Posts Tagged ‘Harry Emerson Fosdick’

Defending the Gospel with Your Conversion: Sermon on Galatians 1:13-16

Posted: June 1, 2010 in Sermons
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GBC Sermon Audio – May 30 AM, 2010

In the 1920s and 30s, the Fundamentalists and the Modernists battled over the essentials of the gospel. Harry Emerson Fosdick, a liberal Baptist pastor, kicked off the controversy by preaching a sermon entitled, “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?”  Among the Fundamentalists who fought for the Gospel was T. T. Shields. In one of his sermons he warned, “In hell entire congregations will rise up and curse their liberal pastors who did not preach the gospel.”

Like Paul in Galatians, true ministers of the gospel have stood for the purity of the saving gospel of Jesus Christ. But the battle for the clarity of the Gospel is not over.

Chuck Colson led both Evangelicals and Roman Catholics to sign the Manhattan Declaration in November of 2009 to stand for the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious freedom. While all of these are worthy goals, pastors like John MacArthur refused to sign because the agreement compromised the Gospel. From the document are these statements: “We are Christians who have joined together across lines of ecclesial differences,” and “It is our duty to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” MacArthur’s valid point is this, true Evangelicals and Roman Catholics do not preach the same Gospel or the Reformation was needless.

Paul took an unpopular stand for the Gospel in Galatians, his Battle Epistle.

1. In chapters 1-2, Paul gives his personal response and defends his apostleship.

2. In chapters 3-4, Paul gives his doctrinal response and defends justification by faith alone in Christ alone.

3. In chapters 5-6, Paul gives his practical response and defends sanctification by faith.

In chapter one Paul begins by

A. Expounding the Gospel in (1:1-5)

B. Condemning the False Teachers in (1:6-9)

C. Clearing his Name in (1:10-12)

D. Sharing his Salvation Experience in (1:13-24)

1) Our Sinful Past (1:13-14)

a) In his pre-conversion days, Paul persecuted the Church of God in 1:13.

1. First in Jerusalem in Acts 8:1-3.

2. Then north to Damascus in Acts 9:1-2. Paul was bent on exterminating the gospel. Jesus prayed from the cross, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” The Jews were deceived in thinking Jesus was a blasphemers who should be condemned as Deuteronomy 13 taught. Saul thought he was doing God’s service. Paul was similar to Martin Luther before his salvation as a RCC priest and theologian hated the gospel preacher John Huss. “I counted it a sin even to think of him. I would gladly have furnished the wood to burn him. I would have felt I had done God a real service.”

b) In his pre-conversion days, Paul also promoted a religion of works for salvation in 1:14.

Here is a contrast between salvation by grace and salvation by works in 1:14.

1. The Jews’ Religion                                         2. Christianity

a. Opposes the gospel                                         a. Preaches the gospel

b. Persecutes believers                                      b. Wins the lost

c. Based on Tradition                                          c. Based on God’s Word

d. Works for salvation                                         d. Salvation by Grace

2) Our Supernatural Conversion (1:15-16)

a. We are saved because God chose us

1. Why did God choose us? God chose us because “it pleased Him.” “It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Cor 1:21). Nothing in us merited His choice.

2. When did God choose us? Before our birth and even before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4-5). Therefore we could not have merited God’s choice or salvation.

b. We are saved because God called us.

1. Acts gives the outward call, “Saul, Saul” in Acts 9. This is similar to God’s call of Samuel in 1 Samuel 3 “Samuel, Samuel.”

2. Although God does not call audibly today He calls just as authentically through the gospel (2 Thessalonians 2:14). When the Gospel is preached the Holy Spirit convinces us of the sin (John 16:8) and persuades us (John 6:44) “No man can come to me except, the Father who has sent me draw him.” God’s last call to the sinner will eventually come.

