How To Study The Bible
Vern Peterman · Sep 8, 2002
How to Study Bible (2001-02), No. 49
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262247212149

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

All right. A couple of things by way of a reminder and other. One is next week I won't be here. And so what we've arranged is they've got this major Bible themes that's going on in the red carpet room. I've talked with them there so that they won't be surprised by a whole bunch of unusual and unexpected quantities of people. Anyway. Because it's major Bible themes, they're going through the book, it's a subject type thing as opposed to being kind of thrust in the middle of something that's got a certain continuity.

And they'll be covering the resurrection, just so you know, and won't feel disoriented stepping into it. And then we'll go ahead and continue back here through the rest of the month. Next week, just head into the red carpet room. There'll be nobody in here. If I'm not here, Consider it normal for one week.

The other thing is we talked about doing, for the rest of our time, doing special subjects or passages that you might be interested in. And so I don't know if you have any ideas on that, but feel free to see me about it better today, because otherwise I'll come up with something if I don't hear anything. And I don't know if you'll like it or not, but at any rate, Yes, it's intolerable isn't it yes so anyway now what we had talked about doing is One of the things that that we teach at this church pretty consistently is that death is separation and The good question we can use these principles of how to study the Bible not just in in dealing with, you know, here's a certain passage, but we can also go through and study a certain question or topic as well. And that's what we're going to do this morning is the second category is look at a particular topic. This is actually part of a bigger question. And so what I'll do, let me distribute a few of these things here. I'm done passing out, but anyway, we'll distribute them instead.

This is part of the bigger question and basically what this was is a paper that I did at seminary and it just blew their socks off so I thought I'd bring it here. Let me go over here's the usual sequence and I'm not trying to come after anybody I just I want to make sure we stay biblical and not get sent off track by some sort of an ism. The various isms can end up overriding scripture. The point here is the typical reformed and sometimes called Calvinist view, and I'm not sure Calvin believed this by the way, but of man's spiritual condition of faith and of regeneration of the sinner goes something like this. The unbeliever is completely spiritually dead. I heard it said, out on a slab cold dead. Okay? Spiritually. therefore unable to respond in faith. So here's the logic.

God sovereignly elects some to be saved. That's the Calvinist understanding. Those sinners whom God sovereignly elects, he regenerates, that is, he gives spiritual life, then he gives them the gift of faith whereupon they believe and are saved. So the sequence is, they're elected, then regenerated, given faith and saved. And that's the sequence of this kind of reformed or what's called Calvinist understanding of things.

Make sense? Here's where we come in the middle of it, and I'm not going to necessarily go through every jot and tittle here unless we just happen to have some time. But the key point is on the second page, and that is this issue of being spiritually dead. Notice the starting point of this series of logical steps is that being spiritually dead means you're out on the slab cold, just unable to respond. That's the starting point in the logic. The point that I make here, and frankly I make it rather briefly, and I put all the Greek in footnotes so that if that loses you, you can ignore it and still get the point. But being spiritually dead does not mean spiritually unable to respond in faith until regenerated, but instead it means separation.

That's the point. And then the question is, how do you know that? Remember what I told you before, never believe anything I tell you. Don't believe anything I tell you. Check it out for yourself. Now, I know Joanne does that. She never believes anything I tell her. And I appreciate that, by the way.

Here is the starting point, Ephesians 2, 1-3, and it goes like this, And you are dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest." Notice here, when he says, you're dead in your trespasses and sins, he says, formerly walked and lived. This is the godless manner of walking and living.

Paul then goes on to tell them about how God saved them through faith, and then returns in verses, and by the way, I don't mean to skip over those like they're unimportant. They're extremely important. But for the point we're looking at, people frequently in looking through this passage will kind of lose the continuity. Paul in 11-13 is returning to the same subject, but looking at it from a different angle.

Here's what he says. Therefore remember that formerly, you notice that word? Formerly you, and it turns out, and that's why I've colored it and footnoted it, is the exact same Greek word. Okay? So he's talking about this former condition again. He's back to that subject.

Formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by the so-called circumcision, which is performed in the flesh by human hands, Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ. Aha! You see that? This former condition. He says you were separated from Christ. And then he uses another word for separated. Excluded from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise. Having no hope and without God in the world. This word for without God is athioi. It's you're atheistic. You are atheistic in the world.

That's the message. But notice he ties it back to using this word formerly again. So this is the same condition. It's the condition of the unbeliever. And how he describes it is you are separated from Christ. And so if the former condition of the believer is this way. Excuse me, the unbeliever is this way. When that person is an unbeliever, they are separated from Christ here.

And let's move on. This idea he continues on in chapter 4. 17-19. So this I say and affirm together with the Lord that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind being darkened in their understanding, excluded from what? The life of God. This point keeps coming up again. Here I've got this word, you're separate from Christ, now you're excluded from the life of God. This is this condition again.

Because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart, And they having become callous have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. And one of the things that comes up is he uses that same word separated that he used in that chapter 2, 11 through 13 passage. Again, this idea of separation then is consistently taught. That's the characteristic of the spiritual death. Separated from Christ. Separated from the life of God.

Do you see that? Are you with me so far? Is it making sense? Okay. The point being here is that rather than just kind of saying, oh, being spiritually dead must be out on a slab cold. Whereas what he consistently ties together here is that death is separation. Separation from Christ. Separation from the life of God. That's the character of it. Death is separation. Now, we don't want to just stop there. After all, these are just a few verses, right? So let's go on.

On page 3 it says, Paul elsewhere uses the expression for spiritual death to express separation, a dividing of characters Paths and commitments. See that? Characters, paths, and commitments. One of the places we see that, Romans 6, 1-11. Dead to sin, alive to Christ. Another one is Romans 7, 1-6. This death releases from marriage. 2 Corinthians 5, 14-16. Dead to ourselves, alive to Christ. Galatians 2, 19 and 20, and we were looking at that at the study on Friday night. This is another dead to, alive to kind of point. Colossians 3, 5 and 20, dead to sin, died with Christ to the world.

By the way, this list is not exhaustive. As a matter of fact, let's see if I can find it all here. I believe there is actually one other. that I don't have on the list, so if you want to get a pencil or pen, you can write that. Let me look it up and make sure I get the right one. Here's another one.

Colossians 2.20. Let me read it. If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world. See that? We're going to see that died to. The death is not a termination, annihilation, elimination.

It is it is a dividing of that relationship. That's what it's about. OK, so Colossians 220 is another one. And that's not all. There's another one now I've specifically referenced that this is Paul's way of writing. I actually just this last week found one where Peter says the same thing. So this is not necessarily an addition, but at least a footnote. And I believe that's first Peter 224. Let me double check that.

Yep, 1 Peter 2.24, and he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross that we might die to sin. So Peter also brings up the idea, although in here I just noticed specifically this is Paul's pattern. So scripture just keeps teaching it again and again. It keeps coming back to that point. It's not simply a matter of This is a conclusion drawn out of those verses in Ephesians.

We see a consistent teaching in Paul, and now here an instance in Peter, of dying too. There is a dividing of relationships, path, and characters that comes with death. That is the way death is spoken of. Not just simply dead is annihilation, termination, and cessation. Here's another one. Point number two.

The believer being spiritually alive, that is, regenerated, is the result of having been identified with Christ in his crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. This identification in Christ is not followed by faith in Christ in any passage. Here's the point. The biblical sequence, and we present it here consistently and regularly, crucified, buried, raised, ascended, and seated. are the five positions, if you will, in which we have been identified with Christ. And you see in this chart, and by the way, this chart isn't necessarily guaranteed to be exhaustive, but it's a significant sampling of the identification truths, either, as you'll see in the chart, taught explicitly or implied by the verse. Now, notice these insights there.

