There Was a Time, Long, Long Ago.....

[Arial]

This thread could be subtitled, "How Did We Get Here?"

It is dealing with a division, often hostile, between two portions of the body of Christ over the freedom of God's will vs the freedom of man's will in salvation. By numbers the first is small, but growing the last two plus decades, compared to the second.

It is not a new debate by any means, but it was only in the 19th century that the theology known as Arminianism nearly wiped out the other side, Calvinism/Reformed theology. It was in fact declared "dead" by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes on Nov 1, 1855. This was in large part due to a man named Charles Finney who rebelled against his Calvinist roots and was far more Pelagian than Arminianist. That is to say, that he denied the doctrine of original sin and total depravity. To put it simply, he believed that man was basically good and could improve himself. That a child only sinned because of temptations, and the way of salvation was to remove the temptations. In Finney's theology as was the case with Pelagius, there was no need of grace for salvation at all. It is Finney who introduced the altar call and the face of Christianity in our churches was forever changed.

This debate raged between Augustine and Pelagius, and the Pelagians introduced a new improved doctrine known as semi-Pelagianism. To be honest, a great deal of Christians today are actually semi-Pelagian in their view of the way of salvation without even knowing it. In this view, original sin was acknowledged, therefore the grace of God was necessary. It taught however that this grace was freely distributed to all but the will of man, by freedom of choice to accept or reject this grace was the determining factor in the effectualness of such grace. Both views were deemed heresy.

The debate arose again between Luther and Erasmus, then Calvin and Arminius, then Whitefield and Wesley. Then Finney took over with his own view of revivalism, in effect a counterfeit of the genuine Great Awakening with Johnathan Edwards. He claimed God was not necessary for the conversion of souls but it could be achieved by means. We see this same thing rampant in the church today, and the means is emotional manipulation, just as it has always been. Make no mistake, I am not saying that altar calls are in and of themselves a bad thing. God can and does use them to call his people to Christ. The problem is that people are called by the gospel and to believe the gospel, and not only my experience but that of many others, no gospel is given before the altar call. No theological teaching on the position man by nature stands in before a holy God, and no doctrinal teaching on the person and work of Christ.

So that is how we got here. I will continue in Part 2 on what conversion was like and how it came to a person, long, long, ago.

 

[Arial]

Part 2 of There Was a Time, Long, Long ago

In the days during and following the Reformation, until the deep and widespread corruption of Finney, preachers preached differently. There were other factors involved in this change, other than Finney. But all were products of cultural changes that also led to a rethinking of traditional Christianity, and really was a cunning and overt, yet subtle, attack on Christ's church. Men being used as instruments for the spiritual forces that rage against Christ, and having failed to destroy him, rage against his church, with carefully disguised deception.

The preachers of that day long ago, were systematic in their preaching and teaching. That is, it was a theology based of an orderly, rational, and coherent account of the doctrines of the Christian faith. It consists of many "ologies" (pneumatology, Christology, soteriology, ecclesiology, missiology, eschatology, and others.) But it begins and carries through in a consistent manner, theology. Who does God reveal Himself to be in his word. This of course is closely intertwined with Christology.

They dealt with the whole of the Bible to arrive at the doctrines, and they preached it exegetically, and expositionally. They came to the meaning of texts through this method and then and only then, presented applications. During the Reformation, including the Scottish reformation that came slightly later, confessions of these doctrines were established, and even the little children were taught them, in an age appropriate manner, though they were not dumbed down so as to lose all substantative material as we see so often in our Sunday Schools today. There were confirmations pertaining to membership in the church in which they were "tested" as to their knowledge and understanding, but there were no altar calls (invitations).

One striking difference between then and now, is that attending church was part and parcel of communities. From childhood on, the people were immersed in this type of teaching and preaching. It was normal. The people, even the children, heard the gospel. And they either believed it or they didn't believe it.