Conclusion: When D. L. Moody was at the height of his preaching ministry he held a great evangelistic campaign in Boston. There was a wife who was a Christian and her husband, a travelling salesman was not. She begged him to hear Moody preach. He said No! She did everything she could. He said No! She said, “Just hear him, just hear him.” He said No!

He was going the next day on a trip and would not be back in time to hear Moody preach. She begged and broke down and wept. She said she had no intention but she could not help it. “You are going to keep saying “No” “No” until God’s going to close the door and it will be to late,” and she went off to the meeting weeping. The husband was moved by her tears.

He called his friend and told him his wife went off weeping because he would not go to hear this guy Moody and he wanted to know if he would go with him. “Sure,” he friend said.

They both went. They got to the door and a big policemen put his back to the door and said, “Sorry gentlemen, your are too late.”

“But this is my last chance” said the husband.

“I am sorry you are too late” insisted the police officer.

“But my wife went off weeping because I had not come” pled the husband.

“I am sorry. We can’t get another person in this building. It is jammed pack. You are too late. The door is closed. Goodbye” declared the policeman.

The husband remembered what his wife had said. He practically ran all the way home. When he got home he ran to his bedroom fell on his knees and trusted Christ as his Savior. When his wife got home, a Christian husband opened the door.

Conclusion: When God calls the sinner should not hesitate. Just as God called Noah and his family into the ark and then shut the door (Genesis 7:1, 16) on Noah’s generation after he had preached 120 years, some day God will give His final call and then it will be too late.

Is Man a Dichotomy or Trichotomy or Quadchotomy or Sexchotomy? Part Two

Posted: March 28, 2009 in Man
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Here are the most commonly used verses used to support trichotomy.

1st Thessalonians 5:23 “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Instead of teaching that man has three parts, A. H. Strong in his Systematic Theology states that 1st Thess. 5:23 is “not a scientific enumeration of the constituent parts of human nature, but a comprehensive sketch of that nature in its chief relations like Mark 12:30. Based on Mark 12:30, no one would say man has a 4-fold division of human nature.”

Mark 12:30 quotes Jesus saying, “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” If so, they would be a quadchotomist, I quess. Or if you add the parts mentioned in Mk. 12:30 which are not mentioned in 1 Thess. 5:23 then you would be a sexchotomist. “The emphasis of the verse is on the completeness of sanctification” (Ryrie, p. 196).

“It is far better to understand Jesus as simply piling up roughly synonymous terms for emphasis to demonstrate that we must love God with all of our being” (Wayne Grudem).

1st Corinthians 15:44 “It is sown a natural (soulish) body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.”

Charles Hodges’ explanation of this verse is helpful. “The soul has lower animal appetites which characterize this life: Hunger, thirst, need of rest. The soul also has higher powers that animals do not possess: immortality and worship of God. In Heaven in our glorified body only the higher powers of the soul will be active.”

In heaven people are referred to as “souls” (Rev. 6:9) even though they are in their “spiritual body” or resurrected body as Paul says in 1st Cor. 15:44. In this reference spirit is bigger than the just immaterial part of a person, but includes also the physical body, howbeit, a glorified, physical body. Ryrie did say that the soul can refer to both the material and the immaterial, but here is an example where spirit can also refer to both the immaterial and the glorified material part of the resurrected believer.

Here is Grudem’s explanation. “However, it is much more characteristic of Paul’s terminology to use the word “spirit” to talk about our relationship to God in worship and in prayer. Paul does not use the “soul” (Gk. psyche) very frequently (14 times, compared with 101 occurrences in the New Testament as a whole), and when he does, he often uses it simply to refer to a person’s “life,” or as a synonym for a person himself, as in Rom. 9:3; 13:1; 16; Phil. 2:30. Use of the “soul” to refer to the non-physical side of man is more characteristic of the gospels, and of many passages in the Old Testament.”

Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

Charles Hodge explains: “The joints and marrow are not different substances. They are both material; they are different forms of the same substance; and so soul and spirit are one and the same substance under different aspects or relations.”

