Pentecost and the Deity of Jesus, Giver of the Holy Spirit

"And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
even on My male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out My Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;
the sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

- Acts 2:17-21 

In the above passage, the Apostle Peter quotes from Joel 2:28-32 as his explanation of what has just occurred in this chapter of Acts. The Holy Spirit has been poured out on the Apostles and other disciples waiting, as Jesus had commanded them in Acts 1:4-5, for the empowering of the Holy Spirit. That Spirit had indeed come upon them, enabling them to speak in languages that they did not know, but which were recognized by their audience, consisting of Jews of the Diaspora, visiting Jerusalem from all over the eastern Empire (Acts 2:5-11). To assuage their shock, Peter reminds them of this prophecy, and then continues:  

"'This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.' Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Brothers, what shall we do?' And Peter said to them, 'Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit'" (Acts 2:32-38).

Note that the parallels between Joel's prophecy and the Pentecostal fulfillment are not merely general. Where Joel says that God will send the Holy Spirit, Peter tells his audience that it is Jesus who has poured out the Spirit. And where Joel tells his audience that calling upon the name of the Lord (Yahweh in the Hebrew) they shall be saved, Peter tells his audience that it is the name of Jesus that brings forgiveness of sins. Is the logical conclusion, then, not necessarily that Peter believes and is teaching that Jesus is the same Yahweh who mediated for Israel as the covenant God in the Old testament? I say that that is the only possible conclusion.

The Wonder of God's Sovereignty

                       

"Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in Your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them" (Psalm 139:16).

In poetic fashion, David here describes God's foreordination of all that comes to pass in the life of the believer. He refers to god's book, elsewhere (such as Revelation 13:8) called the book of life, in which God had purposed everything in our lives, even before our existence. Notice that David considers that foreordination to be a source of comfort, not the fatalism with which it is so commonly caricatured by today's anti-Calvinists. 

"Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it," David says (verse 6). "You formed my inward parts; You knotted me together in my mother's womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth" (verses 13-15). 

The anti-Calvinist makes disparaging remarks, such as that God's absolute sovereignty makes men into mere robots. Yet, David here describes it as a matter of wonder and praise. That is why Calvinists get so exasperated when attacked by anti-Calvinists. We refuse to accept demonization because we have the same attitude as that expressed here by David. Rather, it is the anti-Calvinist who should be ashamed, for advocating the same human autonomy that Satan offered to Adam in Genesis 3:5. That autonomy, whether in the mouth of Satan or in the mind of the Arminian is a deception. God does not abdicate His throne for men or devil. 

Jesus as Surety for His People

"To Jesus Christ, to His account, as the one now responsible for the sins of those in whose stead He died, God imputed our sins. Although personally the man Jesus was sinless, the guilt of the others became His own on the cross, indeed, throughout all His life of suffering, by God's imputation of this guilt to Him. God held Jesus responsible for the sins and sinfulness of all the elect, for whom Jesus was the divinely-appointed substitute. God dealt with Him accordingly, cursing and damning Him." 

- David Engelsma, "Gospel Truth of Justification," p. 294 

In the paragraph above, Engelsma is summarizing and paraphrasing what Paul taught in three passages. The first was Galatians 3:13-14: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us - for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree' - so that, in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith." The second is II Corinthians 5:21: "For our sake He [the Father] made Him [the Son] to be sin who knew no sin, so that, in Him [the Son], we might become the righteousness of God." And, finally, Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

In theology, we say that Jesus gave Himself to be the surety for all those whom the Father had given Him. Or, to use our modern parlance, He became the "co-signor" for us. But that must be understood a little differently. When a person, call him John, co-signs a loan for another person, call him Bob, then John takes upon himself a risk. Bob is promising to repay his loan, but, if he fails, the loan then becomes John's responsibility. However, in the case of the suretyship of Jesus, He agreed to co-sign for the sin debt of His people, even knowing in advance that His people would indeed fail. He didn't just assume a risk; He assumed the certainty that His people would have a sin debt for which He was taking responsibility. Would any merely-human co-signor agree to such a responsibility? 

But notice further that Jesus, as surety, didn't undertake merely the debt of our sins. There was a further imputation, as well. As Paul said to the Corinthians, the redeemed become "the righteousness of God." The redeemed are not brought to some morally-neutral state, but rather we are brought to a positive account of righteousness, His righteousness, so that, as the same Apostle told the Galatians, we live the godly life as Jesus's righteousness is placed in us, by means of faith alone. That is an instantaneous exchange, not the progressive one pretended by Rome and other Pelagian sects. It is done! 

