“A Divine and Supernatural Light” (Part 3)

The Apostle Paul makes an astonishing claim in Romans 3:11 when he writes that “there is none who seeks after God”.  This is not the first time such a statement is recorded in the Bible as Paul is just acknowledging what was already revealed in Psalm 14:2-3 and Psalm 53:2-3.  It also refers back to Romans 1:18-28, wherein he reveals that all of mankind exist under the wrath and judgment of God, not just for our failure to seek God, but for our active suppression of the truth of God – of His glorious existence and of His infinite majesty and worthiness to be know intimately, loved supremely and pursued passionately as the desire of our heart and delight of our soul. The passage notes how God has been replaced by idols of our heart and mind, a heart that we are told in Jeremiah 17:9 is self-deceiving and desperately wicked, and a mind that is hostile toward God; a mind in which God, in judgement, has given us over fully to our sinful, rebellious thoughts, imaginations and inclinations (Romans 8:7) (Romans 1:28-32) (Genesis 6:5).

This all confirms what is revealed in Psalm 10:4, wherein King David succinctly states, the wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God; God is in none of his thoughts. Wickedness is the spiritual condition of all sinful, self-deceived, unredeemed humanity, which we are all members of apart from Jesus Christ (Romans 3:10-18) (Romans 3:23).

Now, I suspect that there are multitudes who would take issue with this, even Christians, who believe that they/we in some way pursued and initiated the relationship we now have with God through faith in Jesus Christ.  But how could that be if the above is true?  The Bible states quite clearly and directly in Romans 3:4 “let God be true and every man (woman) a liar.”

So, in light of this truth, there is none who seeks after God, how do we account for those who do, and find Him in and through the person and work of Jesus Christ?

The impossibility of someone doing so is even more pronounced when we consider the spiritual condition of all of mankind revealed in the Bible.  How do men and women who are spiritually dead in sin, come to spiritual life?  How do men and women who are slaves to sin and deceitful lusts, break free and begin to live righteously before God, or even find the desire to do so, as we are told that we are at enmity with God?  How do men and women who see themselves as essentially good, come to see their need for an all-sufficient savior from the judgement of God?  How can a man or woman who has both suppressed and been blinded to spiritual things and find the message of the cross to be foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:18) come to see the glory of God revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ, such that we pursue and receive Him as our all-sufficient savior, come to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength and diligently seek Him as our exceeding great reward (John 1:14) (Hebrews 7:25) (Luke 10:25-28 ) (Hebrews 11:6)?

The answer to these dilemmas is found only in a sovereign, gracious, supernatural work of God in our desperately wicked hearts and our spiritually darkened minds (Ephesians 4:18). The necessity of this is evidenced most clearly in Mark 10:26-27, wherein Jesus, in responding to His disciple’s questioning of how anyone can be saved responds, “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.”  Every aspect of our salvation is from God and entirely dependent upon God, thus must be initiated and accomplished by God (Jonah 2:9).

God the Father will send God the Son, Jesus Christ, into this world as a man to accomplish through His sinless life, sacrificial death and miraculous resurrection, everything necessary for our sins to be justly forgiven and for us to be reconciled and restored to the glorious life with God for which we were created (eternal life) (John 3:16).  However, we first must be raised from spiritual death to spiritual life to see our need for and receive the benefits of all that Jesus has accomplished, and this will be a sovereign, supernatural work of God the Holy Spirit.

In Jesus’ proclamation to the religious leader, Nicodemus, in John 3:3-8, He states unequivocally in verse 7 that one “must be born again”, must be restored to spiritual life by the Holy Spirit, if we are to enter the kingdom of God/kingdom of Heaven, the realm of God’s present and eternal blessing. In this passage, as well as in Colossians 2:13 and Ephesians 2:1-9, God destroys man’s pride by establishing the fact that He alone can grant spiritual life to spiritually dead men and women, that we can do nothing in or of ourselves to produce it or bring it to pass any more than Lazarus could have been restored to physical life apart from the sovereign and supernatural manifestation of the power of God.

Jesus points out in John 3:3 that this restoration to spiritual life is not only required to enter the kingdom, but must occur for us to be enlightened to and receptive of the truth that there is such a kingdom, a realm of infinitely greater joy, infinitely greater beauty, infinitely greater pleasure, infinitely greater satisfaction than can be conceived of or imagined in this present evil world, a realm so infinitely glorious that once seen, by faith, we are willing to give up everything we hold dear in this world in our pursuit of it (Matthew 13:44-46) (Matthew 6:33).

This sovereign, supernatural work of God, of what is referred to in Titus 3:4-7 as regeneration, was prophesied in Ezekiel 36:23-27.  In this passage, God, in response to the idolatry of Israel, the nation He called and established to glorify His name, but who instead profaned it, proclaims that for His name’s sake – for His glory, He would sovereignly call out a people from the nations whom He would supernaturally restore to spiritual life and right relationship with Himself.  He would do so by granting them a new heart, a new nature produced by the Holy Spirit dwelling in them from which would proceed love for God and neighbor, and glad and willing obedience to His will.

Our individual salvation is thus sovereignly initiated by God the Holy Spirit, the Helper, shining a divine and supernatural light into the soul of a spiritually dead, spiritually blind man or woman, such that we begin to see the vileness and offensiveness of our sin against a holy and righteous God, the righteousness of His judgement and penalty for our sin (Hell), our helplessness in ourselves to do anything about it, and thus our need for a great and glorious Savior to rescue us from it (John 16:7-11) (Matthew 1:21) .

That Savior is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, who called forth the light of the glory of God in creation (Genesis 1:2-3), who now shines the light of the glory of Jesus Christ, who is the image of God, into our regenerated heart and mind, such that by faith, a faith He grants us as a gift (Ephesians 2:8-9), we see and joyfully receive Jesus as our all-sufficient savior, gladly submit to Him as our sovereign Lord, seek and pursue Him passionately as our exceeding great reward, and worship Him as well as the Father and the Holy Spirit, as the object of our deepest love and source of our greatest joy (2 Corinthians 4:6) (John 16:12-15) (Romans 10:8-13).

To be continued…

Grace and Peace ×