BY GRACE ALONE (PART 32)

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A saved man is born again based on what God has done, not on what is so falsely claimed a man must do. Obviously there is no life prior to being born again, so how can a man be enabled without being born again? Exactly what is this enablement that man is said to be given anyway? How can a man be made alive without being born again? How can a man come to God, how can a man love the only true God unless God has come to the man first, unless God has loved the man first. How can a dead man possibly do anything. Spiritual life, as with physical life, cannot be chosen. This shows clearly that salvation comes from God and is given to His people, based on a choice made by God according to His grace. Grace brings salvation, it does not merely offer salvation to those who would choose him. The Biblical reality is that there is no offer made, because no man could ever choose to accept it. Being dead makes it rather difficult to do anything. When the Lord Jesus stated that with man salvation is impossible, He was saying that salvation cannot possibly be something which can be conditioned on man doing anything. “With men this is IMPOSSIBLE…” (Matt. 19:26). Clearly, if men were left to themselves, to their obedience and their works, NONE would or could ever be saved. Why? BECAUSE SALVATION IS NOT CONDITIONED, IT DOES NOT DEPEND, ON MAN AND WHAT HE DOES, BUT SOLELY AND PURELY ON THE SOVEREIGN GRACE OF ALMIGHTY GOD! “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil” (Jer. 13:23). How can those who can do no good, possibly do anything by which God can then save them!! The best attempts to do something in order to gain salvation is truly labor in vain, as is any attempt to change an Ethiopian’s skin color, or a leopard’s spots. Attempting to do that which is literally impossible is attempting to do that which should not be done. God’s act of grace brings spiritual life to His chosen, religion has God enabling a man to allegedly contribute to his own re-birth. But why claim the need for re-birth, when these people insist man is not spiritually dead? Why would a man who is not spiritually dead need to be spiritually born again! The blasphemous doctrine that says man is not spiritually dead denies the Word of God, and takes the glory for salvation away from God, for it shines the spotlight on man’s doing rather than on God’s giving.

 

Jacob Arminius, the founder of what is known as, Arminianism, taught, "The lost sinner needs the Spirit’s assistance, but he does not have to be regenerated (made alive) by the Spirit before he can believe, for faith is man’s act and precedes the new birth". Clearly, Arminius, and those who follow his teachings, did not and do not believe that a man prior to salvation is dead in sins. They are all part of the satanic cult that denies the spiritual death of mankind, for in believing that a man does not need to be made alive by God, they agree with Satan when he said to Eve she would not surely die if she ate of the forbidden fruit, because they say we are not surely dead. To deny one’s death is to reveal one’s deadness. You can never get a spiritually dead man to admit he is dead. The apostle Paul expressly refers to man’s spiritual death in his Letter to the Ephesians. Ephesians 2:1 makes it all patently clear: “And you hath He quickened (made alive), who were dead in trespasses and sins”. Every true Christian was once dead, and is now made alive. Dead in sins means dead to God. Dead in sins means completely unresponsive to the only true God. Being dead in sins means to be carnally minded. No one who is spiritually dead in sins seeks after the only true God. The thoughts and affections of such people are not only set on “visible and temporal things, implying deadness or aversion to spiritual and Divine things”, but also on false gospels which spout erroneous doctrines that only define, and are exclusive to, false man-made gods. Man, by nature, has no natural affection for the true God, or His truth, and so can only ‘choose’ the lies of the gods of religion. The spiritual death of mankind is undeniable, and the evidence overwhelming. How can a man be made alive who was not first dead!! If you say you were not dead, how can you claim to have been MADE alive which is what being born again, saved by grace, is all about!!

 

Every true believer knows they were once dead and have now been made alive by grace. The following Scriptures emphasize the deadness of even God’s people before He made them alive. Writing to the saints at Ephesus, the apostle Paul stated: “Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of Wrath, even as others. But God, Who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)” (Eph. 2:2-5 cf. Eph. 5:8). Here we see the eternal and inescapable connection between being made alive and being saved by grace. Here we see man’s problem as being dead in sins, and the only solution being that he be made alive by grace, or saved by grace. Being made alive is a supernatural act performed by God through grace. By nature all are children of Wrath and dead in sins, hopeless and without God. The fact that man is hopeless is seen in the fact he is dead and requires grace and mercy, and, therefore, can merit, or deserve nothing from God. This shows that salvation can only be by the grace of God, for every man is dead and can do nothing. Man has to be made alive by the grace of God, for it is by grace that a man is saved. Those who insist they were never dead spiritually, never dead to God, never dead in their sins, can, literally, never rightly lay claim to being saved, for their assertion that they were never dead shows they could never have been made alive. Being saved is being made alive, and being made alive means death was every saved man’s state prior to salvation. Those who deny spiritual death deny the essentiality of being made alive, literally being saved, by God through grace alone. The spiritually dead who have no hope and know not the true God, believe they can do what is necessary to get saved. There is no better description of a blind, lost, dead man. They believe that a man can do, a man must do to be alive. It is an established fact that physically dead bodies do often make noises, the ramblings of those who say man must choose and is not dead are nothing but the spiritual version of those lifeless sounds. Nothing that man could ever do, or imagines he could do, could ever make him alive to God. This is solely the domain of God and grace. It is only by what God does, mercy and grace, that a man is saved. Grace only ever saves those who were dead.

