Was Redemption Plan B?

I wonder if this thought has ever come across your mind?  ‘If God is God than He cannot be surprised by anything, and therefore the fall of man did not take Him off guard, but in some way because He is sovereign, and governs all things, He was behind it.”

Another way to ponder it is this: “Was redemption through Jesus Christ plan B, making it a consequence of the fall of man?  Or, was redemption through Jesus Christ plan A, even before the fall of man?”  If we say it was plan B, certain implications about God’s control over all things and ability to be surprised come into view, and if we say it was plan A, certain implications about God ordaining evil come into view.  So was Adam plan A, and Jesus plan B?  Or was Jesus plan A, before Adam existed?  Which is it?

That is a loaded thought isn’t it?  This question has been pondered over long and hard by many people ever since the dawn of time it seems.  This is where I stand, and this is where I think you should stand as well.

In answering this question, we have two options:

Option 1: Satan caused the fall of man himself. If sin originated in the mind of Satan, that means Satan is the cause if the fall of man, not God.  This is appealing to many people because they rightly do not want to attribute any evil to God’s character.  But there are a few things why I would caution you not to hold this view.  If Satan caused the fall and not God, then that means Satan did something out of God’s will or not in God’s control.  We know that this is false for 2 reasons.  First, it is revealed through Job that God has a leash on Satan, and that Satan cannot do anything unless God gives him permission (see Job 1-2, and Luke 22:31-32).  Second,  Romans 8:20 says, “He subjected the creation to frustration (futility), not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope.” Whoever brought sin, or frustration onto the world had an agenda of hope.  That is clear.  The question then becomes, who has the agenda of hope?  The last thing Satan wants is hope, it is never his agenda.  Hope is God’s agenda every time!  Therefore we can conclude that God caused the fall of man, in hope!  Do you see why this first option clearly portrays why Satan could not have been the author of the fall?

Option 2: God ordained sin. If God is sovereign, God ordained sin to come to pass.  Nothing happens to which God responds, “oops” to.  Many people do not like this however because they think that it automatically puts evil in the heart of the good God, but with Jonathan Edwards I confidently agree, “It is not sin in God to will that sin be.”  How than did God ordain the fall of man, in hope?  Although this is a hard thought to think on, I think we can get a hint at why God did it; listen to John Piper:

“The terrorized and troubled world exists to make a place for Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to suffer and die for our sins. The reason there is terror in the world is so that Christ could be terrorized, the reason there is trouble in the world is so that Christ could be troubled, the reason there is pain in the universe is so that Christ could feel pain. This is the world that God prepared for the suffering and death of His Son. Look at Romans 5:8, God shows His love for us, He wanted to show His loved for us, in that while we were yet sinners, there had to be sin, Christ died, there had to be death, for us. This world of suffering and death exists so that God could love like He could only love in this world.”

God does not permit anything to come to pass willy nilly, but permits everything with design and purpose.  We have fallen in Adam, true.  But in Genesis 3:15 God makes a promise to Satan that was in His mind before fall happened, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel.” This means that the victory we have over sin and the disease that the first Adam spread to all men was taken care of before the world was created.  God for His purpose and for His glory, created a world, that would display His love to the greatest extent, through killing His Son, not because of anything in you, but because the praise of Jesus Christ is the goal of everything!

Now, some of you may be having trouble with this thought.  But can you see that this is worth thinking through?  Maybe you see that one of the implications of this is that nothing ever happens that is out of God’s will.  Is that true?  Go here to find out.

Time is Uncertain

Time ought to be esteemed by us very precious because we are uncertain of its continuance. We know that it is very short, but we know not how short. We know not how little of it remains, whether a year, or several years, or only a month, a week, or a day. We are everyday uncertain whether that day will not be the last, or whether we are to have the whole day. There is nothing more that experience doth more verify than this…. How much more would many men prize their time if they knew they had but a few months, or a few days, more to live!… This is the case as with multitudes now in the world, who at present enjoy health, and see no signs of approaching death. Many such, no doubt, are to die the next month, many the next week, yea, many probably tomorrow, and some this night. Yet these same persons knowing nothing of it, and neither they nor their neighbors can say that they are more likely soon to be taken out of the world than others. This teaches us how we ought to prize our time, and how careful we ought to be, that we lose none of it.