The Ten Essential Doctrines for Biblical Apologetics

From "Covenantal Apologetics," by K. Scott Oliphint, pp. 48ff: 

1. The faith that we are defending must begin with, and necessarily include, the triune God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - who, as God, condescends to create and redeem. 

2. God's covenantal revelation is authoritative by virtue of what it is, and any covenantal, Christian apologetic will necessarily stand on and utilize that authority in order to defend Christianity. 

3. It is the truth of God's revelation, together with the work of the Holy Spirit, that brings about a covenantal change from one who is in Adam to one who is in Christ. 

4. Man (male and female) as image of God is in covenant with the triune God for eternity. 

5. All people know the true God, and that knowledge entails covenantal obligations. 

6. Those who are, and remain, in Adam suppress the truth that they know. Those who are in Christ see the truth for what it is. 

7. There is an absolute, covenantal antithesis between Christian theism and any other, opposing position. Thus, Christianity is true and anything opposing it is false. 

8. Suppression of the truth, like the depravity of sin, is total but not absolute. Thus, every unbelieving position will necessarily have within it ideas, concepts, notions, and the like that it has taken and wrenched from their true, Christian context. 

9. The true, covenantal knowledge of God in men, together with God's universal mercy, allows for persuasion in apologetics. 

10. Every fact and experience is what it is by virtue of the covenantal, all-controlling plan and purpose of God. 

Paul at the Areopagus 

Salvation Is Too Easy for Most Men

"The truth of justification by faith alone is contrary to depraved human nature, which always supposes and insists that the way to be righteous is by exerting oneself to attain this status, since righteousness makes one worthy of salvation and of every blessing. The truth of justification is truly amazing since faith is not a work that makes one worthy of righteousness, but merely a means, an instrument, by which God gives - by imputation - and the sinner passively receives righteousness as a gift. Indeed, the faith itself by which the sinner is justified is God's gift to the sinner." -Rev. David Engelsma, "Gospel truth of Justification," p. 191. 

In most things, we expect a person to choose the easiest way to attain his goals. To choose the hardest way is considered irrational. Yet we all exempt salvation from that plain rule. 

Recall the reactions of Adam and Eve immediately after their Fall into sin: "Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, 'Where are you?' And he [i. e., Adam] said, 'I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.' He [i. e., the Lord] said, 'Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?' The man said, 'The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.' Then the Lord God said to the woman, 'What is this that you have done?' The woman said, 'The serpent deceived me, and I ate'" (Genesis 3:7-13). 

First, let us notice who is speaking. This is the Lord, the tetragrammaton, Yahweh. This is the covenantal name of the preincarnate Son. Where the Father could have come in proper wrath and justice, instead, the Son comes in the first instance of His mediatorial role. He is present with the now-sinful Adam and Eve, giving them an immediate opportunity to plead His mediatorial mercy and forgiveness. That would have been the easy solution. 

Instead, what did they do? Immediately they covered their nakedness with fig leaves. The consciousness of their nakedness is an indication of their loss of their pre-Fall innocence. So, they attempted to work out their own solution to their guilt: cover it up. Next, they hide themselves among the trees. They have hidden their sin from their own eyes with the leaves, and then they add hiding themselves from the eyes of God. After all, he cannot judge them if He doesn't know where they are, right? Or so they reasoned. Yet, when He finds them, as was inevitable, they resort to pointing fingers. It was the woman, Adam claims, and You gave her to me. So it is God's fault. Even in her place passed the blame to the serpent, that ancient Tempter, whom we know as Satan. For Adam and Eve, their defense boiled down to, No one here but us innocent little chickens! 

And to this day, the posterity of our first parents respond the same way. We always strive to avoid responsibility for our wickedness. It is someone else's fault, not mine. Or I will fix myself, and God can just go on about His business with those other wicked people. 

And while we scramble to make all of these efforts to hide or fix our sin, the only mediator between the just God and sinful men is Jesus Christ. How simple it is to turn to Him alone by faith alone. Then we need not make garments for ourselves, because He gives us His own white robe of righteousness: "I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see" (Revelation 3:18; compare Zechariah 3:3-4). We need not hide or fix our sin. Indeed, we cannot. But He can, and does. How easy salvation in Christ is!

