St. Paul’s three chapters in Romans 6–8 emphasize the believer’s union with Christ, the tension between justification and ongoing sanctification, and the transformative power of grace. His analysis integrates forensic justification with the practical reality of spiritual warfare, culminating in the assurance of victory through the Spirit. Below is a verse-by-verse breakdown of his theological framework:

Romans 6: Death to Sin, Life in Christ

This chapter establishes believers’ definitive break with sin through their union with Christ’s death and resurrection. Key elements include:

• Freedom from sin’s legal dominion: Justification frees believers from sin’s penalty and power. The text “he who has died has been freed from sin” (Rom 6:7) signifies that Christ’s death legally dissolves sin’s claim over the believer, rendering them no longer bound to its consequences.

• Baptism as a symbolic union: Baptism represents the believer’s identification with Christ’s death (Rom 6:3–4), marking a transfer from Adam’s lineage to Christ’s new creation..

• Ethical imperative: Freedom from sin is not license for indulgence but a call to “walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4). Grace empowers obedience, rejecting the notion that justification permits licentiousness (Rom 6:15).

Romans 7: The Struggle with Indwelling Sin

This chapter as a spiritual autobiography of the believer’s tension between their justified status and the lingering presence of sin. Key insights:

• The law’s role: While the law is holy (Rom 7:12), it exposes humanity’s incapacity to achieve righteousness through works. The “wretched man” (Rom 7:24) embodies the Christian’s struggle against the flesh, even after regeneration.

• Dual service: Believers serve God’s law with their minds but battle the “law of sin” in their flesh (Rom 7:25). This paradox reflects the “simultaneously righteous and sinful” reality.

• No condemnation in Christ: The chapter’s despair resolves in the doxology of Romans 7:25a—“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ!”—pointing ahead to the assurance of Romans 8:17.

Romans 8: Victory Through the Spirit

This chapter is the climactic resolution of the preceding struggles, centered on the Spirit’s work:

• No condemnation: The declaration “there is now no condemnation” (Romans 8:1) reaffirms justification’s security, grounding believers in Christ’s finished work rather than their fluctuating spiritual performance.

• Spirit-led transformation: The Spirit empowers believers to fulfill the law’s righteous requirements (Romans 8:4), replacing the “mindset of the flesh” with life and peace (Romans 8:6).

• Eschatological hope: The “groaning” of creation (Rom 8:22–23) and the Spirit’s intercession (Rom 8:26–27) assure believers of their future glorification and eternal security in God’s love (Rom 8:38–39).

Theological Synthesis

• Justification and sanctification: Forensic justification (legal freedom from sin’s penalty) harmonizes with transformative sanctification (ongoing renewal by the Spirit). The believer’s identity in Christ (Rom 6:11) fuels ethical living.

• Law and grace: The law’s condemnation (Rom 7:7–12) is answered by grace’s dominion (Rom 6:14), which enables obedience without legalism.

• Union with Christ: The entire passage hinges on the believer’s incorporation into Christ’s death and resurrection, making sanctification a participation in His victory..

Romans chapters 6 to 8 reflect St. Paul’s broader emphasis on grace-driven reformation, where doctrinal truth fuels personal holiness and societal transformation.

Transformation in Romans 6, 7, and 8

When the scriptural guidelines are understood, it becomes clear that all atomic movement in the universe and among his creation only occurs with Christ’s oversight and allowance. This makes sense since he is the co-creator of this world. (Col 1:15-18)

There seems to be nothing in Scripture that would indicate that some things are outside God’s providential control, or that these ways of God’s acting are unusual or unrepresentative of the ways in which he acts generally. Moreover, many of the verses that speak of God’s providence are very general: Christ “continually carries along all things by his word of power” (Heb. 1:3), and “in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). He “accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11). Such Scripture passages have in view more than exceptional examples of an unusual intervention by God in the affairs of human beings; they describe the way God always works in the world. ¹

Notably, two historic, well-studied church leaders, John Calvin and John Wesley, agree on the importance of understanding the doctrine of Providence for our Christian encouragement, albeit their differences of view.

Ignorance of providence is the ultimate of all miseries; the highest blessedness lies in this knowledge. – John Calvin

Among the foremost classic Christian doctrines, “there is scarce any that is so little regarded, and perhaps so little understood” as providence. – John Wesley

Here, we will begin with a the following excerpt from Wilhelm Braekel, Puritan Theologian. The Christian’s Reasonable Service. Edited by Dr Joel Beeke. ²

Consider the providence of God concerning all His creatures…that is, the immediate provision for, and dispensation of all things. This is to be observed in Genesis 22:8, “God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering.” Providence is also referred to as ordinance (Psa. 119:91), God’s way (Psa. 77:13), God’s hand (Acts 4:28, 17:28), God’s upholding (Heb. 1:3), God’s working (Eph. 1:11), God’s government (Ps. 93:1), and God’s care (Job 12:10, 1 Pet. 5:7, Acts 17:28).

The Heidelberg Catechism clearly and devoutly describes providence as follows: The almighty and everywhere present power of God; whereby, as it were by His hand, He upholds and governs heaven, earth, and all creatures; so that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea, and all things come, not by chance, but by His fatherly hand; that we may be patient in adversity; thankful in prosperity; and that in all things, which may hereafter befall us, we place our firm trust in our faithful God and Father, that nothing shall separate us from His love; since all creatures are so in His hand, that without His will they cannot so much as move.

Providence is a divine power. This is not merely due to providence being executed by the omnipotent One, but particularly in reference to the extrinsic execution of this power towards His creatures. It is therefore stated with emphasis, “And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that virtue had gone out of Him …” (Mark 5:30). Providence is an omnipotent power. When perceiving the magnitude of the work of creation; the innumerable number of creatures; the unfathomable diversity of their natures and appearance; the existence and continuation of each created object according to its own essential nature; the movement of animate, rational, and inanimate creatures; the precise order of all things both as to movement and the manner in which one object initiates the motion and progression of another object—one must lose himself in amazement regarding the infinite power and wisdom of God by which all things are maintained and governed. By this power God irresistibly executes whatsoever He wills, and no one can prevent Him from doing so. “For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and His hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?” (Isa. 14:27); “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure” (Isa. 46:10).

Providence is an omnipresent power of God. This is not merely true in reference to the omnipresent Being of God, but particularly in reference to His energizing power in all His creatures. This power of God does not merely manifest itself generally in all things. Neither does it merely affect the initial secondary causes, which in turn further initiate motion and activity in all other secondary causes. This power of God penetrates the existence of every creature, and thus, in an immediate sense and via all secondary causes, affects the ultimate outcome of all things. The power of God is therefore in all things and manifests itself in all that exists and moves. If we had clear perception, we would observe this power in everything.

^{1 Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House, 2004), 342.}

^{2 Excerpt: Wilhelm Braekel, Puritan Theologian. The Christian’s Reasonable Service. Edited by Dr Joel Beeke.}

We herein primarily focus on Ephesians 2:1–7. While Jesus and Peter explain regeneration through the imagery of birth, Paul explains regeneration through the imagery of resurrection from the dead. As the theologian Dr. Hoekema states, for Paul, “regeneration is the fruit of the Spirit’s purifying and renewing activity, that it is equivalent to making dead persons alive, that it takes place in union with Christ, and that it means that we now become part of God’s wondrous new creation.” ¹ Paul speaks of God making dead persons alive in Ephesians 2: And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 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. (Ephesians 2:1–7)

In Ephesians 2 we see a powerful picture of what takes place in regeneration. The sinner is dead but God makes him alive. The sinner is in the grave but God resurrects him from the dead. Notice that, contrary to Arminianism, there is no contingency or intermediate stage here in which God begins to make a sinner alive whereby the further outcome of that act is dependent upon the sinner’s decision. Rather, the transition is immediate, instantaneous, and unilateral as the sinner is at one moment dead and the next moment alive (Ephesians 2:10). The situation is comparable with the resurrection of Christ. Christ was dead but God in great power resurrected him bodily from the grave (Ephesians 1:19–20). Or consider Lazarus, who was dead, rotting in the tomb for days, and suddenly, at the command of Christ, was resurrected and walked out of the tomb alive (John 11). The theologian Reymond observes, “The conclusion cannot be avoided that God’s regenerating work must causally precede a man’s faith response to God’s summons to faith.”

Moreover, the sinner who is “made alive” is in a situation not only comparable to Christ’s, but also receives new life that is actually found in and with Christ. Paul states that God made us alive together with Christ and seated us with Christ in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6), so that in the coming ages we would know the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ. Paul’s readers have come to life with Christ, who was dead and rose again; their new life, then, is a sharing in the new life which he received when he rose from the dead.

It is only in union with him that death is vanquished and new life, an integral part of God’s new creation, received. Because the believer’s previous condition has been spoken of as a state of death (Ephesians 2: 1, 5), there is no direct reference to Christ’s death or to the believer’s participation in it. Instead, the sharp contrast between our former condition outside of Christ and being made alive with him is presented. The theologian O’Brien is right in identifying being made alive with the resurrection of Christ. As Sinclair Ferguson states, “Regeneration is causally rooted in the resurrection of Christ” (1 Peter 1:3).

Like produces like; our regeneration is the fruit of Christ’s resurrection.” It is Christ’s resurrection which is the very basis of the sinner’s coming to life with Christ, as is further demonstrated in Ephesians 2:6 where the sinner is raised up and seated in Christ. Our spiritual resurrection to new life is made explicit by what Paul contrasts it to, namely, deadness in trespasses and sins and bondage to the world (“following the course of this world,” Ephesians 2:2); and Satan (“following the prince of the power of the air,” Ephesians 2:2); and the flesh (“once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind,” Ephesians 2:3). Like the rest of mankind we were “by nature children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3). Therefore, being made alive, as O’Brien states, implies not only forgiveness, but also “liberation from these tyrannical forces.” Paul’s words here in Ephesians 2 closely parallel his words in Colossians: “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses” (Col. 2:13; cf. Rom. 6:11).

Finally, Paul also states that being made alive together with Christ is by grace (“by grace you have been saved”). O’Brien comments, “He draws attention to a mighty rescue which arose out of God’s gracious initiative, which had already been accomplished in Christ, and which has abiding consequences for them: it is by grace you have been saved.” As seen throughout Paul’s epistles, grace stands opposed to merit or any contribution on the part of man (Ephesians 2:8–10). ²

Grace is God’s favor toward sinners in spite of what they deserve (Rom. 3:21–26; 4:4; 5:15). The word “save” (“by grace you have been saved”) can and is many times used to refer to an eschatological reality, the deliverance from God’s wrath and final judgment. As Dr Thielman observes, in some passages Paul can “describe it [saved] as an ongoing event in the present (1 Cor. 1:18; 15:2; 2 Cor. 2:15) and say, ‘Now is the day of salvation’ (2 Cor. 6:2; cf. Isa. 39:8). But Paul “normally refers to it as something believers will experience in the future, presumably at the final day (1 Thess. 2:16; 1 Cor. 3:15; 5:5; 10:33; Rom. 5:9–10; 9:27; 10:9; 11:26).

