SolaFire

I have heard many a well-meaning teacher or preacher state unequivocally that there is no such thing as “free will” or that “free will” is an illusion.

I think that, besides being untrue, simply treating “free will” as if it does not exist cuts us off from understanding why some people are so mixed up about salvation. In addition, denying free will puts us in the position of minimizing both the work of Christ and truths in the Scripture.

OK, before some of you reading this pop a blood vessel in your head, I should state that when I say “We have free will,” I do not mean that every human being has the same degree of free will. In fact, Scripture is quite clear that every human being is born in slavery to sin. However, every Christian has been set free by Christ. (John 6:34-35,  Romans 6:17-22, Romans 8:15, Gal 4:22-30, Gal. 5:1, Titus 3:3-5).

That freedom that we have in Christ must not be denied. It is not freedom we were born with or freedom we have won on our own. It was freedom Jesus Christ bought for us in His blood. It is what enables us to freely come to Him.

We are warned not to use this freedom as a cover-up for evil (2 Peter 2:16-19, Galatians 5:13). Rather, we are to pursue the Law of Liberty, which entails the blessings of free submission to and obedience to God’s word (James 1:25, James 2:12).

But, it is the granting of this freedom that enables us to come to Christ in the first place (Luke 4:18-19, Titus 3:3-5, 2 Cor. 3:17, Romans 8:2). I believe that understanding this is the key to understanding why some folks don’t understand free will (and how exceptional of a gift it is). When I, as a believer, look at my experience, I see a person who was free to embrace Christ. In truth, I was freed by Christ to embrace Him. It is this latter part concept that a person might not understand until he  looks into the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit shows him how much God has done.

Now, since I was free to embrace Christ, and had the “free will” to do so, I might assume that everyone has that same freedom. This is clearly not the case, and is error, but it is to some extent understandable. It is common for all of us to assume that everyone else is like us. If we were free to follow Christ (because we were set free by the Son–John 8:36) we just naturally assume that everyone is free to follow Christ. THAT is the error.

In correcting that error, I fear we argue passed the point. We sound like people who try to argue that the earth is round by denying that it looks flat to those who think it is flat. We won’t get far by denying that the world looks flat to one who is on it. Rather, we have to point out that, yes, it looks flat from your perspective, but your perspective is not the only one. The world is a lot bigger than your perspective would take it to be, and if you saw it from a different perspective, you  would see the truth that it is round.

By the same token, we will not gain much by arguing that a person’s experience of salvation is not their experience. Rather, we have to point out that , yes, since you are a saved person who was set free to believe in Christ, from your perspective, you freely chose to follow Christ. However, in a bigger sense, Scripture clearly shows that you were set free and then came to Christ. “No one is forced to come to Christ.” “Those who come to Him do so of their free will.”  These statements are true as long as we understand that such a free will comes from the one who sets us free to believe in Him.

Scripture says that every person is born a slave to sin and cannot free himself. Rather, he can only be set free by the Son.

We should not deny the freedom that Christ grants, because to do so diminishes Him, and separates us from a glorious empowering truth.

We ARE free!

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Quick-
Why did Jesus come to earth?
Our immediate answer is usually something like, “to seek and to save the lost,” and that is certainly true.

However, why did Jesus call twelve men to Himself and spend three years training them if the ONLY thing He came to do was die for sinners? Clearly, if that was the only thing He came to do, He wasted a lot of time with the insignificant and frustrating task of training and correcting twelve guys (with them, several others) who seemed pretty dense much of the time. Was this just a hobby for the Lord?

No. Jesus plainly intended to do more than just die for sinners. He even intended to do more than just bring people to saving faith in the message of redemption at the cross.
His intention was to MAKE DISCIPLES.

Many of us have overlooked that.

When Jesus tells His disciples in Matthew 28 to make disciples, we think He is telling them (and us) only to “make converts,” or “give out the gospel of salvation.” However, that is not what He told them to do. He tells His disciples to make disciples, “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” All the things that the Lord taught the eleven men who heard that commission took Him three (or perhaps four) years of intense teaching and example, while He lived with them almost twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. Therefore the things Jesus intended His disciples to teach other disciples include much more than simply the message to “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.”

