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What do the Scriptures say?

Isaiah 8:20

The Word of God alone is our only rule of faith and practice. We believe what God has caused to be written in the Book of Inspiration, nothing more and nothing less. So, with regard to every matter of controversy by which Satan seeks to divide the church of God, if the Word of God addresses the issue in question, it is not a matter of controversy at all. What do the Scriptures say about the matter? That settles the controversy. — “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20). Here are some common matters of controversy, about which religious zealots draw swords and go to war with one another, “speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them” (Acts 20:30). But they are not matters of controversy at all.

1. Does God love all people? What do the Scriptures say? — “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated” (Romans 9:13).

2. Did God choose some to salvation before the world began? What do the Scriptures say? — “God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation” (2 Thessalonians 2:13).

3. Did the Lord Jesus Christ die for all men, or for his elect alone? What do the Scriptures say? — “For the transgression of my people was he stricken” (Isaiah 53:8).

4. Was Christ made sin for his chosen when he died at Calvary, or did God just treat him as though he had been made sin? What do the Scriptures say? — “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

5. Did Christ actually accomplish redemption for his elect by the shedding of his blood, or did he merely make redemption possible? What do the Scriptures say? — “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law” (Galatians 3:13).

6. Is salvation determined by the will of man or by the will of God? What do the Scriptures say? — “It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy” (Romans 9:16).

7. Are sinners made partakers of the divine nature by the new birth? What do the Scriptures say? — “His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue; whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Peter 1:3-4).

8. Does the heaven born soul have in him two warring natures, the old nature of fallen Adam and the new nature of Christ, the old nature of flesh and the new nature of the Spirit? What do the Scriptures say? — “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would” (Galatians 5:17).

9. Are God’s people sanctified (made holy) by their works, or are we sanctified (made holy) by God? What do the Scriptures say? — “We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ…For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:10-14).

“Let God be true, but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4).

Don Fortner

Pastor Fortner’s