As the ‘pro-choice’ goalposts have marched ever-onward, never recognizing defeat as they leave each tenuous place of resistance, ignoring the utter defeat that came before, decrying the latest new defense as ‘truth’, as ‘settled science’, the position of those who love life are made ever-stronger.
With consistency of God’s gifts of His Word and science, the Book of Nature, we’ve irreparably destroyed: Clump of cells, Phylogeny recapitulates Ontogeny, Life begins at birth, Life begins at viability, Life begins at implantation, Life of the mother, Personhood begins at birth, Personhood begins at viability, etc, etc, etc. We use the debris of these shattered falsehoods, the history of their defeat, to solidify our ground and make any attempt to rejuvenate them futile in the extreme. In this writing, I want to move past the foundational argument proving the existence of objective truth and universal morality. I even want to move past discussion of the common scriptures used in support of the sanctity of the life of our unborn, some of those being: “For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.” Psalm 139:19 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5 “Upon You I was cast from birth; You have been my God from my mother’s womb.” Psalm 22:10 These verses speak a truth that can only be denied, never disproved. They have been bastions of assurance to christians seeking God’s will in their attack against the single biggest institute of murder in the history of the world. Our weapon is truth. However, in a recent discussion, I was asked a question by a self-professed ‘Pro-life’ advocate that wasn’t quantified in those common defense verses. Even though we as believers know the answers in our hearts, it is always beneficial for us to consistently explain the meaning of scripture in a way that is clear to those who are inside the church as well those who are outside, that even though there might be disagreement with the information, they will find it much harder to gain purchase when our scriptural walls are smooth with consistency. And so the strawman starves to death. The question was, “When did God know us in the womb? 6 weeks? 2 months? Conception? The Bible makes no mention in those verses”. And he was correct. The common verses make no claims of gestational state. Though we would assume as believers that God simply meant ‘the entirety of time in the womb’, it is not explicitly stated in the commonly used verses. Thankfully, the answer that he, and many like him, have probably sought was plainly found in the Word. The Bible teaches that mankind, while having a beginning, has no end. Though we live in these mortal coils for a finite time, our existence beyond this life is eternal. Humans either go to eternal Glory or eternal damnation. In light of this knowledge, we can define our beginning as ‘The absolute point where we began, before which there was nothing of us in existence’. The answer to be drawn from this is that we are created as soon as we are conceived, the instant our first DNA double helix emerges distinct from our mother and father. In that very moment we are exactly the same organism we will always be, only differing biologically in size, development, and complexity. Every part of us is there, waiting to stretch out by the miracle of living. Knowing definitively when man is created, the next logical step is to learn what God has said about that creation. “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” Genesis 1:27 Scripture says we are created in God’s image. We’ve already defined the point of our creation, now we see from the words of Almighty God that His image is intrinsic to our being. Jehovah doesn’t apply His image to us at some point along the first, second, or third trimesters. He doesn’t grant us the ‘Imago Dei’ when we fully exit the womb. We are created IN HIS IMAGE. It is always there, even more a part of us than our skin and bones, which are destined to die. What does this teach us about His image? First, that it has nothing to do with physicality. We are not physically shaped like God because He has no shape. He is Spirit (John 4:24), He is Invisible (1Tim 1:17). That likeness must lie in other attributes. There exists in man a consistency throughout his existence. It’s the core of who we are, sometimes referenced in verses like Romans 10:10, “for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” as the ‘heart’. It’s our eternal state, known to God our entire lives, and is independent of our physical life. Consider this question: “When we die it is time for us to give an account of our lives (Rom 14:12). How then shall we proceed if we leave this world as an infant? Even as one unborn? Are we exempt from the Word of God?” Of course we are not. We do not enter the presence of our great God in the physical state with which we leave our life behind. To believe so would be to imagine a swaddling babe confessing his sins in the court of the Most High, or a man, dead from tooth and claw, explaining himself in tatters. With simple logic we see that our responsibility to give account is not abridged. I’ll end with this: We know that our eternal attributes begin when we’re created. We know that we’re created the instant that a unique life emerges from conception. Because of this simple understanding, we know that God’s decrees apply to even the single-celled baby in the womb; You shall not commit murder. What we’ve found is the best ‘Pro-Life’ passage in the Bible, and in it we find the dignity given to every person. “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Genesis 1:26-27
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This is an agreement written to express the expectations placed upon church members tasked to the office of providing worship music to the congregation, in the interest of transparency of duty, and to impress, with proper gravity, the importance of the same.
