Seeker Friendly Church?

The idea of a "seeker-friendly" church is an oxymoron. It is a misunderstanding of what church is about and denies the biblical doctrine of mankind's fallen state. Scripture teaches that prior to conversion we are dead in our trespasses and sins and that apart from grace men do not seek after God.

"As it is written: 'None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God,'" Rom. 3:10-11.

"And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil," John 3:19.

To design a worship service based on unbelievers is 180 degrees opposite of the biblical model. Worship is for God not men. And church is primarily for believers, not unbelievers. The problem is, our culture's consumer-driven; entertainment mentality has crept into the church. Instead of a holy place of reverence, churches have become a multimedia experience replete with lights, smoke, a rock band, video presentations, and motivational speaking. Instead of going to church to celebrate the union we have with Christ through His blood, which has brought us into the family of God; to hear the exposition of Scripture, partake of the sacraments, and use the gifts God has given us in service to the body, we go to be entertained. And if we don't like the presentation; if it doesn't suit our tastes, we find another church. This is not what church is about. Don't mistake entertainment and the hip charisma of celebrity "pastors," for true worship.

The gathering of believers on the Lord's Day is to offer worship that is pleasing to God, to have genuine fellowship with other believers, and hear the Word faithfully preached, so that we may be conformed to the image of Christ, and be equipped to go out and share the gospel.

God is holy and worthy of untold honor. Therefore, our worship services should be centered on Him, not unbelievers. We should ask ourselves; does our church radiate the holiness and glory of God? Are the pastors and leaders pointing to His glory or their own? Is sound doctrine being taught so that members are built up in the faith and able to share it? Is the service designed to cater to shallow, consumer-driven Christians and so-called seekers, or focused on the unfathomable majesty of Jesus?

Those Who Believe

Much of the debate between monergists and synergists (Reformed and non-Reformed) revolves around the subject of belief. Who believes, how they believe, and why? I dealt with this in part in my last post so hopefully I won't repeat myself here. I by no means think I have plumbed the depths of this topic and there are certainly many theologians who have done great work on the subject. I write these posts not only to help others, but mostly to help myself try to articulate what I think the Scriptures are teaching. Here I want to focus on certain misconceptions with regard to the nature of belief, free will, and saving faith.

John 3:16

John 3:16 is a beautiful passage of Scripture. It tells us that God loves the world and sent Jesus into the world to save sinners. But what I find interesting is how synergists think this is a proof text that somehow destroys Reformed theology, as if no Reformed theologians were aware of it, or as if this text has never been treated by them. We are not ignorant of the text, for it comports well with Reformed theology and offers no difficulty whatsoever. I think part of the misunderstanding people have is that, 1) it is assumed the word "world" must mean everyone, and 2) that everyone has the innate ability to believe.

John 3:16 tells us that whoever believes in Jesus receives eternal life. Of course, what could be more plain than that? What it doesn't tell us; however, is why or how someone believes. This passage says nothing about whether or not someone has the ability to believe. So the question concerning who can believe and how they do so, must be found elsewhere. Many are under the impression that just because the Bible commands us to do something, that implicit in the command is the ability to do it. This is simply not true and I will show why.

There are many things in Scripture that we are commanded to do, yet that doesn't necessarily mean we have the ability to do them. We are commanded to keep the law, but which one of us is able to keep it? We are commanded to love the Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Do we do that perfectly? What about sin in general? Scripture clearly commands us not to sin, but does that mean we have the ability to stop sinning? In Matthew 5:48, Jesus says we must be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. Yet we all know that perfection is something we will never attain, so this idea that implicit in the command or exhortation is the ability to carry it out, is false.

Commands, exhortations, warnings, etc., in the Bible are simply telling us what we ought to do, not necessarily what we are able to do. If we, in our own power, have the ability to obey God perfectly, why is grace necessary? And if some retort, why does God bother commanding us to do things we can't do? The answer is easy; because it shows us our dependence upon His grace.

God loves the world. He providentially oversees and takes care of the world. He makes His rain to fall on the just and the unjust. He sent His Son to seek and save those who are lost. But sometimes the word "world" should be taken in a limited sense. Now many people immediately object to this, but even they themselves take the word world in a limited sense whether they realize it or not. Let me give some examples of this. In John 12:19, the Pharisees, talking about Jesus, said to one another, "You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him." This obviously doesn't mean the entire world followed Jesus, in fact, many did not believe in Him including the Pharisees themselves. Luke 2:1 says, "In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered." Does this mean every single inhabitant of the earth came to be registered? What about Romans 1:8, which says, "First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world." Is Paul here referring to Australia, or Alaska, obviously not? So those who say world means world, are simply mistaken.

John 3:17 says, "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him." So is this passage teaching that everyone will ultimately be saved? Are we Universalists? Verse 18 goes on to say, "…whoever does not believe is condemned already…" So salvation is limited only to those who believe.