In John’s gospel, chapter 17, Jesus prays the “High Priestly prayer” in the presence of the eleven faithful disciples. In it, He clearly says that He has done the work that His Father gave Him to do. Jesus says that He has done this work already. Yet, He has not yet gone to the cross to die for sinners. Clearly, Jesus was given something to do that went beyond the precious and glorious atonement. Christ’s death for sinners is what we, in our need, focus upon. However the atonement was not the only thing that Christ, in His obedience to the Father, focused upon. Rather, Christ was satisfied that He had accomplished the work of glorifying the Father on earth, and manifesting the Father to the people whom the Father gave Him out of the world. (John 17:4-6). Jesus could say that His work was done because He had made sure that His disciples knew that everything Jesus taught was from God, and that His disciples believed that Jesus was from God (John 17:6-8). Bringing His disciples to the point of faith in Him and maturity in that faith was the work that the Father had given to Christ and that He had done, even before going to the cross. (John 17:4)

After the resurrection, Jesus reminded His disciples of the importance of the growth and maturity of those who were to be His disciples when He told Peter to feed His sheep in John 21 (verses 15-19). Jesus was not just interested in Peter and the disciples calling the sheep or gathering the sheep, although that is certainly necessary if they are to be fed. Jesus was also concerned that the disciple who loves Him feeds Christ’s sheep, caring for them and seeing to their spiritual growth and needs in His physical absence.

Making disciples- men and women who understood all that Christ commanded -was Jesus’s work. It was the work that He passed on to those disciples in Matthew 28. It is the work that He passed on to all of us who are now His disciples by their work and word.

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When was the last time that you thought something was “awesome,” in the true sense of the word?

When was the last time you were awed by God?

The world thinks it strange when God awes His people, but it is supposed to be our reaction to Him. He is to be glorified in our awe for Him.

Awe is supposed to be our natural reaction when we are doing what churches normally do.
42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.
(Acts 2:42-43, ESV)

Notice, it was universal in the church, not just the experience of a few. It occurred when the church engaged in devoting themselves to the teaching of the apostles, to fellowship, to breaking bread (which may not be exclusively the Lord’s Supper, but certainly includes it) and to prayer.

The awe of the believers in those verses is not necessarily caused by the wonders and signs done by the apostles, but both come to the same church.

We might be tempted to excuse our lack of  awe for God by claiming that we no longer have apostles through whom signs and wonders are performed. However, God is still doing signs and wonders through His people, some of them as unbelievable and amazing as any unnamed signs we might imagine in Acts 2. When God changes an alcoholic’s heart to make him able and willing to quit drinking, or when God convicts an adulterer to change his ways and save his marriage, or when God stops a liar’s tongue from spewing lies, those are all powerful works of God. Yet, instead of glorifying God in all awe, God’s people yawn and ask for something more. We turn on the TV or going to the theater to watch artificial special effects change fictional characters’ unreal lives.

Awe is supposed to be our natural reaction when we contemplate God’s grace.

19 Then you will say, Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.
20 That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe.
(Romans 11:19-20, ESV)

Here, Paul gives one example of a meditation that should bring awe. as when we understand God chose to bring gentiles into His kingdom by grafting them into the people He had already called His own when He grafted them onto the children of Abraham.

Paul cautions that the correct response is not a pride that God has chosen us but awe in the God whose grace is so boundless that He would do such an amazing thing.

True awe is not compatible with pride, it kills pride.

Awe is supposed to be our natural attitude in worship.

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, or our God is a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12:28-29, ESV)

Again, awe is generated by our gratitude for God’s grace, but it is not merely produced with no effect. True awe accompanies and powers our worship of God. It is not just an emotional response, but it is an emotional response with an accompanying action.

We are encouraged to worship with awe directed towards the God whose wrath is fire, but whose grace is amazing.

Awe is not understood by our culture.

The word “awesome” has been so debased in its value by our current language that it means “good” or “cool.” Practically, it often means “better than mediocre.” The word “awe,” perhaps because of its association with the overused “awesome” is very infrequently used in any meaningful sense.

The word “awe” is phobos in Greek, and carries with it a sense of fear.