Statement of Worship and Readiness In as much as the worship of God consists of many institutes, those entrusted to us being prayer, psalms, hymns, and songs (Eph 5:18-20), and should be performed to the best of our practical ability (Col 3:23), so too is our calling toward sanctification faceted in the offices set upon us (Phil 4:8-9). By humility, accountability, and encouragement toward one another, we agree to seek holiness in our lives according to those standards set out by God for his servants (1Tim 3:1-13), recognizing that the model for eldership is gainfully applied to our lives as the church body, and by so doing we present ourselves able to rightfully lead in the office of worship entrusted to us. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." Gal 5:22-24 _______________________________________________ Signed “If you are not convicted to remove pre-meditated sin from your life with the same, or greater, intensity that landed you on your knees before Christ, then, at best, your faith is dead or dying. At worst, you never left death in transgression.”
Having grown up largely in the Southern Baptist Church, I share a large collection of experiences and memories with an even larger pool of people. Putting pennies in the special collection box for children, Sunday school crafts, and the whirlwind of VBS (that came as a fun-filled complement to the summer respite from school), are just a few from the list. The pinnacle experience of these child-centered programs, however, was when a young boy or girl came forward and ‘asked Jesus into their heart’. Now, as a child, this seemed a much bigger deal during Sunday school or the regular worship service when compared to ‘going forward’ during VBS. Looking back from the wise pedestal of age, we can see that it seemed this way due to the lack of events competing for our attention. With the sugar-elevated fun of running through the church alongside your friends, free from the burden of waking up early the next morning, eagerly anticipating the next puppet show or story, all held together with the glue of a free conscience because you’re doing it all with the beaming support of your parents, how can we fault a child for failing to focus on a salvation? Indeed, as disappointing as it is to see all those children with such a desensitized view of God’s grace, we have a much more important question to ask: Why do the adults have the same problem? Salvation “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Eph 2:8-9) To somewhat loosely quote my pastor, “There would be a lot of arguments avoided if we all understood this truth about salvation; We ARE saved, we’re BEING saved, and we WILL BE saved”. We ARE saved: “Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:46-47) Though our salvation was foreknown by God from eternity (Eph 1:4), there is a point in the timeline of our existence when He choses to bring about, through the agency of the Holy Spirit (1Cor 12:3), the beginning of our journey to glorification (Rom 8:29-30). At the moment of regeneration we are made alive in spirit, finally able to respond to God’s grace, and in fact no more able to frustrate it than we could resist a breath of air after being under water for too long (Rom 9:19). We ARE BEING saved: “But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.” 2 Thess 2:13 The progress of a life with a living-faith is measured by sanctification. By the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, we wage war with our flesh and mortify our sins, and thus gain ‘salvation through sanctification’ all of our days (1Cor 9:26-27). These are the rungs on the ladder we climb. We WILL BE saved: “His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Matt 3:12) Finally, salvation is completed when the chosen are divided from those who have no intercessor to ground the power of God. That holy glory of God, unchanging and all-encompassing, which meets the elect as cool mercy, blazes undiminished as wrath on the unregenerate, who have no mediation through the Son (Matt 25:31-46). Exlusory Focus The answer to our question, “why do adults fail to focus on salvation”, lies in the asymmetrical weight given to the realities of salvation. There’s a ‘quantity over quality’ mentality alive in the church body today, and the roots are planted in theological laziness, and a lack of a Berean spirit. The Southern Baptist Church, having turned away from its Calvinistic forbearers, has developed a dangerous soteriology that claims to be Arminian, while still holding on to the doctrine of ‘perseverance of the saints’, more commonly coined ‘once-saved, always-saved’ by modern members. The contradiction of ‘free will’ and ‘unable to lose your salvation’ (can’t you freely chose to stop believing in God?), is largely unaddressed. The danger lies in the focus on ‘You ARE saved’, to the exclusion of the other two. This is a narrow focus, ‘details-later’ mindset that often leaves children, and adults, treading spiritual waters when they need shoring up the most. Worse still, to give an improper valuation to all scripture will reduce the value placed on an elevated doctrine. My heart is broken every time I remember the words of a