(Day by Day with Jonathan Edwards, pg 85)

Edwards on the Joy of ‘True’ and ‘False’ Christians

Earlier, I wrote on Ezekiel 36:22-24, saying God sent Jesus first and foremost, not for our sakes, but for His sake, or for His glory.  If you have not read it, (go here) you’ll have no idea what this quote below means and implies.  This following quote from Jonathan Edwards has filled my soul with massive joy because it says everything I have been feeling and wanting to say for some time now.  This is by far the greatest quote I have ever found in Edwards, so far.  Have a gander….

This is…the difference between the joy of the hypocrite, and the joy of the true saint. The hypocrite rejoices in himself; self is the first foundation of his joy. The true saint rejoices in God. True saints have their minds, in the first place, inexpressibly pleased and delighted with the sweet ideas of the glorious and pleasant nature of the things of God. And this is the spring of all their delights, and the cream of all their pleasures. But the dependence of the affections of hypocrites is in a contrary order: they first rejoice…that they are made so much of by God; and then on that ground, He seems in a sort, lovely to them.

My one question I want to ask you is: Do you love God because He thinks so highly of you?  Or do you love God because He has given you the ability to enjoy Him forever?

The Heart’s Sense

There is a difference between having an opinion that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace.  There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness.  A man may have the former that knows not how honey tastes; but a man cannot have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind.  So there is a difference between believing that a person is beautiful, and having a sense of his beauty.  The former may be obtained by hearsay, but the latter only by seeing the countenance.  When the heart is sensible of the beauty and pleasantness of a thing, it necessarily feels pleasure in the apprehension.  It is implied in a person’s being heartily sensible of the loveliness of a thing, that the idea of it is pleasant to his soul; which is a far different thing from having a rational opinion that it is execellent.

(Day by Day with Jonathan Edwards, page 222)

Awkwardness, Jim Gilbert, and Jonathan Edwards

After graduating college, I began working for a PCA church in Atlanta as the intern.  Things were going well during the honeymoon period at the church, but after the new-ness of having me around wore off, people slowly started to see the real me.  That’s when they saw it; I am awkward.  My awkwardness became such an issue, that every Sunday it seemed to grow, and I became keenly aware of my lack of confidence in social skills.

So, what did I do?  I asked certain friends of mine I trusted about my awkwardness and some said that I was just being humble.  Were they right?  I needed more counsel, so I called my spiritual Father Jim Gilbert.  Jim told me something very different.  He directed me to 1 John 4:18 which says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involved punishment, and the one who fears has not been perfected in love.” In directing me to this verse, Jim asked me some probing questions.  ”Why do you feel afraid?  What makes you self-aware?  Why do you lose your confidence around certain people?”  I answered every question by saying, “I am fearful of how I look to them”, or “I am worried about how they perceive me.”  Jim knew what was wrong, and I did too.  It was not humility that was causing my awkwardness, but pride and selfishness.

After this discovery, Jim gave me a quote from Jonathan Edwards that has been in my head ever since.  “There are no other principles which human nature is under the influence of, that will ever make men conscientious, but one of these two, fear or love… and therefore God has wisely ordained that these two opposite principles of fear and love should rise and fall, like the two opposite scales of a balance.  Fear is cast out by the Spirit of God no other way than by the prevailing of love, nor is fear ever maintained but when love is asleep.”

That was it, my fear was being maintained because I was not loving the people around me!  What did I do?  What was the solution to my awkwardness?  I tried to love the people more, and slowly this quote proved to be true.

