"I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the LORD, and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart" (Jer. 24:7, NASB).
"I will give you a new heart and put anew spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezek. 36:26, HCSB).
"For who makes you so superior? What do you have that you didn't receive? If, in fact, you did receive it, why do you boast as if you hadn't received it?" (1 Cor. 4:7, HCSB).
"Jesus replied, 'This is the work of God--that you believe in the One He has sent" (John 6:29, HCSB).
"For it is God who is working in you, enabling you desire and to work out HIs good purpose" (Phil. 2:13, HCSB).
NB: If our salvation depended on us or our works, we'd find a way to blow it!
I have heard that the outsider or infidel thinks we are saved by submitting to the Lordship of Christ as some kind of tit for tat arrangement! There are no, and I repeat no, pre-salvation works we must do to inherit salvation! God does all the work and also gets all the glory! We contribute naught and get no glory or credit--we cannot pat ourselves on the back and give ourselves congrats for a job well done; i.e., being proud of our virtue, wisdom, or even intellect. Salvation is not by works, but by faith received from God. We don't achieve faith, we receive it ("[we have ] received a precious faith," cf. 2 Pet. 1:1; cf. Phil. 1:29). It's grace all the way: We cannot earn it, nor pay it back, nor do we deserve it, nor even can we add to it! If faith were a work that we do, we'd have something to boast of because ours salvation would be a work, and we are not saved by works (cf. Eph. 2:8-9; Titus 3:5-6)!
This tit for tat (quid pro quo) is the totally wrong way to view salvation, because God turns our heart of stone into a heart of flesh and removes all our wrinkles and blemishes in His sight to make us acceptable and justified, even though we are still sinners, we are just in His eyes--He declares us just, He doesn't make us just. We must look upon salvation as going from Point A to Point Z, whereas Jesus is the Author and Finisher of our faith and works in us to do according to His good pleasure (cf. Phil. 2:13; Col. 1:29; Heb. 13:21), completing what He began, our salvation accomplished by the power of God, not in the energy of the flesh. What happened to Saul on the road to Damascus? Jesus changed his rebellious heart and told him he was "kicking against the goads [fighting God's will]."
God is able, because He's the Almighty, to overcome our weak wills and change our hearts (cf. Jer. 24:7), totally transforming us into new creatures in Christ. Our destiny is in God's hands, not ours (cf. Rom. 9:16). When we realize that it was God at work, and we that turned over a new leaf, made an AA pledge, or a New Year's resolution, then we are becoming grace-oriented and giving God His due glory.
NB: There is nothing we can do to make ourselves "acceptable" in God's eyes; we are totally depraved and unable not to sin in His estimation. As theologians say, "We are not sinners because we sin, but sin because we are sinners." We cannot not sin! We are dead in trespasses and sin before salvation and a dead man can do nothing but await the grace of God like Lazarus did, whom Jesus rose from the dead. What He does is quicken faith (cf. Acts 16:14) within us and make us alive in Christ to respond to the gospel message; i.e., we are regenerated unto faith. "He opened the door of faith. [cf. Acts 14:27]" A good rule of thumb for sound Bible doctrine is that the one that gives the glory to God, not man, is the right one! For example, the sinner who claims he came to Christ of his own free will, probably left of his own too, un-regenerated, that is. We must be wooed or drawn (cf. John 6:44, 65) and transformed all by grace. If we merited our salvation because we believed, it wouldn't be grace, but justice!
In summation, let me point out that salvation is wholly a work of God (it's monergistic, not synergistic or cooperative) and Jonah 2:9 summed it up with one utterance: "Salvation is of the LORD!" It's not Jesus plus anything: not plus going to church, plus witnessing, plus giving alms, et cetera! This means it's not of us and God, nor of us, but of the Lord--He did it all! Soli Deo Gloria!
About Me
- Karl Broberg
- I am a born-again Christian, who is Reformed, but also charismatic, spiritually speaking. (I do not speak in tongues, but I believe glossalalia is a bona fide gift not given to all, and not as great as prophecy, for example.) I have several years of college education but only completed a two-year degree. I was raised Lutheran and confirmed, but I didn't "find Christ" until I was in the Army and responded to a Billy Graham crusade in 1973. I was mentored or discipled by the Navigators in the army and upon discharge joined several evangelical, Bible-teaching churches. I was baptized as an infant, but believe in believer baptism, of which I was a partaker after my conversion experience. I believe in the "5 Onlys" of the reformation: sola fide (faith alone); sola Scriptura (Scripture alone); soli Christo (Christ alone), sola gratia (grace alone), and soli Deo gloria (to God alone be the glory). I affirm TULIP as defended in the Reformation.. I affirm most of The Westminster Confession of Faith, especially pertaining to Providence.