Each of us is given certain talents and opportunities in this life. Christianity teaches that these come from God, and that even life itself is a precious gift from God. If life is given by a loving Creator, it follows that living in accordance with the purposes of the Author of life will lead to living the fullest, happiest life. I believe someday I’ll be evaluated and rewarded by God according to what I’ve done with this life I’ve been entrusted with. This is exciting, but sobering. It challenges me to make the most of opportunities I have now, and try to live in more focused way.
But I’m also so glad to know that the gospel of Christ I have come to trust in, offers a fresh start with God every day– the forgiveness of my past mistakes and missed opportunities. Through Christ, I am given daily a new chance to move forward with my God. His love for me is steady–it does not fluctuate based on my performance! His Spirit is at work within me, and He will see me through to the end. What a loving, faithful Savior we have.
I think my God-given talents are in the areas of creative communication– music (singing/songwriting), writing and teaching. I want to develop and use these gifts more and more, so that they hopefully have a positive impact on others. My message is not unique, but I am a unique messenger. We each have our own voice, and should use it to sing the praises of the One who alone is Original and worthy of all praise.
This blog is one means I hope to do that, through my writing. I also play a Taylor acoustic guitar and write songs. I worship at North Shore Baptist Church. I have been working on an virtual (online) Masters in Religion degree from Reformed Theological Seminary. My wife Faith is a very lovely and gracious person. We have no kids at this time.
In this blog I desire to be one of many who are proclaiming the truth of the gospel of Jesus Chris via the Internet. This site will be especially focused on promoting the reformed “doctrines of grace”, also known by the acrostic “T.U.L.I.P.” The classic, rich biblical truths found in these teachings paint a portrait of God and of Christian life that properly show God as central to salvation and sanctification (or, in simple words, He is the one that saves believers and makes us like Him, from beginning to end).
Reformed doctrines honor and glorify God by crediting Him alone as the One whose power transforms lives, through the radical, free, powerful grace that comes to us through Jesus Christ. They offer meaty, substantive insights from the Scriptures– a bracing antidote to the weak, man-centered teaching altogether too prevalent in these days. These doctrines have sometimes been maligned by detractors as a man-made system. They have been accused of being erroneous– even heretical; a detriment, rather than a blessing to the church. I believe the critics are wholly off-target in such an assessment. For the reformed truths were not discovered or derived from any place other than the teachings of inspired Scripture. They present biblical truths that sometimes appear contradictory or irreconcilable to our finite minds– such as, how can God be sovereign over all things, including salvation, yet man still held responsible for his choices? Yet such teachings are only apparently contradictory– for the great reformed truths God has graciously revealed to humanity through the Bible cannot be grasped by human reasoning alone, but are nonetheless to be accepted and obeyed, by the faith God gives.
May this site then, lead many to discover and study these old truths of “Calvinism” for themselves– and decide whether or not they are the teaching of the Bible. If after careful examination one is not yet convinced they are not biblical, then by all means do not adopt them–just yet. This isn’t to say that I believe that individual judgments on these matters are the final arbiter; it is my prayer that the Spirit may use reformed teaching perhaps discovered by means of this site to convince all that these doctrines are indeed of God, and thus help people to embrace them, and be full of godly joy and fruit in applying them.
Blessings to all in Christ’s name,
Alexander M. Jordan
Blogger/Writer/Musician/Reformer
Jordan’s View
ReformingChristianity.com- Resources for the reforming Christian
ReformingChristianity.com 
Hi, I stumbled on your site while surfing the net, and wanted to ask you what you thought of certain verses in the Word of God.
Ezekiel 33:7-11
7 “So you, son of man: I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore you shall hear a word from My mouth and warn them for Me. 8 When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you shall surely die!’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. 9 Nevertheless if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.
10 “Therefore you, O son of man, say to the house of Israel: ‘Thus you say, “If our transgressions and our sins lie upon us, and we pine away in them, how can we then live?”’ 11 Say to them: ‘As I live,’ says the Lord GOD, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’
Apparently, the Lord is telling Ezekiel that He will require the wicked man’s blood at his (Ezekiel’s) hand, should he not warn the wicked man to turn from his ways. This “seems” to demonstrate the potential for Ezekiel to have made a difference in the wicked man’s life by warning him to turn from his ways. BUT, how can this be if it is already established (before the foundations of the world) who will and who will not be saved? In verse 11, we read that God “has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” We know who the wicked are–collectively, those who do not have Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior. If God really did determine before the foundations of the world who would be saved and who would not, then why would God LATER have displeasure in witnessing the perishing of those very people whom He elected to perish in the first place.