We see in the Gospels, Acts, and the Epistles, the words "believe" connected to the person and work of Christ, and believing as the way to eternal life. We see the command to repent given. Somehow, thanks to Finney and many, many after to this very day, something was inserted into all those statements of believing and repenting that is nowhere found in them. And that is the word "choose". Before this corruption and the wide scale loss of doctrinal teachings, doctrine itself having become a thing to be avoided as unnecessary and even dangerous, congregants weren't taught that word was there, and they never thought to put it there or decide it was implied, having been firmly established in who God is and who mankind was in relation to him. God was the center of their religion and Christ was the cornerstone and capstone of all. God was the creator and owner and governor over all his creation. It was, long, long, ago, always God's will being done, even in salvation and those he saves. It was a glorious, glorious thing that He would stoop down to treasonous humanity and send his Christ, and Christ would come and suffer and die in the place of a sinner, to take upon himself their just punishment, and that Jesus would willingly lay down his life on their behalf. They didn't worry about choosing or not choosing. Their cry was, "I believe, I believe!" And if any did not believe, they didn't worry about it either. They simply considered the whole thing foolishness.

 

[makesends]

This thread could be subtitled, "How Did We Get Here?"

It is dealing with a division, often hostile, between two portions of the body of Christ over the freedom of God's will vs the freedom of man's will in salvation. By numbers the first is small, but growing the last two plus decades, compared to the second.

It is not a new debate by any means, but it was only in the 19th century that the theology known as Arminianism nearly wiped out the other side, Calvinism/Reformed theology. It was in fact declared "dead" by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes on Nov 1, 1855. This was in large part due to a man named Charles Finney who rebelled against his Calvinist roots and was far more Pelagian than Arminianist. That is to say, that he denied the doctrine of original sin and total depravity. To put it simply, he believed that man was basically good and could improve himself. That a child only sinned because of temptations, and the way of salvation was to remove the temptations. In Finney's theology as was the case with Pelagius, there was no need of grace for salvation at all. It is Finney who introduced the altar call and the face of Christianity in our churches was forever changed.

This debate raged between Augustine and Pelagius, and the Pelagians introduced a new improved doctrine known as semi-Pelagianism. To be honest, a great deal of Christians today are actually semi-Pelagian in their view of the way of salvation without even knowing it. In this view, original sin was acknowledged, therefore the grace of God was necessary. It taught however that this grace was freely distributed to all but the will of man, by freedom of choice to accept or reject this grace was the determining factor in the effectualness of such grace. Both views were deemed heresy.

The debate arose again between Luther and Erasmus, then Calvin and Arminius, then Whitefield and Wesley. Then Finney took over with his own view of revivalism, in effect a counterfeit of the genuine Great Awakening with Johnathan Edwards. He claimed God was not necessary for the conversion of souls but it could be achieved by means. We see this same thing rampant in the church today, and the means is emotional manipulation, just as it has always been. Make no mistake, I am not saying that altar calls are in and of themselves a bad thing. God can and does use them to call his people to Christ. The problem is that people are called by the gospel and to believe the gospel, and not only my experience but that of many others, no gospel is given before the altar call. No theological teaching on the position man by nature stands in before a holy God, and no doctrinal teaching on the person and work of Christ.

So that is how we got here. I will continue in Part 2 on what conversion was like and how it came to a person, long, long, ago.

My emphasis, above in your next to last paragraph.

The following two I mention, because I can hear the cat-calls already, from those that insist on Self-determinism:
1. I don't think you are saying that the gospel never is given before the altar call.
2. I don't think you are saying that if the gospel IS given then the altar call is bogus.

Oh, and a third.
3. To be fair, I have been to services where the altar call is not specifically for those who wish to be saved, but for those who wish to publicly re-commit their lives/hearts to the Lord. Those who never had 'received the Lord' are also invited, but there is no particular conflation of the two notions.

One thing that has long concerned me about this kind of thing, though, is the notion that the commitment —even public commitment— "good" though it is, and exhorted, charged, commanded and necessary, is not of itself worth anything but momentary temporal effects, unless God does it in you. This fact is why I have been trying to find a way to call even Sanctification a form of Monergism, where it is all the work of God, and not the cooperation of man, that makes Sanctification effective. "..it is God who works in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

 

[makesends]

Part 2 of There Was a Time, Long, Long ago

In the days during and following the Reformation, until the deep and widespread corruption of Finney, preachers preached differently. There were other factors involved in this change, other than Finney. But all were products of cultural changes that also led to a rethinking of traditional Christianity, and really was a cunning and overt, yet subtle, attack on Christ's church. Men being used as instruments for the spiritual forces that rage against Christ, and having failed to destroy him, rage against his church, with carefully disguised deception.