However, as O’Brien explains, the case differs in Ephesians 2, for “saved” refers specifically to what “has already been accomplished and experienced.” It describes a “rescue from death, wrath, and bondage and a transfer into the new dominion with its manifold blessings. In a roundabout way, the periphrastic perfect construction draws attention to the resulting state of salvation.” Paul is referring to salvation as something that is “emphatically present for believers” even though the “use of the perfect tense in Ephesians 2:5, 8 for salvation is unusual.” 3

Paul does draw our attention to the future eschatological consequences of this salvation in verse Ephesians 2:7, being seated with Christ in the coming age. However, in Ephesians 2:5–6 Paul shows that being saved by grace means that God making us alive together with Christ is also by grace. Therefore, being made alive or regenerated is neither an act that is accomplished by man’s works of righteousness nor an act conditioned upon man’s willful cooperation. Rather, being made alive is by grace and by grace alone, meaning that it is purely by God’s initiative, prerogative, and power that the sinner is resurrected from spiritual death.

Grace is not merely unmerited favor in the sense that one may choose to receive or reject a gift. Grace is the impartation of new life. Grace is a power that raises someone from the dead, that lifts those in the grave into new life. Grace is not merely an undeserved gift, though it is such; it is also a transforming power. Grace imparted life when we were dead, and grace also raises us and seats us with Christ in the heavenlies. (Ephesians 2:6)

Therefore, it will not do to say with the Arminian that God’s grace is a gift to be accepted or resisted. Yes, God’s grace is a gift, but more than that it is a powerful gift that actually and effectually accomplishes new life as God intends.

The Puritan, Matthew Henry notes: Those who have experienced the grace of Christ for a longer time are under more special obligations to glorify God; they should be strong in faith and glorify him more eminently. Yet to glorify him should be the common goal of all. We were made for this, and we were redeemed for this; this is the great intention of our Christianity and of God in everything he has done for us: it is unto the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:14). He intends that his grace and power and other perfections will by this means become clearly visible and glorious, and that his people will exalt him.

Further Henry states: Election, or choice, respects that lump or mass of mankind out of which some are chosen, from which they are separated and distinguished. Predestination has respect to the blessings they are designed for; particularly the adoption of children, it being the purpose of God that in due time we should become his adopted children, and so have a right to all the privileges and to the inheritance of children. We have here the date of this act of love: it was before the foundation of the world; not only before God’s people had a being, but before the world had a beginning; for they were chosen in the counsel of God from all eternity. (Ephesians 1:4)

I like to summarize it this way: God predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— not our free will alone. Free will must be preceded by God’s will to chose us, then He opens our minds to the Spirit’s proclamation of the gospel when heard, as he in continuum also sends the teaching preacher to reveal Christ to that individual.

^{1 Theologian notes: The Effectual Call of Election, Ron Rhodes} 

^{2 Ibid}

^{3 Ibid}

^{4 Ibid}

Man’s willful bondage to sin precipitated his need for God’s grace. We will examine the theological doctrine of effectual calling and regeneration and the difference between Monergism and Synergism.

The Westminster Confession, chapter 10, puts it very well:

10.1. All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased in his appointed and accepted time effectually to call [Rom. 8:30; 11:7; Eph. 1:10, 11], by his Word and Spirit [2 Thess. 2:13–14; 2 Cor. 3:3, 6], out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ [Rom. 8:2; Eph. 2:1–5; 2 Tim. 1:9–10]: enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God [Acts 26:18; 1 Cor. 2:10; 12; Eph. 1:17–18], taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them an heart of flesh [Ezek. 36:26]; renewing their wills, and, by his almighty power determining them to that which is good [Ezek. 11:19; Phil. 2:13; Deut. 20:6; Ezek. 36:27], and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ [Eph. 1:19; John 6:44–45]; yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace [Song of Songs 1:4; Ps. 110:3; John 6:37; Rom. 6:16–18].

10.2. This effectual call is of God’s free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man [2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 3:4–5; Eph. 2:4–5, 8–9; Rom. 9:11], who is altogether passive therein, until, being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit [1 Cor. 2:14; Rom. 8:7; Eph. 2:5], he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it [John 6:37; Ezek. 36:27; John 5:25].

What have we learned from these portions of the Westminster?

First, only those whom God has predestined for life are effectually, truly called and regenerated, contrary to the Arminian view which only sees God’s calling as universal going out to all people on earth. Second, God effectually calls and regenerates spiritually dead sinners to new life by his Word and Spirit and by the grace of his Son Jesus Christ. Here Westminster draws from the biblical metaphors by stating that the Spirit enlightens the mind to understand (Eph. 1:17–18), takes away the heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh [as with feeling, heart-felt respondent to God’s love and the Grace offered the chosen] (Ezek. 36:26), renews the will, and effectually draws the sinner to Jesus Christ (John 6:44–45). Yet, though the Spirit’s drawing is effectual, nevertheless, man comes most freely, “being made willing by his grace.” The will, therefore, is renewed and made willing to believe.¹

Moreover, notice the order in which Westminster places God’s grace in reference to man’s faith. In 10.2 Westminster states that the effectual call is purely of God’s grace so that man is absolutely passive. It is only when the sinner has been “quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it.” In other words, man’s answer to the call only comes after the Spirit has “quickened and renewed” and not before. ²

Westminster’s understanding of grace—which was restated by John Owen and Thomas Goodwin’s Savoy Declaration (1658) and the Second London Confession (1677, 1689) of the Particular Baptists—once again demonstrates, as was the case with Augustine, Calvin, and Dort, that it is God’s grace which must precede any activity (faith included) on the part of the dead sinner. ³

Until God effectually calls and regenerates the sinner, no faith will be present. To reverse this order would be to exalt man’s will over God’s grace. One of the main reasons the Puritans in England detested Arminianism. In other words, it “inclines men to pride” by allowing “man’s participation in the work of his salvation.” ⁴

Arminianism also referred to as Wesleyanism, means that man’s will via his own volitionary will, activates his own faith in Christ by his own acceptance of the Bible’s teaching, via his reasoning faculties, and firms up the process of Salvation in cooperation with God. This opposes the above presentation of the Westminster’s scriptural proof that God alone calls and then activates man’s acceptance via His Spirit to acquiesce to His call to come to Christ.

E. Brooks Holifield…states, “The defining mark of Reformed theology was its regard for the glory of God, which entailed a pronounced insistence on divine sovereignty.” ²

Calvinists have defined and defended Monergism [meaning saved by God’s intervening Grace alone] as a necessary ingredient to the sovereignty of divine grace which alone can preserve God’s glory. What then is the implication for evangelicals today? Michael Horton answers that Arminian and Wesleyan Synergism can no longer be an option for Protestants committed to the Reformation. ³

Synergism means ‘working together’, while monergism means “one work”. Synergists believe that two forces are required to bring about the saving of a soul – the Holy Spirit and the will of man. If a person resists the Holy Spirit, then synergists believe there will be no ‘working together’ to achieve that person’s salvation, which is a convolution of scriptural truth.

ESV Scriptural Proofs on Predestined Election for Contemplation

^{1 Commentary excerpts: Matthew Barrett, Salvation by Grace: The Case for Effectual Calling and Regeneration, 1st ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2013), 33–36.; and The Westminster Confession}

^{2 Ibid}

^{3 Ibid}

^{4 Ibid}

God’s purpose is “to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ” (Eph. 1:10 NIV), including the marriage and family relationship (Eph. 5:21–6:4), so that, per Paul’s prayer, “to him be glory in the church and in Jesus Christ throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (Eph. 3:21).

Concerning Jesus’ teaching, we have seen that Jesus affirmed God the creator’s original plan for marriage, quoting both Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 (Matt. 19:4–6 and paragraph.). By this, our Lord strongly and emphatically confirmed that God’s original design for marriage (with the husband as the head and the wife as the submissive, supportive partner) continued to obtain for Christians rather than being replaced by a different plan (such as an egalitarian one). Another point of interest is that Jesus indicated that he came not to bring peace, but a sword, and faith in him (or lack thereof) would divide families (Matt. 10:34–36 and pars.). Hence allegiance to Christ and his kingdom must have priority over natural family ties. This, as will be seen, injects a crucial dose of realism into any approaches to church structure that work from the ideal intact family unit where the father is the head of the household. In many nuclear families, the father is either not a believer or absent altogether.

Jesus noted that there will be no marriage in heaven (Matt. 22:30) and explained that some even in this age would choose to remain unmarried “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:12). Taken together with Paul’s discussion of singleness in 1 Corinthians 7, this sheds an important eschatological light on the question of marriage and family in the church. It shows that marriage, while divinely instituted in the beginning and continuing to be in effect until the final consummation, is part of “the present form of this world” which “is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:31). God’s kingdom, on the other hand, endures forever (Rev. 11:15; 22:5).

Paul, likewise, in Ephesians 5:21–6:4, directed his commands to Christian husbands, wives, and children, calling on wives to submit to their husband, on husbands to love their wife sacrificially and to nurture her spiritually, on children to obey their parents and to honor them, and on fathers to train and instruct their children in the Lord rather than exasperating them or treating them harshly.

Since work relationships also were set within the context of the extended family unit, instructions for servants and masters were issued as well (Eph. 6:5–9). Thus the household continued to be the central unit in the New Testament era, and proper allowance was made for those households where one of the members (including spouses) may not have been a Christian (e.g., 1 Cor. 7:12–16; 1 Pet. 3:1–2).

Also, the same authority structure and call on the husband and father to protect and provide , both in the Old Testament and New Testament. Paul’s teaching lays out important biblical principles for marital and familial roles.

^{1 Curated Study Material from my Library: David W. Jones and Andreas J. Köstenberger, God, Marriage, and Family: Rebuilding the Biblical Foundation (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 251.}

My interest in theology is Spirit-driven, believing that Christ leads us into all truth. I acknowledge Him mapping my itinerary in the Word, moving me to clearer doctrinal discernment, with respect for those teachers who have inspired me thus far.

Yet often, when one expands on the law of God in relation to the gospel, there is a fear exhibited by the brethren of Antinomianism (the displacement of the law with the gospel). For this reason, I want to clarify my beliefs once and for all. As a Sabbatarian, which honours the fourth commandment, it is paramount.

If a man cannot distinguish between the law and the gospel, he can never understand any penetration depth of divine truth. If we cannot appreciate the holy law as meant to convict us of sin, and guide us to believe Christ, we cannot have spiritual transformation discoverable in the gospel in the face of Christ. If our view of the gospel is wrong, it often is because the law of God is misunderstood.