Our identification with Christ in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding is accomplished by God, and our position in Christ based on our identification with Christ is past tense, already accomplished. Our position has many ramifications and blessings beyond our identification, but then let's look at this. speaks of the ones who have been raised up with him through faith, not raised up with him in order to then exercise faith.

See that? If being raised up is being regenerated and given life, then how can we be given life in order to believe? Make sense? The sequence is not right is the point there. I won't read through the entire passage there, but But the point being there, I'm going to skip down to the middle paragraph on page four. Taking regeneration as preceding faith would mean that the spiritually dead person is sovereignly identified by God with the crucified, buried, and resurrected Christ before he believes. verses 13 and 14 above make it clear that being alive is intimately associated with having had our transgressions forgiven and having had them already nailed to the cross. Believing unto salvation after that point would be without merit. Being made alive together with Christ is regeneration. So let's boil it down to this.

Scripture does not put it this way, that God identifies us with Christ and his burial, his death and his burial and resurrection, and then asks us to believe. That's not the sequence, is it? You never see that sequence in scripture. That is the sequence that would be necessary if what the Reformed or Calvinist teaching says is true. You would need to first be identified with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection, and then believe, and then be ascended and seated. See that? So because no scripture ever puts that sequence in place, and obviously this one here doesn't fit it, it doesn't make sense.

It's all based on their interpretation of the day. Yes, it starts off with Their interpretation of death initially, and that's why I think they get off track on that, what does death mean? And I think Ephesians, as we looked at, explains what that death is. I didn't bring it up in here substantially, but the Calvinist approach is this, and let's walk our way through it.

If I am spiritually out on the slab cold dead, then I'm unable to respond. That's the logic. Death is not separation. Death is just totally spiritually annihilated, terminated, and ceased. Therefore, since I cannot respond in faith, what has to happen, according to the Calvinist understanding, is God has to sovereignly choose, I'm going to save that one and that one I'm not going to save. Those then that he says, okay, I'm going to save that one. He says, I'm going to make you alive because you can't even begin to respond until I make you alive. Okay. You didn't ask to be alive. You didn't ask to be, but I'm just going to sovereignly make you regenerated.

Next, They'll take Ephesians 2.8 and 9 where it says, by grace are you saved through faith, and then they'll say that not of yourselves, and this doesn't by the way, and we went through this earlier, doesn't agree with the Greek genders in terms of the structure there, but the way they take it is that not of yourselves is the faith isn't of your own.

God must give it to you as a gift. So the teaching is faith is a gift that is sovereignly given to those who have been elected and regenerated. They're given the gift of faith, therefore they believe and are saved. That's the sequence that they go through. So life, election is totally sovereign. Life is given sovereignly without believing in this sequence. Not what I'm teaching, but that's their teaching. then faith is given as a gift so that then the person believes and is saved.

There's obviously a number of problems with it, but part of it is, and this is what some of them have come to, you don't come to somebody and challenge them to believe on Jesus Christ. Because until they have that gift of faith and have been elected and regenerated and have that gift of faith, then there's no sense in even telling them the gospel. As a matter of fact, many of them are very reluctant to say that Christ died for your sins because they don't know if Christ died for your sins. And so as a consequence, they're reluctant to tell you that because they don't know. You see, it puts us in a very backward and frankly unbiblical situation where I'm now reluctant to tell you that Christ died for your sins.

You know, it's strange, the Philippian Jailer, there's a classic case, Act 16. Here's Paul and Silas, they're in a horrible jail cell, they're in stocks. This is the bottom of the jail cell, probably was not cleaned out since the last guy sat there and couldn't get up to go to the bathroom. I mean, they were talking nasty. The stock cells were about the size of a dishwasher that they were shoved back in. They were singing at the top of their lungs in the middle of the night in the dark.

