Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Myth of Neutrality: The Natural Man’s Inability and the Necessity of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:14)

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The Myth of Neutrality: The Natural Man’s Inability and the Necessity of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:14) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to Reform Thinking. I'm so glad you're here with us
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  today. It's good to be back.
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  If you are the kind of learner who is looking for, let's say,
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  theological steak rather than just milk, you are definitely in
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  the right place. We are going to crack open a
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  topic today that is a honestly a bit scary.
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  It's one of those concepts that once you really see it in the
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  text, you just can't Unsee it. No, you can't.
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  Changes how you view the world, how you view your neighbor, the
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  news you read, and even you know, the dark corners of your
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  own heart. It changes everything.
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  I mean, it really is the bedrock of how we understand reality
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  itself. So let's start with a premise
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  that I think most people in the modern world, especially in the
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  West, just accept as a fact of life.
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  It's the idea of the unbiased judge.
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  Right, the neutral observer. Exactly.
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  We love this concept. We tend to think that if we just
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  present enough facts, enough logic, or the right historical
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  data to a rational person, they will naturally look at the
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  evidence for Christianity and say, yes, that makes sense.
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  We operate as if the human mind is this, this neutral zone, like
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  a courtroom where the judge is just sitting there, totally
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  impartial, waiting for the evidence to be presented fairly
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  so he can make a logical ruling. That's the common assumption,
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  isn't it? It is.
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  It's what we could call the myth of neutrality.
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  We really like to believe that human reason is cool, detached
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  and objective. We think we're all scientists
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  and lab coats just measuring the data.
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  But if we look at our source material for today, and we're
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  going to focus in on Paul's first letter to the Corinthians,
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  chapter 2, verse 14, we're going to see that this neutral zone
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  simply does not exist. It's a fairy.
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  Tale A complete fiction. That's a hard pill to swallow
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  for a lot of people. I mean, it feels like an attack
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  on our intelligence, on our autonomy.
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  Well, it is an attack on our pride, and the Apostle Paul is
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  relentless here. He teaches that there is no
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  Demilitarized Zone between the Sinner and God.
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  No man's land. None.
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  You are either operating with the mind of Christ or you are
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  operating as what he calls a natural man.
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  And the distinction between those two isn't just a matter of
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  having a little more information or a higher IQ.
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  It's the difference between being spiritually alive and
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  being spiritually dead. So our mission for this deep
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  dive is to really unpack this specific verse.
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  First Corinthians 2.14. We are going to look at this
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  character Paul calls the natural man, the saiticos in the Greek.
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  We need to understand what spiritual discernment actually
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  means, and we need to figure out why the cross, which to us is
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  the most beautiful thing in the world, looks like absolute
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  garbage, like foolishness to the unregenerate mind.
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  That is the goal. We have to understand why the
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  exact same gospel message produces 2 completely opposite
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  reactions. You preach the same sermon to
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  two people sitting side by side. Yeah, 1 reacts with scorn and
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  thinks you're an idiot and the other falls down in worship.
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  Why? That is the question.
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  And the answer has massive implications for how we
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  understand human nature, and really how we understand
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  salvation itself. It really does.
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  OK, let's set the scene. We're an ancient Corinth.
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  I think we often gloss over the context, but the source material
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  makes a really big point. But what kind of city this was?
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  This wasn't some backwater town with a few sheep in a well.
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  Not at all. Not even close.
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  Think Think New York City meets Las Vegas, but with a heavy dose
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  of Ivy League pretension thrown in.
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  Wow. OK, that's a combination.
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  Corinth was a global hub of culture, of commerce, and maybe
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  above all, intellectual swagger. It was a culture obsessed with
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  Sophia. That's the Greek word for
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  wisdom. Right for wisdom.
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  But we have to be careful. It wasn't just wisdom in the
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  sense of knowing true things. It was wisdom as performance.
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  Wisdom as performance. What does that look like on the
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  ground? They loved polished rhetoric.
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  They loved intellectual prestige.
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  Public honor was the currency of the city.
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  If you were a speaker in Corinth, you were judged by your
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  style, your eloquence, your ability to wow the crowd with
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  these complex, hassling arguments.
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  So. It's kind of spectator sport.
