Spiritual gifts part 36: Born spiritually dead, we are candidates for grace.

Pastor-Teacher
John Farley
Thursday,
October 7, 2010

Spiritual Gifts Part 36: Born spiritually dead, we are candidates for grace.

Point 2. The Giver of the Gifts: The Person and Work of God the Holy Spirit.

The Doctrine of Efficacious Grace

Efficacious grace.

This is when God the Holy Spirit takes the faith alone in Christ alone of the spiritually dead unbeliever and makes it effective for salvation.

Without the Holy Spirit, in total depravity as unbelievers, we would be deaf to the Gospel, and our faith would be mute - voiceless.

Psa 51:5
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
And in sin my mother conceived me.

We are born physically alive and spiritually dead.

At birth, God imputes Adam’s original sin to the genetically formed sin nature in the cell structure of the body.

God condemns each human being at the moment of birth because of the factor of Adam’s original sin having been charged to our account.

Adam’s original sin plus a sin nature equals spiritual death.

Spiritual death is a legal status,
a position, and
a condition.

Spiritual death is a legal status of condemnation, as well as a position of separation from God.

Finally, spiritual death is a a condition of total depravity, meaning total helplessness combined with a sin nature that is anti-God.

Spiritual death is a legal status of condemnation, as well as a position of separation from God.

Finally, spiritual death is a a condition of total depravity, meaning total helplessness combined with a sin nature that is anti-God.

The immaterial soul that God prepares is perfect.

The soul is tainted only because it comes under the corrupting influence of the old sin nature.

We are spiritually dead, not because of our own sins, but because of Adam’s sin.

We sin personally only as a result of our spiritual death. That is not the cause of our spiritual death.

Our personal sins were imputed to Christ and judged on the cross.

God’s genius and integrity are at work in having Adam’s original sin imputed to us and our personal sins imputed to Christ.
 

Only in that way could He condemn us and yet preserve us alive to believe in Christ.

Psa 58:3
The wicked are estranged from the womb;
These who speak lies go astray from birth.

Condemnation must precede salvation.

Born spiritually dead, we are born candidates for grace.

The Bible says that God justifies the ungodly.

Rom 4:5
But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness,

Rom 3:26
for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

The Bible says that God justifies the ungodly.

The Bible also says that God justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.

Rom 3:26
for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Therefore, since God justifies the ungodly, and God justifies the one who has faith in Christ, the ungodly one can have faith in Christ.

God justifies the UNgodly one who believes.

The Bible does not support the claim that God regenerates first and then the new child of God believes.

Too many scriptures have it precisely the other way around:
Gal 3:26; Joh 3:16; Joh 5:24; Joh 6:40; Joh 6:47; Joh 20:31; 1Ti 1:16.