An earthquake takes place, the jailer rushes in thinking everybody's broken loose, and he's ready to take his life. And they appeal to him, and he says, what must I do to be saved? And Paul comes to him and he says, well, first, God has to sovereignly elect you and decide whether or not you're one of those that are going to be saved. And then, God's got to make you alive. and you can have nothing to do with that. And then the next step is God's going to give you the gift of faith so that then you'll believe and then you'll be saved, right? That's what he told them?

No. But that's the sequence that this kind of logic has tended to drive people to. To the point of being reluctant to share the gospel, reluctant to tell people that Christ died for them, reluctant to tell people when they ask, believe. And so that's why, as you look at this whole thing, now we've got to back up to what's biblical here. And say, okay, what does scripture lay out?

And stand on that. And that is why Paul, without hesitation, can come up to this Philippian jailer. And he may not know him very well. What must I do to be saved? Without any hesitation, without any second words to try to second guess the thing. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And that goes for you and your household. The whole bunch of you. No reluctance.

No couching it in terms of, well, I'm not sure Christ died for you. I'm not sure if you're one of the elect. I'm not sure if God's going to raise you up and give you life. I'm not sure if you're going to get the gift of faith. None of that. Just a direct confrontation with the gospel. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. It goes for you and your house, straight out. Make sense? What's that? This is one of those things where they have you mill over it in seminary classes. What they'll do is they'll narrow that.

He died for the sins of the whole world. They'll take that the world is then those who are elect. only those that are chosen and he died just for those. That's called the limited atonement, the idea that he died only for those and the rest he didn't die for them. That's the problem that I have with it and frankly at Tyndale they are more Calvinistic than I see as biblical. I had talking for hours and no, I'm sorry. I mean, let's leave capital, but not as tangential.

OK. OK. OK. The question is, we're dead. Right. We're regenerated when we are identified twice. Right. Correct. Let's say the source. OK. Faith is something that every single person exercises, whether a believer or not. It's a question of what do you put your faith in. Putting your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ seems like an act of God. That's right. Yes, yes it is. And here's the point, and frankly I go into it in more detail later on.

The point being, where the Lord works is not to take out on a slab cold dead person and make them alive. Where the Lord works is upon our will. By our human fallen nature we would be unwilling. So the area where the Lord is working is not to make us alive so that we can then believe. But instead, his wooing, his working is upon our will. One of the ministries of the Holy Spirit among unbelievers is that of conviction. Okay? Yeah, Donna? Oh, and faith comes by hearing. Okay. Hearing by the word of God. Alright. But I think there has to be also some kind of federal ground. I'm sorry, yeah? There has to be a federal ground also. Okay. If you go your way, knock your door and welcome, and you have nothing to really need, I don't think you're quite as... I mean, you can hear as much as you want to.

It doesn't mean much. If there's a need, or somebody dies in your family, or you get challenged, and what's happening to me tomorrow. When you have a deep need and maybe sorrow or just worldly need, then suddenly you have the inkling that you're not in control. And you ask the question, who is in control?

Yes, okay. So a part of it is the Lord's working to help create the understanding we have a need. Otherwise, when I think, hey, why do I need anything? Right. Did I answer your question? OK. And how about yours? Did we touch on it or is still not there? OK. Yeah. Yeah.

I think I think the point is this. that if we're willing to say no, it isn't right to start off with this case of being spiritually dead as being out on a slab cold. And yet human beings are still, and I'll use the term totally depraved, but when I say that I don't mean out on a slab cold dead as the Calvinist does. What I mean is every aspect of a human being is fallen. because we are separated from the life of God and impacted by it. Yes. I think we should not rule out that God gave us a will too. Yes, that's correct. Because the other way the Calvinist thinking is that you can't really do anything to it. That there is none. It's one of the points that comes out of the passage that we looked at at the end of Matthew 23.

He says, Jerusalem I would, and this is Christ speaking as deity, I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks, but you would not. Their own will, you're correct, their own will was what was denying and pushing the Lord away. I mean Sir Josh McDowell in his book, he very clearly said, well this is all nonsense. So he accused the others of saying You don't know what Christ can do in your life.