A. H. Strong has a helpful comment: “Not the dividing of soul from spirit or of joints from morrow, but rather the piercing of the soul and of the spirit, even to very joints and marrow i.e., to the very depths of the spiritual nature.”

“The point is simply that the Word of God leaves nothing hidden” (Charles Ryrie).

Is Man a Dichotomy or Trichotomy or Quadchotomy or Sexchotomy? Part One

Posted: March 28, 2009 in Man
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“I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14).With the these words David worships of his great Creator/God. Our study of the nature of man should also move us to worship our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

As Ryrie brought out in his introduction to chapter 32 (Basic Theology), man has a material part with a variety of features such as arteries, veins, brains, muscles, etc. All of us are agreed on this facet of man’s nature. Man also has an immaterial part with a variety of features such as soul, spirit, heart, will, mind, etc. This is where we agree to disagree on the nature of man. This is not a hill we must die on. But we do want to be as accurate and precise as possible when it comes to interpreting the Bible.

There are four positions on the trichotomy/dichotomy debate.

1. Monism, which is a non-conservative view, believes that man is one part. Monism was a reaction to the liberalism of Harry Emerson Fosdick who because of his belief in the immortality of the soul saw no need for a resurrection of the body. Monism taught that because the person is indivisible there is no existence of the soul after death and that the person will not exist after death until the resurrection of the body. This view eliminates the intermediate state of existence between death and resurrection which the Scriptures teach as demonstrated in the next paragraph (Christian Theology, Erickson, pp. 524-525).

Wayne Grudem defines monism on page 473 in his Systematic Theology. “According to monism, the scriptural terms soul and spirit are just other expressions for the ‘person’ himself, or for the person’s ‘life.’ This view has not generally been adopted by evangelical theologians because so many scriptural texts seem clearly to affirm that our souls or spirits live on after our bodies die (see Gen. 35:18; Ps. 31:5; Luke 23:43, 46; Acts 7:59; Phil. 1:23-24; 2 Cor. 5:8; Heb. 12:23; Rev. 6:9; 20:4).” The 2 Cor. 5:8 passage nails it for me: “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”

2. Dichotomy which believes that man has two parts This is the general view of Scripture.

3. Trichotomy which says that man is made of three parts. There are particular verses that indicate this view.

Louis Berkhof in his Systematic Theology gives the origin of the trichotomy view on page 191. “The tripartite conception of man originated in Greek philosophy, which conceived of the relation of the body and the spirit of man to each other after the analogy of the mutual relation between the material universe and God. It was thought that, just as the latter could enter into communion with each other only by means of a third or an intermediate being, so the former could enter into mutual vital relationships only by means of a third or intermediate element, namely, the soul.”

C. I. Scofield helped popularized this view beginning in 1909 in his Study Bible on page 1270.

4. Modified trichotomy/dichotomy view states that man has two parts with three functions.

Here are my responses to the arguments that favor trichotomy. First, I will state the argument in favor of trichotomy and then I will give my response in favor of dichotomy.

1. “Man is in three parts because he is made in the image of God who is a divine Trinity.”

This was the view of Franz Delitzsch in his A System of Biblical Psychology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1966). Delitzsch compared the difference between soul and spirit to the distinctions between the persons of the Trinity. The persons of the Trinity, like soul and spirit, are distinct but not in essence (page 117).

Delitzsch , quoted Martin Luther, who likened the three parts of the believer to the three parts of the OT tabernacle. “To adduce a parallel to this from Scripture, Moses made a tabernacle with three distinct compartments (Ex. 26:33-34, 27:9). The first was called the holy of holies, since God dwelt there, and there was no light therein. The second was the holy place within which stood a candlestick with seven branches and lamps. The third was called the atrium or court; and it was under the open heaven, in the light of the sun. In the same figure a Christian man is depicted. His spirit is the holy of holies, God’s dwelling-place, in dim faith, without light. For he believes what he does not see, nor feels, nor apprehends. His soul is the holy place, whose seven lights represent the various powers of understanding, the perception and knowledge of material and visible things. His body is the atrium or court, which is manifest to every man, so that all can see what he does and how he lives” (Delitzsch, pp. 460-462). There is really no NT grounds for making the tabernacle a type or picture of the believer’s person.