That which the precept of the law requires as a duty, the promise of the gospel, offers hope to meet the duty. Whatever commands the place of duty occupies in the law, the place of privilege is experienced in obedience to the call of the gospel. Duties required in the law, call for the insight of grace as it widens faith, articulated in the language of the gospel.

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” (see Exodus 6:6; 20:2; 13:3; 15:13,16; 29:46) set the preface to the ten commandments as the rule of life to the faithful Israel of God, the children of Abraham, now offered to the true church among all nations. (Galatians 3:26, 29) The giving of the law at Sinai with this offering of Himself as redeemer is repeated many times in scripture!

According to the obedience of the redeemed of the Lord to the precepts of his law – the obedience is founded upon the recognition and respect of the articulator of the law, — Yahweh, Israel’s God, and redeemer.

In the laws of our redeeming God is the profound teaching in relation to his law, by which he would reform his people after many years of slavery. (Galatians 3:23-24) The offer to redeem his children and reform them in accord with his law was a type of his new covenant gospel, which he expressed and repeated to enforce our obedience to every commandment of his law as we enter and accept our duty bound to his privileged deliverance from sin in Christ.

Let us consider the law in the light of this privilege of the gospel’s offer of redemption in Christ, with help from my brother, the Puritan John Calhoun, as tightly edited herein to our current colloquium. Among my many studies on law and grace, John Calhoun excels. ¹

The law is God’s curriculum that he uses to teach us the primary covenantal progressive guidance that the Holy Spirit still uses to convincingly lead us into the confession of sin and full redemptive atonement and reconciliation with Himself when we observe Christ’s righteousness as he forgives and covers us with His love witnessed in the gospel.

Every passage of scripture is divine revelation, either by administration of law or of the gospel — different in some respects but in agreement by their mutual use of leading and calling his children unto himself.

If our knowledge of the law and the gospel is superficial and indistinct, we will be in danger of mingling one with the other, potentially misunderstanding both legalism and libertarianism, both antithetical to God’s love. Luther, in his commentary on the epistle to the Galatians noted, such an indistinct understanding “doth more mischief than man’s reason can conceive”.

If we blend the law with the gospel, mixing our good works with our faith to earn unmerited salvation, we may miss the fact that we are redeemed from the condemnation of the law, which we are now freed to respect, especially in the understanding of justification.

In the adherence to a lifestyle hoping for sanctification, we must allow the Spirit to work his good pleasure within us, rejoicing in and not obscuring Christ’s glory of redeeming grace, and obtain the joy and peace of his deliverance to the freedom from fear and penalty of the law to the reverence of his moral ethics found in the same law. If you can praise God when you read the Decalogue in Exodus chapter 20 or rejoice when you read Psalm chapter 119, you will understand this peace.

The self-accusatory carnal mind may blind one to the inestimable value of believing in Christ’s substitutionary death in our stead. Without the righteousness of Christ understood as imputed to us by faith, we wear the blindfold of legalism, which retards our progress in the peace and joy of aiming forward to the responsible reformation of trusting his working holiness within, from which good works follow as led by him (Proverbs 3:6; Matthew 6:33).

Conversely, if we can distinguish clearly between the covenant of law and the new covenant of the gospel and yet comprehend both being of grace, we will then come under the illuminating influences of the great light of the Holy Spirit urging us to obey our glorious Lord in all things, even as obedience pertains to His commandments which reveals our sin and our constant need of our Sovereign Lord Christ.

The understanding that the moral law of God is necessary to discern the glory of the whole progressive covenantal scheme of redemptive grace, reconciling all passages of law and grace in scripture which to some may appear contrary to each other – the gospel calming our consciences inspiring us to advance in sanctification toward holiness, which is the opposite of transgression of law (1 John 3:4; Romans 5:20).

As stated in the Decalogue, the law is summarized in the two primary royal laws to love God and our neighbour (Exodus 26:33; Matthew 22:40) — shared by Moses and later in the gospel restated by Jesus. It helps to view Christ properly as our creator (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16), the lawgiver at Sinai, and future judge and articulator of law (1 Corinthians 10:3; Romans 14:10).

In the Trinitarian form of His son Jesus, our Saviour-Redeemer, Yahweh, saved Israel from Egypt and further us from the world (. He advocates the same divine law yet expands the more formally articulated moral laws of the Ten Commandments, understood by those led by the Spirit in mutual synchronicity with the gospel when we are freed from the law’s penalty when we submit to Christ as Lord. The scripture attests that our salvation preceded human life on earth: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. (Ephesians 1: 3-6 ESV)

The moral law signifies God’s declared will, directing and obliging humanity to do what pleases Him and to abstain from what displeases Him.

The harmony of the law and the gospel indicates their mutual subservience to one another for securing and advancing the honour of each other, in subordination to the glory of the triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as displayed in the person and work of Christ, our Redeemer.

The law was initially presented as a covenant of works, but now, without the rituals of sacrifice finalized in Christ, is an ethical rule of life, which demands of sinners only that which is offered and promised in the gospel within which everything is freely promised and offered to them, which the moral law, in any of its forms, requires.

The gospel presents to us the righteousness of Jesus Christ, who met every demand of the law in its old covenant form, amending it to the status of the new covenant by grace with his blood (Hebrews 8:22; Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25; Romans 3:25; Galatians 2:16). Jesus magnified the law via the gospel making the law honourable, holy, just, and good (Romans 7:12), while it offers and promises the infinite fullness of Christ, by whom Christians may be regenerated and sanctified by faith, enabled to yield obedience to the law as a rule of life as we progress in our relation to Christ in ongoing sanctification, being conformed to his image (Romans 8:29).

The gospel reveals and offers Christ’s righteousness to satisfy the law as a covenant; moreover, it promises and offers strength to obey the law as a rule. Via the Holy Spirit, written in all the divine promises of scripture, the gospel supplies the grace and strength necessary for the acceptable performance of every obedience that the law as a rule of life requires of believers (1 Peter 1:4).

Christ, as our sinless substitute, redeems a man or woman from the due penalty of disobeying God’s law, meeting the requirement of death in our stead, thereby presenting the good news of redemption, the assurance of our peace so that we may accept his substitute righteousness on our behalf (2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 3:25).

The righteousness which the law as a covenant demands, the gospel affords, being imputed to believers (Philippians 3:9), as the only merits for the offence, being death; offering a continuum in holiness of heart and life, which the law as a rule requires, which the gospel promises and having accepted Christ is obtained (Romans 8:4). Thus, it is clear that the law and the gospel agree together as they mutually serve each other even now as sinners come to realize their need of a Saviour.

How does the law, as a covenant of works agree with the gospel? We cannot cordially believe the gospel without apprehending the need for obedience to the law (Romans 3:23-24). Nor can we yield obedience to the law unless we, by believing the gospel, are equipped by the Holy Spirit and scripture to fathom obedience to the law as a progressive state in the gospel (Romans 8:4). Although entirely distinct from each other, law and grace have no separate agenda, no interfering partisan interest to serve (Romans 3:31).

The principles of the law and the promises of the gospel harmoniously reflect the highest honour in each covenantal period (Galatians 3:21).

The law requires from the sinner perfect human righteousness, which the gospel affords to it— a righteousness which is perfect because it is divine (Romans 10:4; 2 Peter 1;1; Galatians 2:21; Philippians 1:1; Romans 5:21; Romans 3:22; Philippians 3:9; Romans 8:10; 1 Corinthians 1:30).

The grace revealed and offered in the gospel supplies a powerful motive and new disposition to “remember and turn to the Lord.” While the law commands penitential sorrow, the gospel’s grace promised by the Spirit inspires heartfelt sorrow and repentance (John 16:8- 9).

The law directs our mind to acquire all the grace offered in the gospel, while the gospel offers the precious blood of Christ all the requirements of the law (Romans 8:4). The law requires perfect and perpetual obedience as the condition of eternal life; whereas the gospel admits and asserts the necessity of such obedience by affording it to the believing sinner via the great and precious promises engaged by the Spirit in obedience (1 Peter 1:16; 2 Peter 1:4; 1 Corinthians 10:13). The condemnation of the law with its terrors of judgment, under the illuminating grace of the Holy Spirit, serve, to show a convinced sinner his extreme need of the salvation which is presented to him in the gospel.

The law condemns all who reject the gospel, and the gospel, on the other, is antithetical to all who finally transgress the law (1 John 3:4). The terrors of the law frighten and impel convinced sinners to accept the offer of the atonement of Jesus Christ; with the redeeming love manifested in the gospel.

With its commanding and condemning power, the law is in harmony with the gospel as the law leads the sinner indirectly to Christ. The law is our schoolmaster to lead us to Christ so that we might be taught our absolute need of him; the gospel presents Christ as the end of the old covenant of works whereby man sought to keep the law, offering us accountability for an imputed righteousness, never achievable before Christ’s redemption (Galatians 2:21; Hebrews 7:19; Romans 10:4).

The law magnifies the grace of the gospel by showing the sinner his need for justification and salvation by that grace, and the grace of the gospel establishes and magnifies the law. While the precepts and penalties of the law serve as a guard to the gospel, the doctrines, promises, and offers of the gospel serve to support the authority and honourable respect of the law (Romans 8:4).

The threatening of the law and the mercy revealed in the promises of the gospel meet and are bound together in Him. The righteousness manifested in the law and the peace proclaimed in the gospel, offering the righteousness of Christ, do in him embrace each other. “Mercy and judgment kiss each other” (Psalm 85:10).

While the law is an infallible witness, sinners acknowledge that they indeed have no righteousness of their own, under which the offers and calls of the gospel are addressed to them (John 14:6; 6:37). The gospel exhibits in the wonderful person and work of Christ, the highest proofs of the infinite authority, and perpetual stability of the law whose demands Christ met on the cross. (John 19:30).

The righteousness of Christ offered believers the fulfilment of the law: the glory of the gospel on behalf of sinners, offering a proprietary surety of righteousness commanded in the law (1 John 2:2; 1 John 4:10; Romans 3:25; Romans 8:4).

We are invited in the gospel to accept the gift of it and to present it by the hand of faith to be freed from the curse of the law, which is eternal death. In answer to its high demand, Christ’s infinite satisfaction for sin and His perfect obedience as the condition of eternal life is now presented to the Father as our righteousness, which he imputes (or covers us with). Thus, the law as it is the covenant of works is fulfilled in Christ in harmony with the gospel. Christ’s atonement on our behalf is advocated on our behalf before the Father. Christ, as our High Priest in heaven before God, ministers on our behalf (Romans 3:25; Hebrews 2:17; Hebrews 6:19; 7:25).

When the law as a covenant presses a man forward or shuts him up to the faith of the gospel, the gospel urges and draws him back to the law as a rule. The law is his schoolmaster to teach him his need for the gospel’s grace; this grace will have his heart and his life regulated by no rule but the law (Romans 7:7-13; 1 John 2:1).