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  A total spectator sport. You would have these
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  professional orders, they were called the sophists, who would
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  come into town and debate and people would cheer for them like
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  they were gladiators in the arena that was.
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  Like the Ted talk capital of the ancient world, but with maybe
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  more bloodsport energy. In a way, yes, but even more
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  competitive. It was all about status.
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  If you could turn a phrase better than the next guy, you
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  owned the room. You were the man.
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  And into this world, into this pressure cooker of intellectual
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  pride, comes the Apostle Paul. Right.
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  And he finds a church that is having a massive crisis.
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  The sources call it an epistemological crisis.
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  Let's just unpack that term quickly for you.
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  If you don't have a philosophy degree, that means a crisis
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  about how they know what they know.
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  Right. Correct.
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  It's a crisis about your standard of truth.
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  How do you determine what is truly wise, what is true and
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  what is good? And the church in Corinth, they
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  were being tempted to take the gospel.
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  This strange new message. Is this strange new message and
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  measure it by the yardstick of their surrounding Greco Roman
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  world. They were looking at Paul and
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  they were looking at his message and they were asking, does this
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  fit our standards of philosophical sophistication?
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  Is it impressive? Is it impressive?
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  Does it bring us public honor? Does it make us look good in
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  front of our sophisticated neighbors?
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  And the problem, of course, is the content of the gospel.
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  It just it didn't fit, not at all.
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  It didn't fit at all by Roman standards.
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  By Corinthian standards, a crucified Messiah looked weak,
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  shameful and frankly, implausible.
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  We have to remember what crucifixion meant back then.
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  It wasn't just a method of execution.
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  No, it was a political statement.
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  It was a slave's death. It was the most humiliating way
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  for a human being to die. It was reserved for rebels, for
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  terrorists, for the absolute nobodies of the Empire.
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  It was meant to be a public spectacle of shame.
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  Total shame. So for Paul to stand up in the
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  middle of Corinth, this place of wealth and power and
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  self-sufficiency, and claim that the savior of the world, the
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  King of Kings, was executed by the state on a Roman cross.
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  It just looked like a failure. It looked ridiculous.
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  Utterly ridiculous. It would be like going to Wall
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  Street today and saying the secret to economic success is to
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  give all your money away and live in a box.
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  It just doesn't compute with the core values of the culture.
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  Precisely. So.
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  Paul has a very specific strategy here, and the sources
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  point out that Paul did not come in and try to out debate the
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  philosophers on their own terms. He makes a point of saying he
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  didn't use lofty speech. Now let me play devil's advocate
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  for a second. Couldn't Paul have done that?
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  I mean, the guy was brilliant. He was trained under Gamaliel,
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  one of the best minds of his day.
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  He knew the poets. He knew logic.
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  Why not beat them at their own game?
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  Oh, he absolutely could have. There's no question he had the
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  intellectual firepower. But he made a conscious
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  theological choice to avoid what he calls plausible words of
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  wisdom. And he tells us why.
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  He does. In First Corinthians, one
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  leading right into our chapter, he explains it.
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  He says that if faith is built on human impressiveness or
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  unclever arguments, or on the charisma of the speaker, then
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  that faith rests on the wisdom of men.
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  And that is a really shaky footing.
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  It's. Sand.
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  It's a foundation of sand. If I can argue you into the
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  Kingdom with a clever syllogism, somebody smarter than me can
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  come along next week and argue you right out of it, right?
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  Paul wanted their faith to rest on something solid, on the power
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  of God. He is diagnosing that the core
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  problem in Corinth isn't a lack of information or a lack of
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  cleverness. The problem is a spiritual
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  condition. And if you win, people with the
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  wisdom of the age. You win them to the wisdom of
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  the age, you don't win them to the power of God.
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  You've just made them disciples of a new philosophy, not
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  disciples of Christ. That is such a critical
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  distinction and it brings us right to the text itself.
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  Paul introduces this character in verse 14 to explain why this
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  fundamental conflict exists. He calls him the natural person.
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  Now when I hear the word natural, my first thought is
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  something organic or maybe just normal, you know, Whole Foods or
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  natural athlete. But that is not what Paul means
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  here, is it? No, not at all.
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  It's a technical term for him, the Greek word.
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  He uses a Saichikos and it comes from the word psycha which means
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  soul or life. Wait a second.