Yeah. And until he experienced that, that's when you started to believe. That's the way I saw it. Heidi, you started to say something? Yeah. I think it came to my mind that faith is our willingness to commit. Okay. The jailor? Yes, the Philippian jailor.

He might have heard about Christ. Right, here's all this singing going on, right? Maybe a little bit, before what happened to David and everything. But how would he have known to believe, you know? Yes, yes. Ask and believe. The act of our will. Like love. Not feelings, but a will to commit. There is an act of the will.

My point previously is unbelievers have faith. Even if you talk to an atheist, they have faith. It's a question of where do they place that faith. And so, you know, if you think about it, there's nobody you can talk to who doesn't have faith. They are always placing their faith somewhere.

Always. The Lord is saying all those are insufficient and unreliable places to place your faith. And so that's the final challenge. None of those is sufficient. Place your faith, which you have, even as a spiritually dead, separated from God, unbeliever, place your faith in Christ. It's not a work. Romans and that output that is placed in the heart of man, isn't that? It's knowledge of God. That's right. And that's all part of that. That's right. From the very beginning.

And people have summarized that with man is incurably religious. And what does that mean? Man will place his faith in something. That's the question. Where is that faith? Faith is not a work. And that's an important point. Faith is not a work. It is simply something that man does by his very nature. So the only question is where is that faith placed? Because there's only one place where placing that faith will do him any good.

Wow. I want you to read that for us. Right. who for the joy that was set before him, including the cross and the spice of his shame, was set down to righteousness and to earn the crown. So Christ was the author and finisher of faith. Is that faith generically? Or is that the author of the faith he had in himself?

Let me take a look here. Because what you're saying, and I don't know that I agree with this, or I don't know that I disagree with this, is somewhat unclear on this. that this is a global thing that we all have to put it right. That's what prices the author of this global thing. Where is the author of it? Yeah, it's like a reasonable question. Sure it is. They say, don't believe anything I tell you. I'm glad you're asking.

I think the question I have, and what I'm looking at, is this faith in a global or generic sense, or is this author of the faith? Is there a definite article in front of that? In which case, that's a whole different thing. Is this faith in general, or is this very specific, meaning having a content? Yeah, the author and finisher of the faith, so it's a specific faith, not a generic faith. Does that make sense? In other words, it's not saying he's the author and finisher of this vague thing called faith, but it's actually the faith, it's specific. And so it has a particular direction. Okay, so let's enter that now into our conversation. Okay, alright. The author of the faith. That's right. In itself, correct? That's right.

In other words, just having faith is not good. I will hear from time to time people talk about people of faith, as if just being sort of religious or something puts you in that category. Scripture doesn't talk that way. Scripture talks about a direction of faith and a content of faith. and is not vague, generic, sort of foggy religious. So again, when we look at the faith, he's talking about Christ is the object of our faith, and within that is also defined a content of faith.

That's why, like we read in Jude, I urge you that you contend for, just like this Hebrews 12.2, THE FAITH. There is a specific object and content when it says THE FAITH. So how do you interpret then that Christ is the author of THE FAITH? How does that relate to sin? Well think about it. What does being an author mean? What brings a man to a work of sin? Christ is the author of THE FAITH. That sounds pretty Calvinistic. Oh, let's think about that. The author of the faith, let's think about that.

If the faith has direction and content. In other words, I don't just vaguely believe, and that's counted as righteousness. There is a specific direction, and that direction is Christ. How does that come about? You think about that, there's two ways that it comes about. The direction of faith, that is, faith is to be directed to Christ himself. Faith in Christ is what we're called to. And how is he the author of that?

It's a little bit back and forth. It's almost like you need to put an arrow above the word faith because it's a vector quantity. That particular use of faith includes... Good point. That's right. That's right. Magnitude and direction if you use the mathematical approach. There is specifically a direction of faith.