If the law commands believers, the grace of the gospel gently teaches them to love and to practice universal holiness. What the law, as a rule of life, binds us to perform, the grace of the gospel constrains and enables us to do via the Spirit in obedience (1 Peter 1:3- 5).

The commands of the law reprove believers for going wrong (Hebrews 12:10), and the promises of the gospel, so far as they are embraced, secure their walking in the right way (Ephesians 4:13, 24). The former shows them the extreme folly of backsliding; the latter is the means of healing their backslidings and restoring their souls.

The gospel or word of Christ, dwells only in those who have the law of Christ, put into their minds, and written in their hearts (1 Corinthians 3:16; Romans 8:9; 1 Corinthians 3:16,19; Psalm 51:10). The law cannot be inscribed on the heart, without the gospel, nor the gospel, without the law. Just as they are found together in the same Divine revelation, they dwell together harmoniously in the same believing soul. So great is the harmony between them that they can reside nowhere separate from each other.

While the precepts of the law show the redeemed how very grateful and thankful they should be for redeeming grace, the grace of Christ in the gospel produces praise with adoring gratitude. The law enjoins and encourages believers to receive daily by faith more and more of the grace of the gospel, qualifying them for more spiritual and lively obedience to its principles. The gospel supplies them with every motive preparative to seek this assistance, encouragement unto obedience.

The law reveals the believer’s duty, while the gospel is the focus of duty. It is by the almighty influence of the gospel, in the hand of the Holy Spirit, that the law is inscribed on the hearts of believers, and it is in consequence of having the law written on their hearts that they desire and trust in Christ for the blessings promised in the gospel.

The law enjoins the habit and exercise of faith; the gospel presents Christ, the glorious object of faith.

The law requires believers to love God with all their hearts, but it is the gospel only that presents God in such a view as to become an object of love to a sinner, namely, as the Father is in Christ reconciling the world unto himself.

The law enjoins mourning for sin: the gospel presents Christ as wounded for our transgressions, who, when believers view with the eye of faith, mourn for him as for an only son and are in bitterness for him as for a firstborn.

The law commands them to worship Yahweh – the Father- as their God; the gospel discloses to them both the object and the way of acceptable worship of Him through Christ.

The law is a transcript of all God’s moral perfections representative of His character, and so likewise is the gospel and the representative man, Jesus Christ, the express image of the Father. The law is the image of Yahweh’s holiness, justice, and mercy, as revealed by Christ in the gospel, and, as such, is “holy, just, and good.”

All who are renewed after Christ’s image, in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, do evidence this renovation of heart by delighting in his law and by loving and admiring his gospel; by rejoicing greatly in the imputed righteousness, which, the demands of his law as a covenant are all answered, and in salvation by sovereign grace, in which, the promises of his gospel, are all performed.

If a man has attained a saving and experimental knowledge of the gospel, he will undoubtedly evidence it by obedience of heart and life to the law in the hand of Christ as a rule of duty. A man can never perform holy obedience to the law so long as he remains ignorant of the gospel, but when he begins spiritually to discern the truth of the doctrine of redeeming grace, he will then move to begin to perform spiritual and sincere obedience, to the law of Christ as a rule as led by the Spirit of Christ.

The legalist expects happiness for his duties, but the true believer enjoys it in them, and the less he expects for them, the more he enjoys in them. The more he believes the gospel with application and trusts cordially in the Lord Jesus for salvation, the more his “faith works by love,” and the more he appreciates communion with Christ.

Because the law and the gospel harmoniously agree, believers need to be cautious so that they do not set the two in hostile opposition to one another. The opposite is true; one believer ought not to accuse another of being an Antinomian (the displacement of the law with the gospel) simply because he expounds the grace of the gospel’s purpose to be elevated in the means of obeying the gospel via revealing the empowerment of the Holy Spirit’s application of loving God and his neighbour as a fine summary of the law, as revealed by Christ to Moses at Sinai and later to us.

Clear and just views, especially of the agreement between the law and the gospel, under the influences of the Spirit of truth, promote a holy and cheerful frame of mind. Under such a view, you will be able to guard against setting the law in opposition to the gospel.

^{1 Colquhoun, John. A Treatise on the Law and Gospel,1890.}

Updated Theological Paper: Christ: High Priest of a New Covenant

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. (Hebrews 4:14 NASB)

This study will bring to light the importance of understanding that the new covenant is not simply an addendum to or a continuum of, the old covenant. We will look at the priesthood of Christ to help us determine the differences, as Yahweh was moving Israel out of a works-based law-keeping, view of life. The previous covenant was strongly bent towards the personal disciplined use of willpower alone. God used the old covenant system, with its sacrificial typology, led by the Mosaic written law, outwardly policed by the managing Levites, as a teaching tool to constrain his people as time progressed towards the first advent of the Messiah. My aim is to help nurture the paradigm shift based on scripture. There are many Christians who do not understand the huge shift in the covenantal progression that occurred at the cross when the law was written on the hearts of believers in Jesus Christ, encouraging Spirit-led motivation unto obedience now based on love for Him; concomitant to having love for others in His church.

Without an awareness of the distinctions of the two uniquely different covenants, many of the important doctrines of the church can be terribly misunderstood, namely: Christ’s Ascension, Christ’s Atonement, Responsible Sanctification, The Call of the Elect, and the Leading of the Teaching Spirit.

The Importance of the Truth of Christ’s High Priesthood

Our enemy, Satan attacks especially the doctrine of the High Priestly ministry of Christ because it is central to Christ’s atoning work on the cross to save mankind by faith, warping it into man-made myths. The Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon, emphasized the importance of adhering to Biblical Truth, doctrines in accord with scripture alone:

We need to bind the girdle of truth more and more tightly around our loins. It is a golden girdle, and so will be our richest ornament, and we greatly need it, for a heart that is not well braced up with the truth as it is in Jesus, and with the fidelity which is wrought of the Spirit, will be easily entangled with the things of this life, and tripped up by the snares of temptation. It is in vain that we possess the Scriptures unless we bind them around us like a girdle, surrounding our entire nature, keeping each part of our character in order, and giving compactness to our whole man. If in heaven Jesus unbinds not the girdle, much less may we upon the earth. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth. (also see Ephesians 6:14, Isaiah 11:5, Revelation 1:13-14)

The Holy Spirit of Christ must give us Spiritual Eyesight to See

Hebrews 8:1–13 defines Christ’s High Priesthood on an entirely different spiritual plane, a new dimension never understood before the Messiah came to Israel. This occurred in the context of a wholly new, altogether different covenant: “in speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (Hebrews 8:13; 10:1).

As we study this with regard to Christ’s sacrifice which opened up a new and living way, we must seek to allow the Spirit to free our perception if it is bound to mirror the old covenant antitype of the initial priesthood of the earthly tabernacle in continuum right into heaven, moreover if it disallows the contradistinction of a new heavenly reality of the new covenant paradigm (Luke 22:20; Matt 26:28; 1 Corinthians 11:25).

If we place Christ as carrying on a similar old covenant priesthood in heaven, bear in mind that he could not be a priest according to the old law’s metaphorical methodology as Jesus was not of the Levitical tribe. The divine strategy to move out of the old covenant symbology into the realized actual spiritual sphere of the Holy Spirit working within the hearts of men and women encompassing the church on earth must operate in a non-symbolic new way.

Now, after the sacrifice on Calvary — a singular and final sacrifice once and for all, Jesus must be recognized as the giver of the Holy Spirit whom he breathed on, imparting the gift of the Spirit to the disciples before his ascension (John 20:22); and the church was blessed with the same receipt of the Holy Spirit after Jesus was glorified at the ascension when He sat down with His Father in heaven (John 7:39). Now we view Jesus as our “God, the Judge of all” and as we pray to him we are to know that, we are coming “to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant” (see Hebrews 12:23-24). And the Holy Spirit became the actualizing agent of the church of all the believers. (Galatians 3:2, 14; Acts 1:8; 2:38; 9:17; 19:2;10:47; John 14:17)

Hebrews, chapter 8, addresses the relationship between the sanctuary (or sphere of high priestly ministry) and the sacrifice. Since Christ now exercises His superior High Priesthood in the heavenly sanctuary (Hebrews 8:1–2) which the Lord set up.  His sacrifice differs from and surpasses Old Testament sacrifices which previously dealt with sin, and which priests offered routinely  in the earthly sanctuary (Hebrews 8:3–6).

Hebrews 8:1 introduces this detailed argument of Hebrews 8:1–10:18. The author’s main point is that we do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven. Psalm 110:1 and Hebrews 4:14-16 support this assertion. Psalm 110:4 assures us that our High Priest replaces the Aaronic high priest. Psalm 110:1 assures us that this superior High Priest has sat down at the right hand of the Father. The rest of Hebrews 8:1 through to Hebrews 10:18 shows the significance of His being at the right hand and the adequacy of the sacrifice which enables Him to be there.¹

These chapters demonstrate that, because of His sacrifice and heavenly position, He administers a covenant far superior to the old covenant priesthood which was entirely symbolic. Jesus was not a Levite so he could not enter history classified as one of the Aaronic priesthood who’d carry on the system established by Moses (Hebrews 8:4) installed as a system of law to lead Yahweh’s people through the use of symbols and recurring constraints, to lead them to Christ (Gal 3:24-25).

Carefully note the words, “Since then we do have” an active Lord Jesus Christ as our High Priest in the Presence of the Father in heaven, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (see Hebrews 4:14–16). The epistle describes the greatness of the High Priest that Christians have so that we understand that we are free to enter into the privileges of the kingdom. From Hebrews 8:1 running through Hebrews 10:18, we sharply focus on Christ’s sacrifice. Why dial in on Christ’s sacrifice? Because through it Christ has become the effective High Priest because His past sacrifice enables Him to help us via His advocacy with the Father today.

Hebrews 8:1–2 emphasizes the “location” or magisterial sphere and the authoritative governance that Christ’s High Priestly ministry holds. Predetermined according to Psalm 110:1, God invited Him to sit at His right hand first alluded to in Hebrews 1:3 describing God’s right hand as “the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”

The description in Hebrews 8:1 is even stronger: the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven. With these additional words, the author of Hebrews emphasizes even more strongly the significance of this place of Christ’s ministry. He underlines the sovereign authority and glory of God the Father in whose presence Christ ministers! Can there be any doubt that this is the sanctuary, and the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, absolutely not by man?

Most good English translations follow the Greek text conjoining the word sanctuary and the true tabernacle, for example, “a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent”. I particularly like the NASB’s correct use of “and” (Hebrews 8:2 NIV; Hebrews 8:2 RSV; Hebrews 8:2 NASB; Hebrews 8:2 ESV).

