Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility in Salvation
There are many verses in Scripture championed by various theological positions concerning salvation. Consider the following texts which teach both divine sovereignty and human responsibility:
Matthew 23:37 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem ... how often would I have gathered they children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!"
John 6:37 "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and chim that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out."
John 6:44 "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me odraw him: and gI will raise him up at the last day."
Acts 13:48 "And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and das many as were ordained to eternal life believed."
Acts 16:14 "And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of zThyatira, awhich worshipped God, heard us: whose bheart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul."
1 Thess 1:3-4 "Remembering gwithout ceasing hyour work of ifaith, and klabour of ilove, and lpatience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of mGod and our Father; 4 Knowing, brethren ||nbeloved, nyour election of God."
2 Thess 2:13-14 "But gwe are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, hbrethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath ifrom the beginning chosen you to salvation kthrough sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: 14 Whereunto lhe called you by our gospel, mto the obtaining of the lglory of our Lord Jesus Christ."
4 comments:
Was Isaac conceived by the direct miraculous sovereign intervention of God, or by the active faith of Abraham and Sarah?
As far as I can tell,
God made Abraham and Sarah the promise of a child (Gen 18:10). The comments were directed to Abraham but she at least understood what was said because she verbally responded "Sarah laughed" (v. 12).
Heb 11: 11 states, "Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised."
The writer of Hebrews gives us insight into a historical narrative found in Genesis chapters 18 and 21. At least in this historical narrative, God made a promise to one OT couple, as part of bringing to fulfillment a covenant made with Abraham (Gen 17:1-14).
Was Sarah humanly capable of bearing children? Gen 18:12 seems to say she no longer could. (Not even that was too hard for God to overcome, v. 14).
Did she still have to exercise human responsibility in bearing the child? Gen 21: 2-7 seems to indicate "yes" and uses terms for giving natural birth six times.
Did God give to Sarah the ability to bear seed to bring to fulfillment the covenant made to Abraham and his seed? Heb 11:11 with an aorist tense verb seems to indicate "yes." Gen 21:1 also seems to hint that direction "the LORD visited Sarah."
Miraculous not sure. Old Testament repeatedly states the idea that God opened up a mother's womb or he remembered someone (Gen 29:31). Previous to this intervention individual's or even entire cities of women could not have children.
Does God make promises to women like this in 2015? Just don't see this on the pages of scripture. I would suggest that kind of conclusion would be going beyond explicit statements or even inferences found in scripture.
This is not dogmatic or definitive but hope it helps some.
In short, Isaac's conception was the result of God's sovereign miraculous intervention, but it required Abraham and Sarah to "act" in faith believing God's promise.
Not sure about the terms "result" and "required."
I am not convinced of any actual exegetical basis for placing God's activity chronologically before human response.
This topic will be revisited during an upcoming post touching on a less than helpful ordo salutis placing regeneration prior to human response.
I've read the journals, books, and sat through the classes and understand the theological reasoning but find the exegetical evidence lacking.
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