Heidelcast 189: What Must A Christian Believe? (7): Against Deism, Gambling, Pentecostalism, And Biblicism

by Heidelcast on August 14, 2021

Lots of evangelical Christians take it for granted that God and humans are co-equals. I know because I once thought that way. That is a profoundly Modern and Modernist way of thinking. It is not a biblical way of thinking nor is it a historic Christian way of thinking. When the ancient Christian church said “I believe in God the Father Almighty” they were not saying that God has entered into a co-equal partnership with us or that he is dependent upon us. The assertion that we can be equal to God is the original sin. Why do you think that the Apostle Paul wrote that Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be grasped? (Phil 2:6)  As the God-Man he came to be the obedient Last Adam, to do what the first Adam refused to do. Adam foolishly, fatally asserted human autonomy before God and death was the consequence. God is sovereign and he freely, graciously promised to send a second Adam (Rom 5:12–21), the Last Adam (1 Cor 15:45) who would do, who did perform the obedience that the first Adam could have performed but did not. Jesus, the Last Adam, who being in very nature omnipotent God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but rather he poured himself out in utter obedience to his heavenly Father and, in so doing, merited for all his people, whom the Father gave to him before eternity (Phil 2:7–8; John 17), righteousness and life. We will look at these issues and at the charge made by Pentecostals that the Reformed are secret Deists. We consider gambling in light of God’s providence, and we look the challenge of biblicism: what does the catechism mean when it says, “as it were”? Stay tuned.

 

 

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