Where some interpreters get lost

An old school of interpreters believed the writer of Hebrews thought that heaven, where Christ entered, has two parts of which the two parts of the earthly Tabernacle are a copy. The analogical use of language proper to the earthly sanctuary might give the impression that the heavenly sanctuary itself is envisaged as a locality, but we need not suppose that our author thought of it absolutely in local terms.

 ^{1, 2}

The outer section of the earthly Tabernacle which Moses constructed was the Holy Place where the priests customarily ministered daily. A second or inner section of this Tabernacle was the Most Holy Place where in some sense God’s Presence dwelt (see Hebrews 9:1–10).

If the writer of Hebrews believed in a two-part heavenly tabernacle, then the sanctuary of this verse must designate the inner of those two parts, the heavenly most holy place where Yahweh God dwells. And if two-part, then it might be reasonable to hold the view that the true tabernacle could be the outer of those two parts — the heavenly holy place through which one must pass to enter the holiest place to be in the presence of Yahweh. Or perhaps consider that the true tabernacle could be a reference to the entire heavenly tabernacle, encompassing both holy place and most holy place. ³  Regardless of how the various schools of thought had viewed the sanctuary: When Christ sat down at the Father’s right hand He entered “heaven itself” to appear in the presence of God (Hebrews 9:24). Therefore it is only logical, that we must see the sanctuary, the true tabernacle as one single reality because Christ immediately ascended into the presence of His Father! Heaven in this view does not have two compartments.

The earthly tabernacle had two compartments indicating symbolically that access to God was not open under the old covenant (see Hebrews 9:6–10). None but the high priest could ever go beyond the first compartment. But now, Christ has opened the way for all to unify with the Father as one (John 17:20-21) through Christ (John 14:6).

The Most Holy Place in relation to The Holy Place

When we look back to the writing of Moses in (Exodus 25:10-22; 26:33–35;37:1-9) we see that only the Most Holy Place contained the ark of the testimony and the mercy seat. The Most Holy Place was separated by a veil from the Holy Place which included the altar of incense (see Exodus 30:1–10) in addition to the lampstand and table (see Exodus 25:23–40). Exodus 26:33 depicts the curtain separated access to all, except the specially qualified high priest (see Leviticus 16: 29-34;14-15), prefiguring that only Christ can open the way to the Presence of God (Hebrews 9:7–14; 10:20).

^{The Ark of the Testimony/Covenant and the Mercy Seat which is the traditional term for the gold lid on the Ark of the Covenant. Shutterstock sample.}

The Most Holy place along with the ark included the mercy seat which symbolized the redemption of Christ. Exodus 25:18–21 revealed that the high priest sprinkled the blood of a sacrificial bull onto the mercy seat as an atonement for the sins of the people of Israel. Today every Christian knows that Jesus Christ is the antitype of the High Priest typified in the old testament’s sacrifices for sin, that His death on the cross was the fulfilment of the most solemn of typified sacrifices on the annual Day of Atonement, for all Israel, extending to all the faithful believers who see this clearly in the Word or God, clearly incontestable when scripture frames this doctrine. Thus when he ascended to heaven Christ Jesus rightly went immediately into the presence of Yahweh, Father God, in the antitypical Most Holy Place as our anchor within the veil.

We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 6:19-20)

Jesus while praying for the unity of his disciples to be one with Him, as He was one with the Father, it was evident that this would soon occur because He stated: “I am coming to you now” (John 17:13) Jesus taught that He ascended to His Father’s presence, “to my Father”… My God…Your God”! (John 20: 17) I cannot imagine Jesus being relegated to an antechamber awaiting entrance to the presence of Yahweh God! Lenski, a theologian with a brilliant mind, excelling in the Greek language, destroys this viewpoint referencing scripture: By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing (which is symbolic for the present age). (Hebrews 9:8)

We decline to follow them. In Hebrews 9: 8 the very fact that in the earthly Tabernacle the Holy Place still has its position before the Holy of Holies is pointed out as evidence that the way into the heavenly Holy of Holies has not yet been made manifest. Are we now to believe that such an anteroom still has its position, an eternal position, in front of the Holy of Holies of heaven, and that despite this fact realized post-Calvary, that this anteroom is now not the evidence that it is in v. 8 of Hebrews 9, but rather the opposite, it is the evidence that the way into the heavenly Sanctuary has been made manifest? This anteroom logic surely cannot be the case. If there is an anteroom in heaven as there was in Moses’ Tabernacle, the two antechambers cannot have an opposite significance, to say nothing of this division of heaven apart from any significance regarding the way to the heavenly Holy of Holies. ^{3 (for cited context)}

Who goes to His Father at Christmas, or Thanksgiving, or a long-awaited home visit, and doesn’t aim directly to see him face to face in His presence? Similarly, doesn’t every “good father” long to see His son and embrace him? Even David disconnected from his rebellious son Absalom desperately asked “how is it with young Absolom” and soon wept over the decease of his son: O Absalom my son, my son! (2 Samuel 18:33) And did Yahweh-Father not work united as One with Christ, as the Father, with the Son, via His Spirit, evident in the prayer of Christ for his disciples that the same unity would be allowed for them — to abide in the presence of both the Father and Son together via the Holy Spirit as the portrayal of a church family.

There would be no point in an “outer compartment” in heaven before, at or after Christ’s Ascension after-which He is glorified with the Father for his Atonement work on  the cross. This heavenly sanctuary (Hebrews 8:2) is the place where God dwells, the reality pictured by the Most Holy Place of the earthly Tabernacle. The earthly Tabernacle was only a copy which is why the writer never calls it the true tabernacle. Any antechamber concept destroys the beauty of the anti-type realized now, as it was known doctrinally in Paul’s day and confirmed by the apostles reasoning, especially in the High Priestly prayer of Christ in John 17.

Again, the heavenly sanctuary is the place where God indeed dwells. Its reality clarifies the fact that it was set up by the Lord himself without the agency of man. It is, indeed, equivalent to the God-established permanent city (see Hebrews 11:9–10) or heavenly homeland (Hebrews 11:13–16; 12:22–24). There, God’s people finally find an eternal “rest” in His presence (Hebrews 4:1–11). Christ’s sacrifice belongs to a different dimension, to the realm of the eternal not the temporal. ⁴

Hebrews 8:3–5 begins to establish the fact of Christ’s High Priestly ministry in this heavenly sanctuary, especially defining His sacrifice.
If a person is a high priest at all, he has been appointed by God to offer both gifts and sacrifices. The phrase gifts and sacrifices is a comprehensive term that includes the various kinds of Old Testament sacrifices. Offering sacrifice describes, by definition, what it means to be a high priest (see Hebrews 5:1). Christ ministers in the heavenly sanctuary or sphere. If He is a High Priest, and He is, then it is logically necessary for Him, too, to offer something (Hebrews 8:3; 9:12–15; 10:5–10).

The writer of Hebrews clarified that this “something” Christ offers is not the same kind of sacrifice that the Aaronic priests offered! This truth is implied by Hebrews 8:4: If he were on earth, instead of in heaven, he would not be a priest of the Aaronic order at all, much less a high priest, for there are already those who offer the gifts prescribed by the Mosaic law. Christ’s kind of High Priesthood has a sacrifice, but it is a very different kind of sacrifice from that of the Aaronic high priest in the earthly sanctuary.

The necessary difference between their sacrifice and His becomes clearer when we look at the place where the earthly priests serve and its relationship to the heavenly sanctuary of Christ’s service. (Hebrews 8:5) teaches: They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. The New International Version has added the word sanctuary for clarity, but the Greek text is more accurately rendered by the New American Standard Bible: “who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.” ⁵

Note carefully this distinction: The writer did not even call their location a “sanctuary” at all but only a “copy and shadow.” The scriptures do not imply that every piece of furniture and every detail of the earthly Tabernacle was a copy of something in heaven. He is not affirming exact correspondence between the two, but the inferiority of the earthly. The earthly Tabernacle Moses established mirrored the true approach to God in heaven but only in a shadowy way. It was only a symbolic copy.

We must be hearers of the gospel, to have eyes to see that Christ’s sacrifice must be something of a vastly different quality than the sacrifices appropriate for this “copy and shadow.” ⁶

We are called to the sanctity of our conscience

In the earthly sanctuary, sacrifices were indeed offered, but their efficacy was sadly restricted; they could not bring “perfection” to the worshiper because they did not affect his conscience. Now we see what our author wishes to teach his readers. The really effective barrier to a man or woman’s free access to God is an inward and not a material one; it exists in the conscience. It is only when the conscience is purified by Christ’s love and offering of His life for us that one is set free to approach God without reservation and offer him acceptable service and worship (Hebrews 10:19–25). We transit from the useless sacrificial blood of bulls and goats — useless in this regard. Animal sacrifice and other material ordinances which accompanied it could affect at best a ceremonial and symbolical removal of pollution. ⁷

For our author, as for Paul, these things were but “a shadow of the things to come” (Colossians 2:17). As regards the “various ablutions,” not only had the high priest to “bathe his body in water” after performing the ritual of the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:24), similar purifications were prescribed for a great variety of actual or ceremonial defilements. Now, however, we are created anew within our hearts to serve the living God in holiness and righteousness, this righteousness imputed to us when we confess our sins, and accept Jesus as Lord (1 John 1:9; Ephesians 4:24; Romans 4:8,24; 2 Corinthians 5:21) We now have confidence that we have salvation, motivating us to come to the Lord (1 John 5:14; Ephesians 3:12; Hebrews 10:19). The good news of Christ activates our consciences (Acts 2:37, 23:1, 24:16; Rom 9:1, 14:22). Our conscience is led by the Spirit (Rom 8: 14) and the understanding of what His atoning blood has done on our behalf gives us the confidence to live for Christ with a clear, purified conscience as testified to us via the Holy Spirit (Gal 4:6; Hebrews 9:14; 10:9-10, 22; 13:18; 2 Corinthians 1:12; 1 Tim 1:9, 3:9; 1 Peter 3:16, 21; 2 Pet 2:19; 1 John 3:21). This is our ministry to live in a clear conscience before the world (2 Corinthians 4:2, 5:11).