Ryrie’s response to the Trinity analogy on the top of page 196, in his first edition of Basic Theology, is well said. “Certainly the Persons of the Trinity are equal, though the parts of man are not. To which Person of the Trinity would the body correspond?”

2. “The unsaved do not have a spirit. This was lost at the fall and is restored at conversion.”

Dr. Bowman asks and answers this question; “Does the unsaved person have a spirit? All flesh have a spirit (Numbers 16:22; 1 Cor. 2:11).” “And they fell upon their faces, and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and will you be wroth with all the congregation”(Numbers 16:22)? Wayne Grudem states, “Of course, our ‘spirits are alive’ to God after regeneration (Rom. 8:10), but that is simply because we as whole persons are affected by regeneration. It is not just that our spirits were dead before—we were dead to God in trespasses and sins.” Read the rest of his arguments on page 701 of his Systematic Theology.

3. “The spirit is the God conscious aspect of man that enables man to worship God and the soul is self conscious aspect of man that is synonymous with the mind.”

Scofield makes this distinction, “Because man is ‘spirit’ he is capable of God-consciousness, and of communication with God (Job 32:8; Psa. 18:28; Prov. 20:27); because he is ‘soul’ he has self-consciousness (Psa. 13:2; 42:5, 6, 11); because he is ‘body’ he has, through his senses, world-consciousness” (The Scofield Study Bible, page 1270.

Man’s nature cannot be compartmentalized this neatly. The spirit of man thinks, not just the soul. “They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine” (Isaiah 29:24). The soul of man worships or has a God-consciousness, not just the spirit. “”Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Mt. 22:37).

These two terms, soul and spirit, are used interchangeably throughout Scripture.

Again Scofield fails to see the interchangeably of these two words, “In Scripture use, the distinction between spirit and soul may be traced. Briefly, that distinction is that the spirit is that part of man which ‘knows’ (1 Cor. 2:11), his mind; the soul is the seat of the affections, desires, and so the emotions, and of the active will, the self. ‘My soul is exceeding sorrowful; (Mt. 26:38; see also Mt. 11:29; and John 12:27)” (page 1270).

For trouble feelings: Not only does the soul feel but also the spirit of man. In the OT (Gen. 41:8 and Ps. 42:6); in the NT (John 12:27 “My soul is troubled” and John 13:21 “He was troubled in spirit”)

For expressing praise: Luke 1:46 and 47 where you have OT parallelism where the same thought is expressed with similar words. The soul can worship the Lord.

For death: Gen. 35:18 (soul departs); Acts 7:59 (spirit departs). Scripture never says that “the soul and spirit departed.” Wayne Grudem elaborates on this point. “If soul and spirit were separate and distinct things, we would expect that such language would be affirmed somewhere, if only to assure the reader that no essential part of the person is left behind. Yet we find no such language: the biblical authors do not seem to care whether they say that the soul departs or the spirit departs at death, for both seem to mean the same thing” (page. 474).

For persons in heaven: Heb. 12:23 (spirits); Rev. 6:9 (souls).

Both terms are ascribed to animals: souls in Gen. 1:24; spirit in Ecc. 3:21; Rev. 16:3.

The highest duties of Christians are demanded of the soul, not just the spirit: Mark 12:30; Luke 1:46, 47.

The whole man is referred to as body and soul (Mt. 10:28) and body and spirit (1 Cor. 5:3). Grudem asks a question that needs to be answered by trichotomists, “What can the spirit do that the soul cannot do? What can the soul do that the spirit cannot do?” (page 477).