One thing I have never been able to grasp, within the Calvinist teaching, is the notion that EVERYTHING occurs “within God’s ‘perfect’ will.” How do I reconcile this with the fact that Adam sinned? Was it God’s perfect will that Adam sin? I’ve been getting implications from many TULIP sources that God’s sovereignty requires that men be robots. Reconciling God’s sovereignty with man’s free will has probably been the toughest task any Calvinist has ever ventured. Till this day, no one has ever been able to explain this. I welcome you to be the first.
Until then, . . .
In the Lord
sc
Dear sc,
Thanks for your comment and very good question. I’m sorry I couldn’t give a reply earlier. I’m not sure my reply now will necessarily be satisfactory, but here goes.
The issue you raise, the relationship of God’s sovereignty to man’s responsibility, is, as you point out, challenging for the Calvinist. But really it is challenging to any who reads the Scriptures, Calvinist or not. Because we find there that God has meticulous control over everything that occurs on Earth, from the roll of the dice to the hairs on one’s head, to the feeding of even the most insignificant little birds. Why then, if God is in control, did He allow Adam and Eve to sin and to plunge the creation and the human race into such ruin? From various passages in Scripture, it seems logical to conclude that through the existence of sin and evil, God somehow brings about a greater good.
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today
(Genesis 50:20 ESV)
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ (Romans 5:12-17 ESV)
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (Romans 8:18-25 ESV).
You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
(Romans 9:19-24 ESV)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth (Ephesians 1:3-10 ESV)
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.(Ephesians 2:1-7 ESV)
We see many truths relevant to the issue of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility expressed in the above Scripture passages.
Joseph, though wrongly betrayed by his brothers who were certainly morally responsible for the evil they committed, nevertheless sees God’s hand in what happened to him, summing up his brothers’ actions as “you meant if for evil, but God meant it for good.” He speaks this as a Spirit-inspired truth to teach us that God works even through the evil that men commit.
In his teachings in Romans, as well as in his other epistles, Paul shows that sin’s entry into the world condemned the entire human race, yet God’s grace through Jesus Christ is more than enough to undo the damage of sin. Evil and sin are everywhere, but God made a way of escape, a plan of redemption that included both a people and His creation. This was always His plan, even before the foundation of the world, for while we (the elect) were yet sinners dead in our trespasses, Christ died for us.
We see God working out a plan of redemption for His entire creation, a plan that includes both the soul and the body; even the corrupt earth is to be entirely remade. We don’t possess these things now and will not have them until Jesus returns to restore all things– so our hope is not set on this earth but in the new world to come. Yet we already taste the firstfruits of that new world in having been given the Holy Spirit to live in us and having had implanted within us the seed of eternal life which means we will live with Christ forever.
We see also that in this plan there are good and bad players, and that God is somehow orchestrating this plan that weaves together good and evil in such a way as to make His glory and renown shine all the more brightly to all when juxtaposed against the evil and the darkness. Yet He does this without being guilty of evil Himself– for when sinners sin it is always their own hearts that drive them to it (James 1:13-15).
Nowhere is this whole concept of God working through evil deeds of men to accomplish His good purposes better illustrated than in His sending His own Son to the Earth as His representative, One who did nothing but good to everyone, yet who was murdered as a criminal at the hands of violent and profanely wicked men.
As Peter says, “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men (Acts 2:22-23 ESV).
Peter says that the crucifixion of Christ was “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God”– yet those who did this act were “lawless” men! So again, God holds men responsible for their actions, and at the same time uses these actions to accomplish His sovereign purpose. From our limited human perspective and reasoning, we might argue that a God who controls things in such a way cannot hold men responsible, yet this is not the teaching of Scripture, which says that God as our Maker has the right to do what He wants with His creation. Yet we see that His heart is not to condemn nor to destroy, but to save and to bless, for He sent His own Son to the world to suffer and die in the sinner’s place, even to experience the hell of separation from God that the sinner deserved, so that sinners could turn to Him and be saved. This side of heaven we are very limited in our capacity to explain how all this works, but we can nevertheless be grateful that we have such a merciful God, and reach out for His mercy.
O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.
(Psalm 131:1 ESV)
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
“For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
“Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:33-36 ESV)