Jonathan Edwards on the Holy Spirit

It is hard to describe the Holy Spirit.  He is a person, whom we call a Spirit, that lives inside of us.  It seems that the more you try to figure out what is actually going on within the workings of the persom of the Holy Spirit, the more muddy the waters become.  Jonathan Edwards often tried to explain these deep muddy waters, and probably, out of all people since the apostolic era, brought the most clarity to them in history.  He has two comments about the Holy Spirit that I have always remembered:

And this I suppose to be that blessed Trinity that we read of in the Holy Scriptures.  The Father is the deity subsisting in the prime, unoriginated and most absolute manner, or the deity in its direct existence.  The Son is the deity generated by God’s understanding, or having an idea of Himself and subsisting in that idea.  The Holy Ghost is the deity subsisting in act, or the divine essence flowing out and breathed forth in God’s infinite love to and delight in Himself.  And I believe the whole Divine essence does truly and distinctly subsist both in the Diving idea and Divine love, and that each of them are properly distinct persons. (‘An Essay on the Trinity’, in ‘Treatises on Grace and Other Posthumously Published Writings’, page 118)

If you have a hard time with that one, here’s a clearer picture of Edward’s view of the Holy Spirit:

In other words, the Holy Spirit is the delight that the Father and the Son have in each other, and He carries in Himself so fully the essence of the Father and the Son that He Himself stands forth as a third Person in His own right. (Treatise on Grace, page 63)

Who Subjected the World to Futility, In Hope?

Romans 8:20 says, “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope.”

What is clear in this verse?  The world, all creation, was subjected to futility, or frustration.  It was not subjected willingly, in that it did not want to be subjected to futility.  That is clear.  What does it mean in the second half of the verse when it says, “because of him who subjected it in hope?” Albert M. Wolters, in his book, Creation Regained, says this:

“Paul states that the whole creation, not just the human world, was subjected to frustration (i.e., to ‘vanity’ or ‘futility’ or ‘pointlessness’) by the will of “the one who subjected it” (i.e., Adam, through his disobedience).”   (Creation Regained, page 56)

Is Wolters correct?  Was it Adam who in fact caused the whole of creation to be thrown into sin?   Did Adam sin, eat of the fruit the Woman gave him, in hope?  Absolutely not.  Adam ate and chose the created thing over the Creator.  It was a disobedient act and in it he tried to grasp equality with God (Phil. 2:6).  No, it was not Adam.  What Wolters does not address is the last phrase in the verse, “in hope.”

If Adam did not do it, who did?  It was not the serpent, he was trying to deceive and lie.  It was not the Woman, she grasped the fruit in doubt because of the serpents influence.  So who subjected the world to sin, in hope?  To answer this, we must ask a different question.  Who had an agenda of hope in Eden?  Adam didn’t, the Woman didn’t, the serpent didn’t.  Who did?  God did.  God had an agenda of hope in Eden.  God subjected the world to sin, in hope.  How?  Why?  Do I mean that God let, or allowed, or ordained sin into the world?  YES!

I really mean that, and I praise God for it.  How?  God, in letting sin into the world, opened the jaws that would eventually slam shut on His Son.  If sin were not present, Jesus would not have died.  If sin were not in the world, Jesus would never have been a man of sorrows, He would never have been crushed for our sins.  Read Romans 5:8 carefully, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” John Piper comments on this verse and says, “God wanted to show His love toward us.  While we were sinners, there had to be sin!  Christ died, there had to be death!” If sin and death were not allowed or ordained to come into the world, Jesus would not have died on the cross.

This is how God subjected the world to sin, in hope.  He did it for His Son.  He did it to display Himself fully to us!  He did it, because it was always plan A.  When sin came in, God did not say “Oops, let’s go to plan b. My Son, you have to die now!”  Acts 2:23 and 4:27-28 tell us that the cross was predestined by God.  God does not say oops.

Albert M. Wolters later says:

“There is no sense in which sin ‘fits’ in God’s good handiwork…Any theory that somehow sanctions the existence of evil in God’s good creation fails to do justice to sin’s fundamentally outrageous and blasphemous character, and in some subtle or sophisticated sense lays the blame for sin on the Creator rather than on ourselves in Adam.”  (Creation Regained, page 57-59)

I do not say that man is not at fault in Adam’s sin, we are.  But behind our sin and guilt, God is at work always planning for His glory.  O’ how sweet the praise God is not getting because His sovereign plan of grace is not loved, exulted in and treasured above all!  He planned for the death of His Son and planned that grace would flow from it to sinners like me before the world began!  Because of this, He subjected the world to sin, to set the stage for His Son.  He subjected the world to sin, IN HOPE.  With Jonathan Edwards I agree, “It is not sin in God, to will that sin be.”

“You Can’t Have Her.”

