousand years prior to the final judgment. We refer especially to Luke 17:28-37 (note the references to Sodom and compare Jude, 7, which makes it clear that Sodom is a type of the final judgment, i.e., of "eternal fire") and Matthew 24:37-41 (compare II Pet. 3:3-7, which teaches that the flood is a picture of the final judgment). Only ONE coming, for judgment and for salvation! Rev. Ronald Hanko
"But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them." Isaiah 63:10.
The reader who sent in this passage from Holy Scripture did not append a specific question; I am not sure, therefore, what aspect of the text the reader wants discussed. There are two problems in the text it seems to me, and both problems are worth discussing here. But it would be better to discuss each problem in a separate article.
The two problems seem to me to be these. If the Holy Spirit's work is irresistible, how is it possible for Scripture to say that He is "vexed?" The word "vexed" seems to imply frustration, inability to accomplish what one intends. If an artist is trying to get the right color of the sky on his canvas, he is vexed when time and again he fails. If he succeeds in getting exactly what he wants, he is no longer vexed. It is exactly because of this problem that Arminians often appeal to this text and others like it to prove that the work of the Spirit can be resisted.
The second problem is more in connection with the context. If you will take the time to look up this passage in your Bible, you will discover that the context speaks of God's love and favor for His people. The prophet speaks of God's "lovingkind-nesses" which the Lord bestowed on His people and His "great goodness toward the house of Israel." It speaks of God's Word that Israel is His people and that He became their Savior. It mentions how the suffering of Israel was God's suffering, and of how God saved them by the "angel of his presence," because He loved them and had pity on them.
But now suddenly God has become their enemy and fights against them because they rebelled. How is this possible? Does God change in His attitude towards His people? one minute loving them and saving them? and the next minute fighting against them? How can this be?
I will wait with this second question till the next issue of the "News" and concentrate in this issue on the first question.
Other passages of Scripture express the same or similar ideas as this one. Psalm 78:40 speaks of Israel provoking God in the wilderness and grieving Him in the desert. Stephen, in his speech before the Sanhedrin, accusing the nation of Israel of resisting the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51). Paul admonishes the saints in Ephesus not to grieve the holy Spirit of God, whereby they are sealed unto the day of redemption (Eph. 4:30): and this same admonition is repeated to the church in Thessalonica in slightly different language in I Thess. 5:10.
Two remarks seem to me to be appropriate in understanding these passages. The first is that whatever sin we commit which prompts these graphic descriptions of the Holy Spirit's response, this in no way ought to be construed as an ability on our part to frustrate the work of the Spirit. We may grieve Him, provoke Him, resist Him; but He will do His work whatever that may be. The Holy Spirit will save the elect and will harden the reprobate. There can be no question about that.
This truth is even strongly suggested by some of the texts quoted above. The wicked nation of Israel was justly accused of resisting the Holy Spirit; but through such resistance the Spirit was accomplishing His purpose in hardening. (For proof of this see Paul's words in Rom. 9:11-13, and John's words in John 12:37-41.)
And, if those who resisted and provoked, were elect, the Holy Spirit overcame all their resistance and brought His people to God through His sovereign work. John also teaches this truth in John 6:37, 44, 45.
It is also proved in the salvation of the elect by Paul's expression in the passage from Eph. 4:30. It is true that it is possible for believers to grieve the Holy Spirit; but the fact remains that they are sealed to the day of redemption. That means that the elect are preserved everlastingly in their salvation.
The second remark that needs to be made is indeed that the Holy Spirit can be grieved and provoked. Being grieved and being provoked are emotions. But Scripture often speaks of many different emotions that characterize God. Scripture speaks of God's love, joy, anger, pity, etc. Sometimes the name anthropomorphism is given to such expressions. The term means literally "human form," and is used to indicate figures of speech in Scripture which ascribe human characteristics to God. Scripture speaks of God's right hand, God's eyes, God sleeping, etc. Emotions belong to such figures.
It is difficult to understand these things, for we think in terms of our emotions, which are human, involve human characteristics, and human changeableness. Nevertheless, Scripture uses these expressions so that we may have some understanding of God.
It is, however, important to understand that in God all these characteristics are the reality and our's are the figures. God's right hand is the real right hand; our's is the shadow. God's love is intensely perfect and divine; our love is only patterned after God's love. God's anger is perfect; our's is the type. Our human eyes are only created after the image of God's eyes and reflect God's eyes dimly.
God is surely angry with the sin of rebellion. But this must never be construed as meaning that the Holy Spirit of God does not always accomplish His sovereign purpose. No Arminian interpretation can possibly be dug out of this passage. Prof. H. Hanko
One of our readers asks: "Why does the minister exhort the congregation not to harden their hearts when in fact the work of redemption is solely one of God's election?"
It might indeed seem that if salvation is of grace alone according to God's purpose in election, that it is superfluous to tell people not to harden their hearts:
(1) Their hearts will always be hard, so that they cannot heed the command not toharden their hearts unless God sends them His grace. Why then exhort them?
(2) God sends His grace only to the elect, so why command and exhort all?
(3) The hearts of the elect will be irresistibly softened by the power of grace, so why exhort them not to harden their hearts?
It should be noted that hardening is both God's work and man's own work. Exodus teaches us that both God and Pharaoh himself hardened Pharaoh's heart, though Exodus also teaches us that God is first! (Ex. 3:19; 4:21; 7:3, 13; cf. also Jn. 12:40 and Rom. 9:18). Nevertheless, it is also true that a man, under the sovereign operations of God also hardens his own heart (Ex. 8:15, 32). For this reason, he is always responsible for his wickedness and cannot blame God. But that does not answer our question.
The question raises theage-old problem (Augustine dealt with it already in the early history of the church) of the relationship between sovereign grace, total depravity and the commands of the gospel. How can God require of man, what he is spiritually incapable of doing without denying that salvation is by grace alone? And, Why does God require it if he is incapable - totally unable to obey apart from grace?
Perhaps we should note the several wrong conclusions that men have drawn in answering these questions. Free-willism assumes that the command implies the ability to obey and denies man's total depravity. Hyper-calvinism assumes the same thing, and believing in man's depravity, refuses to command unregenerated sinnerswith such commands as these. Both are wrong, free-willism for its denial of man's depravity, and hyper-calvinism for its failure to preadch the demands of the gospel to all.
There are, in fact, several good reasons for the command-reasons that make it a necessary part of gospel preaching. For these reasons it is not only right but important that the minister does so exhort his congregation ad that the congregation hheed such commands when they are preached.
Before we look at those reasons (in the next issue) let us note that the command not to harden one's heart must be preached to both the ungodly and to the people of God Our correspondent is right when he speaks of the minister exhorting the congregation concerning this matter.
The command not to harden one's heart is found first in Psalm 95:8 where it is addressed to the church of the OT (Acts 7:38). It isquoted and applied to the NT church in Hebrews 3:8, 15, and 4:7. In both cases it is clear that it is addressed both to believers (Ps. 95:7; Heb. 3:12, 13) as well as unbelievers (Ps. 95:11; Heb. 4:6).
It is, however, only when we see that both in the case of the unbeliever and of the believer that there is good reason for such a command that we will as ministers be confident in warning people not to harden their hearts, and as members of the congregation pay attention to such commands. Those reasons we will look at in the next issue. Rev. Ronald Hanko