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  So soulish. That actually sounds kind of
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  nice, right? You know, we'd say, oh, he's a
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  very soulful person. It sounds deep, emotional, maybe
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  artistic. They're like they listen to good
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  jazz and read poetry. In our modern context,
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  absolutely. We think of soulish as a
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  compliment. We've romanticized it, but in
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  Paul's theology and in the source material we're looking
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  at, it is a devastating indictment.
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  An indictment? How so?
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  It refers to man as he is an Adam.
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  It's the human being operating purely on his natural instincts,
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  his empirical senses, and his unredeemed reason.
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  So this is someone who is operating on the factory
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  settings of fallen humanity. That's a perfect way to put it
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  the default settings. In fact, the book of Jude uses
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  this exact same term in verse 19 and defines it for us.
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  It says these are people who are devoid of the Spirit.
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  OK, so the line is very clear. It's a hard line.
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  The distinction Paul is making here is not between a mature
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  Christian and a carnal Christian or a baby Christian.
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  That's a different discussion. This is the line between the
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  living, those who have the Spirit, and the dead, those who
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  are merely natural or soulish. The source material uses this
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  phrase imminent frame that the natural man is trapped in the
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  imminent frame. What are we getting out there?
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  It's a helpful concept. It means he's earthbound.
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  He is locked inside the material world.
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  He interprets everything, everything, through the lens of
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  what he can see, touch, taste, and logically deduce within the
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  closed system of nature. He has no antenna, so to speak.
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  He has no antenna for the transcendent reality of God's
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  Spirit. He's operating on a frequency he
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  cannot tune out of because he fundamentally lacks the
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  receiver. The hardware is missing.
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  So when we talk about the natural man, we aren't just
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  talking about a virulent atheist who hates God and kicks puppies.
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  Oh, absolutely not. And this is the scary part.
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  This is where it gets uncomfortable.
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  The natural man could be a brilliant scientist with
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  multiple PHD's. He could be a philosopher.
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  A world renowned philosopher, he could be a moral pillar of the
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  community who gives millions to charity.
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  He could even be a theologian in a secular university who knows
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  all the historical facts about the Bible better than most
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  pastors. He knows the data, he's got the
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  information. He knows the data inside and
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  out. He can parse the Greek verbs, he
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  can tell you the history of the ancient Near East, but if he is
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  psych incose, if he is devoid of the spirit, he is spiritually
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  dead. He sees the words on the page,
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  but he doesn't hear the voice of God behind them.
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  Which leads us directly to the reaction this natural man has to
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  the gospel. The text says he does not accept
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  the things of the Spirit of God, and the source material points
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  out something really interesting about the grammar here.
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  It's not just a passive Oh, I didn't happen to hear you or I
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  missed that. Right.
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  The Greek verb is deketai. It means to welcome or embrace.
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  It's the word you would use for welcoming an honored guest into
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  your home. Or receiving a gift with
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  gratitude. Exactly.
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  It's an active positive reception, but Paul puts a
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  negative particle, oh, in front of it.
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  UD Dekhtai, he does not welcome, he does not receive.
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  So it implies a closed door. It implies a locked and bolted
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  door. This is not passive ignorance.
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  This is active suppression. The source material describes it
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  as a hostile takeover against God's truth.
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  That's strong language. It is because the Bible's
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  diagnosis is strong. The natural heart isn't neutral,
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  it's at war with God. So when the Gospel comes and
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  says you are a Sinner, you cannot save yourself and you
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  must bow to this crucified king, the natural ego immediately puts
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  up the defenses. It reminds me of what Jesus says
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  in John 3.19. Men loved darkness rather than
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  light because their deeds were evil.
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  It's a preference, a moral choice.
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  It is a moral preference that stems from a spiritual
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  condition, and this leads to the verdict the natural man renders
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  on the gospel. Paul says these things are
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  foolishness to him. And the Greek word here is
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  moria. Moria, which sounds a lot like a
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  word we use in English, doesn't it?
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  It's where. We get the word moron.
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  It is, and we have to feel the weight of that.
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  To the unregenerate mind, the gospel isn't just an alternative
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  viewpoint that they respectfully disagree with.
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  It's not just another option on the religious buffet.