In 2 Corinthians 5:21, we learn about Christ’s propitiation on our behalf, and imputation of righteousness, when we are accounted as righteous because God the Father looks to Christ who covers us with His atoning work, having died in our stead:

“He [God] made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Here we have a double imputation. God imputed our sins to Christ who knew no sin. And God imputed his righteousness to us who had no righteousness of our own. The key phrases for us are “the righteousness of God” and “in Him.” It’s not our righteousness that we get here. It is God’s righteousness. And we get it not because our faith is righteous, but because we are “in Christ.” Faith unites us to Christ. And in Christ, we have an alien righteousness. It is God’s righteousness in Christ. Or you can say it is Christ’s righteousness. He takes our sin. We take his righteousness. ⁸

We must see that the Old Covenant as symbols for the times past

These purifications undoubtedly had great hygienic value, but when they were given religious value there was always the danger that those who practised them might be tempted to think of religious duty exclusively, or at least excessively, regarding externalities. But all these things were “outward ordinances” (NEB), “regulations for the body” (RSV), not for the conscience, with a temporary and limited validity until the “time of reformation.” By the rendering “reformation” we might understand “reformation” in the sense of “reconstruction”; the coming of Christ involved a complete reshaping of the structure of Israel’s religion. The old covenant was now to give way to the new, the shadow to the substance, the outward and earthly copy to the inward and heavenly reality. ⁹

The New Covenant Reality: the Living Way in Christ, our High Priest

“Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience” (Hebrews 10:19-22 NASB). Dr. Keil of the renowned Hebrew Commentary Keil–Delitzsch sees the new Holy of Holies of Daniel 9 in the new covenant period after the ascension, to mean the Most Holy Place as the church where Christ is ministering to sanctify His people and make them holy by the indwelling Holy Spirit empowering them to have a clear conscience — to have “hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience”. :

We must refer this sixth statement (to anoint the Most Holy) also to that time of the consummation, and understand it of the establishment of the new Holy of Holies which was shown to the holy seer on Patmos as “the tabernacle of God with men,” in which God will dwell with them, and they shall become His people, and He shall be their God with them (Rev 21:1-3). In this holy city, there is its temple, and the glory of God will lighten it (Rev 21: 22-23). Into it nothing shall enter that defileth or worketh abomination (Rev 21:27), for sin shall then be closed and sealed up; there shall righteousness dwell (2 Pet. 3:13). ¹⁰

Our High Priest and our Royal Priesthood

By cooperating responsibly, motivated by grace (2 Peter 3:31), with the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying work in the church which begins when we first believe (John 15:3; 1 Corinthians 1:2, 30, 6:11; 1 John 3:3), we are purified from the sins of the world by the indwelling Spirit (John 17:19; Ephesians 5:26; 2 Corinthians 7:1; 2 Timothy 2:19; James 4:8; 1 Peter 1:15). Our unity with Christ our High Priest, working within our hearts both individually, and collectively together in the church will be our hope until the Lord returns in glory (John 15:5; 1 Thessalonians 5:23).

As Paul noted, our sanctification will be the work of a lifetime of obedience, as we currently engage in spiritual warfare in our life now and progressively onward in our life- journey, as the Lord leads via His Spirit until we meet Him face to face. (1 John 3: 1-3; Philippians 3:13-15). In this way we also as a church can effectively minister to others the sanctifying Word of our Lord in the new covenant order of Melchizedek ¹¹ (Hebrews 5:9-19, 6:19-20; 1 Peter 2:9).

Corroborating study 1: Melchizedek: Divine Priest of Abraham

Corroborating study 2: The Old and New Covenant Distinctions 

¹ _{F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews (New International Commentary on the New Testament)}

² _{Christ’ High Priesthood at His ascension noted in Hebrews 9:11, arks the symbolism of the curtain which was rent in two upon Christ’s decease (Matt 27.51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45), the curtain symbolizing being his rent body, a way confirmed by the Spirit (Rom 7:6; Hebrews 10:20)!}

³ _{Lenski, R. C. H. (1938). The interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews and of the Epistle of James (pp. 290–291). Columbus, OH: Lutheran Book Concern, notes: They suppose that Christ went into the Holy of Holies in heaven (εἰς τὰ ἅγια, v. 12) by first going through something that corresponds to the Holy of the earthly Tabernacle of Moses. This anteroom they find in “the greater and more complete σκηνή or Tabernacle, not handmade, that is, not of this creation.”}

_{But what can this anteroom be? The idea that it is the body or the human nature of Christ is now commonly rejected and certainly has no support in 10:20. Since this σκηνή is “not of this creation” as the writer himself says, the created heavens cannot be referred to as they are referred to in 4:14: “having passed through the (created) heavens” in his ascension. So these commentators think that heaven itself, the uncreated place where God dwells, is divided into two parts that correspond to the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle of the wilderness. They think that the writer is exalting this heavenly anteroom “through” which Jesus passed in order to reach the heavenly Holy of Holies that was above the anteroom of Moses’ Tabernacle.}

_{We decline to follow them. In Hebrews 9: 8 the very fact that in the earthly Tabernacle the Holy Place still has its position before the Holy of Holies is pointed out as evidence that the way into the heavenly Holy of Holies has not yet been made manifest. Are we now to believe that such an anteroom still has its position, an eternal position, in front of the Holy of Holies of heaven, and that despite this fact this anteroom is now not the evidence that it is in v. 8 but rather the opposite, evidence that the way into the heavenly Sanctuary has been made manifest? This surely cannot be the case. If there is an anteroom in heaven as there is in Moses’ Tabernacle, the two antechambers cannot have an opposite significance, to say nothing of this division of heaven apart from any significance regarding the way to the heavenly Holy of Holies.}

⁴ _{Cockerill, G. L. (1998). Hebrews: a Bible commentary in the Wesleyan tradition (p. 167). Indianapolis, IN Wesleyan Publishing House.}

⁵ _Ibid

⁶ _Ibid

⁷ _{F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews (New International Commentary on the New Testament)}

⁸ _{John Piper, Desiring God}

⁹ _{F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews (New International Commentary on the New Testament}

¹⁰ _{Commentaries on the Book of Daniel, Vol II, trans. by Thomas Myers (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1948 [reprint]), p 349}

¹¹ _{The order of Melchizedek was symbolic of the new covenant order that Jesus would institute. The mystery of the gospel relates so well to the life of Abraham, a man of faith who trusted God’s Word to lead him (and view Melchizedek as a High Priest who entered into his life in his time of duress).}

” So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.”— Romans 9:16

THE great controversy which for many ages has divided the Christian Church has hinged upon the difficult question of “the will.” I need not say of that conflict that it has done much mischief to the Christian Church, undoubtedly it has; but I will rather say, that it has been fraught with incalculable usefulness; for it has thrust forward before the minds of Christians, precious truths, which, but for it, might have been kept in the shade. I believe that the two great doctrines of human responsibility and divine sovereignty have both been brought out the more prominently in the Christian Church by the fact that there is a class of strong-minded hard-headed men who magnify sovereignty at the expense of responsibility; and another earnest and useful class who uphold and maintain human responsibility oftentimes at the expense of divine sovereignty. I believe there is a needs-be for this in the finite character of the human mind, while the natural lethargy of the Church requires a kind of healthy irritation to arouse her powers and stimulate her exertions. The pebbles in the living stream of truth are worn smooth and round by friction. Who among us would wish to suspend a law of nature whose effects on the whole are good? I glory in that which at the present day is so much spoken against — sectarianism, for “sectarianism” is the cant phrase which our enemies use for all firm religious belief. I find it applied to all sorts of Christians; no matter what views he may hold, if a man be but in earnest, he is a sectarian at once. Success to sectarianism; let it live and flourish. When that is done with, farewell to the power of godliness. When we cease, each of us, to maintain our own views of truth, and to maintain those views firmly and strenuously, then truth shall fly out of the land, and error alone shall reign: this, indeed, is the object of our foes: under the cover of attacking sects, they attack true religion, and would drive it, if they could, from off the face of the earth. In the controversy which has raged, — a controversy which, I again say, I believe to have been really healthy, and which has done us all a vast amount of good— mistakes have arisen from two reasons. Some brethren have altogether forgotten one order of truths, and then, in the next place, they have gone too far with others. We all have one blind eye, and too often we are like Nelson in the battle, we put the telescope to that blind eye, and then protest that we cannot see. I have heard of one man who said he had read the Bible through thirty-four times on his knees, but could not see a word about election in it; I think it very likely that he could not; kneeling is a very uncomfortable posture for reading, and possibly the superstition which would make the poor man perform this penance would disqualify him for using his reason; moreover, to get through the Book thirty-four times, he probably read in such a hurry that he did not know what he was reading, and might as well have been dreaming over “Robinson Crusoe” as the Bible. He put the telescope to the blind eye. Many of us do that; we do not want to see a truth, and therefore we say we cannot see it. On the other hand, there are others who push a truth too far. “This is good; oh! this is precious!” say they, and then they think it is good for everything; that in fact it is the only truth in the world. You know how often things are injured by over-praise; how a good medicine, which really was a great boon for a certain disease, comes to be despised utterly by the physician, because a certain quack has praised it up as being a universal cure; so puffery in doctrine leads to its dishonour. Truth has thus suffered on all sides; on the one hand brethren would not see all the truth, and on the other hand they magnified out of proportion that which they did see. You have seen those mirrors, those globes that are sometimes hung up in gardens; you walk up to them and you see your head ten times as large as your body, or you walk away and put yourself in another position, and then your feet are monstrous and the rest of your body is small; this is an ingenious toy, but I am sorry to say that many go to work with God’s truth upon the model of this toy; they magnify one capital truth, till it becomes monstrous; they minify and speak little of another truth till it becomes altogether forgotten. In what I shall be able to say this morning you will probably detect the failing to which I allude the common fault of humanity, and suspect that I also am magnifying one truth at the expense of another; but I will say this, before I proceed further, that it shall not be the case if I can help it, but I will endeavour honestly to bring out the truth as I have learned it, and if in ought ye see that I teach you what is contrary to the Word of God, reject it; but mark you, if it be according to God’s Word, reject it at your peril ; for when I have once delivered it to you, if ye receive it not the responsibility lies with you.

There are two things, then, this morning I shall have to talk about. The first is, that the work of salvation rests upon the will of God, md not upon the will of man; and secondly, the equally sure doctrine, that the unit of man has its proper position in the work of salvation, and is not to be ignored.

I. First, then, SALVATION HINGES UPON THE WILL OF GOD, AND NOT UPON THE WILL OF MAN. So saith our text — “It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy;” by which is clearly meant that the reason why any man is saved is not because he wills it, but because God willed, according to that other passage, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” The whole scheme of salvation, we aver, from the first to the last, hinges and turns, and is dependant upon the absolute will of God, and not upon the will of the creature.