 

Before a man is made alive he is dead, and, one cannot be made alive to God without first being dead in sins. Arminius denied both states. Just as Arminius died a lost man, anyone who believes his statement is not currently saved. FAITH IS NOT MAN'S ACT, FOR A SPIRITUALLY DEAD MAN CANNOT ACT IN ANY WAY THAT IS PLEASING AND ACCEPTABLE TO GOD. SAVING FAITH IS NOT MAN’S GIFT TO GOD, BUT A GIFT FROM GOD TO MAN, and no one can please Him without it!! (see Heb. 11:6). Someone once wrote me saying, “Grace is a product of our faith”. This is the kind of reverse thinking that is synonymous with spiritual deadness. Such people cannot discern the things of God. Scripture declares both grace and faith to be gifts of God. Neither are of ourselves, nor do they emanate from our works (see Eph. 2). The Word of God says a man is saved by God, and not by himself. If it is not of works, then it must be of grace alone. The Word of God says a man is saved by the gifts of Grace through Faith, and not of works. That man can do nothing, but must be made alive by the Spirit of God. Being made spiritually alive is being saved by grace. Salvation is about life, and grace is the only way it can come. Man is not saved by anything he does, but only by what God has done. Salvation is never by a work, never by man, but only by a gift given only by God. “…the flesh profiteth nothing…” (Jn. 6:63), it is only the Spirit Who brings life. Life comes only by what God can do. Once a man has been given life, made alive unto God by God, there is nothing for him to do to be saved, for he is saved. Man is not made alive so that he can then do something to earn his salvation. Being made alive IS salvation. Being made alive IS being born again. Being made alive is believing with the gift of faith given by grace alone. Being saved is entirely an act of the grace of God. The wages of man’s sin was death, and the gift of eternal life is what God gives to those He has chosen. Man could only have been saved by grace alone and not by works at all, only by what God does, and not by what a man must do, for again, prior to life man is lifeless, he is dead in sins and cannot come to God (see Jn. 6:44,65). Prior to salvation, nothing a man does can profit him in the slightest. So in light of this you tell me what it is that a man can do to draw God to him.

 

One of the principle teachings of Scripture is that saving Faith is a gift from God, and not an act of man's which precedes the new birth. Otherwise, we would have the absurd and thoroughly unbiblical situation of a man believing before being born again, believing without being born of God, believing before he is saved, savingly believing whilst dead, which would then make salvation a reward for a work of man's, and not a free gift from God. None of the people Christ made alive again could do anything physically to release themselves from death so that Jesus could then make them alive. The whole concept is perfectly ridiculous. God waits for dead people to do something before He makes them alive? The Lord did not wait upon Lazarus or the damsel in Mark 5 to do something before He made them alive. He did not receive their consent, or permission to be brought back to life, but simply and Sovereignly commanded what God willed to occur. IT WAS CHRIST'S MAKING THEM ALIVE THAT PRECEDED THEM DOING ANYTHING!! Life is God’s gift to the chosen dead. Obviously, nothing they did after they were brought back to life contributed in any way to them being made alive again, for prior to life they were lifeless, hopeless and utterly helpless. All that followed was the result of their being restored to life, of the life which they had been given. If a man does not need to be regenerated, made alive by the Spirit of God, before he believes—as Arminius claimed—how can he believe whilst in an unregenerated state? It would then be a case of a man believing God whilst not desiring to seek God, for prior to life, prior to being born again, man is a child of Wrath. No man seeks God prior to his being made alive by God. You cannot seek the only true God whilst living according to a carnal mind. This is the essence of what it is to be spiritually dead. You cannot simply deny spiritual death and the need for regeneration, for their reality is seen in the Biblical fact that “…There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom. 3:10-18). All men, by nature, are spiritually dead, and the only answer to this condition is for them to be quickened, or made alive. If a man must first be made alive by God before he can believe, how can he offer anything to God whilst in an unbelieving dead state? How can a child of God’s Wrath do anything to put away the Wrath of God when it is perfectly clear in the Word of God that only grace and mercy can do so? A man who is dead in sins, even a Christian prior to his regeneration, is a “…child of disobedience…fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of Wrath, even as others. But God, Who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)” (Eph. 2:4,5). All man has ever done is sin and die. This passage of Scripture reveals that the only one who can do anything about man’s sin dilemma is God, and the only way God does anything for His chosen people is through His mercy, grace and HIS great love. It does not sound like a child of disobedience, who fulfils the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and who is described by the Word of God as a child of God’s Wrath, and dead in sins could ever possibly do anything to draw God’s favour. It’s not dead men and dead works, but God Who is rich in mercy and grace that saves. Man and his works, including his inherent faith, are just as dead as each other. God is the Life Source and this life only comes by Him, through Him, because of Him! A man is dead in sins right up to the moment he is born again by God, made alive again by the love, mercy and grace of God. A man is dead in sins, without God, without Christ, without hope, without understanding the things of God right up until the moment he is made alive by the grace of Almighty God. To say that man needs not to be regenerated when the Scriptures plainly declare he does (see Titus 3:5), is to reveal oneself to be either an ignorant, spiritually dead fool, or a man determined to go against what God has made perfectly clear. It takes the grace of God, an act of God, to make a man alive to Him, for by grace is a man saved. The problem is death, the answer is life. The remedy comes not by works, but by grace alone.

