Spiritual gifts part 38: On the day of salvation, He helped you

Pastor-Teacher
John Farley
Wednesday,
October 13, 2010

Spiritual Gifts Part 38: On the day of your salvation, He helped you.

Stop worrying!
(Phi 4:6)

The Doctrine of Spiritual Gifts

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.

1. The ministry of efficacious grace is necessary because of real spiritual death.

2. The person in the status of real spiritual death is able to believe in Christ. God has provided that open door.

3. Here are the three works that God performs to provide salvation to individuals. [Common Grace, Call of God, Efficacious Grace].

1. The ministry of efficacious grace is necessary because of real spiritual death.

Once a person is condemned, it makes him now eligible to receive a Savior.

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.

a. Total depravity includes the trends toward both moral and immoral degeneracy.

b. Total separation from God.

c. Total helplessness to establish a relationship with God.

d. Dichotomy - having only a soul and a body, but no functioning human spirit, he cannot understand spiritual phenomena.

2. The person in the status of real spiritual death is able to believe in Christ. God has provided that open door.

They have a soul. That soul has self consciousness, a conscience, emotion, mentality, and a will.

That soul can make decisions.

Can a person in the status of real spiritual death - total depravity - believe in Christ?

The hyper-Calvinist viewpoint says no.
It says that God has to regenerate a person before he can believe in Christ.

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 (unregenerate, totally depraved) 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; Tit 3:7.

God in His mercy has provided the open door to the spiritually dead unbeliever to exercise faith in Jesus Christ.

Anyone can walk through this door in John 10:9 because salvation is available to all.

3. Here are the three works that God performs to provide salvation to individuals. [Common Grace, Call of God, Efficacious Grace].

1. He cannot understand what is heard in the Gospel.

2. His faith has no power or ability associated with it. It is ineffective. It is the faith of a spiritually dead person.

1. He makes a decision to listen to the Gospel. This is a totally non-meritorious decision so it is compatible with God’s grace policy.

2. The volition of the spiritually dead person can respond positively to the Gospel once the Holy Spirit makes it understandable to him. That faith by itself is ineffective however.

1. The unbeliever decides to listen to the Gospel.

2. God the Holy Spirit makes the Gospel clear, understandable, and compelling to the unbeliever.

3. God the Father invites the unbeliever to believe in Christ. (don’t confuse this with election)

4. The spiritually dead person believes in Christ.

5. God the Holy Spirit makes the helpless, useless, inoperative faith of the spiritually dead person and makes it effective for eternal salvation.


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