It may be a joyous fear. It is the joyous fear of contemplating the God who is so powerful that He changes men’s hearts. It is the fear of contemplating the God who is gracious to whom He is gracious and shows mercy to whom He will show mercy. It is the joyous fear of the God who gives a kingdom to sinners who deserve His wrath and the God who is a consuming fire.

We who are saved by God should consider whether we need to seek a fresh sense of the glorious, joyful, frightening, fearful  amazement that God’s work and God’s grace should produce in us.

If we reflect to the world the awe that God produces in us when we contemplate Him, we will seem odd to the world, who has no idea of what awe is.

But God will be glorified.

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We are pretty linear creatures. In particular, those of us who live in the 21st century think of priorities only as things that need to be done first. This is because we view life as a series of events, like installments in a soap opera or episodes of a TV show. Order in our lives means sequencing. Our priorities become the things at the top of our to-do list.

Like “make coffee.”

Everything else follows after that in time, so that is what makes it a priority over other things.

Like “go to work.” Or “pick up paycheck.” Or “deposit paycheck in bank.” Or “buy coffee for tomorrow.”

Because that is our perspective, we think of ourselves as following a sort of checklist. A successful life based on our priorities means getting our checklist completed. At some point, we think we can mark our “priority items” as “DONE.”

But that is self-deception and perhaps even self-defeating.

Viewing priorities as an ever-changing list of items that require our effort will mean we are always pursuing High-ranking ACTIVITIES that vary with our circumstances rather than high- ranking PRINCIPLES that do not.

It is better to think of priorities as having primacy in importance rather than as things that have primacy in time or sequence.

Priorities, particularly when they are established by God, are better thought of as things that need to be done CONSTANTLY. By adopting that view, we will establish the foundations on which all other activities are always built, regardless of circumstances. So, what might they be?

ALWAYS seek to do good to one another and to everyone (1 The. 5:15)

Let your speech ALWAYS be gracious (Col 4:6)

give thanks ALWAYS to God (Eph 5:20)

Rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS (Phil 4:4, 1 The. 5:16)

ALWAYS be sober-minded (2 Tim 4:5)

ALWAYS be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you (1 Peter 3:15)

Godly priorities are never “DONE,” rather they are always BEING DONE.

The ability to keep doing them is a gift from God, as His Holy Spirit produces its fruit in us of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22). There is no law limiting or restricting these. They are works of grace that are never finished.

They will not be marked “DONE” for His grace will never end.

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Human thinking makes God’s grace out to be a puny thing.

God’s gracious forgiveness seems worthless to each of us when we do not know Christ. “After all,” each of us reasons, “I am already a pretty good person. If God is at all perceptive, He should be yearning for the chance to jump down from Heaven to love and accept me, just as I am. Indeed, if God does not do so, the fault lies with God’s inability to perceive my obvious virtue, not my own lack of it.”

Then we are  shown the truth of out own sinfulness and lack of merit before God. We reluctantly admit to needing God’s forgiveness after all. We come to seeing this need as satisfied only in what God can do and what He will do entirely apart from our efforts or merit. At this point, our natural reaction is to futher diminish God’s grace in forgiveness. What comes freely, we tend to regard lightly.

Life is a gift to each of us. There is no person alive who did anything to earn his own birth or bring it about. No one decided to be born. Not a one of us created the circumstances of his own conception or convinced his mother to carry him to term. Life was a gift that cost each of us nothing. Yet, even the dullest of us would admit that life is precious.

God’s grace is likewise a gift that none of us can earn or bring about. We cannot take it; by definition it is given. We cannot create the circumstances for it to be bestowed, for indeed the Giver decides that. God declares “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” (Exodus 33:19, Romans 9:15). Even so, it is precious and beyond value.