 

How can a man choose God before he is given life? How can a man who is not righteous, does not understand God, does not seek God, has gone out of the way and become unprofitable, is not good, whose throat is an open sepulchre, whose tongue is used to deceive, under whose lips is the poison of asps, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, whose feet are swift to shed blood, whose ways are filled with destruction and misery, who do not know the way of peace and who have no fear of the only true God before their eyes POSSIBLY choose God before he is made alive? HOW CAN A MAN DEAD IN SINS POSSIBLY LOVE GOD before he is given life! If a man can choose the true God, seek the true God, love the true God before the man is made alive by God, what difference does being made alive make if a man can choose to be saved by the true and only God without it. To deny spiritual death is to deny spiritual re-birth, and to deny spiritual re-birth is to deny the very need for salvation. To deny the need to be made alive is to deny the need for salvation by grace. To deny the need to be made spiritually alive is to agree with Satan that man is not spiritually dead. Moreover, what is this teaching that a man must choose God, when Scripture states that it is God Who chooses man evidenced by his being undeservedly made alive by grace? The Lord’s statement, “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you…” (Jn. 15:16 cf. 1 Pet. 2:9), is the very principle of grace. Anything which opposes this principle is the very heart and soul of everything that is wicked, evil and anti-God. Grace is God doing, not man doing. Salvation is God doing not man achieving. God is the Chooser, and His people are a chosen generation. THEY WERE CHOSEN BECAUSE THEY COULD NOT CHOOSE! They are saved by grace because they could do nothing to save themselves by works. They are made alive because they were dead. They did not choose God, but were chosen by God because they were dead and could do nothing to come to Him. What is there for man to choose or decide upon, after God has by grace made him alive to Him forever. Can a man choose to be alive who is alive? Can a man who is born again choose to be born again? Can a man who is saved choose to be saved? Of course not. If a saved man cannot do any of these things because they have already been done, how pray tell can spiritually dead men do them whilst dead? What grace does is save the ones chosen by God who were dead in sins and could do nothing to save themselves. Grace saves the hopeless. Grace saves the ones who can do nothing. Salvation is undeserved as grace is undeserved as the gift of faith is undeserved. Salvation by grace means no works can be done, therefore, no works should ever be attempted to gain eternal life. Being made spiritually alive by grace, is being made immediately responsive to God by God. Only grace makes a man want the only true God and none other. The wanting of and desire for the only true God comes only after a man has been saved by grace alone. Grace makes a man willing. Prior to this no one seeks, desires or has the true and only God evidenced in no one’s abiding in His doctrine (see 2 Jn. 9). Prior to this man is dead in sins, dead to God, but alive only to false gods and doctrines of devils. Paul states clearly that a man can only trust in Christ after he has believed the Gospel of Christ: “That we should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in Christ. In Whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the Word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation: in Whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise” (Eph. 1:12,13). And, how can anyone believe in Christ who is without Christ, without hope and without God in the world, without the gift of faith which God gives to His people?