little boy from VBS, when his friend asked if he ‘got saved’. He replied, “I went up front, but my teacher said we were out of time”. No problem, he would just do it tomorrow. When some doctrine is less important than others, all doctrine becomes less important. Challenge The compartmentalization of salvation is another challenge for the body of Christ. The new believers are left unguided, having no nurture to make sure the seeds landed on fertile soil (Mark 4:3-8). For this reason, many are leaving the church today, and even those who stay are often at a loss when trying to discover what ‘obeying’ God even looks like. Pastor John MacArthur said in an interview several years ago that over 50% of professing believers have not been baptized. Regarding failure to correct this issue, although God will hold those he called to teach to a higher standard (James 3:1), the entire body has a responsibility to struggle together, and to rebuke the errors of our brothers (Gal 6:1). We will all hold accountability here. The specific challenge that we must take up as believers, then, is to seek out those new to the faith, and do all we can to show them the grace of fellowship, and the fruits of branches that are truly grafted onto the vine. The general challenge that we must take up as believers is to be diligent in our theology, stamping out contrary traditions, and boldly proclaiming the clear words of scripture, regardless of the celebrity attached to incorrect doctrine. “Who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. AND DO NOT FEAR THEIR INTIMIDATION, AND DO NOT BE TROUBLED, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.” 1 Pet 3:13-16 May we not fall asleep on our guard. Short Treatise on Infant Terminus Part 1
Continuity Regarding our resurrection, we assume that what we are now, is what we will be then. Think about how much of our psyche is influenced by temporal factors like arthritis or the common cold, not to mention direct maladies of the brain or hormonal problems. For these and other reasons, we must decouple the concept of 'thought' and 'ego' from our currently influenced abilities and move it toward the more eternally stable (though still unreliable) 'heart', i.e. spirit nature. Appeal to Monergism Assuming the previous statement, the door is now opened to understand the concept of salvation for all peoples, that election holds no academic bar that must be reached. Here also, we find more proof that grace is bestowed upon us by the Sovereign Lord and only at His pleasure, thankfully not as recompense for deeds we've done. How then would regeneration come to the imbecile? To the otherwise thought-limited from birth? As we are created whole in immortal life, would God then require our cognitive ability to communicate with us? To say so would be to place US in at least partial control of the heavenly encounter and wrest that command from the One in command. No, we simply must understand that an all powerful God requires no such abilities from us, that He can commune at His desire with every aspect of His creation regardless of its intellect. Application Conceding this concept, now look toward the unborn. Shall we place such limitations on them alone of the image-bearers? Do we believe that when all of the dead stand before the Lord that those who have died from the womb will be then as they were at death, the frailest of creatures lacking the ability to give an account though they're commanded to do so? Sometimes the culmination of a great act can be better understood by returning to its beginning. By doing so we see that the greatest thinkers of history were once no more than infirm dependants, that they exhibited nothing more than the same lack of understanding shown by their infant peers, some of whom may grow into adults of the basest intellect. But the Lord knows them 'then' as He knows them after their last days on earth, at the moment of their creation and before, He knows them by their immortal spirit, a spirit that, while having a beginning, will have no end whether residing in God's glory or His wrath. His understanding of who they are is unaffected by physical change, be it knowledge gained, or injury of the brain. Reduction Therefore, we are faced with a choice containing two options. Firstly, we may suppose that God, in His infinite knowledge and perfect planning, chose not for His elect any of the millions of people who have died in the womb or born ill or in any other way that might have denied them the cognition necessary to understand the Gospel. Secondly, we may gaze back to the millions that died before the event of the cross, among them those justified according to the scriptures, and say that though the barrier of infirmity or time itself may seem in the way, never the less Christ is able to save those given Him by the Father. continued... To seriously look at the meaning of atonement, a groundwork must be made to avoid misrepresentation of the many sides involved. And though our beliefs may change many times throughout our lives, we must put as much effort into staying strong in our faith as we put in testing it. If the scales are unbalanced we deny ourselves some of the blessings of God.
