Watchman Magazine

In Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians, he admonished them for their toleration of error in the church. An ungodly man was in their fellowship, and they were, “…puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you” (1 Corinthians 5:2). He admonished them, saying, “Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” (vs. 6). As a result of his admonition, it seems that the church repented of their sin in this, and withdrew fellowship from this man. Regarding this repentance, Paul wrote in his second letter, “For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it. For I perceive that the same epistle made you sorry, though only for a while. Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter” (2 Corinthians 7:8-11). Godly sorrow produces repentance, leading to salvation!

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In our study we have already established that man is saved by the grace of God. We have also shown that man has certain responsibilities that must be met in order to obtain that Redemption. Paul showed this in his letter to the Ephesians, chapter 2, verses 8-10, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Accepting that man must believe in order to be saved, we do not deny that we are saved by the grace of God. This is almost universally understood. If we accept men are saved by the grace of God, and yet not all are saved, we must accept that man plays a part in his own redemption. To believe otherwise would be to condemn the Almighty as a capricious God and a Respecter of persons. So, salvation is conditional. Jesus said, “He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16).

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In our previous article, The Extension of God’s Grace, we discussed the actions God took to secure man’s redemption. At the close of that article we noted that Redemption is not universal. There are some who will not gain an entrance into heaven. This is clearly revealed in many places in scripture. One example is Jesus’ statement to His disciples in Matthew 25. He said, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And he will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left…” (verses 31-33). The Lord stated in verse 46 that “…these (those on the left) will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

As already noted in our refutation of Calvinism, God is not capricious. He does not arbitrarily assign condemnation or reward at a whim. Concerning his eventual coming to earth, Peter said about the Lord, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). If God extended his Grace to all men, as indicated in this text as well as passages such as John 3:16, and not all men are going to taste heaven, it must be understood that salvation is conditional.

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“But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:21-26).

The Origin of the Scheme of RedemptionNothing is haphazard with God. He is sovereign in the universe, and the only Being capable of “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure..’” (Isaiah 46:10). Scripture clearly reveals that God understood before the world ever began the consequence of creating man in His own image. Paul stated that man’s redemption was secured by the foreknowledge and power of God before he ever walked the face of this earth. He wrote in Ephesians 1:4-6, “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.”God knew before he created man that such a creature would disappoint Him by rebelling against His divine will. This is the nature of free moral agency, which is the greatest gift God gave us in His design of humanity. All God created He pronounced “very good”, and this included man (cf. Genesis 1:31). Some today want to blame God for the evil that is present in our world. Such is wrong, as James clearly explained, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed” (James 1:12-14). Man himself is responsible for his sin, and for the resulting evil that is the consequence of such rebellion against the will of the Almighty.

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God’s plan for redeeming man runs like a scarlet thread throughout scripture. Beginning with the promises God made to man in the Genesis account, and man’s subsequent fall from God’s favor, until the closing of the New Testament canon, where the Apostle John recorded the beautiful invitation, “And the Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let him who hears say, ‘Come!’ And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:17), God’s scheme is the primary theme of scripture. It is both simple and sublime. God’s requirements for man, that he may be redeemed, can be understood even by children. At the same time, the enormity of His Son’s sacrifice and what it means for us dwarfs our comprehension. The following material in this month’s Watchman Magazine is intended to give an overview of that sublime plan. It is our intention to both document the great expression of God’s grace in sending His Son to die in our stead, and the divine requirements mandated by God that we might receive the benefits of such a gift. No study of Redemption is sufficient that does not explain both God’s part, and man’s part in securing that safety.

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The problems facing institutional churches are well chronicled. Some in the institutional churches have awakened to the need for strong and distinctive preaching in the face of “change agents” who have sought to destroy the divine hermeneutic, and replace it with a new “non-patternistic” one. Recently, while reading the April 1998 issue of The Spiritual Sword, I ran across a quote from Alan E. Highers in his editorial “What Is Happening in the Church?” It admits to what non-institutional preachers and writers have claimed for many years about our more liberal brethren. The quote came in the context of previous polemic struggles with the denominations.