 

One who is dead in sins is without God, and without Christ, therefore without hope (see Eph. 2:1,5,12). Any hope! Only the one who has been made alive by God is no longer dead to God, but God is with him and Christ is with him. One who is dead must be made alive and that by God. Being made alive/saved/born again, is what only God can do, and He does it according to whomsoever He is willing to be gracious and merciful to. SALVATION IS ALL ABOUT GOD. IT IS NOT ABOUT WHAT A MAN MUST DO, BUT SOLELY ABOUT WHAT GOD HAS DONE! Salvation is not about whosoever chooses God, but whomsoever God has chosen to be gracious and merciful to (see Ex. 33:19; Rom. 9:15,16). Salvation is not about what a man must do, but is all about what God has chosen to do. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not about what a man must do, but what Jesus Christ has done for all His people. There is nothing for a man to do in terms of getting saved, being saved, and remaining saved, for God has given his elect everything: His love, grace, mercy, faith, the Righteousness of His Son and eternal life, in fact “…all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). The fact that all these precious things are gifts clearly indicates that there is nothing man could do, and, therefore, must do, in order to be made alive from the dead. One of the major symptoms of spiritually dead people is all those who believe in a higher power simply assume that the one they believe in is the true God. The reality of the situation is NO ONE BELIEVES THE ONLY TRUE GOD UNTIL AFTER THEY ARE SAVED BY HIM THROUGH GRACE!! No one wants Him, no one seeks Him, no one knows or understands Him. The spiritually dead are in such a quandary that they are trying to comprehend the things of God, trying to discern who the true God is, with carnal minds which are at enmity against Him!! It can’t be done. You cannot comprehend the things of God, Who He is, how He saves and who He saves with a mind that is naturally hostile toward Him (see 1 Cor. 2:14). In addition, all this talk of choosing God by one's free will appears to take it for granted that the 'God' chosen is, and will always be, the True God. This is like dialling any number expecting to immediately come into contact with the person you intended to talk with! It simply doesn’t work that way. If you want to talk to John you have to first know John’s number. A person cannot address the true God before God saves them. The only true God is uncontactable. No one knows Him, no one seeks Him, so how can anyone contact Him. The only people who do want the true God, who do seek only Him, and who are in contact with Him are His people chosen and saved by grace alone. Scripture asks how can one call on the True God if one has not heard and believed His Gospel (see Rom. 10:11-15). Who can call on the True God and believe His Gospel, whilst dead in trespasses and sins? How can anyone who is spiritually dead, and with a hostile mind that is naturally biased against God, possibly choose to turn to the only true God? When a person is made alive to God by God, they believe only God’s Gospel. Prior to spiritual life, all men either believe no gospel, or only false gospels, for they are dead to God and His one and only Gospel, His one and only Way of salvation. Who can understand and believe the Gospel whilst in a dead state? One must be born again, made alive, by God before one can believe, for without Faith it is impossible to please God (see Heb. 11:6). No one can please God before they are made alive by Him. No one can enter the Kingdom of God unless they are born again.

 

Spiritually dead man is as inanimate as a car. He is as non-functional as a car with no fuel, and a completely flat battery. How can a car start without any fuel? How can a car start with a battery that has zero power? And what can a car possibly do to get that fuel in it so it can start, or to re-charge its own battery? Answer: absolutely nothing. How would a car know what it needs anyway!  Moreover, no car can start itself! A car has no will to start itself. It cannot start itself even if it could want to, which it cannot. In this digital age even cars fitted with remote start systems require a person to make the car start. No such car can start itself without being pre-programmed by man. No car can start itself, just as no man can make himself alive. A car needs a man to start it, just as a man needs God to make him alive in order to be saved. There is nothing a car can do without fuel and someone to start it, and there is nothing spiritually dead man can do before, or without, first being made alive by, and to, God. But again, once a man is saved, there is nothing for him to do to get saved or play any part in his remaining saved, for his salvation is eternally and exclusively dependent upon the grace of God that saved him in the first place. What saves a man also keeps him saved. Grace brings eternal life. God is the Author and Sustainer of all life, be it physical or spiritual. To say a man must choose God before God can save him is as asinine a statement as ‘the car started itself, and then fuel was poured into it’. The advantage which a car has over a spiritually dead man is the car that has fuel and a perfectly functioning battery is ready to go. All it needs is a man willing to start it and drive it away. Spiritually dead man needs to be made an entirely new creature, for the old nature is eternally dead. A spiritually dead man is not ready for anything. Only after a man has heard the truth can he believe, but he can only believe after he has been made alive to God by God via grace and given the gift of faith with which to believe. Prior to being made alive, prior to hearing the Gospel, no man can do anything except continue to rot away both spiritually and physically. The proof of this is seen in the fact that man must be made alive from his spiritually dead state, he must be made a new creature in Christ.