King David and the Doctrine of Perseverance

 According to the superscription, David wrote this when he was taken prisoner by the Philistines: "You [God] have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life" (Psalm 56:13). It may be this verse which inspired Jude, the half-brother of Jesus, to write centuries later, "Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen" (Jude 1:24-25). 

Both men exult not in some belief that they must sustain their own faith, as the Pelagian claims, but rather in the knowledge that it is God's power that will sustain them to the end. 

Jesus also talked about this: "My sheep hear My voice and I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand" (John 10:27-29). 

David and Jude write from their experiences of the faithfulness of God. Jesus, however, writes as the God who is faithful. It is on that faithfulness that the perseverance of the true believer depends and is guaranteed. 

I have been told by both Catholics and Mormons that it is arrogant to be sure now of my eternal life. They both claim that no one can be sure until he arrives at his eternal destination. They consistently refer to Matthew 24:13: "The one who endures to the end will be saved." But neither one ever considers how the believer endures. As cited above, the Bible tells us that it is God's action that gives endurance, not the willpower of the believer. And God can never fail. Therefore, the believer has a sound foundation for his assurance, just as the Apostle John tells us: "I write these things to you [Christians] who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life" (I John 5:13). The possession of eternal life is something that the true believer has now, not something for which he merely hopes.

King David and the Biblical Doctrine of Total Depravity

When praying to God, King David included this plea: "Enter not into judgment with Your servant, for no one living is righteous before You" (Psalm 143:2). David, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, includes a lot of good theology in these two lines of poetry. First, he indicates that he understands that he

Fear of Judgment

deserves the wrath of God. However, as God's servant, i. e., a true believer, he has the right to plead, not God's justice, but rather God's mercy, in not imputing his sin to him. And the second line is, again, the acknowledgement that he deserves the wrath of God, with the additional acknowledgement that this is the natural condition of every human being (compare Ephesians 2:3). 

In theology, we would say that David is describing the doctrine of total depravity. This is the biblical teaching that every descendant of Adam (excepting Jesus alone) is a sinner from conception, with no natural ability to do spiritual good. 

David's profession is distressing to the human heart, because we all naturally want to believe in our worthiness and value. However, from God's perspective, which is that of perfect holiness, we all fall short of His standard (Romans 3:23). And, as David says, that shortfall earns us the judgment of God (Romans 6:23). There is no innocence, no age of accountability, no excuse because of ignorance. 

This is the knowledge that the unbeliever seeks to suppress (Romans 1:18). However, it is only as a person recognizes and acknowledges that he deserves the wrath of God that he can seek the only refuge from that wrath, under the blood of Jesus on the cross, applied to the believer by faith alone. 

Justification by Double Imputation, Through Faith Alone

Orthodox Protestants properly state that justification is by faith alone, without regard to works. That statement is true, and the only way of justification found in the Bible. But we are often week in defining what it is that is conveyed to the believer by means of - not on the basis of - his faith. What is conveyed to the believer is the negative obedience of Christ, i. e., His willing submission to the judgment of the Father for sin, and His positive obedience, i. e., His willing obedience to the law of God as the Second Adam.

The first cancels the sin debt that the elect carried for our sins, while the latter gives us a true righteousness in the eyes of God. 

"If faith in Christ is the only way to be righteous, to the exclusion of all the works of the sinner himself, then the sinner's righteousness with God consists exclusively of the works of Christ in his stead and on his behalf. In the saving work of God of justification the sinner's righteousness is solely the obedience of Christ - His lifelong, perfect obedience to all the commandments of the law in our stead and His obedience in our place to the demand of the law that we be cursed for our transgressions. 'By the obedience of one shall many be [constituted] righteous' (Romans 5:19)" Engelsma, Gospel Truth of Justification, p. 192.

For His negative obedience, we have many passages in the Bible, such as Isaiah 53:4-6: "Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." 

That passage is well-known, but how many can point to the imputation of his perfect obedience? " You will ordain peace for us, for You have indeed done for us all our works" (Isaiah 26:12). See also II Corinthians 5:21 and Hebrews 13:20-21. When we stand before Jesus, not to be judged, but to have His righteousness and mercy displayed before the universe, we will not be without works. Rather we shall bear His works!