Sin To understand what it means to "defeat sin", we first need to understand the nature of sin itself, and how it, as a thing, exists and interacts with reality. The Bible speaks of 'sin' as both verb and noun. All of us have sinned(verb). We are all slaves to sin(noun). At face value, we would naturally say that by sinning(verb) we have created sin(noun). However, the Bible makes it clear that sin "entered the world through one man" (Romans 5:12), and that we are all affectively under its power. Even the youngest, who haven't had the opportunity to sin(verb), are slaves to sin(noun). It is now a facet of reality, and it affects all parts of creation. Because sin separates us from God, to experience real face-to-face fellowship with Him we must either: 1. Incur no sin debt. As has already been stated, this is not a possibility because sin is a real entity that permeates creation. Our nature is sin-based. 2. Cancel our sin debt. Despite what many cults and congregations believe, we are powerless to pay the wages of our sin. No works or deeds can nullify even the smallest of our trespasses, neither can the grandest of our accomplishments do anything to change the sin-state of creation. There is only one payment accepted, and that is the death of the only perfect sacrificial lamb, Jesus Christ. How blessed we are that the payment costs us nothing. Learning this, its important to understand that having your debt paid in no way means that we will suddenly stop sinning. On the contrary, it is our lot to wage a battle with our carnality, with the "thorn in our flesh" until perfection comes and sin is no longer even a possibility. The Bible tells us that as we fail in our imperfections that we are to repent, and that Jesus is faithful to constantly intercede on our behalf. The Cross What then is the scope of Christ's sacrifice? 1. Atonement: Reconciliation, or reparation for an offense or injury. This effect of the Cross is directly responsible for our ability to fellowship with, even simply be in the presence of, God (Mat 27:51). He looks upon us and all He sees are the washed of the Bride, our sins no more remembered. We are reconciled to our Heavenly Father. 2. Conquer: To take control or gain mastery of, by overcoming obstacles. We read that Christ has conquered the grave and defeated sin (Rev 1:17-18). Death no longer has its sting, for Christ has lifted the curtain and brought dark mystery into the light. Where David wrote, "What profit is there in my blood, if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it declare your faithfulness?" We now know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Sin is eternally defeated. It's important to note a shift from our own, temporal understanding of events to the viewpoint of the Almighty. We saw the end of the dominion of sin at the point in time that Christ was sacrificed, but we are still being forged by its fires until the course is ran to its conclusion (Job 2:10), long-running that many might be saved (2 Pet 3:9), swiftly coming as we are in the end times (Rev 22:12). Though sin is defeated, we are mired in it temporarily. Though we are saved, our wages aren't due until we die. This is a glimpse of the divide between our perspective and that of God. Components of Salvation 1. Forgiveness offered. By the Grace of God, through Faith in the death of His Son on the Cross, we are chosen for an inheritance as children of the Most High (Eph 1:5). God offers forgiveness to all He desires (1Tim 2:3-4), absent of any condition, achievement or genealogy, yet the Bible makes it clear that many will not accept the gift of salvation, being unable to chose God on their own (John 6:65). 2. Forgiveness accepted. It's very clear that who ever believes in Jesus (John 3:16), anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord (Joel 2:32), those who ask, seek, or knock (Matthew 7:7) will be forgiven. Even though we are held accountable, resulting in blessings being added or removed, nevertheless we are completely unable to accept the free gift of salvation under our own power (Romans 3:11). This is the prime example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. It is the beautiful path, the Holy conduit through which He draws his beloved back to Him. These components can each be broken down further. Forgiveness Offered Limited Atonement. The Bible being quite clear that the elect, and by extension the lost, are predestined