 

Is action the precursor to life or is life evidenced by action? Are we to believe that regeneration is some sort of reward for our act of believing? How can this be when, as we have seen, a man cannot believe before being made alive, regenerated, by God and to God! Can a man believe the truth first, and then hear what the truth actually is? Does our believing make God save us? Of course not. Then how can a man possibly do anything before being made alive by God? A car must be started before it can go anywhere. Yes, a car can roll downhill if it is left without the handbrake being applied, but the only thing that can eventuate from that is an inevitable collision. Arminianism says that a man does not have to be regenerated, that is, be made alive to God, before he believes in God, for "...faith is an act of man's and precedes the new birth". It also makes the equally outrageous and totally blasphemous claim that "Faith is the sinner's gift to God; it is man's contribution to salvation". WHAT CAN A DEAD MAN CONTRIBUTE!! What gift can a dead man give!! The utterly satanic notion that man needs not to be regenerated aligns perfectly with Satan’s lie that man would not surely die (see Gen. 3:4). Jesus said a man must be born again, which is tantamount to saying a man, by nature is spiritually dead, and must, therefore, be made alive before he can enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Jn. 3:3,5). God told Adam “…Thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17). Christ’s people are those who were dead in sins, but whom He has now made alive: “But God, Who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)” (Eph. 2:4,5). No one deserves to be made alive, therefore, there is nothing that is done, or can be done, by anyone who is spiritually dead in sins. The moment you say a man must do this or that before he is saved, you completely do away with salvation being that which is undeserved, and replacing this Biblical doctrine with the lie that salvation is something that God is obligated to award. Salvation is not by obligation, but only by grace.

 

Any gospel which teaches man is not spiritually dead and in desperate need of being made alive by God, is a gospel which cannot save anybody. Clearly all such teachings literally ignore what is perhaps the least preached, but most basic fundamental doctrine in the entire world: the spiritual death of mankind. That man lies hopeless and helpless in his sins is one of the least heard doctrines in the world. That all by nature are without God, and, therefore, children of His Wrath, is an inescapable doctrine. Without this doctrine, there is no need for grace or mercy, for it promotes the lie that man by his will and works can extricate himself from his sin dilemma. Such teachings do not merely ignore the fact that man is spiritually dead in sins, they are in violent opposition to it. Anything which is so blatantly, fraudulently against a teaching of God can only come from Satan himself, or the spiritually dead nature of mankind. The whole reason for the Saviour Who saves by grace alone is that God’s chosen are dead in sins and can do nothing. Whether man is or is not spiritually dead is not some frivolous debate amongst fellow Christians. Those who oppose the inescapable reality of spiritual death reveal their own spiritually dead state, and their unfaltering allegiance to Satan, whether they are aware of it or not. Those who argue against the truth are not of the truth. Jesus said “But ye believe not, because ye are not of My sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (Jn. 10:26,27); “…every one that is of the truth heareth My voice” (Jn. 18:37). Everyone who does not believe the truth of God is not hearing the voice of Jesus. The apostle John declared: “We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error” (1 Jn. 4:6 cf. Jn. 8:47; 2 Jn.9). IT IS OF THE UTMOST IMPORTANCE TO NOTE THAT ALL WHO DO NOT BELIEVE THAT MAN IS SPIRITUALLY DEAD IN SINS, ARE NOT BELIEVERS IN, BUT DENIERS OF, GOD'S PROMISE TO ADAM THAT IN THE DAY HE ATE OF THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL HE WOULD SURELY DIE. THEY ARE ADHERENTS AND PERPETUATORS OF SATAN'S LIE TO EVE THAT SHE WOULD NOT SURELY DIE, FOR THEY SAY 'WE ARE NOT SURELY DEAD'.

 