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  Yeah, it is moronic. It is nonsensical.
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  It is utterly absurd. Why?
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  I mean, from our side of things, I see the beauty of it.
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  I see the logic of it. Why is it nonsense to them?
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  Because it violates everything the natural man prizes and
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  worships. Think about it from his
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  perspective. The Gospel claims that a
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  crucified Carpenter, someone who died a shameful, weak death, is
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  the creator of the universe. That violates human pride, the
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  pride of power. Completely, then, it claims that
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  salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, which means
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  your resume, your moral achievements, your intellect,
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  your good works, none of it counts for credit.
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  And that violates the law of human merit, the pride of
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  accomplishment. The very engine of the natural
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  heart. So the natural man is using his
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  own fleshly standards to judge spiritual realities.
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  He's measuring God by his own little ruler.
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  The source gives a great analogy for this.
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  It's like trying to measure the depth of the Pacific Ocean with
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  a 12 inch ruler. It's a perfect analogy.
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  The ruler is a fine tool for measuring a piece of paper on
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  your desk, but it is a laughably inadequate instrument for the
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  ocean. You're using the wrong tool for
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  the job. The wrong tool entirely.
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  The natural man uses his logic and his pride to judge God, and
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  because God didn't fit into his tiny box, he calls God foolish.
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  And this brings us to the absolute core of the Reformed
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  doctrine found in this text. Because Paul makes a shift, we
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  move from He does not accept, which sounds like a choice too.
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  He is not able to understand. This is the shift from won't to
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  can't, and this is where the rubber meets the road for
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  reformed theology, the text says Udainatai.
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  Udainatai. He does not have the power.
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  He does not have the dynamic ability to understand.
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  He lacks the capacity. This is the doctrine of total
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  inability. Yes, this is what we mean when
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  we talk about the T and Tulip total depravity.
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  It doesn't mean man is as evil as he could possibly be at all
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  times. Right, it's not utter depravity.
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  No, it means that the corruption of sin has affected every
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  faculty of his being, including his mind and his will.
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  He is not just sick, he is dead. The source uses the analogy of a
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  blind man. A blind man is physically
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  incapable of admiring a sunset. It doesn't matter how beautiful
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  the sunset is or how brightly the sun is shining.
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  He lacks the organ of perception.
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  Right. Or a deaf man cannot critique a
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  Symphony. You can turn the volume up all
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  you want, but if the auditory nerve is dead, there's no
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  perception of the music. So the natural man is
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  spiritually incapable of grasping the glory of Christ.
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  Correct. Now, we need to be very, very
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  nuanced here. The source material makes a
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  critical distinction between what we could call moral
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  inability and intellectual inability.
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  Right, because we just said the natural man could be a brilliant
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  scholar. I don't want you listening to
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  think we were calling non Christians stupid.
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  That's not the point at all. Not at all.
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  That would be arrogant and untrue.
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  Paul is not saying unbelievers can't understand the grammar of
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  the Bible. They can read the sentence Jesus
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  died for sinners. They can understand the
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  historical claim being made. They can ace a theology exam on
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  what Christians believe. They absolutely can.
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  They can write books on it. So what is the deficit?
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  If they have the facts, if they have the data, what are they
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  missing? The deficit is what the sources
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  call saving discernment. They cannot apprehend the
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  Spirit's testimony as compelling, beautiful or
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  authoritative. They cannot taste the truth.
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  They can analyze the chemical composition of the bread, but
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  they can't taste that it's good. Perfect.
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  They might see the diamond, but to them it's just a worthless
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  piece of glass. They don't perceive its value,
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  its beauty, its glory. The Westminster Confession puts
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  this so strongly, doesn't it Says that fallen man is utterly
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  indisposed, disabled and made opposite to all good and wholly
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  inclined to all evil. That is the confession summary
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  of this biblical teaching. He's not just neutral or sick.
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  He is disabled and actively hostile.
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  Opposite to all good. And this really, I mean, this
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  just crushes the idol of free will, doesn't?
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  It it demolishes. It that's the big controversy,
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  people hold onto the idea of free will like a life raft.
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  It's the ultimate American Idol, isn't it?
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  The autonomous self. But if we take this text
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  seriously, it completely refutes both Pelagianism, which says man
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  is born good, and Arminianism, which relies on the idea that
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  man has a neutral free will that can choose God if just given the
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  right information and opportunity.