The following is found in J. Vernon McGee’s commentary on James 1:19-21.  This is a side of Edwards that is rarely discussed.

Jonathan Edwards was the third president of Princeton and probably one of America’s greatest thinkers and preachers, but he had a daughter who had an uncontrollable temper. One day a fine young man at the school, who had fallen in love with her, came to Jonathan Edwards and asked for her hand in marriage. Jonathan Edwards said, “You can’t have her.” The young man said, “But I love her.” Edwards said, “You can’t have her.” The young man said, “But she loves me.” And Edwards said, “You can’t have her.” “Why can’t I have her?” he protested. “Because she is not worthy of you,” replied Jonathan Edwards. “Yes, she is a Christian, but the grace of God can live with some people with whom no one else could ever live.”

Happy 305 Mr. Edwards!

Today is Jonathan Edwards 305th birthday!  To celebrate him I want us to see how Edwards’ God captured his heart through struggling with hard doctrines in Scripture; so that we can become as satisfied in Jesus Christ as he was.

He wrote, “I was brought to seek salvation in a manner that I never was before.  I felt a spirit to part with all things in the world for an interest in Christ.  My concern continued and prevailed, with many exercising thoughts and inward struggles; but it never seemed to be proper to express that concern by the name of terror.  From my childhood up, my mind had been full of objections against the doctrine of God’s sovereignty in choosing whom He would to eternal life, and rejecting whom He pleased.  It used to appear like a horrible doctrine to me.  But I remember the time very well when I seemed to be convinced and fully satisfied as to this sovereignty of God, and His justice in thus eternally disposing of men according to His sovereign pleasure.  But I never could give account how, or by what means, I was thus convinced; not in the least imagining at the time nor for a long time after, that there was any extraordinary influence of God’s Spirit in it; but only that now I saw further, and my reason apprehended the justice and reasonableness of it.  However, my mind rested in it; and put an end to all those cavils and objections.”

“There has been a wonderful alteration in my mind with respect to the doctrine of God’s sovereignty, from that day to this; so that I scarce ever have found so much as the rising of an objection against it, in the most absolute sense, in God’s showing mercy to whom He will show mercy and hardening whom He will.  But I have often, since that first conviction, had quite another kind of sense of God’s sovereignty than I had then. I have often, since, had not only a conviction, but a delightful conviction.  The doctrine has very often appeared exceedingly pleasant, bright, and sweet.  Absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God.”

“As I read the words, there came into my soul, and was as it were diffused through it, a sense of glory of the Divine Being; a new sense, quite different from anything I ever experienced before.  Never any words of Scripture seemed to me as these words did.  I thought with myself, how excellent a Being that was, and how happy I should be, if I might enjoy that God, and be rapt up to Him in heaven, and be, as it were, swallowed up in Him forever.”

“From about that time, I began to have a new kind of apprehensions and ideas of Christ, and the work of redemption, and the glorious way of salvation by Him.  An inward, sweet sense of these things, at times, came into my heart, and my soul was led away in pleasant views and contemplations of them.  My mind greatly engaged to spend my time in reading and meditating on Christ, on the beauty and excellency of His person.  I found no books so delightful to me, as those which treated of these subjects.”

(Written by Phillip E. Howard Jr. about Jonathan Edwards in the intro to The Life and Diary of David Brainerd, page 13-15)

An Unhappy Way

Heed this word from Jonathan Edwards:

“Don’t perplex your mind with the secret decrees of God, and particularly about the eternal decrees of God with respect to yourself, prying into those secrets which are hidden from men and angels, laboring to unseal that book which is sealed with seven seals and which no man in heaven or earth is worthy or able to open or to look thereon.  When men get into a way of perplexing their minds with such things, they are in a very unhappy way.  The devil has them in a dismal snare.  Therefore diligently avoid such a snare and let the revealed will of God be enough for you.  Mind what God commands you, what counsels and directions he gives.  Let your whole heart be intent upon those things.  This is the way for you to prosper.  But if you entangle and tease your mind with thoughts about the secret, eternal counsels of God, you will be out of the way of your duty and in the way of your own mischief and will expose yourself to ruin.”

(Day by Day with Jonathan Edwards, page 248)