God spoke clearly to Adam when He warned him about not eating the forbidden fruit, and subsequently promised that “…in the day that thou eatest thereof THOU SHALT SURELY DIE” (Gen. 2:17). Now, if Adam did die—which he surely did, according to God’s promise/warning—then surely mankind is dead, for Adam was the federal head, the representative of all mankind. All have come from his seed. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Rom. 5:12). “…through the offence of one many be dead…” (Rom. 5:15). “…by one man’s offence death reigned by one…” (Rom. 5:17). “…by the offence of one judgement came upon all men to condemnation…” (Rom. 5:18). “…by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners…” (Rom. 5:19). Each individual does not become a sinner after they have sinned, for the Scriptures note that all mankind which is descended from Adam were made sinners by that one man. Every man is conceived in sin, is born a sinner, a child of disobedience, as a result of Adam’s disobedience. “Agreeably to this the Jews say, that ‘for the sin of the first man, all that are born of him, become wicked. This is the sum of what is said in the foregoing verses, that by Adam's sin all his posterity are made sinners, and so are brought under a sentence of condemnation; what they are made sinners by, is ‘the disobedience of one man, Adam’; and by the first and single disobedience of his, in eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, by which they ‘were made sinners’: the meaning of which is not, that they became sufferers for it, or subject to death on the account of it; the word used will not bear such a sense, but signifies men guilty of sin, and sometimes the worst and chief of sinners; besides, the apostle had expressed that before; add to this, that the sons of Adam could not be sufferers for his sin, or subject to death on account of it, if they were not made sinners by it, or involved in the guilt of it: and though the posterity of Adam are habitually sinners, that is, derive corrupt nature from Adam, yet this is not meant here; but that they are become guilty, through the imputation of his sin to them (see Rom. 5:13,14); for it is by the disobedience of another they are made sinners, which must be by the imputation of that disobedience to them; he sinned, and they sinned in him, when they had as yet no actual existence; which could be no other way, than by imputation, as he was reckoned and accounted their head and representative, and they reckoned and accounted in him, and so have sinned in him. This is also evident, from the sentence of condemnation and death passing upon all men for it; and even upon those, who had not actually sinned; to which may be added, that Adam's posterity are made sinners through his disobedience, in the same way as Christ's seed are made Righteous by His obedience, which is by the imputation of it to them.” “For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19 cf. 1 Cor. 15:22). Man died because of sin, and is made alive by God in Christ.

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“In the Garden of Eden, when Adam sinned by eating fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, that act of disobedience produced a grave, two-fold effect on the rest of humanity. The first effect was original sin and the second was imputed sin. Adam, as the head of the human race, caused every person after him to be born into a fallen condition or sinful state. This effect of Adam’s sin is known as original sin and is often referred to as inherited sin. All human beings have inherited a sinful nature through Adam’s original act of disobedience (see Rom. 5:12-14). In addition to receiving a fallen nature, all people who came after Adam have been credited with the guilt of Adam’s sin (see Rom. 5:18). That is the meaning of imputed sin. An imputation is an attribution or a crediting of something. Imputed sin is Adam’s guilt attributed to or credited to us. All humans are counted as having sinned in Adam and thus deserving the same punishment for sin as Adam. Imputed sin affects our standing before God (we are guilty, condemned, separated), whereas original sin affects our character (we are morally ruined). Both original and imputed sin make us subject to God’s judgment. The term ‘impute’ is used both legally and financially and means ‘to designate any action, word, or thing as credited to another person’s account’. Biblically, Adam’s sin was imputed to all his descendants, and they are to be dealt with as guilty. It does not mean they are personally guilty of Adam’s sin, only that his sin was credited to their account, and thus every person participates in the guilt and penalty of that original transgression. The penalty for sin is death. We are subject to spiritual death, or separation from God in this present life, due to imputed sin: ‘And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of Wrath, even as others’ (Eph. 2:1-3). If we remain in this state of separation from God, the result is the second death, which is eternal (see Rev. 20:11-15).

 

“Physical death is also a penalty for imputed sin (see Rom. 5:12). The guilt of Adam’s sin was directly charged or imputed to the whole human family so that all people are now subject to death (see Rom. 6:23).The apostle Paul teaches imputed sin in various passages (see Rom. 5:15,18,19 and ‘…in Adam all die…’ 1 Cor. 15:22). The good news regarding original and imputed sin is that God already had a remedy, a Sovereign plan of salvation, even before Adam sinned in the Garden. The remedy for imputed sin is the atoning work of Jesus Christ (see Rom. 5:19).” The moment in time when a sinner is saved by grace through faith in the Righteousness of Christ—all these being gifts from God to His chosen ones—the Righteousness of Christ is credited to his account. “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22). “All believers possess imputed Righteousness. As all people are in Adam, so all believers are in Christ. Being in Christ means that His Righteousness is now theirs. Through Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross, the sin of all those whom the Father gave unto the Son was imputed to Christ. Jesus took on Himself the penalty for their sin.” Addressing only the beloved of God, those called to be saints, the apostle Paul declared that the Lord Jesus Christ, “…was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4:25); “…for the transgression of My people was He stricken” (Isa. 53:8). “Believers are not yet perfected in Righteousness. Nonetheless, they are clothed in the imputed Righteousness of Christ: ‘For He hath made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin; that we might be made the Righteousness of God in Him’ (2 Cor. 5:21). Jesus answered the demands of Justice for His people’s sins and satisfied the requirements of the Law for them (see Rom. 3:25,26; Col. 2:14).”