Now the next relevant question is: what was God's intention in sending Jesus into the world? Many deduce from John 3:16 that it is God's intention to save every single person. And if you read this passage apart from the rest of the Bible it does seem to convey that. However, we must take the whole counsel of God into consideration and not isolate individual passages. We have already seen that God sent Jesus into the world to save it, yet not everyone is saved. Only those who believe receive eternal life. So if God's intention was to save everyone, are we to conclude that He has failed because not everyone is saved? In fact many are lost. Something else to consider is the fact that to say God loves the world, or Jesus is the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world, (John 1:29) was a foreign concept to Jewish ears. To a Jew in John's day, this was an extraordinary statement. They were under the impression that salvation belonged only to the Jews. They were after all, God's chosen people, but as we see in Romans 9:6-8, not all who are descended from Israel are Israel, but only the children of the promise. So the message that the rest of the world could receive salvation was a revolutionary concept to them. Therefore, we must understand the world to mean all people without distinction, not all people without exception (Rev. 5:9). If not, then you end up with the horrible notion that is God trying to save everyone but is constantly being frustrated. If God's eternal plan of salvation can be thwarted by man's free will, then man is sovereign, not God.

Free Will

I do not intend that this should be an extensive discussion on the subject of free will. If you want that read Jonathan Edwards.

Suffice it to say, I believe “free will” is a philosophical presupposition imposed on Scripture, not derived from Scripture. However, this term means different things to different people, so when discussing free will it’s helpful to explain what we mean. Of course we have the ability to make choices. We do this every day. We can choose Coke or Pepsi, Ford or Chevy, Windows or Mac. But with regard to spiritual things and salvation, unregenerate sinners do not freely choose the things of God apart from grace. Why? Because they have no desire to. You cannot choose something you have no desire for. Prior to conversion we are dead in our trespasses and sins, Eph. 2:1-3. Spiritually dead people do not choose Christ. They’re dead. This doesn’t mean that they don’t have the freedom to make choices; it just means that they only choose evil (Gen. 6:5). Jesus said he who commits sin is the slave of sin (John 8:34). So if we don’t have the ability to stop sinning, how can it be said that we are truly free? If you are bound by sin, then you are not free.

Further, God's infallible foreknowledge makes all future events necessary. In other words, they cannot not be. Whatever choices or events take place; they must take place as God has decreed they will otherwise His knowledge is falsified, in which case He is not omniscient. In fact, He would no longer be God. If you believe the biblical teaching concerning the nature of God, you simply cannot avoid this.

Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:3, “unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Yet the synergist would have us believe that the natural person is not only able to see the kingdom, but choose it prior to regeneration. I have yet to hear a cogent, biblical argument that explains how an unbeliever can produce saving faith. No, Jesus said you can’t even see the kingdom; much less enter it, unless you are born again. Something must take place before a sinner can choose Christ. They have to be regenerated, quickened, made alive by the power of the Spirit. Paul in Romans 8:7-8 says:

“For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

Notice the word "cannot" in this passage. That's right; those who are in the flesh cannot submit to God's law or please Him. Is repentance and faith pleasing to God? You better believe it. But Paul says those who are in the flesh can’t do it. This is why grace is necessary. Without the grace of God, which is effectual grace, our will is hostile toward God. We see the same thing taught in 1 Corinthians 2:14:

"The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned."

Notice the words, "not able to." The natural person as opposed to the spiritual (born again) person is unable to even understand the things of God. This is why the Reformed maxim states: regeneration precedes faith. Faith must be the result of the new birth, not the other way around.

Saving Faith

Belief is not enough. Even the demons believe and tremble, (Matt. 8:29, James 2:19) yet they are not saved. If you ask a secular historian whether or not they believe in Jesus, they will most likely affirm that Jesus was a real historical figure, but not the Son of God who rose from the dead. When Paul told the Philippian jailer to be believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, he was talking about a different kind of belief. We call this saving faith. So what is saving faith? Saving faith is not only mental ascent to the truth of the gospel, but also repentance from sin, and trust in Jesus alone for salvation. So where does this faith come from? We would argue that saving faith is not something conjured up by unbelievers, but the gift of God. Let's look at a few passages of Scripture.

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God," Eph. 2:8

This is a very familiar passage. It is both clear and glorious, so I'm not going to debate the gender of the Greek words here as many do. I think the clarity of the passage is unmistakable. Salvation is the gift of God. We didn't do it. We contributed nothing. Grace, faith, the whole package if you will, is a gift.

"But to all who did receive him, who believed in His name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God," John 1:12-13.

This passage destroys the idea of free will. How are we born again? It's not by blood (natural descent). It's not by the will of the flesh, and it's not by the will of man, but of God. I don't see how it gets any clearer than that. This should be the end of the discussion right here!

"For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in Him but also suffer for His sake," Phil. 1:29.

Here we see that belief is something that is granted. And not only belief, but suffering. This passage is rich and would require too much time to delve into. However, if belief is something we do by the power of our own free will, why does this passage say belief is granted for the sake of Christ?

"When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, 'Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life,'” Acts 11:18.

Here again, God grants repentance. Many other texts could be cited, such as Jeremiah 24:7, Ezekiel 36:26, John 6:65, John10:26-29, and Acts 13:48.

Now some will still object to this and ask, "But doesn't God want us to come willingly?" Of course! But we never will until He first opens our eyes; until He changes our heart. That's the whole point. When the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit breaks through the darkness of Satan's prison house where we were helplessly chained to our own sin; shining the light of Christ's forgiveness, and delivering us from our bondage, oh yes, we come to Christ most willingly!

So we conclude: free will isn't actually free at all, repentance is granted to us, and saving faith is the gift of God. From first to last salvation is by the grace of God alone.