I recently asked someone "who is the subject of our believing?" and "do we believe unto salvation?" because I was not sure they were comfortable with the biblical answers to those questions ("we believe" and "saved by grace through faith"). This person seemed reluctant to respond, as if the biblical answers to those questions would inherently conflict with the truths that all glory belongs to God, and that our believing (both the will and the act) is the necessary fruit of the effectual work of God's Spirit in us. My concern is that rather than pitting truths that Scripture teaches against each other, we reconcile and systematize the truth and confess it as a whole, not favouring one at the expense of another.
Noah and the ark is a good example. Scripture clearly teaches that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and that God saved Noah by His grace. Scripture also teaches that by faith Noah built an ark to the saving of his house (Heb. 11:7). How do we reconcile these so that we confess both in harmony and clarity?
The building of the ark by the hand of Noah was part of the necessary manner in which God had determined saved them, and the ark was an instrument (necessary according to God's plan). Therefore God worked effectually in Noah both to will and to do, so that Noah built the ark. Since God worked in Noah, the glory for Noah's willing and Noah's doing must be attributed to God's work in Noah's heart. If that is the case, then all glory for Noah's work, and the fruit of it (the ark), is God's, and all glory for salvation through the ark is God's. Then we need not fear saying with Scripture that Noah built the ark.
In reluctance to give the hearty biblical answer to these questions, apparently concerned that the answers would somehow not attribute all glory to God, this person instead elevated my initial concern by asking me "who is responsible for our believing?" God is responsible for the work He does in our hearts which necessarily and effectually causes us to believe (both our will and our act). We are responsible for our believing. That we are responsible for the duty of believing is evident in that we are commanded to believe, and we are judged for the sin of unbelief. And we all ought to be aware that denying that faith is a duty is the most basic and clear form of hyper-Calvinism.
We ought to be more fearful of falling into that error (clearly condemned by Scripture and the Reformed confessions) than simply making statements that Scripture itself is unashamed to make, such as "Noah built the ark" and "we believe" and "with the heart man believeth unto righteousness". Where appropriate, where we think such statements may be misunderstood (e.g. if talking to an Arminian), we may add clarification to those statements (just as we would clarify that "we believe" if we said "all glory belongs to God" when talking to a hyper-Calvinist).
But we may not accuse or attack people if they do not clarify something exactly to the extent that we would in every situation. In pedagogy it is simply not possible to explain everything all at once. This is why we take a full year or more to go through the Heidelberg Catechism. It's not possible to fit everything into one sermon. There is a lot of content to our (objective) faith, which we must learn and grow in over time - holding the truth together, not raising one statement in conflict with others, but understood as a consistent systematic whole.
A teacher must build, and they must build in a certain order, and step by step, building upon what was laid down previously, sometimes belabouring points that a congregation is weak on, sometimes taking small steps, and being careful not to take too many steps all at once. We cannot condemn them if they don't fully repeat a step they taught in the previous lesson, nor may we cling to one particular lesson and refuse to hear the next. And each lesson will have a different emphasis, so that as a whole, all of the truth is emphasized in its place. We must not ignore and discard last week's sermon when we hear this week's sermon, but we must reconcile these together. And if we cannot reconcile them, we ought to ask others for help, up to and including asking the teacher, because if the teacher cannot reconcile these, then it is quite possible there is some error present which must be uncovered. If the teacher is building carefully, it should be easy to see how all these things are reconciled, but not all teachers are as skilful or use the same method, and as listeners we have to be patient and charitable.
Paul's letter to the Romans is a good example. He emphasizes the glory of God at the end of chapter 11. It is not that he has ignored it up to this point, but he has been building, so that when all these points come together, he can emphasize the glory of God in relation to what has gone before in its place. But he also doesn't stop there, he immediately moves on to practical application (chapters 12-16). There is no true doxology without proper praxeology, but each in its place, and each related to each other in harmony. This is why Calvin's big issue in "The Necessity of Reforming the Church" was that Rome had corrupted the right worship of God. His concern for doxology meant that he was necessarily concerned about praxeology. It would be the height of hypocrisy for the church to preach beautifully and wondrously about the glory of God, and never to preach about how we must therefore glorify Him in everything. Sadly, hyper-Calvinists dive headlong into this hypocrisy when they deny duty-faith.
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