 

Seeing that all, by their very natures, are dead in Adam, there is, according to Biblical reasoning, nothing and no one that can do anything whilst in that state. Therefore, to say that salvation comes only after what a man does is to claim the impossible. Even the Arminian prevenient grace leaves a man in a spiritually dead state. The Scriptures vociferate that a man is saved by grace through faith and NOT BY WORKS! Salvation is not of man, or by man, but completely of, and by, God alone. Man was made a sinner by the disobedience of Adam, and he is made Righteous only by the obedience of Jesus Christ. How can one who is dead in sins possibly obey to the saving of their soul? There is simply nothing left to say, but that those who insist on some work of their own playing a pivotal role in salvation, or even the slightest role, are nothing less than perfect examples of what it is to be dead in sins, and dead to God and His truth. The dead look to works – those made alive look only to grace. The spiritually dead hear not HIS voice, but only the sound of their carnal minds which reverberate with nothing but the illusion of truth. Only the lies of man resonate within him until he is made alive by God. The spiritually blind do nothing but fall into ditches, and so do the ones whom they follow. Anti-grace, therefore, anti-God teachings say a man does not have to be saved in order to believe, he is not first ordained by God’s will to eternal life, but must first believe so that he may then be rewarded with eternal life. This, despite the Scriptures’ clear reference to eternal life being a gift from God (see Rom. 6:23). You can’t do anything to get it; there is nothing that a man can do to get eternal life. He needs a Saviour, and the Saviour does what it is impossible for any man to do. He saves! He saves by what He does, not by what a man believes he himself has done. Arminianism would have us believe that a man needs no gift from God so that he can, and will, believe, but that man's inherent faith—a faith which is corrupted, and leprous, and covered in filthy rags and as dead as man himself is, which can never savingly believe the Gospel of God—is man’s gift to God!! Arminianism teaches that God is not the sole Saviour for man is co-Saviour with Him in that his believing is his contribution to salvation. Any time you have a teaching which has salvation hinging upon a ‘God will do this if you do that’ proposition, you have a house built on sand. Such teachings are among the most evil doctrines to have ever come out of the carnal mind of man. They have reversed everything so that man can boast in his salvation. That he can and, therefore, must do something to contribute to his salvation and so teach that man is not dead in sins, that salvation is not solely reliant upon the Sovereign grace of God, but also upon man himself in that he allegedly has the inborn capacity to savingly believe in God. The desperately wicked heart of man is thus laid bare by such teachings for all to see. Woe be unto those who do not recognize the evil of such teachings.

 

There is nothing in the world, nay, the universe which can do anything before it is made alive. Everything needed to be, and was, created. Everything that was created needed to be  created. There is nothing which came into being of its own accord (see Gen. 1). There was nothing and no one that can do anything to get to God, or entice God, to make it/him alive. No one ever did anything before God created them, and no one has ever done anything to successfully come to God, or in some way oblige God to reward them with salvation, prior to God making a man a new creature in Christ by grace alone. Salvation, being born again, being made alive, cannot possibly occur without, or before a man is made a new creature in Christ. This is salvation by grace according to the will of God. What can something or someone do before it has been created? NOTHING!! Religion abounds with lost men waxing lyrical about doing this and doing that to get saved, BUT THE FACT A MAN MUST BE SUPERNATURALLY MADE A NEW CREATURE IN CHRIST SHOWS CONCLUSIVELY THAT THERE IS NOTHING A MAN CAN DO! Prior to life there is nothing, prior to spiritual life there is nothing but death. Prior to creation there was nothing, prior to re-creation there is nothing but a dead creature. LIFE COMES FIRST before any activity can take place. THE ONLY THING THAT PRECEDES LIFE IS THE WILL OF GOD TO GIVE IT. THEREFORE, LIFE ALWAYS PRECEDES ACTIVITY, FOR IF THERE IS ACTIVITY THERE MUST OF NECESSITY BE LIFE! No carnal activity coming from a man who is spiritually dead in sins, can ever do anything to bring or maintain spiritual life. NOTHING PRECEDES LIFE BUT GOD! NOTHING PRECEDES CREATION BUT GOD AND HIS CREATIVE POWER. First God, then life and then action. Any action that follows life is not to gain life, but is because of life and the One Who has given it (see Eph. 2:10). And so it is proven that GOD'S WILL comes before the will of anything, or anyone else. Nothing ever preceded the eternal God, and nothing can be, or even exists, without God creating it. Thus we see Scripture declaring that God's saints are chosen by Him "...before the foundation of the world..." (Eph. 1:4 cf. Rom. 9:11). They were chosen to be saved (see 2 Thess. 2:13); chosen to me made alive/saved by grace at the appointed time. GOD’S CHOOSING MAN IS THE SINGLE MOST POWERFUL DOCTRINE IN ALL OF SCRIPTURE WHICH DECLARES MAN COULD NEVER HAVE CHOSEN GOD! Jesus said, “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you…” (Jn. 15:16). Whatever it is that a man can conceive of, which he claims he has done to get saved, GOD has ALREADY done it! The fact that man must be made spiritually alive is the only evidence one needs to prove that prior to this he is nothing but a spiritually dead creature. All a man is before he is made spiritually alive is a lifeless lump of clay. In this condition, no man would or could ever have the capacity, let alone the will, to choose the only true God. This clearly and distinctly teaches that a man's salvation is not conditioned upon what he does—FOR THERE IS NOTHING HE CAN DO—but solely upon what God has done.

