The Most Hated Christian Doctrine
There are many out there who hate Christians and/or God. I used to be one of those folks. Maybe you are one of those people right now. Maybe you’re like I was and don’t want to admit your true feelings. You may prefer to say things like, “That’s not for me.” Likewise, there are many professing Christians who hate Christians and/or God. They likely won’t admit it either. They’ll blame it on things like one of the most hated Christian doctrines — TOTAL DEPRAVITY! Ironically, they won’t see how these feelings arise from their totally depraved nature. In their minds, it’s not them who are the problem, but rather our judgmental style, legalism, and/or ‘Calvinistic gospel’. I’m not going to say things like that can’t be problems for professing Christians, but most of the time it’s actually our unwillingness to accept who God truly is, who we truly are, and our respective roles. I think this video does a pretty good job of explaining these things in a digestible way. Please take 11 minutes to check it out. I personally like the waiter/waitress illustration and the ‘Sow and go to bed’ comment best, but there are a lot of good things to glean from all who are featured in this video…
I was quite curious to see the comment section on this video, because although I thought this was such a liberating message, I anticipated many would take offense to his framing of some of these issues. Sure enough, there were folks in both camps. Professing Christians have this ‘amazing’ ability to turn almost anything into an Arminianism vs Calvinism debate, which is just a microcosm of how we love to make everything about ourselves. The focus should be that although there is nobody who is righteous, good, nor understands and seeks God (Romans 3:10-11), God in His grace still decides to save some of us! We can’t save ourselves and we can’t save anyone else. Only God can! What is the reason we can’t stop and give God the proper glory for this fact? Why do we prefer to glorify ourselves in some way and/or shoot the messenger? TOTAL DEPRAVITY! We’re simply reverting back to our default setting of making things about ourselves rather than God. May we all desire to speak as Paul did when he talks about Jesus coming to save sinners…
1Ti 1:12 I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service,
1Ti 1:13 though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief,
1Ti 1:14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
1Ti 1:15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
1Ti 1:16 But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.
—1 Timothy 1:12-16
Do you see how Paul calls himself the foremost of sinners and puts the focus on the fact he received mercy and was the recipient of Christ’s overflowing grace, faith, and love? Why? Does he do this to say how great he is or make it about himself? No! SO THAT JESUS CHRIST MIGHT DISPLAY HIS PERFECT PATIENCE AS AN EXAMPLE TO THOSE WHO WERE TO BELIEVE IN HIM FOR ETERNAL LIFE! Christ does this work in those who rightly see themselves as the foremost of sinners (totally depraved), a conclusion we would be unable to reach on our own. Remember, there is nobody who is righteous, good, understands or seeks God. We were/are all spiritually dead. Claiming that we’re not in that state, and don’t need to be regenerated BEFORE repenting and believing in Christ, does not merely put you at odds with other Christians who word it differently, but actually puts you at odds with God and His word. You may not admit it in these exact words, but if you won’t rightfully credit God with regenerating you, then you are actually claiming some credit for regenerating yourself. Sure, there will be some who try to split the baby and claim it doesn’t matter when regeneration happens, just that it did, and say, ‘God saved me’. But how can you be so sure of that if you don’t see the importance of giving God the proper glory for changing you into someone who even could desire to be born again? I fail to see how one can truly grasp the overflowing nature of God’s mercy and grace without recognizing our total depravity and dead status. The fact professing Christians go as far as hating or rejecting this doctrine seems like fruit of not grasping the true nature of God’s mercy and grace. Are you in that camp? Let’s have a conversation about it…