This, we think, we can show in two or three ways; and first, we think that analogy furnishes us with a rather strong argument. There is a certain likeness between all God’s works; if a painter shall paint three pictures, there is a certain identity of style about all the three which leads you to know that they are from the same hand. Or, if an author shall write three works upon three different subjects, yet there are qualities running through the whole, which will lead you to assert, “That is the same man’s writing, I am certain, in the whole of the three books.” Now what we find in the works of nature, we generally find to be correct with regard to the work of providence; and what is true of nature and of providence, is usually true with regard to the greater work of grace. Turn your thoughts, then, to the works of creation. There was a time when these works had no existence; the sun was not born; the young moon had not begun to fill her horns; the stars were not; not even the illimitable void of space was then in existence. God dwelt alone without a creature. I ask you, with whom did he then take counsel? Who instructed him? Who had a voice in that council by which the wisdom of God was directed? Did it not rest with his own will whether he would make or not? Was not creation itself, when it lay in embryo in his thoughts entirely, in his keeping so that he would or would not just as he pleased? And when he willed to create, did he not still exercise his own discretion and will as to what and how he would make? If he hath made the stars spheres, what reason was there for this but his own will? If he hath chosen that they should move in the circle rather than in any other orbit, is it not God’s own fiat that hath made them do so? And when this round world, this green earth on which we dwell, leaped from his moulding hand into its sunlit track, was not this also according to the divine will? Who ordained, save the Lord, that there the Himalayas should lift their heads and pierce the clouds, and that there the deep cavernous recesses of the sea should pierce earth’s bowels of rock? Who, save himself, ordained that yon Sahara should be brown and sterile, and that yonder isle should laugh in the midst of the sea with joy over her own verdure? Who, I say, ordained this, save God? You see running through creation, from the tiniest animalculae up to the tall archangel who stands before the throne, this working of God’s own will. Milton was nobly right when he represents the Eternal One as saying,

“My goodness is most free
To act or not: Necessity and Chance
Approach not me, and what I will is fate.”

He created as it pleased him; he made them as he chose; the potter exercised power over his clay to make his vessels as he willed, and to make them for what purposes he pleased. Think you that he has abdicated the throne of grace? Does he reign in creation and not in grace? Is he absolute king over nature and not over the greater works of the new nature? Is he Lord over the things which his hand made at first, and not King over the great regeneration, the new-making wherein he maketh all things new?

But take the works of Providence. I suppose there will be no dispute amongst us that in providential matters God ordereth all things according to the counsel of his own will. If we should, however, be troubled with any doubts about that matter, we might hear the striking words of Nebuchadnezzar when, taught by God, he had repented of his pride— “All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; he doth according to his will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou.” From the first moment of human history even to the last, God’s will shall be done. What though it be a catastrophe or a crime— there may be the second causes and the action of human evil, but the great first cause is in all. If we could imagine that one human action had eluded the prescience or the predestination of God, we could suppose that the whole might have done so, and all things might drift to sea, anchorless, rudderless, a sport to every wave, the victim of tempest and hurricane. One leak in the ship of Providence would sink her, one hour in which Omnipotence relaxed its grasp and she would fall to atoms. But it is the comfortable conviction of all God’s people that “all things work together for good to them that love God;” and that God ruleth and overruleth, and reigneth in all acts of men and in all events that transpire; from seeming evil still producing good, and better still, and better still in infinite progression, still ordering all things according to the counsel of his will. And think you that he reigns in Providence and is King there, and not in grace? Has he given up the blood-bought land to be ruled by man, while common Providence is left as a lonely province to be his only heritage? He hath not let slip the reins of the great chariot of Providence, and think you that when Christ goeth forth in the chariot of his grace it is with steeds unguided, or driven only by chance, or by the fickle will of man? Oh, no, brethren. As surely as God’s will is the axle of the universe, as certainly as God’s will is the great heart of Providence sending its pulsings through even the most distant limbs of human act, so in grace let us rest assured that he is King, willing to do as he pleases, having mercy on whom he will have mercy, calling whom he chooses to call, quickening whom he wills, and fulfilling, despite man’s hardness of heart, despite man’s wilful rejection of Christ, his own purposes, his own decrees, without one of them falling to the ground. We think, then, that analogy helps to strengthen us in the declaration of the text, that salvation is not left with man’s will.

2. But, secondly, we believe that the difficulties which surround the opposite theory are tremendous. In fact, we cannot bear to look them in the face. If there be difficulties about ours, there are ten times more about the opposite. We think that the difficulties which surround our belief that salvation depends upon the will of God, arise from our ignorance in not understanding enough of God to be able to judge of them; but that the difficulties in the other case do not arise from that cause, but from certain great truths, clearly revealed, which stand in manifest opposition to the figment which our opponents have espoused. According to their theory— that salvation depends upon our own will— you have first of all this difficulty to meet, that you have made the purpose of God in the great plan of salvation entirely contingent. You have an “if” put upon everything. Christ may die, but it is not certain according to that theory that he will redeem a great multitude; nay, not certain that he will redeem any, since the efficacy of the redemption, according to that plan, rests not in its own intrinsic power, but in the will of man accepting that redemption. Hence if man be, as we aver he always is, if he be a bond-slave as to his will, and will not yield to the invitation of God’s grace, then in such a case the atonement of Christ would be valueless, useless, and altogether in vain, for not a soul would be saved by it; and even when souls are saved by it, according to that theory, the efficacy, I say, lies not in the blood itself, but in the will of man which gives it efficacy. Redemption is therefore made contingent; the cross shakes, the blood falls powerless on the ground, and atonement is a matter of perhaps. There is a heaven provided, but there may be no souls who will ever come there if their coming is to be of themselves. There is a fountain filled with blood, but there may be none who will ever wash in it unless divine purpose and power shall constrain them to come. You may look at any one promise of grace, but you cannot say over it, “This is the sure mercy of David;” for there is an “if,” and a “but;” a “perhaps,” and a “peradventure.” In fact, the reins are gone out of God’s hands; the linch-pin is taken away from the wheels of the creation; you have left the whole economy of grace and mercy to be the gathering together of fortuitous atoms impelled by man’s own will, and what may become of it at the end nobody can know. We cannot tell on that theory whether God will be glorified or sin will triumph. Oh! how happy are we when we come back to the old-fashioned doctrines, and cast our anchor where it can get its grip in the eternal purpose and counsel of God, who worketh all things to the good pleasure of his will.

Then another difficulty comes in ; not only is everything made contingent, but it does seem to us as if man were thus made to be the supreme being in the universe. According to the freewill scheme the Lord intends good, but he must wait like a lackey on his own creature to know what his intention is ; God willeth good and would do it, but he cannot, because he has an unwilling man who will not
have God’s good thing carried into effect. What do ye, sirs, but drag the Eternal from his throne, and lift up into it that fallen creature, man; for man, according to that theory, nods, and his nod is destiny. You must have a destiny somewhere; it must either be as God wills or as man wills. If it be as God wills, then Jehovah sits as sovereign upon his throne of glory, and all hosts obey him, and the world is safe; if not God, then you put man there, to say, “I will,” or “I will not; if I will it I will enter heaven; if I will it I will despise the grace of God; if I will it I will conquer the Holy Spirit, for I am stronger than God, and stronger than omnipotence; if I will it I will make the blood of Christ of no effect, for I am mightier than that blood, mightier than the blood of the Son of God himself; though God make his purpose, yet will I laugh at his purpose; it shall be my purpose that shall make his purpose stand, or make it fall.” Why, sirs, if this be not Atheism, it is idolatry; it is putting man where God should be, and I shrink with solemn awe and horror from that doctrine which makes the grandest of God’s works— the salvation of man— to be dependant upon the will of his creature whether it shall be accomplished or not. Glory I can and must in my text in its fullest sense. “It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.”

3. We think that the known condition of man is a very strong argument against the supposition that salvation depends upon his own wills and hence is a great confirmation of the truth that it depends upon the will of God; that it is God that chooses, and not man, — God who takes the first step, and not the creature. Sirs, on the theory that man comes to Christ of his own will, what do you with texts of Scripture which say that he is dead? “And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins;” you will say that is a figure. I grant it, but what is the meaning of it? You say the meaning is, he is spiritually dead. Well, then I ask you, how can he perform the spiritual act of willing that which is right? He is alive enough to will that which is evil, only evil and that continually, but he is not alive to will that which is spiritually good. Do you not know, to turn to another Scripture, that he cannot even discern that which is spiritual? for the natural man knoweth not the things which be of God, seeing they are spiritual and must be spiritually discerned. Why, he has not a “spirit” with which to discern them; he has only a soul and body, but the third principle, implanted in regeneration, which is called in the Word of God, “the spirit,” he knows nothing of, and he is therefore incapable, seeing he is dead and is without the vitalizing spirit, of doing what you say he does. Then, again, what make you of the words of our Saviour where he said to those who had heard even him, “Ye will not come to me that ye might have life?” Where is free-will after such a text as that? When Christ affirms that they will not, who dare say they will? “Ah, but,” you say, “they could if they would.” Dear sir, I am not talking about that; I am not talking about if they would, the question is “will they? and we say “no,” they never will by nature. Man is so depraved, so set on mischief, and the way of salvation is so obnoxious to his pride, so hateful to his lusts, that he cannot like it, and will not like it , unless he who ordained the plan shall change his nature, and subdue his will. Mark, this stubborn will of man is his sin; he is not to be excused for it; he is guilty because he will not come; he is condemned because he will not come; because he will not believe in Christ, therefore is condemnation resting upon him, but still the fact does not alter for all that, that he will not come by nature if left to himself. Well, then, if man will not, how shall he be saved unless God shall make him will? — unless, in some mysterious way, he who made the heart shall touch its mainspring so that it shall move in a direction opposite to that which it naturally follows.

4. But there is another argument which will come closer home to us. It is consistent with the universal experience of all God’s people that salvation is of God’s will. You will say, “I have not had a very long life, I have not, but I have had a very extensive acquaintance with all sections of the Christian Church, and I solemnly protest before you, that I have never yet met with a man professing to be a Christian, let alone his really being so, who ever said that his coming to God was the result of his unassisted nature. Universally, I believe, without exception, the people of God will say it was the Holy Spirit that made them what they are; that they should have refused to come as others do unless God’s grace had sweetly influenced their wills. There are some hymns in Mr. Wesley’s hymn-book which are stronger upon this point than I could ever venture to be, for he puts prayers into the lips of the sinner in which God is even asked to force him to be saved by grace. Of course I can take no objection to a term so strong, but it goes to prove this, that among all sections of Christians, whether Arminian or Calvinistic, whatever their doctrinal sentiments may be, their experimental sentiments are the same. I do not think they would any of them refuse to join in the verse—

“ Oh! yes, I do love Jesus,
Because he first loved me.”

Nor would they find fault with our own hymn,

“‘Twas the same love that spread the feast;
That sweetly forced us in ;
Else we had still refused to taste,
And perished in our sin.”

We bring out the crown and say, “On whose head shall we put it? Who ruled at the turning-point? Who decided this case?” and the universal Church of God, throwing away their creeds, would say, “Crown him; crown him, put it on his head, for he is worthy; he has made us to differ; he has done it, and unto him be the praise for ever and ever.” What staggers me is, that men can believe dogmas contrary to their own experience, — that they can hug that to their hearts as precious to which their own inward convictions must give the lie.

