Made Alive By God: Eph 2:4-5

Scripture

• Ephesians 2:4–5

About this sermon

Dr. Leighton Flowers answers Andrew Rappaport from Striving with Eternity over Ephesians 2:4-5. 1) Traditionalists do NOT believe we make ourselves alive. God and God alone makes us alive. We believe God makes us alive through faith, not unto faith. We are called to repent so as to live, not the other way around. (John 20:31, Ezk 18:30-32, Eph. 2:1-9, etc) 2) We believe God makes us alive WITH CHRIST (or "in Him"). We do not believe God makes some people alive so that they will be 'in Him,' but that once we are marked in him through faith in the Word (Eph. 1:13), then we are graciously brought to life. 3) We differ on the ordo salutis, we do not differ on who is responsible for new life. God alone is able to give us new life. This is the conflating issue I tried to explain last time. When one conflates man's responsibility to humbly repent in faith with God's responsibility to save the repentant (bringing them to new life) confusion ensues. We must treat these two as distinct choices in order to have a rational conversation. It's fine to argue that God is responsible for BOTH, but you still can't conflate them as if they are one in the same thing and expect to carry on a discussion with us about our differences. We must discuss each in turn: (1) Fallen man's responsibility to admit their fallen condition and trust Christ to rescue them and then (2) God's gracious choice to save those who do humble themselves and trust in Christ. We can't conflate those two as if they are one in the same choice. 4) From our perspective, God doesn't need permission (as one suggested). God chooses to grant man responsibility (the ability to respond). That is God's prerogative and any systematic which suggests that God's omniscience limits his ability to create libertarianly free moral agents is the system that is actually limiting His sovereignty and power over creation IMO. 5) Hermeneutics teaches us to allow scripture to interpret scripture and Calvinists do this quite regularly to add clarity to their interpretation. When I do it therefore, it should not be dismissed as just "jumping around the scriptures." We both acknowledge what Paul says about us being dead in our sins in Eph. 2, but we disagree about the connotation of that terminology. I can point to several passages which suggest that "deadness" connotes "lostness" or "separateness" and where man's responsibility to return/repent is still fully expected and even commanded with the threat of punishment (Lk 15:32; Rev. 3:1-6; James 1:13-15). It is the Calvinists burden to find just one text where "deadness" clearly connotes the concept if morally inability to humbly repent for ones sin in light of God's life giving, powerful, Holy Spirit inspired truth. I don't believe it can be found.