 

God’s choosing aligns perfectly with Christ’s teaching that ‘no man can come’. The fact that no man seeks God is evidence that no man can choose God, no man can choose to come to God. Biblical reality teaches that no man can come to the God whom no man seeks, which reveals the startling fact that no man can will to come to the only true God. By nature no man knows the only true God, nor recognizes Him as the only true God, so how on earth could anyone possibly will to choose Him!! God’s loving His people first, shows that He is the one Who has chosen them. “We love Him, because He first loved us” (1 Jn. 4:19). How can His people have chosen Him when it is God Who loved them first. Salvation is not in any way conditioned on works, for it is a salvation which wholly comes by the will and grace of God. There is, and can be, no action without life, or before life, but only after life is given. Nothing can be done to gain life, and, once that life is given nothing needs to be done to maintain it. A life given by grace is maintained by grace. All action comes out of the life that has been given. Grace is God making certain His people are saved and will forever remain saved. Action can only occur after life is given. Action never precedes life, for action is always subsequent to life. Life is the precursor to every action, thought, desire and intention. Without life, there is nothing but death. THEREFORE, ALL IS CONDITIONED ON THE LIFE-GIVER! God is the precursor to life, therefore, life is given to those whom the Lord wills to have it. This life cannot be gained, but only given. This life does not come independently of God, for all life comes from God. This life cannot be attained by works, but only given by grace. It can only be given according to that which is undeserved: GRACE. Man does not choose God, for then salvation would be according to works. Man does not choose God so that God can then make the man alive, for how can one do anything before life? Man is made alive because he is chosen of God. And, if God has made one alive, then it is perfectly clear that one has been chosen of God for the purpose of salvation according to God's will, and has no need to choose Him, for the choosing has already been done before the world began. God is the CHOOSER, and His people are the CHOSEN.  

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The resuscitation of a clinically dead person is not conditioned on that person’s will, but on the will and efforts of the resuscitator. Salvation is not of man. It is not dependent on man or conditioned on what a man does, for it is solely of God, solely by grace. Salvation by grace is salvation dependent on what God does, not on what a man must do. Salvation comes from God, and so, is fully dependent on God. Salvation is not by the works of a man, but solely by the grace of Almighty God. Election "...is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy" (Rom. 9:16). “‘of him that runneth’ is a metaphor taken from the foot-races as Paul may very possibly have seen them practised at Corinth. (see 1 Cor. 9:24,26; Gal. 2:2; 5:7; Phil. 2:16; 3:14). The meaning is that the prize does not depend on human will or human effort, but on the grace of God. By ‘willeth’ he means the thought and strenuously active endeavour of heart, and by ‘runneth’, good works, to neither of which he gives the praise, but only to the mercy of God. The idea is of one actively moving in the path of right. His energy may tempt him to think that he originated the motion; but he did not. It depends not on the striving and urgent endeavour of man, but on the will of the merciful God. Not that human willing and running are illusions, but they are not the cause of mercy. They follow it, but they are not the cause of it. Its origin is not of them. The experience of God’s mercy does not depend on man’s resolve or effort, but on God’s merciful act (see 1 Cor. 9:24 ff.).This, of course, merely repeats Romans 9:12,13, buttressing the principle of God’s Sovereign freedom in the exercise of mercy by reference to His own word in Exodus 33:19: ‘And He said, I will make all My goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy’”. Salvation by grace and mercy means, “God is laid under no obligation by a human will, or a human work”. Salvation is not God responding to a human will, or human work, salvation is God acting according to His will by His grace and mercy in order to save His people from their sins. If election is not of the will of man, if man cannot, and so, does not elect himself to be saved via his free will and works, then it is clearly not conditioned or reliant upon man, not on works, but on grace alone. It is not man who makes the first move, for election and salvation would then not be according to God's will and grace, but a man's will and works. It would no longer be a gift but a reward, and man would have reason to boast. The fact that there is no boasting which a man can engage in, is a testament to the fact that prior to being made alive a man is lifeless and hopeless in sins.

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