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  But Paul says the natural man cannot understand.
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  He cannot, and if he cannot understand the value of the
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  gospel, he certainly cannot and will not choose it.
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  The analogy I liked from the notes was the diamond in the
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  glass. A man who is convinced that a
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  diamond is just a worthless piece of broken glass will never
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  pay a high price for it. He will never trade his life for
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  it. Never.
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  He'll sweep it into the trash. He isn't choosing freely in the
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  true sense because his perception is fundamentally
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  distorted. He's a slave to his blindness.
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  He doesn't need a better sales pitch for the diamond.
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  No, he needs new eyes. He needs his perception to be
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  radically changed. So this brings us to the big
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  question. If the diagnosis is total
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  inability, if the natural man is blind, deaf, and dead to the
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  things of God, how in the world is anyone saved?
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  It sounds completely hopeless. It does.
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  I mean, if I can't choose and I can't see and I can't
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  understand, I'm doomed. And you would be It would be
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  utterly hopeless if salvation depended on man in any way,
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  shape or form. If God were sitting back in
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  heaven, tapping His foot, just waiting for us to get smart
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  enough or moral enough to choose Him, we would all perish.
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  But that's not the God of the Bible.
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  No, This is why the Reformed faith is so full of hope and
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  joy. The solution is not in us, it is
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  entirely in God. Paul gives us the answer right
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  in the text because they are spiritually discerned.
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  Let's look at that Word discerned.
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  The Greek is anachroniti. Yes, anachroniti.
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  It's a forensic term. It's a legal word.
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  It was used in legal settings for a cross examination or a
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  judicial investigation. Like an appraisal.
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  An appraisal and investigation. Paul is saying that the natural
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  man lacks the faculty to investigate this data correctly.
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  He can't judge it because he doesn't have the proper
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  equipment. The spiritual reality has to be
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  judged by a spiritual faculty which he lacks.
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  So the remedy must come from outside of him.
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  The remedy is sovereign illumination.
• 18:35
  Exactly. The Holy Spirit acts as the
• 18:37
  spectacles of the soul. This is the doctrine of
• 18:40
  illumination. And again, we need to be really
• 18:42
  careful with our definitions here.
• 18:44
  We aren't talking about mysticism.
• 18:46
  Right. This isn't the Spirit whispering
• 18:47
  new secrets or new scriptures into your ear.
• 18:50
  It's not like getting a secret text message from heaven.
• 18:52
  No, absolutely not. It is the Spirit enlightening
• 18:55
  the mind to see the intrinsic glory of the Word that is
• 18:58
  already there in Scripture. It is a spirit turning the
• 19:02
  lights on in the room. The furniture was always there.
• 19:04
  The truth. Truth was always on the page,
• 19:07
  but now suddenly you can see it for what it.
• 19:09
  Truly is This connects directly to the order of salvation, what
• 19:13
  theologians call the ordo salutis.
• 19:16
  Specifically, regeneration precedes faith.
• 19:18
  That is the theological anchor for this entire discussion.
• 19:22
  The spirit doesn't just offer a helping hand to a drowning man
• 19:25
  who is already reaching out. That's the Armenian view.
• 19:27
  So the Spirit isn't just throwing a life preserver.
• 19:30
  No, the Spirit performs a resurrection on a dead man at
• 19:33
  the bottom of the ocean. I love the reference to Ezekiel
• 19:36
  36.27 that the Source brings up here, and I will put my Spirit
• 19:40
  within you and cause you to walk in my statutes.
• 19:42
  It's a unilateral act of God. I will put my spirit within you.
• 19:46
  God does it. The logic is inescapable.
• 19:49
  We see because we were given eyes.
• 19:51
  We don't get eyes because we first decided to look.
• 19:53
  The looking is the evidence of the new eyes.
• 19:56
  It's the result of them. This is what we call effectual
• 19:58
  calling. When God calls His elect people
• 20:00
  to Himself, He gives them the life to answer that call.
• 20:03
  This changes everything about how we view our own faith.
• 20:07
  It really destroys boasting, doesn't it?