to glory and damnation respectively (Rom 9:20-22), an understanding arises regarding the nature of atonement; If salvation is only for the elect, achieved through atonement, then Christ died only for those who would go on in their lives to accept His free gift. To say otherwise, that Christ died for every individual, is to make ineffectual the payment He made for those that still suffer the wages of their sin in damnation. Of course this is accurate through the gaze of our timeless God, but by partially submerging the idea in the waters of omniscience, it can and often does cause confusion in the body of believers. This becomes a sort of selective hindsight that, while trying to elevate our understanding beyond what we can see within the constraints of time (we don't know who will chose salvation), we impune God's soverignity by not fully sinking our theology in those waters. It can become quite circular: God atoned only for His elect, only His elect accepted Christ's sacrifice. Further: He only saved those He saved. Of course this is true, but ridiculously stated. It's important to point out that, from our temporal perspective, atonement is unlimited in power and scope (it can cover anyone and could cover everyone). However, viewed through omniscience it is only limited in scope (it saves the elect unfailingly and saves the elect only; John 10:27-29). Forgiveness Accepted 1. Free Will. Simply put, we are offered the free gift of salvation, the stage is set for our entry into eternal fellowship with God, we simply have to decide to accept it. This could be broken down further, as those of Open Theology would say God may not even know what our choice will be until we make it, and traditional Free-Will believers who believe simply that God knows what choice we will make even though it is literally our choice. Open Theology incurs such harsh contradictory penalties that it's only mentioned for informational purposes and should in no way be considered a valid idea. 2. Election. A belief that God, through His Holy Spirit, has called us to eternity. "...these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified."(Romans 8:30) Though there are varying shades of beliefs with regards to election, it remains at its core a very obvious hermeneutic both in word and logic. Many core beliefs collapse without its inclusion, particularly the omnipotence of God, and thus holds a place close to the center of essential doctrine. Within the camp of election, the arguments of irresistible grace are mainly those of semantics. A logical fallacy can be found in the definition, " the saving grace of God is effectually applied to those whom he has determined to save (the elect) and, in God's timing, overcomes their resistance to obeying the call of the gospel, bringing them to faith in Christ." The idea that anyone can resist at all (Rom 9:19-21), needing to be overcome by God, is more romantic than logical, and the belief structure becomes needlessly hostile towards outsiders who may or may not be one of the elect. At its simplest, election can be described as God choosing, before the beginning of time, who will be justified . Those chosen can no more resist being raised from spiritual death than Lazarus could resist being raised from physical death. Further Studies The cross is inarguably the pivot upon which the universe was turned internally. Through Jesus, sin is conquered and the eternal groundwork was laid for the glorifying of all creation (Rom 8:20-21). What, then, does it mean for sin to be finished? In the resurrection we will sin(verb) no more, and because sin(noun), particularly sin-nature, no longer exists we can experience perfect fellowship with our creator. However, we are told that, "...don't you know you shall judge angels when they sinned?", but what does that mean? Is it the same verb 'sin' that we currently try to avoid? If so then sin existed before the creation of man (the fall of satan), and only entered the world(of man) "...through one man...". If sin is truly, literally abolished then it can't exist anywhere, even in the confines of death and hell (though its absence would do nothing to abolish the penalties of those interred). Though we must be cautious in our suppositions, speculation is edifying even when no conclusion is, or even can be drawn, as anything that causes study of the Word is beneficial to us all. |
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