Paul Christianson

Every Christian should understand the grace of God, which may best be accomplished by a simple outline of five points telling us how God redeems his people.

What is this grace? It is nothing less than the very moving of God that thundered through Europe in Martin Luther’s day; that very grace preached by George Whitefield in England and Jonathan Edwards in the American Colonies during the First Great Awakening and Asahel Nettleton in the second Great Awakening 60 years later; it is that very grace that was preached in the mission fields by men with the names of Carey and Judson.

Indeed, it is that old truth that ushered forth from Spurgeon’s pulpit at London in the last century; it is that very grace of God of which Augustine wrote and preached during late Roman times, and the same grace of which Paul the Apostle wrote about in 13 Epistles.

Just think about these aspects of God’s loving kindness toward his people: Jesus Christ died for each Christian personally (Acts 20:28; John 10:14, 15); He unconditionally loves each Christian (Ephesians 1:4; Acts 13:48; 2Thessalonians 2:13); in spite of a Christian’s willfulness, his love is irresistible and far more powerful than all your fears and problems combined (Romans 9:10-24; Jeremiah 13:23).

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This is excellent by John MacArthur in addressing the topic of flat-screen pastors, or multi-site churches. I highly recommend this short presentation.
-Pastor Paul Christianson

Paul Christianson

I will celebrate my 22nd year as pastor of Grace Reformed Church this year.

And these 20-plus years have been spent in an intense study of the Bible. This has only amplified my convictions regarding the sufficiency and authority of God’s word.

Here are just a few of them:

First, God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).

Notice the “No one,” this is certainly not the emergent church’s postmodern world-view of tolerance.

Better go with God’s view because it’s an “either, or” situation.

Secondly, salvation is by faith, not works.

“By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves …” (Ephesians 2:8).

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Paul Christianson

Augustine, in writing against the Pelegian heretics of the fifth century, declares: “Each sinner is a source of his own wickedness…a man remains free only in evil. He cannot be made free in good until God makes him so.”

David understood this as well, writing in the 51st Psalm and verse 5: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” This passage is not describing David as being born out of wedlock—but David describing himself as a sinner from conception. In Psalm 51 David traces back his sin of adultery and his sin of murder to the fact that at his conception he was a sinner: fallen and depraved as result of Original Sin.

Today there are many evangelical pulpits who would deny directly or indirectly the doctrine of Original Sin. One method of denial promotes the so-called “age of accountability” thesis. This false teaching encourages the idea that every child who dies before they reach the “age of accountability” will be saved and go to heaven. But such teaching is a perverse twisting of Scripture through the lenses of sentimentality, medieval scholasticism, and the logical processes of fallen human thought.

It does great damage when parents tell their children that “God loves them because they are in the years of their innocency!” This is the creed of hell for it leads not to Gospel fervency, nor to the urgency of evangelism, nor to the instruction of children. But it does lead to indolence and presumption before a holy God.

This miscreant doctrine of an “age of accountability” denies the imputation of Adam’s sin to all mankind: In Romans 5:12 Paul asserts, “Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned” (ASV). Notice the words, “…for that all sinned.” A summary, a constantive in the active indicative, the gathering up in this one tense the history of the race—in sin! Adam’s sin was imputed to the entirety of the human race, and so we come into this world as sinners.

Those who support the “age of accountability” teaching would like to tell us that Romans 5:14 “proves” their assertions. Paul writes in Romans 5:14, “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam’s transgressions, who is a figure of him that was to come.” Who are those who have “not sinned after the likeness of Adam’s transgression…?” The use of the word “transgression” emphasizes the breaking of a specific commandment. Those who lived from Adam to Moses did not sin in the “likeness of Adam’s transgression.” They did not break a specifically revealed commandment which was, in Adam’s case only, eating from the tree.

Adam sinned as the federal head of the whole human race. In that sense no one can ever sin such a manner. But from Moses onward we all have transgressed against specifically revealed laws (Ten Commandments). And here is the crux of the argument: if the doctrine of an “age of accountability” is true—why did not Paul extend the time period mentioned in verse 14 from Adam to the end of time?
In other words, why did the apostle limit the time period in verse 14 from Adam to Moses? Surely, if this “age of accountability” thesis were correct Paul would not have limited the time period from Adam to Moses.

