Man's Part In Salvation

When old-time preachers spoke of ""God's part, and Man's part"" in man's salvation, they certainly were not saying man could earn or merit redemption on the basis of perfect works. I have heard the sermon scores of times and hundreds of our readers can verify my observations. The ""God's part"" portion of those lessons stressed the grace of God, the blood of Christ and the mercy of God extended in forgiveness-to ""whosoever will . . ."" Man's part may have sounded like legalism to ""evangelicals""; and for that matter, the preacher may have unintentionally invited such criticism by his zeal and terminology, but one must ignore the first half of the sermon to draw such a conclusion.

The preachers of those sermons had listeners who were drilled in ""faith only"" concepts-who equated justification by faith (Rom. 5:1) with ""the moment you feel God move in your heart."" The ""trust"" essential to salvation had to be explained in detail. Knowing that their hearers thought of faith as an ""experience,"" those sermons had to point out that faith which saves is an obedient faith, and ""He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.""

In the frequent wrangles over ""in order to"" versus ""because of"" remission of sins, and other like particulars, it is possible that neither ""side"" gave much thought to the underlying principle at stake. But ""faith only"" and ""experience of grace"" had ancestry. The shallow ripples sprang from deepseated theories: that man was so depraved as to be incapable of responding to God; that God had elected certain individuals to be saved and would ""call them"" in due time by a miraculous outpouring of grace (or spirit, or faith); and that one so ""saved"" could not be lost. And back of that, in the very foundation of that theology, was the idea that the sovereignty of God was incompatible with a truly ""free will"" man.

This theology seems to glorify God in the ultimate sense. All is in His hands, man can have no part! Extreme proponents of the theory believe Adam sinned as result of a decree of God-and for this difficulty they can only plead ""His ways cannot be comprehended."" Despite all of their praise of God's sovereign power, they really denied that God could and did make man a free agent, and will vindicate His ultimacy in His judgment of man.

On the basis that man can have no part (is not free to act in response to God's will, whether from the creation, or from Adam's sin) all commands of God, all invitations of man, all conditions of salvation, must be explained away. They must mean something other than their obvious import. These folk say there is no condition which man can meet in order to gain his salvation. If must do anything at all, it is ""justification by works of law""-and some of ""our"" preachers are as 'hung up' on this flaw as any Baptist debater I have ever heard. As they dig deeper and deeper into this type of theology they adopt the terminology: ""finished work,"" ""imputation of Christ's life,"" etc. And bit by bit, evangelical concepts of ""faith"" invade their thinking, and find expression in their writings.

In discussing ""Man's Part"" in his salvation it should be clearly stated that his doing, even his ""faith,"" is not the means or source of redemption. Having sinned, man stands condemned, and his only hope is unmerited mercy or grace. God has provided the means of redemption, but we believe Joe Doe must, of his own free will, respond to God's invitation in order to be saved. Faith, which obeys, is the condition upon which God promises to save Joe. Grant this, and we still must consider a basic issue. Is this faith a human response, something Joe does; or is it something God does for Joe? Calling it a ""natural"" response just beats about the bush. The evangelical says God gives the faith, or enables (by direct operation) Joe to believe. He thus maintains his theory that God is the only part in man's redemption.

If Joe's faith is not his own response, something he is capable of doing or not doing, then he must be individually, unconditionally elected. If some heavenly power must enable him to believe, he is individually elected, or, justice demands that all men be equally enabled. But if God presents the good news of salvation in Christ to all men, and all are able to understand and believe, the means of redemption is from God, but the condition upon which Joe or Sue is saved is their own response to the invitation. This is not earned or merited righteousness-it is unworthy sinners saved by the grace of God, through a faith which, despite man's ""depravity,"" God considered him capable of rendering. Somehow our neo-theological brethren will accept a free-will response of ""faith"" without crying ""works!"" ""law!"" or ""legalist!"" To maintain this position they will have to strengthen Moser's ""natural"" dodge or perhaps take up Martin Luther's distinction in justification and sanctification. That will not be easy, for the justifying faith of Abraham (Rom. 4) was one which was manifested all through his life (Heb. 11:8; Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:20-22; Jas. 2:21-f). Too, if ""sanctification"" is essential to one's being saved in heaven, we are again faced with ""human implementation"" or ""enabling power"" that overrides the free agency of man. What a tangled web we mortals weave . . .

Early debate propositions often used the words ""at the point of faith without further acts of obedience"" versus ""at the point of baptism."" The issue was: did God promise remission of sins before a man's faith led him to be baptized, or when his faith led him to be baptized? Such a proposition recognizes the broad ""trust"" meaning in ""faith"" as used in Rom. 3:5, etc., but raises the valid question, ""At what point"" in that faith does God promise salvation. If faith is truly a free-will, human response that is essential, there should be no objection to including ""obedience of faith"" without being blasted with charges of ""law"" ""works"" etc.

And that is exactly what the early sermons ""God's Part, Man's Part"" sought to get across. The illustrations may have been crude, but may God help us get back to such preaching before neo-theology does us in.

via Plain Talk, Vol. 16, No. 5, July 1979