The preachers of that day long ago, were systematic in their preaching and teaching. That is, it was a theology based of an orderly, rational, and coherent account of the doctrines of the Christian faith. It consists of many "ologies" (pneumatology, Christology, soteriology, ecclesiology, missiology, eschatology, and others.) But it begins and carries through in a consistent manner, theology. Who does God reveal Himself to be in his word. This of course is closely intertwined with Christology.

They dealt with the whole of the Bible to arrive at the doctrines, and they preached it exegetically, and expositionally. They came to the meaning of texts through this method and then and only then, presented applications. During the Reformation, including the Scottish reformation that came slightly later, confessions of these doctrines were established, and even the little children were taught them, in an age appropriate manner, though they were not dumbed down so as to lose all substantative material as we see so often in our Sunday Schools today. There were confirmations pertaining to membership in the church in which they were "tested" as to their knowledge and understanding, but there were no altar calls (invitations).

One striking difference between then and now, is that attending church was part and parcel of communities. From childhood on, the people were immersed in this type of teaching and preaching. It was normal. The people, even the children, heard the gospel. And they either believed it or they didn't believe it.

We see in the Gospels, Acts, and the Epistles, the words "believe" connected to the person and work of Christ, and believing as the way to eternal life. We see the command to repent given. Somehow, thanks to Finney and many, many after to this very day, something was inserted into all those statements of believing and repenting that is nowhere found in them. And that is the word "choose". Before this corruption and the wide scale loss of doctrinal teachings, doctrine itself having become a thing to be avoided as unnecessary and even dangerous, congregants weren't taught that word was there, and they never thought to put it there or decide it was implied, having been firmly established in who God is and who mankind was in relation to him. God was the center of their religion and Christ was the cornerstone and capstone of all. God was the creator and owner and governor over all his creation. It was, long, long, ago, always God's will being done, even in salvation and those he saves. It was a glorious, glorious thing that He would stoop down to treasoness humanity and send his Christ, and Christ would come and suffer and die in the place of a sinner, to take upon himself their just punishment, and that Jesus would willingly lay down his life on their behalf. They didn't worry about choosing or not choosing. Their cry was, "I believe, I believe!" And if any did not believe, they didn't worry about it either. They simply considered the whole thing foolishness.

Very good skeletal representation of how we got to this place in the history of Christianity. Quite a lot of meat on it, too, in spite of its necessary brevity.

 

[Alive]

This fact is why I have been trying to find a way to call even Sanctification a form of Monergism, where it is all the work of God, and not the cooperation of man, that makes Sanctification effective. "..it is God who works in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

So this is one of those things that is a core to my understanding of the life of a Christian. And I go into it, briefly in 'Salvation is Relocation' using a couple analogies--an uprooted tree turned upside down and the Land.
Yes--He does it all. Essentially and experientially, we just agree and even being able to agree is His Grace.
Simple---the Lord touches something in us that is not of Christ and in His time we can answer, "yes Lord". When we do that He reigns there increasingly more and another piece of the 'Land' is cleared of enemies and His Kingdom is further established on earth---in us.
This is sanctification. More and more as He works in us, we are 'set apart' for and in Him.
Although Paul tells us that from God's point of view---
Rom. 8:30 (NAS20S) and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.
He is at work in us all as individual members of His Body for His Glory and a Witness to all created beings.
It can be said, that we are in this sense 'co-workers' with Him, but it is all His Grace. Otherwise, we enter into the principle of 'Law'.
"You can do no thing without me."

 

[makesends]

Yes--He does it all. Essentially and experientially, we just agree and even being able to agree is His Grace.

THERE! Exactly! "He even lets us watch him do what he does!"

 

[Arial]

The following two I mention, because I can hear the cat-calls already, from those that :
1. I don't think you are saying that the gospel never is given before the altar call.
2. I don't think you are saying that if the gospel IS given then the altar call is bogus.

That is right. I am not saying either of those things and don't believe I did.

 

[Arial]

This fact is why I have been trying to find a way to call even Sanctification a form of Monergism, where it is all the work of God, and not the cooperation of man, that makes Sanctification effective. "..it is God who works in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

Sanctification is monergistic. We respond to the work God is doing in us.