Dear reader, beware of pulpiteers and theologasters who would subvert the word of God with their vain imaginings. There is no such thing as an “age of accountability.” All flesh is accountable before God whether it be adults or children. There is no clear teaching in the Bible that children will be brought to glory apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ. When the word of God is silent, we do great harm when we seek to bridge the gap with speculations, and teach it as Gospel that little children are sure of heaven apart from the Gospel.

The doctrine of an “age of accountability” does not lead to Gospel urgency…it leads to indolence and presumption. Believing a lie will not make it true. May we seek the salvation of our children from their earliest years not presenting them with man-made doctrines, but with the truths of the Gospel.

Published with permission of the author.

Paul Christianson

John Owen (1616-1683), the Puritan thinker and theologian, wrote, “…Sin will not otherwise die, but by being gradually and constantly weakened; spare it and it heals its wounds and recovers its strength.” What was so on the mind of Christians more than 300 years ago is nearly forgotten today: the doctrine of sanctification!

If you look in the dictionary, you will see that “sanctification” (hagiasmos in Greek), means being consecrated or set apart for God. And in the Bible, God shows us two remarkable and complementary aspects regarding this principle.

From one standpoint in tells us that sanctification is the work of God which transforms the believer’s nature into something which he was not before conversion. In 1Thessalonians 5:23, we find the Apostle Paul praying, “May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Perhaps we could describe this work of God like a house being renovated while in use. The house is you and I living our lives. And in our lives God is working, demolishing the old corruptions and sinful bad habits, all the while creating new peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. We are being made “new” every single day, taking on the very image of Christ in our lives.

Yet, I said the Bible tells us there are two aspects of sanctification, and this second perspective may be described as the quality of a believer’s life. In Galatians 5:16 we see Paul exhorting us to “live by the Spirit” so that we will not “gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” In other words, we are being commanded to live a disciplined and obedient life unto God. One writer has referred to this as “the resistance movement in the life of a believer.” This simply means Christians are to actively resist worldly enticements and sinful habits. In this light, are we living the kind of life which imitates Christ and pleases God?

Sanctification is both a gift from God in which He works in us to transform and renew, as well as a task in which we must resist sin through obedience, making a conscious effort to flee temptation and sin’s seemingly modest proposals. Dear reader, it is not a profession of faith that convinces Satan, but practical holiness alone.

But we must also avoid stressing either of the two sides which might cause us to fall into legalism on one side, and easy believism on the other. A sanctified life is, then, a life of obedience and resisting sin, of imitating Jesus and of fellowship with God as one seeks to please God in everything one does.

Lying in the background, behind the doctrine of sanctification, is a mystery of God’s predestining purpose. We see Scripture telling us quite clearly that sanctification is the goal of God’s election. Ephesians 1:4 asserts, “He chose us in Christ before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight.” God’s predestining purpose results in that work of regeneration whereby our hearts are changed, and not as a result of any work by man or foreseen faith by God (John 1:13, Romans 9:8-23).

In 2Thessalonians 2:13, Paul reassures believers that God has chosen them “from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith and the truth.” So with the greatest joy, we can rest assured that our sanctification will continue, as Scripture confirms in saying “…that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6). Amen!

Published with permission of the author.

Christian love does not consist in approving everybody’s religious opinions. Here is another most serious and growing delusion. There are many who pride themselves on never pronouncing others mistaken–whatever views they may hold. Your neighbor may be an Atheist, or a Buddhist, or a Roman Catholic, or a Mormonite, a Deist, or a Skeptic, a mere Formalist, or a thorough Antinomian. But the “love” of many says that you have no right to think him wrong! “If he is sincere–then it is uncharitable to think unfavorably of his spiritual condition!”

From such love–may I ever be delivered!

At this rate, the Apostles were wrong in going out to preach to the Gentiles!

At this rate, there is no use in missions!

At this rate, we had better close our Bibles, and shut up our churches!

At this rate, everybody is right–and nobody is wrong!

At this rate, everybody is going to Heaven–and nobody is going to Hell!

Such love is a monstrous caricature! To say that all are equally right in their opinions–though their opinions flatly contradict one another; to say that all are equally in the way to Heaven–though their doctrinal sentiments are as opposite as black and white–this is not Scriptural love. Love like this pours contempt on the Bible, and talks as if God had not given us a written standard of truth. Love like this, confuses all our notions of Heaven, and would fill it with a discordant inharmonious rabble.

True love does not think everybody right in doctrine. True love cries, “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world!” (1 John 4:1). “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching–do not take him into your house or welcome him!” (2 John 1:10).

Courtesy of D. Scott Meadows