• 20:09
  It kills it completely. If you're a believer listening
• 20:11
  to this, why do you believe? Why do you see the beauty of the
• 20:14
  cross when your neighbor doesn't?
• 20:16
  Is it because you're smarter than your neighbor?
• 20:17
  No. Is it because you're more
• 20:18
  spiritual, More moral, a better person?
• 20:22
  No, the biblical answer is that you were in the exact same boat,
• 20:27
  blind, dead and hostile. The only difference is that the
• 20:31
  Spirit of God in His sovereign mercy, breathe life into you.
• 20:35
  OK. I want to pivot now to the
• 20:37
  really practical side of this because sometimes people hear
• 20:39
  reformed theology and they think it's just dusty academic stuff.
• 20:42
  Yeah. Oh, that's just for the guys
• 20:43
  with the big beards and the pipe tobacco in their ivory towers.
• 20:46
  Right. But this doctrine of the natural
• 20:48
  man and spiritual discernment actually has massive on the
• 20:52
  ground implications applications for how we do ministry and
• 20:55
  evangelism. It really does.
• 20:57
  I would say it signals the death of pragmatism in the church.
• 21:01
  Explain that. What do we mean by pragmatism in
• 21:03
  the church context? Pragmatism is the philosophy
• 21:06
  that says if it works, it's good.
• 21:08
  In the church, it often manifests as the seeker
• 21:11
  sensitive model of ministry. OK, the logic goes something
• 21:15
  like this. The natural man rejects the
• 21:17
  gospel because it's too offensive, too bloody, too
• 21:20
  weird. The message of sin and wrath is
• 21:22
  a turn off. So let's make it more palatable.
• 21:25
  Let's sand down the rough edges. Exactly.
• 21:27
  Let's adjust the lighting. Let's play cooler music.
• 21:30
  Let's have the pastor talk about 7 tips for a better marriage
• 21:33
  instead of sin and hell. Let's remove the stumbling
• 21:36
  blocks to make it easier for people to come in.
• 21:38
  And it sounds logical on the surface, doesn't it?
• 21:40
  I mean, you want to remove unnecessary barriers.
• 21:42
  You want people to feel welcome. It sounds perfectly logical if
• 21:46
  you believe the problem is merely intellectual or
• 21:49
  stylistic. If you think the man is just
• 21:51
  sick, then you give him some medicine.
• 21:53
  But if the problem is that the natural man is dead.
• 21:56
  Then adjusting the lighting is like rearranging the deck chairs
• 21:59
  on the Titanic. It is marketing cannot raise the
• 22:02
  dead. You can't make a corpse
• 22:04
  comfortable enough that it decides to come back to life.
• 22:07
  That is a very strong statement. But it's true to the text.
• 22:11
  If you strip the gospel of its offense, if you take away the
• 22:15
  cross, the blood, the call to repentance, the call to die to
• 22:19
  self vital, you might get a crowd.
• 22:22
  You might fill a building with natural people who feel
• 22:25
  comfortable and affirmed. But you haven't saved them.
• 22:27
  You haven't saved them, you've actually inoculated them against
• 22:30
  the real thing. You've validated their natural
• 22:33
  state. As you said earlier, if you win
• 22:36
  them with the wisdom of the age, you win them to the wisdom of
• 22:39
  the age. Precisely.
• 22:40
  You haven't introduced them to the saving power of God, you
• 22:43
  have just given them a religious veneer for their own autonomy
• 22:46
  and self improvement project. Paul refused to do that.
• 22:50
  He refused to give the Corinthians what they wanted,
• 22:52
  the lofty speech and the impressive rhetoric, because he
• 22:55
  loved them too much to let them build their faith on a false
• 22:58
  foundation. The imagery that comes to my
• 23:00
  mind here, which the source material brings up so
• 23:02
  powerfully, is Ezekiel 37, the Valley of Dry Bones.
• 23:07
  It is the perfect picture of biblical preaching and
• 23:10
  evangelism. God brings the prophet Ezekiel
• 23:13
  to a valley that is filled with dry, bleached bones.
• 23:17
  It's a graveyard. It's death as far as the eye can
• 23:19
  see. And he asked this incredible
• 23:21
  question. Son of man, can these bones
• 23:24
  live? And Ezekiel in his wisdom says,
• 23:27
  oh Lord, God, you know, he doesn't say no way, and he
• 23:29
  doesn't say, sure, if I try really hard, he defers to God's
• 23:32
  power. And then God tells him to do
• 23:34
  something that looks completely ridiculous.
