THE SAVIOR LIFTED UP & FAITH

RnMomof7 | 9/7/01 | Charles Finney

[RnMomof7]

May God bless the discussion of His word!

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[RnMomof7]

Almost forgot you guys

[George W. Bush]

Finney: The ancient Hebrews, bitten by fiery serpents, were not to mix up nostrums of their own devising to help out the cure: it was all- sufficient for them to look up to the remedy of God's own providing. God would have them understand that the healing was altogether His own work. The serpent on a pole was the only external object connected with their cure; to this they were to look, and in this most simple way -- only by an expecting look, indicative of simple faith, they received their cure. I liked this part the best.

8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.  - Ephesians 2:8-10 KJV

I guess Finney wouldn't have cared to use Ephesians 2:10. He might have choked on the that word "before". Not to mention "ordained".

Take a deep breath. Steady. Someone actually read the topic sermon for once.
No, it's not a sign of the Apocalypse. It had to happen sooner or later.

[RnMomof7]

LOL..Glad that someone did...It is by faith we are saved..not of ourselves..

The question that is at hand is how that forordination occures

My favorite as a woman is

So is there something very remarkable in the relation of faith to healing. Take, for illustration, the case of the woman who had an issue of blood. She had heard something about Jesus, and somehow had caught the idea that if she could but touch the hem of His garment, she should be made whole. See her pressing her way along through the crowd, faint with weakness, pale, and trembling; if you had seen her you would perhaps have cried out, What would this poor dying invalid do?

She knew what she was trying to do. At last unnoticed of all, she reached the spot where the Holy One stood and put forth her feeble hand and touched His garment. Suddenly He turns Himself and asks, Who was it that touched me? Somebody touched me: who was it? The disciples, astonished at such a question, put under such circumstances, reply -- The multitude throng Thee on every side, and scores are touching Thee every hour; why then ask -- Who touched me?

The fact was, somebody had touched Him with faith to be healed thereby, and He knew that the healing virtue had gone forth from Himself to some believing heart. How beautiful an illustration this of simple faith! And how wonderful the connection between the faith and the healing!

As this woman walked down the streets others would yell out before her "UNCLEAN,UNCLEAN"..No one would come near to her

In the hussle and bussle Jesus did not notice this woman...but she had heard of Him,and she reached out to just touch Him

Quietly without notice she touched not Him..but His garment.....

He Knew..He Knew..No one would ever call out "UNCLEAN,UNCLEAN"before her again...

GW...If God had predestined this,why did Jesus need to ask who it was that touched Him?

[RnMomof7]

tags off

[George W. Bush]

You deliberately came here to stink up this thread with an off-topic post you selected to offend Christians. Abuse reported.

Althought I doubt you would know it, French post-structural thought, particularly Foucault, are very much in vogue among a number of evenagelical scholars at Wheaton, the citadel of evangelical academic scholarship. To me, making any use of the silly speculations of dead French sodomite atheists is a strong indicator of rot at Wheaton. Even the neo-evangelicals should know better.

[RnMomof7]

Thank you GW...

[Matchett-PI]

In Finney's theology, God is not sovereign; man is not a sinner by nature; the atonement is not a true payment for sin; justification by imputation is insulting to reason and morality; the new birth is simply the effect of successful techniques, and revival is a natural result of clever campaigns.

Finney is not merely an Arminian, he is a Pelagian.

[RnMomof7]

As I explained off the thread to GW,I don't know anything about Finneys Theology..

This was a good sermon...now you may not agree with it,but I promise not to call you a heretic *grin*

[drot]

A while back someone sent me the HTML code for typing in a Greek word in ENGLISH and it would produce the actual Greek characters when displayed. Would you please send me this via FR mail I do remember it started with a open followed by the word Font followed by some other stuff Then a close font.

I know this was off subject and personal in nature. I do want to apologize for it. But it was the only way I could get the information I needed

Be blessed

don

[ReformedBeckite]

Finney is not merely an Arminian, he is a Pelagian.

I thought the terms Arminian and Pelagian meant the the same thing just different time period. Or is it Arminian and Semi-Pelagian the same thing. Could you please explain explain the difference.

[George W. Bush]

As this woman walked down the streets others would yell out before her "UNCLEAN,UNCLEAN"..No one would come near to her In the hussle and bussle Jesus did not notice this woman...but she had heard of Him,and she reached out to just touch Him Quietly without notice she touched not Him..but His garment..... He Knew..He Knew..No one would ever call out "UNCLEAN,UNCLEAN"before her again... Ah, but why did she have the faith to reach and touch Him? It was because the Father had "before ordained" that she would.

GW...If God had predestined this,why did Jesus need to ask who it was that touched Him? I'm not certain we can answer that. To what extent did Jesus, prior to the crucifixion and His ascension, fully share the Godhead of the Father? To precisely what extent does He share it at this moment?

We can't answer those questions. And we shouldn't place a stone in our own paths with such profitless speculation which Paul himself warned Timothy to avoid.