Christ is the author because without what Christ did on the cross, without His coming, without his accomplishment on the cross and being buried and ascended and resurrected and ascended and seated, there would be nothing to believe in. He provided a means for us to have a direction of faith that is saving. Otherwise, all we've got is faith that is useless. So in that sense, he is the author because, and I'm using this figuratively, he wrote the book when it comes to a direction in which to believe. Well, and doesn't faith include persuasion? Yes, yes. And that's what I mean by content. It is not just what Christ did and accomplished, but also the truth that has been conveyed to us about it.

Faith comes by hearing, is the verse that you brought up. And it comes back to the original question, where does life come from? These things are written so that you may have life and, excuse me, that you may believe. And believing you may have life in his name. See that? Content, you believe in it, then there's life. See the sequence?

There's a direction of faith and Christ is the author of that because without what Christ did there would be no sense in believing it. We're not believing in Christ as an example. We're not believing in Christ as a good guy or a very religious fellow. We're believing specifically in what he did that is the means by which we are saved and no other. be the initiator of the faith in us.

Why does he not initiate faith in the followers of Allah and the author of Islam is Mormon. The same thing with Smith doing the Mormon religion and that's also an author. God simply It shuts up. It keeps quiet. It doesn't really initiate faith in those people. But why does it do that? Why does he act so unloving? Why does he leave those masses out? And it's not just the two I mentioned. There is something else. Yes, I agree.

God kind of ignores all those poor people which he created. in a way, but he created the will to and our ability to decipher and then to care about his word. That's actually where we come in, don't we, in a way? Now it's always hard to know whether the egg was there or the chicken first, you know, and sure God is a giver of faith too, but the free will he gave us as well.

You notice that from the verse that Bob brought to our attention, he's the author and finisher of the faith singular. Both the article and the noun are singular. And there might be a tendency on the part of some folks to make that a plural, to try to broaden that out. But Helmut's touched on an important point and that's that people can believe, even intensely, kill everybody else. That's right, even just what we were talking about earlier, you know, they can do a 9-11 and say I'm doing this because I believe so intensely, but that intense believe accomplishes nothing because the faith is the one that Christ is the author of.

Wow. And in a sense it gets down to basically the gospel doesn't it? It might be the two works of God, right? Yeah. I mean, in a sense, everything that's outside of the grace Every other religion, Mormon, Muslim, whatever else you term it, it's man that's the center of their religion. The concept of Christ, the word of God is complete without him being at the center. So that's the dividing principle of grace. Yeah, and our tendency as human beings is, give me something to do.

Whereas, you know, by Christ being the author, yeah. There's an atmosphere of pride and unwillingness to think that you're dependent on somebody else, right? Exactly, that's all I'm able to hand the Ephesians to. Yeah. Yes, yeah. You really bring up the point.

All this stuff isn't just getting wildly theological. This stuff is real because it boils down to how am I saved? And what is the content of the gospel? Both the specific question, can I just believe this and that and a few other things? How about if I believe six at once? Is that going to do it? Does it matter where I put my faith? Or is just having faith good enough?

And the Scriptures lay it out clearly. It is specific to Jesus Christ. Jesus says, I am the way, and the article repeats again. the truth and the life. Singular. Okay? Each one. And he puts the article in front of each one in the Greek. I am the way and the truth and the life. Another thing is, if you had the faith given from God, where would the doubt come? Gee, if Adam had originally done all this, we wouldn't have to go through this. Yeah, well this is true, however. The key is that the Lord, contrary to what some will say, the Lord has indeed provided this avenue of grace, made it available to all.

But that faith must be directed to Christ and is specific as to content. I can't just believe in any Christ or anything about Christ. It is the direction of grace matters and the content of grace matters. The content in which I am believing. Let's pray. Lord, as we look at these, certainly there's lots that we could dig into and a lot of complexity in here. And yet, at the same time, it boils down to believing in you, putting our faith and trust and confidence in you and responding to the truth that you have laid out before us. And Lord, we just thank you for bringing this point home as we gather here this morning around your word. We just pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.