5. But, lastly, in the way of argument, and to bring out our great battering-ram at the last. It is not, after all, arguments from analogy, nor reasons from the difficulties of the opposite position, nor inferences from the known feebleness of human nature, nor even deductions from experience, that will settle this question once for all. To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. Do me the pleasure, then, to use your Bibles for a moment or two, and let us see what Scripture saith on this main point. First, with regard to the matter of God’s preparation, and his plan with regard to salvation. We turn to the apostle’s words in the epistle to the Ephesians, and we find in the first chapter and the third verse, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will”— a double word you notice— it is according to the will of his will. No expression could be stronger in the original to show the entire absoluteness of this thing as depending on the will of God. It seems, then, that the choice of his people and their adoption is according to his will. So far we are satisfied, indeed, with the testimony of the apostle. Then in the ninth verse, “Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth; even in him.” So, then, it seems that the grand result of the gathering together of all the saved in Christ, as well as the primitive purpose, is according to the counsel of his will. What stronger proof can there be that salvation depends upon the will of God? Moreover, it says in the eleventh verse— “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will a stronger expression than “of his will” — “of his own will,” his free unbiassed will, his will alone. As for redemption as well as for the eternal purpose— redemption is according to the will of God. You remember that verse in Hebrews, tenth chapter, ninth verse: “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he might establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified.” So that the redemption offered up on Calvary, like the election made before the foundation of the world, is the result of the divine will. There will be little controversy here: the main point is about our new birth, and here we cannot allow of any diversity of opinion. Turn to the Gospel according to John, the first chapter, and thirteenth verse. It is utterly impossible that human language could have put a stronger negative on the vainglorious claims of the human will than this passage does: “Born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” A passage equally clear is to be found in the Epistle of James, at the first chapter, and the eighteenth verse: “Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures.” In these passages— and they are not the only ones— the new birth is peremptorily and in the strongest language put down as being the fruit and effect of the will and purpose of God. As to the sanctification which is the result and outgrowth of the new birth, that also is according to God’s holy will. In the first of Thessalonians, fourteenth chapter, and third verse, we have, “This is the will of God, even your sanctification.” One more passage I shall need you to refer to, the sixth chapter, and thirty-ninth verse. Here we find that the preservation, the perseverance, the resurrection, and the eternal glory of God’s people, rests upon his will. “And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day; and this is the will of him that sent me that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on him, may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” And indeed this is why the saints go to heaven at all, because in the seventeenth chapter of John, Christ is recorded as praying, “Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am.” We close, then, by noticing that according to Scripture there is not a single blessing in the new covenant which is not conferred upon us according to the will of God, and that as the vessel hangs upon the nail, so every blessing we receive hangs upon the absolute will and counsel of God, who gives these mercies even as he gives the gifts of the Spirit according as he wills. We shall now leave that point, and take the second great truth, and speak a little while upon it.

II. MAN’S WILL HAS ITS PROPER PLACE IN THE MATTER OF SALVATION. “Whosoever will let him come and take the water of life freely.” According to this and many other texts of Scripture where man is addressed as a being having a will, it appears clear enough that men are not saved by compulsion. When a man receives the grace of Christ, he does not receive it against his will. No man shall be pardoned while he abhors the thought of forgiveness. No man shall have joy in the Lord if he says, “I do not wish to rejoice in the Lord.” Do not think that anybody shall have the angels pushing them behind into the gates of heaven. They must go there freely or else they will never go there at all. We are not saved against our will; nor again, mark you, is the will taken away; for God does not come and convert the intelligent free agent into a machine. When he turns the slave into a child, it is not by plucking out of him the will which he possesses. We are as free under grace as ever we were under sin; nay, we were slaves when we were under sin, and when the Son makes us free we are free indeed, and we are never free before. Erskine, in speaking of his own conversion, says he ran to Christ “with full consent against his will,” by which he meant it was against his own will; against his will as it was till Christ came, but when Christ came, then he came to Christ with full consent, and was as willing to be saved — no, that is a cold word— as delighted, as pleased, as transported to receive Christ as if grace had not constrained him. But we do hold and teach that though the will of man is not ignored, and men are not saved against their wills, that the work of the Spirit, which is the effect of the will of God, is to change the human will, and so make men willing in the day of God’s power, working in them to will and to do of his own good pleasure. The work of the Spirit is consistent with the original laws and constitution of human nature. Ignorant men talk grossly and carnally about the work of the Spirit in the heart as if the heart were a lump of flesh, and the Holy Spirit turned it round mechanically. Now, brethren, how is your heart and my heart changed in any matter? Why, the instrument generally is persuasion. A friend sets before us a truth we did not know before; pleads with us; puts it in a new light, and then we say, “Now I see that,” and then our hearts are changed towards the thing. Now, although no man’s heart is changed by moral suasion in itself, yet the way in which the Spirit works in his heart, as far as we can detect it, is instrumentally by a blessed persuasion of the mind. I say not that men are saved by moral suasion, or that this is the first cause, but I think it is frequently the visible means. As to the secret work, who knows how the Spirit works? “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but thou canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit;” but yet, as far as we can see, the Spirit makes a revelation of truth to the soul, whereby it seeth things in a different light from what it ever did before, and then the will cheerfully bows that neck which once was stiff as iron, and wears the yoke which once it despised, and wears it gladly, cheerfully, and joyfully. Yet, mark, the will is not gone; the will is treated as it should be treated; man is not acted upon as a machine, he is not polished like a piece of marble; he is not planed and smoothed like a plank of deal; but his mind is acted upon by the Spirit of God, in a manner quite consistent with mental laws. Man is thus made a new creature in Christ Jesus, by the will of God, and his own will is blessedly and sweetly made to yield.

Then , mark you, — and this is a point which I want to put into the thoughts of any who are troubled about these things, — this gives the renewed soul a most blessed sign of grace, insomuch that if any man wills to be saved by Christ, if he wills to have sin forgiven through the precious blood, if he wills to live a holy life resting upon the atonement of Christ, and in the power of the Spirit, that will is one of the most blessed signs of the mysterious working of the Spirit of God in his heart; such a sign is it that if it be real willingness, I will venture to assert that that man is not far from the kingdom. I say not that he is so saved that he himself may conclude he is, but there is a work begun, which has the germ of salvation in it. If thou art willing, depend upon it that God is willing. Soul, if thou art anxious after Christ, he is more anxious after thee. If thou hast only one spark of true desire after him, that spark is a spark from the fire of his love to thee. He has drawn thee, or else thou wouldest never run after him. If you are saying, “Come to me, Jesu,” it is because he has come to you, though you do not know it. He has sought you as a lost sheep, and therefore you have sought him like a returning prodigal. He has swept the house to find you, as the woman swept for the lost piece of money, and now you seek him as a lost child would seek a father’s face. Let your willingness to come to Christ be a hopeful sign and symptom.

But once more, and let me have the ear of the anxious yet again. It appears that when you have a willingness to come to Christ, there is a special promise for you. You know, my dear hearers, that we are not accustomed in this house of prayer to preach one side of truth, but we try if we can to preach it all. There are some brethren with small heads, who, when they have heard a strong doctrinal sermon, grow into hyper-Calvinists, and then when we preach an inviting sermon to poor sinners, they cannot understand it, and say it is a yea and nay gospel. Believe me, it is not yea and nay, but yea and yea. We give our yea to all truth, and our nay we give to no doctrine of God. Can a sinner be saved when he wills to come to Christ? Yea. And if he does come, does he come because God brings him? Yea. We have no nays in our theology for any revealed truth. We do not shut the door on one word and open it to another. Those are the yea and nay people who have a nay to the poor sinner, when they profess to preach the gospel. As soon as a man has any willingness given to him, he has a special promise. Before he had that willingness he had an invitation. Before he had any willingness, it was his duty to believe in Christ, for it is not man’s condition that gives him a right to believe. Men are to believe in obedience to God’s command. God commandeth all men everywhere to repent, and this is his great command, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” “This is the commandment, that ye believe in Jesus Christ whom he has sent.” Hence your right and your duty to believe; but once you have got the willingness, then you have a special promise— “Whosoever will let him come.” That is a sort of extraordinary invitation. Methinks this is the utterance of the special call. You know how John Bunyan describes the special call in words to this effect. “The hen goes clucking about the farm-yard all day long; that is the general call of the gospel; but she sees a hawk up in the sky, and she gives a sharp cry for her little ones to come and hide under her wings; that is the special call; they come and are safe.” My text is a special call to some of you. Poor soul! are you willing to be saved? “O, sir, willing, willing indeed; I cannot use that word; I would give all I have if I might but be saved.” Do you mean you would give it all in order to purchase it? “Oh no, sir, I do not mean that; I know I cannot purchase it; I know it is God’s gift, but still, if I could but be saved, I would ask nothing else.

‘Lord, deny me what thou wilt,
Only ease me of my guilt ;
Suppliant at thy feet I lie,
Give me Christ, or else I die.’

Why, then the Lord speaks to you this morning, to you if not to any other man in the chapel, he speaks to you and says— “Whosoever will let him come.” You cannot say this does not mean you. When we give the general invitation, you may exempt yourself perhaps in some way or other, but you cannot now. You are willing, then come and take the water of life freely. “Had not I better pray?” It does not say so; it says, take the water of life. “But had not I better go home and get better?” No, take the water of life, and take the water of life now. You are standing by the fountain outside there, and the -water is flowing and you are willing to drink; you are picked out of a crowd who are standing round about, and you are specially invited by the person who built the fountain. He says, “Here is a special invitation for you; you are willing; come and drink.” “Sir,” you say, “I must go home and wash my pitcher.” “No,” says he, “come and drink.” “But, sir, I want to go home and write a petition to you.” “I do not want it,” he says, “drink now, drink now.” What would you do? If you were dying of thirst, you would just put your lips down and drink. Soul, do that now. Believe that Jesus Christ is able to save thee now. Trust thy soul in his hands now. No preparation is wanted. Whosoever will let him come; let him come at once and take the water of life freely. To take that water is simply to trust Christ; to repose on him; to take him to be your all in all. Oh that thou wouldest do it now!

Thou art willing; God has made thee willing. When the crusaders heard the voice of Peter the hermit, as he bade them go to Jerusalem to take it from the hands of the invaders, they cried out at once, “Deus vult; God wills it; God wills it;” and every man plucked his sword from its scabbard, and set out to reach the holy sepulchre, for God willed it. So come and drink, sinner; God wills it. Trust Jesus; God wills it. If you will it, that is the sign that God wills it. “Father, thy will be done on earth even as it is in heaven.” As sinners, humbly stoop to drink of the flowing crystal which streams from the sacred fountain which Jesus opened for his people; let it be said in heaven, “God’s will is done; hallelujah, hallelujah!” “It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy;” yet ” Whosoever will let him come and take the water of life freely.”

ESV Scriptures on Election to meditate on.