Journal: Reformation and Revival
Volume: RAR 03:1 (Winter 1994)
Article: What Difference Does It Make?
Author: Mark Webb

RAR 3:1 (Winter 1994) p. 45

What Difference Does It Make?

Mark Webb

Often people respond to doctrinal teaching by saying, “What difference does it make if I believe this doctrine?” Put another way, they wish to know, “Is there usefulness in understanding and believing this truth?”

The biblical teaching regarding the sovereignty of God in grace has been often misunderstood. Terms like “irresistible grace” and “limited atonement” have put many off from hearing the scriptural truths behind these terms. Serious divisions have resulted from attempts to articulate these scriptural doctrines of grace. Quite often Christians have seen these great doctrines as downright counterproductive. As a result many have felt that these particular truths should be reserved for those given to intellectual niceties, not for those involved in missions and evangelism. In light of the great need of the church today what place does such doctrine have in our time?

It should be affirmed at the very outset that the usefulness of any truth is not that which qualifies that truth for dissemination or confession by the church. The “whole counsel of God” must be taught and proclaimed for no other reason than that it is “the whole counsel of God.” Even if the pro-clamation of a truth drove men away from Christ, if He taught the doctrine which is in question, then we ought to teach it openly and plainly, letting God be true and every man a liar. While it is true that some have erred by teaching nothing but these doctrines—teaching for example the sovereignty of God in saving sinners to the exclusion of teaching man’s personal responsibility to repent and believe—any thinking person should immediately recognize that this is not the major problem confronting most of evangelicalism in our day. We stand before an entire generation which has cut its teeth on the notion that men can be saved any time they are ready, at any place, and almost, it seems, whenever they please. It is this prideful spirit of our time that I will address in what follows in this two-part series.

RAR 3:1 (Winter 1994) p. 46

Dead or Alive? The Doctrine of Human Inability

Consider for a moment the utility of the doctrine called “total inability.” This doctrine, in short, says that every faculty of man’s being has been pervaded by sin through the fall of Adam. As a result, the whole man—his heart, mind, and especially his will—has been affected so radically by the fall that he is in a state of utter and complete inability to comply with God’s commandments. His problem is far deeper than simply his “will not.” He is not just spiritually sick, or injured, he is spiritually dead, in a state best described by the word “cannot.” Does man, in su...