“Unfortunately, just as the opposition had strengthened churches of Christ and had caused members to know what they believed and why, so the lack of opposition caused some to grow soft and indifferent. Without the opposition and frontal attacks, their interest in doctrinal preaching waned and so did their knowledge and understanding of the truth. As a result, doctrinal resolve weakened and many were left vulnerable to the influence of false teaching and error. We sowed the wind and today are reaping the whirlwind of thirty-five years of indistinct teaching among churches of Christ” (pg. 2, The Spiritual Sword, April 1998).

Of course, our viewpoint is somewhat different. In the 1940’s and 1950’s institutional issues threatened, and ultimately succeeded in dividing the people of God. The polemic struggle often was not with the denominations, but rather between brethren. As with the struggles with the denominations, truth had the upper hand. So, those who wished to retain their precious human institutions ceased debating (with few exceptions), and instead shifted their tactics to a more subtle attack upon non-institutional brethren. Instead of direct debate there were whispers shared about those “anti’s” and “orphan haters”; churches which were “dying on the vine.” The resultant inability and unwillingness to defend from the pattern of God’s word their man-made inventions led to the indistinct preaching mentioned above. The analogy of sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind is apropos. It is precisely because of such indistinct preaching that liberal churches are having to deal with the “change agents” and the so-called “new hermeneutic.”

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On different occasions, while talking with one of the Pentecostal or Assemblies of God persuasion, the subject of the Holy Spirit will be discussed. Since one of our disagreements lies in the area of the miraculous action of the Holy Spirit, when we deny that miracles occur today, the response is often a surprised, “Then you don’t believe that the Holy Spirit leads you today, do you?” His confusion is often compounded when my response is, “Of course I believe in being led by the Holy Spirit.” Brethren, that is not sophistry. We certainly should believe that we are led by the Holy Spirit of God in our lives.

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Introducción.
A. La mayoría de los autores de comentarios, diccionarios y léxicos bíblicos son calvinistas. Esto no quiere decir que acepten todo aspecto de la teología calvinista, pero básicamente sí son calvinistas. Estos libros contienen mucha información buena y útil. Como se puede notar en los comentarios míos saco mucho provecho de ellos, pero es necesario discernir entre lo bueno y lo malo (1 Tes. 5:21). Pero, p. ej., el Nuevo diccionario bíblico ilustrado por Vila-Escuain dice (p. 898), “El pecado original es un término teológico que puede ser usado para describir el hecho de que todos los seres humanos han heredado una naturaleza pecaminosa de Adán, que cayó en pecado por su transgresión”. También dice (p. 125), “El resultado de la caída es el estado de pecado en el que son concebidos y nacen todos los seres humanos, que reciben la herencia de una naturaleza malvada”.

B. Los cinco puntos cardinales del calvinismo son los siguientes: (1) la depravación total; (2) la elección incondicional; (3) la expiación limitada; (4) la gracia irresistible; y (5) la perseverancia de los santos. Habiendo aceptado el fundamento (que el hombre nace totalmente depravado de justicia), los otros cuatro puntos son necesarios para completar la teología. Si el hombre nace con pecado y ni siquiera puede querer creer en Dios, entonces obviamente Dios tiene que hacer todo por él. Por lo tanto, elige a los que serán salvos, Cristo muere solamente por ellos, el Espíritu Santo tiene que tocar sus corazones para que puedan creer y nacer otra vez, y para que no caiga de la gracia la justicia personal de Jesús le es contada. Pero hay mucha división entre los calvinistas. Hay gran variedad de creencias entre ellos y escriben tomos y tomos discutiendo sus desacuerdos sobre varios puntos. Sin embargo, lo que tienen en común es la creencia de que el hombre hereda una naturaleza corrupta.

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1 Corinthians 2:1, “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”

 

The apostle Paul supplies us with a very important fact in the above passage of scripture. Simply put, the message is what is important. With all of the glitz and glamour which surrounds our so called “information age”, this is a lesson that is often forgotten.

 

The television news program that gets the best ratings is not the one which supplies the best information, but rather that which packages itself best. Best looking anchorpersons, best graphics, most sensational promos. The politician who gets elected is not the candidate with the best policies and most integrity, but rather the most telegenic, who can speak in sound bytes, and who often is willing to lie in order to tell the people what they want to hear. Products are not purchased because of their quality, but rather because of the brand name, or the flashy commercials, or the celebrity endorsments.

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