by Dane Massey
(Dane Massey is the former Pastor of Mulvane Christian Church. He is now in ministry in Houston, Texas.)
Spent this week thinking about the personal words that describe the Gospel. Words that describe what happens inwardly when one enters into the Gospel of Christ, the power of God unto salvation:
These words include:
>Quickened / made alive – Ephesians 2:1
>Born Again / new birth – John 3:5-8
> Regeneration / Renewing of the Holy Spirit – Titus 3:5-6
> Resurrected Life / newness of life – Romans 6:1-14
> New Creation (Unique, new, unlike that which was before) – II Cor.5:17
These terms make one think of the promised new covenant laid before us in Ezekiel 36:26-27
“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.”
Based on these terms and the prophetic promise what should we learn?
“Salvation” that the Gospel promises and provides is:
“A deep inner change at the very core of ones being”
New Heart / New Spirit
“A new life source that brings new desire and the power to live out that desire”
There is nothing in this prophetic promise nor these terms that imply a mere act of one’s will, a decision of man, a church or religious exercise or ritual, or mere intellectual agreement to creed or doctrine. These things may follow the “new life implant” but they definitely don’t cause it or proceed it.
The law, convicting work of the Holy Spirit, and the rule of sin over us is designed to bring man to a deep awareness of his condition. If one looks at the terms above, you must conclude that the opposite must be true of our “natural state” before God.
> Dead
> Without Life
> Corrupted
> Powerless
Until man becomes convinced and convicted of his true condition the Gospel becomes just another piece in a packed field of self-help programs designed to help man become all he can be. This denies that man himself is the problem.
The Gospel does not promise to help man but to crucify the old man and to give “newness of life.” Therefore God will frustrate any attempt to “self-help” for He intends to bring man to the end of himself and to bring forth a new creature.
Men make decisions, resolutions and outward change, God does heart surgery.
To clarify my thinking on this I meditated on the “angry man” simply because it seemed so obvious. Think of Proverbs 19:19:
“A man of great wrath shall suffer punishment: for if thou deliver him, yet thou must do it again.” KJV
“A hot-tempered person must pay the penalty; rescue them, and you will have to do it again.” NIV
If God begins to deal with this man, and he begins to take responsibility for his actions he may set out to work on his anger. He may even develop good anger management skills. But God intends for these to fail until the man is frustrated and faces the truth:
My problem is not that I become angry and out of control. The problem lies deeper! I am an angry man! Anger isn’t something I “do” it is something I am.”
Note the issues here. If you rescue him, or he somehow escapes the consequences he will need to be delivered again and again. Rescue merely prolongs the problem and may even hinder him from ever dealing with the true problem: his heart!
He must become convinced not that he needs help but that he is, in his natural state, beyond help. Look at Romans 9:16:
“It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.” NIV
“So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.” KJV
As long as the angry man believes he can fix it or control it by his own effort, then he believes salvation is of man. He has yet to arrive at repentance.
Any type of “help” apart from the cross tends to become a mere means to avoid the cross.
This is why salvation should be seen as a birthing process not just a mere birth. The birth canal can be long and painful. It usually takes nine months to just get to the birth canal. For those assisting the birth process this can be painful as well. It is not called “travail” without reason.
“My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,”. (Galatians 4:19 KJV).
The painful process however should not be interfered with. The process is needed in order to bring forth a vibrant, healthy new life. When man interferes with the process through his wisdom, man-made methods, and efforts, the result is the anemic weak converts so often seen today. (Whether they are truly converted or not is God’s knowledge and His alone.).
All the struggle and pain is under the hand of the Master Physician who alone can take out the heart of stone and replace it with a pliable, teachable heart and at the same time give His Spirit to empower what the new heart now knows and desires.
This is the promise and provision of the Gospel for not only the angry man but to all who are dead and bound in their sin. Those who would deliver the angry man any other way are merely deceiving him and themselves.
The Gospel can and will set the captive free when it is left to do its powerful work. To distort it, add to it, or somehow “help” it is treasonous at best and blasphemous at worst.
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