Let us guard against any thought or inclination that takes grace for granted or esteems it as meager. Such concepts will intrude upon our understanding sooner or later, usually subtly and quietly. We must be vigilant in our thought and speech to always regard God’s grace as a spectacular and marvelous aspect of His character. It is clear that He does:

But God, being rich in mercy,  because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses,  made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved—   and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,  so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable  riches of his grace in  kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Eph. 2:4-7, ESV)

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Little children, keep yourselves from idols. (1 John 5:21, ESV)

God abhors idolatry. To worship anyone or anything other than the True God should be abhorant to us. Still, we are drawn to worshipping idols as moths are drawn to flame.Is this not our situation? We are gathered together at the foot of the mountain, waiting for our Deliverer to return. We have been told what to do, and how we are to wait. Then, finally, we hear something. It is a voice that speaks clearly and sounds certain. “Gather your gold and bring it to me.” This command is not from on high, but comes from an earth-bound source. Mass-media Aarons, whose intent is to please our vanities rather than God’s design, call out to us winsomely. They take our gold and fashion for us pretty gods – gods that promise us more gold, greater pleasure, better relationships, and beautiful bodies. These gods care about making us happy now, rich now, comfortable now. They are so much more approachable than the scary God who answers with thunder on the mountain. They are so much more permissive than the holy God who won’t even let us touch His mountain. We prefer to worship these made-up gods, because they are gods made in our image. They care about us and our glory, almost as much as we do.

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. (Colossians 3:5, ESV)

For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. (Ephesians 5:5, ESV)

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The electronic-super-highway-interweb world is subtle in its lures. On the internet, the whole purpose of having a website is to attract visitors who will buy your shoddy little goods or read your pathetic little thoughts. (This site, by the way, is completely free of the former, but is up to our metaphorical cheekbones with the latter.)

How do you get the shoddy goods buyers and pathetic thought readers to your electronic door?

Shameless self-promotion.

OK, content is also important. However, you can have the best content on the interweb and still not get the folks to come until you do the self-promotion. Google won’t help you, because Google works on the principle that your site is worth sending someone to if other web sites already have links going to your web site. You have to be known and liked by important people if you want other people to know and like you. It is all very much like high school. It’s also very much like THE WORLD.

Which brings me to why you see a link on our side-bar to Pyromaniacs. We like them. They are estute writers who always find interesting things to say in an insightful way. They have great graphics and do all sorts of satire as well as straight commentary. They have nice pictures to look at when you are tired of reading. We like pictures.

No doubt someday we would have linked to them when we got around to linking to other important sites that we like on the interweb. But we linked to them now because, on the interweb, they matter. A LOT. And, very generously, they are making a limited-time offer that they will link to us if we link to them. If we expect anyone but our best buddies to read anything on this site, we need to do that kind of self-promotion. At least for a while.

So why does it make us feel creepy? Because promoting ourselves is discouraged in Scripture. A LOT.

Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person, and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place.’ But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 14:7-11, ESV)

This site is all about God’s glory, not ours. Our desire is to bring others to understand His marvelous grace and unsurpassible mercy. Our goal is to provide a forum for those who wish to praise His Son and defend the truth of His wonderful Word.

To attract folks to read and contribute, we need to do more than just provide people something inspiring to read or an opportunity to write. We need to let people know we are here. I hope that we will not do so in a way that detracts from God’s glory. Even so, while we do things to promote the site, we might feel just a bit sick to our stomachs.

It is not good to eat much honey,
nor is it glorious to seek one’s own glory.
Prov. 25:27 (ESV)

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SolaFire is dedicated to to the praise of (God’s) glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. (Ephesians 1:6)

For now, everything is pretty rudimentary, so please be patient if the little tabs above don’t work, for example. We have relatives who are the same way.

Our focus will be Christ and His work of salvation as summarized in the Five Solas of the Reformation. Even if you don’t know what that means, please feel free to join in the discussion.

If you look over the right, you will see a place to register. After you register, you will be sent a password by e-mail. This takes a few minutes as the tiny electronic mail carriers drive their tiny electronic mailtrucks over the billions of miles to your house. After that, you can log in (in about the same place) and start living the dream.

By the way, you have to log in to post your own “article,” but don’t need to do so if you want to comment on someone else’s.

I fully expect that we may discuss serious topics but that we will not take ourselves too seriously. Even so, I pray that this site brings glory to the name of Christ.

Our intention is to be around for a while– either until Christ returns or until our three year lease is up, whichever comes first (of course, I personally hope it is the former, even though I prepaid and can’t get a refund).

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