We might also ask and dispute over the workings of the Holy Spirit during the time of Jesus on earth. First, only Jesus was affected in his baptism. Then we have strong testimony of the work of the Spirit in Pentecost but only among the disciples and those at Pentecost, not among all Christian believers alive at that time. Then, at the Ascension, Christ made it very clear that the Spirit was to be our Comforter and other scripture reveals how the Spirit is the agency by which the Father convicts our hearts and draws us (Irresistibly!) to Him to be given into the hands of Christ, our Redeemer. We could speculate on many other issues concerning Christ's deity on earth. We might, for instance, ask if He was born fully capable of every miracle that He performed during His ministry. We might ask if as a baby He could feed multitudes with a few loaves and fish. And what would such speculation bring us? Division. Uncertainties. Ultimately, more doubts and division than any increase in faith or knowledge that leads to good works.

So, now having established the foolishness and peril of such speculation, I'll go ahead and just ignore my own advice on this unknowable subject. Put on your galoshes 'cause it might get kinda deep. Here goes.

---

Have you considered that possibly Christ does not actually know us as His own until the Father gives us into His care as His sheep, His bondslaves? The Father knew us before the foundation of the world. The Father decides who is to be given to Christ as His sheep, as His own flock, as His Bride. It is not Christ who decides. And we know from scripture that Christ will eagerly welcome all to whom the Father grants the gift of life, quickening them and bringing them to repentance and to the recognition and saving knowledge that Christ, God's own precious Lamb and Son, was sacrificed for them and raised from the dead. The Bible tells us that the angels celebrate with Christ each new lamb added to His flock. So if the angels are surprised (not expecting or knowing) by each lamb given to Christ, perhaps Christ Himself does not know who is to be given Him. As the scripture says:

1 Timothy 2 KJV

3

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;

4

Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

Christ is willing to accept all. But it is the Father who decides by His own good pleasure and sole sovereignty, the spirit of His election blowing where He wills, like a wind.

Consider it with me for a moment. If you believe that Christ knew, as the Father knew, throughout all eternity who it is that will be in His flock, it would be kind of boring and even somewhat anti-climactic for Him to receive another lamb into His flock when He had already known throughout all eternity that a particular lamb would be added to His flock. Sort of like a delivery being made on schedule. If, however, you adopt my view that Christ does not possess the perfect omniscience of the Father and knows His lambs only when the Father gives them (us) to Him, then there is real cause for His joy and excitement in each of us, a joy shared by the angels who celebrate each lamb added to His flock by the gift of the Father in fulfillment of His plan, namely, His choice of each one who would be added to the flock of Christ as His own, those for whom our Saviour paid the full price in His own blood at Calvary. He is our Shepherd. We are His flock, given to Him by the hand of the Father. And, poor gifts that we are, we are gladly received because of the price He paid for us in His own blood on the cross that He accepted for our sake. He offered Himself, a willing sacrifice to redeem us who would otherwise be so unholy we could not stand in the presence of the Father. He did it to make us His own.

There is such a beauty in contemplating this, the Father and the Son together and how the Father gives us to the Son. And the fact the we are such poor and miserable gifts by any standard (dirty rotten sinners as Jerry would say) and that Jesus accepts us with such joy and eagerness and offers His love and forgiveness can bring a tear to my eye. It really can make you look at Jesus and the cross a little differently than one might generally hear these things taught in a church where so often there is almost a feeling of grief and guilt at the price Christ paid to redeem us. But He was glad to pay that price for us, RnMom. Unworthy as we are, He considers us worth the price of His own blood. I do not believe there is any grief or regret in Him for the price He paid for any of us, whatever our failings. I suppose that we should feel a certain grief at the cross but that was not the end for Christ. It was not His tomb, it is His victory.

So, that's my longwinded explanation for why Christ did not know the woman until she touched His hem, drawn by the Father Irresistibly and with saving faith.

So, thanks for asking your question. I really liked answering it even if that answer is unorthodox in some quarters. If you don't like it, then don't blame Mr. Calvin because I didn't get it from him. Perhaps you can see from this perhaps too imaginative post why I personally need Mr. Calvin's sober but spirit-led guidance in the Word, a need that others probably don't have to the same extent as I.

[George W. Bush]

Thanks for your intervention. I'll remember you in my prayers tonight.

[George W. Bush]

I certainly don't have any fondness for what Finney did. NO Calvinist does. But if he managed to preach a fairly sound sermon on a particular occasion, I don't lose any sleep over it. If all of Finney's sermons were like this one, we wouldn't have too much to complain over. So I don't think RnMom made a terrible choice here. For this crowd (here at FR), this was a very neutral Finney sermon.

Naturally, he preached other sermons and wrote other things that would provoke a very strong response from any Calvinist.

[George W. Bush]

I recall it. I think it was me. The easiest way to do it is with the old standard tags. That way you don't have to worry over national character sets of which browser in installed or which fonts a user has. The drawback is that you don't get to use the special markings on the letters. Just the alphabetic letters themselves. Not really suitable for serious analytic work in Greek, from what I understand.

You just use the English names of the Greek alphabet with an ampersand [&] before the Greek letter name and put a semicolon [;] after it like this:

α = α
ω = ω

α ω