• 23:36
  Prophesied to the bones. Preach to the skeletons, speak
• 23:39
  God's word to them, to the world, and to the church.
• 23:43
  Pragmatist. This looks insane.
• 23:44
  Why are you shouting at bones? They can't hear you.
• 23:46
  They have no ears, they have no brain.
• 23:48
  It's a waste of time. Ezekiel obeys.
• 23:50
  He preaches the word of the Lord and what happens?
• 23:53
  There's a rattling sinews and flesh come upon them, and then
• 23:57
  the breath of God comes into them and they stand up a vast
• 24:00
  army. The power was not in Ezekiel's
• 24:02
  eloquence, was it? Not at all.
• 24:03
  The power was in the command of God carried by the Spirit.
• 24:07
  That's what preaching is. It's prophesying to dry bones.
• 24:10
  We speak the gospel to people who are dead in their trespasses
• 24:13
  and sins. It looks foolish to the world,
• 24:16
  but the Spirit of God uses that specific frequency, the message
• 24:19
  of Christ crucified, to create the very ears that hear it.
• 24:23
  You know, this actually brings a lot of comfort to evangelism.
• 24:25
  It takes the pression off. It is incredibly liberating.
• 24:29
  It's one of the most liberating truths there is.
• 24:31
  Because I think a lot of listeners feel this heavy,
• 24:34
  crushing burden. They have a spouse, a child, a
• 24:38
  parent, or a best friend who isn't a believer.
• 24:40
  And they feel like if I just explain it better, if I just
• 24:43
  find the right apologetic argument, if I could just be
• 24:46
  more persuasive, I can convince them.
• 24:48
  And when it doesn't work, they feel guilty.
• 24:50
  They feel like failures. Yeah, I failed them.
• 24:52
  But this text says you are not the failure, You are the
• 24:56
  messenger, not the editor, and you are certainly not the Holy
• 25:00
  Spirit. You cannot argue the blind into
• 25:02
  seeing. So that takes the pressure off.
• 25:04
  I don't have to be a master salesman who is always closing
• 25:07
  the deal. No, you are a witness.
• 25:09
  You are a herald. You point to the light.
• 25:11
  If they don't see it, it, it's because they're a blind, not
• 25:13
  because you didn't point hard enough or in the right way.
• 25:16
  And this reality should shift our evangelistic energy from
• 25:19
  anxiety to intercession. Intercession.
• 25:22
  Yes, instead of spending all our time trying to spin the gospel
• 25:26
  to make it acceptable to the natural mind, we should be
• 25:28
  spending our time on our knees. We plead with the only one who
• 25:32
  can perform the heart surgery. We pray God take out their heart
• 25:36
  of stone and give them a heart of flesh.
• 25:38
  So our evangelism becomes an act of radical reliance on sovereign
• 25:42
  grace. That's it.
• 25:44
  We speak to men about God. But even more, we must speak to
• 25:47
  God about men. I love that it turns evangelism
• 25:50
  from a sales pitch into an act of worship and dependence.
• 25:54
  Now I want to circle back before we close to what this does for
• 25:57
  the believers internal life. Paul ends this section in verse
• 26:00
  16 with an absolutely incredible statement.
• 26:03
  He says, But we have the mind of Christ.
• 26:05
  It's a breathtaking pivot, isn't it?
• 26:06
  He goes from the absolute bankruptcy and blindness of the
• 26:09
  natural mind to the infinite treasury of the mind of Christ.
• 26:13
  What does that mean to have the mind of Christ?
• 26:15
  Do we become omniscient? Do we suddenly know everything
• 26:18
  Jesus knows? No, it's not about gaining a
• 26:21
  divine IQ. It connects to the profound
• 26:23
  doctrine of of our union with Christ.
• 26:25
  Because the believer is united to Jesus by the Spirit, we begin
• 26:29
  to share in his disposition. We share in his valuation of
• 26:32
  things, his. Valuation.
• 26:33
  So we value what he values, and we see things the way he sees
• 26:37
  them. Correct.
• 26:38
  Think about the cross again. To the natural man, using the
• 26:41
  world's wisdom, the cross is foolishness and weakness.
• 26:45
  But to the Father and the Son, the cross is the dazzling
• 26:48
  intersection of perfect justice and perfect love.
• 26:51
  It is the wisdom and the power of God.
• 26:53
  So when we have the mind of Christ, we begin to see the
• 26:55
  cross the way God sees the cross.
• 26:57
  That's right, it changes from being a shameful execution into
• 27:00
  being the most beautiful, glorious, and wise event in all
• 27:04
  of history. That is a flat out miracle.
• 27:05
  It is the supreme evidence of grace in your life.
• 27:08
  If you are listening to this right now and you cherish the
• 27:10
  cross, if the name of Jesus is sweet to you, if the thought of
• 27:14
  his sacrifice for you brings you to your knees, that is not
• 27:17
  natural. That is supernatural.
• 27:19
  That is evidence that you have been given the kind of Christ.
• 27:22
  And that leads directly to what the source calls reformed
• 27:24
  humility. It has to.
• 27:26
  It must. If you really understand this
• 27:28
  doctrine, you cannot be arrogant.
• 27:30
  You can't look down your nose at your atheist neighbor or the
• 27:33
  person in a false religion and think, well, I was just smart
• 27:35
  enough to figure it out. Right.
• 27:37
  I did my research. I was more logical.
• 27:39
  I made a better choice. Paul asks this devastating
• 27:42
  question in First Corinthians 4.7.
• 27:45
  What do you have that you did not receive?
• 27:48
  And if you received it, why do you boast as if you did not?
• 27:51
  And the answer is. Nothing, nothing.
• 27:54
  The only difference between the believer and the mocking
• 27:56
  neighbor is free, unmerited, sovereign grace.
• 28:00
  This produces A humility that isn't just about being polite or
• 28:03
  having good manners. It's a deep, trembling
• 28:06
  gratitude. It is a constant.
• 28:08
  There but for the grace of God go I reality.
• 28:12
  It seems like this doctrine is, hard as it is, really is the
• 28:15
  antidote to pride in the Church. It is, and it creates a worship
• 28:19
  service that isn't characterized by swagger or entertainment or
• 28:22
  self congratulation, but by awe. We are the dry bones that were
• 28:27
  made to live. We are the blind beggars who
• 28:29
  were given sight. How?
• 28:30
  How can we be anything but humbled and grateful?
• 28:32
  So to recap where we've been today in this deep dive, we
• 28:36
  started with the myth of neutrality, this common idea
• 28:38
  that we are all unbiased judges. We debunk that with First
• 28:42
  Corinthians 2.14. The natural man is structurally
• 28:46
  incapable of grasping the gospel.
• 28:48
  He refuses it as foolishness and he cannot know it because he
• 28:52
  lacks the spirit. Right.
• 28:53
  He won't and he can't, and therefore our hope doesn't rest
• 28:56
  on our ability to persuade or our cleverness, but rests
• 28:59
  entirely and solely on the illuminating, life giving work
• 29:02
  of the Holy Spirit. It is a hard truth, but it is a
• 29:04
  glorious truth. It puts God back in the center
• 29:06
  of salvation, where He belongs. It does.
• 29:08
  It makes salvation fully a work of the Lord from beginning to
• 29:11
  end. I want to leave you, our
• 29:12
  listener, with a final thought, something to chew on as you go
• 29:15
  about your week. The source material poses a
• 29:18
  really provocative challenge, a question that cuts through all
• 29:22
  the intellectualizing. It asks a question that really
• 29:24
  forces you to examine your own heart.
• 29:27
  And here it is. If you are waiting to believe
• 29:30
  until God meets your intellectual standards, you're
• 29:33
  waiting to remain blind. That's the issue.
• 29:36
  The command of Scripture is not to judge God, but to bow.
• 29:40
  That's powerful. So the final question for all of
• 29:43
  us is this. Are you trying to debate a
• 29:45
  resurrected King from a position of supposed neutrality, or are
• 29:49
  you on your knees asking him for the eyes to see him?
• 29:52
  That is the only question that matters in the end.
• 29:55
  Thank you for joining us for this deep dive into reformed
• 29:57
  thinking. We'll see you next time.