The Gospel...A History Lesson Part 4

Semi-Pelagianism is merely a watered-down version of Pelagianism.  Pelagianism teaches that you can save yourself and you are not hindered by Original Sin.  Your nature is not damaged by Adam's sin.  You are born in a completely neutral state.  You can choose to be evil or you can choose to be good.  You can choose to follow God and His law or you don't.  You can exercise your will and follow God's commandments...all 600+ of them.  Semi-Pelagianism teaches that God's grace IS necessary for salvation and you cannot save yourself.  BUT, YOU MUST accept God's grace in order to be saved.  There is a difference in the two views but not much.  The semi-Pelagian view just kinda, sorta sounds better.  Ultimately, you are saving yourself by what you do in both systems.  Please don't have an aneurysm here.  I'll make my point later. 

In 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the castle church at Wittenberg.  They were 95 points of contention that he had with the Roman Church, mainly the selling of indulgences by Johann Tetzel.  Luther was a monk at the time he posted his theses, but God opened his eyes to the truth of the gospel 2 years later, in 1519, as he was teaching through Romans.  When he got to this verse, Romans 1:17, illumination took place:

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.”

Young Martin Luther's understanding was shaken as the Holy Spirit taught him what the Word of God meant. I will let the late RC Sproul explain what was happening to Luther in a more understandable, and totally more authoritative, way than I ever could.  This is a transcript of a portion of teaching that can be found at the link I will provide at the end of the transcript:

He says, “Here in it,” in the gospel, “the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, ‘the just shall live by faith.’” A verse taken from the book of Habakkuk in the Old Testament that is cited three times in the New Testament. As Luther would stop short and say, “What does this mean, that there’s this righteousness that is by faith, and from faith to faith? What does it mean that the righteous shall live by faith?” Which again as I said was the thematic verse for the whole exposition of the gospel that Paul sets forth here in the book of Romans. And so, the lights came on for Luther. And he began to understand that what Paul was speaking of here was a righteousness that God in His grace was making available to those who would receive it passively, not those who would achieve it actively, but that would receive it by faith, and by which a person could be reconciled to a holy and righteous God.

Now there was a linguistic trick that was going on here too. And it was this, that the Latin word for justification that was used at this time in church history was—and it’s the word from which we get the English word justification—the Latin word justificare. And it came from the Roman judicial system. And the term justificare is made up of the word justus, which is justice or righteousness, and the verb, the infinitive facare, which means to make. And so, the Latin fathers understood the doctrine of justification is what happens when God, through the sacraments of the church and elsewhere, make unrighteous people righteous.

But Luther was looking now at the Greek word that was in the New Testament, not the Latin word. The word dikaios, dikaiosune, which didn’t mean to make righteous, but rather to regard as righteous, to count as righteous, to declare as righteous. And this was the moment of awakening for Luther. He said, “You mean, here Paul is not talking about the righteousness by which God Himself is righteous, but a righteousness that God gives freely by His grace to people who don’t have righteousness of their own.”

And so Luther said, “Woa, you mean the righteousness by which I will be saved, is not mine?” It’s what he called a justitia alienum, an alien righteousness; a righteousness that belongs properly to somebody else. It’s a righteousness that is extra nos, outside of us. Namely, the righteousness of Christ. And Luther said, “When I discovered that, I was born again of the Holy Ghost. And the doors of paradise swung open, and I walked through.”

RC Sproul on Luther and Romans 1:17

Luther had been converted.  His understanding of the gospel, as he had always known it, had been radically altered forever.  And he would go to his grave defending the biblical doctrine of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to the Scriptures alone, to the glory of God alone.

On September 1, 1524, Desiderius Erasmus, a Roman Catholic apologist from Rotterdam, published his work titled Diatribe Concerning Free Will.  Luther responded with what could be considered his most compelling and important work The Bondage of the Will, containing  over 300 bible verses to support his argument.  Luther stood shoulder to shoulder with Augustine, defending the biblical doctrine, against the semi-Pelagian views of Erasmus.  With this book, Luther drew a distinct line in the sand that marked out the Roman Catholic view of justification and the Reformed view.  The ensuing debate has raged from then until this very day.....the Monergistic / Synergistic Controversy.  We talked very briefly about these last post.

Erasmus wrote his book directed specifically at Luther because after his conversion, he was having an impact within the Roman Catholic ranks.  Erasmus targeted Luther's awakening of Augustinian teaching...that men are totally and completely dead in sins and that there is absolutely nothing that they can contribute to their salvation....that it is a total and complete work of a sovereign God.  Instead, he believed and taught that God offered grace to all people.  And all people still have within themselves, somewhere, the ability to accept or reject this grace.  And it was the choice of the sinner that God rewards with salvation.  This is called SYNERGISM, coming from the Greek prefix "syn" and the Greek word "ergos".  The prefix "syn" means "with; together with; at the same time".  It refers to two or more.  For example, it's used in the word SYNCHRONIZE.  The word "ergos" means work.  Putting these together, you get the word SYNERGISM, meaning "to work together with" or "working at the same time".  The word synergism suggests a cooperative effort between man and God to accomplish the salvation of man.  God has done what He can do; now you do what you have to do.  

Luther saw this as nothing more than putting lipstick on a pig.  In other words, this was works based salvation hiding behind flowery language.  Luther believed that the semi-Pelagian view of Erasmus denied the doctrine of Original Sin and the full impact Adam's sin had on his offspring.  According to Erasmus, man was not dead; he was merely wounded and had the ability to help himself by helping God.  Luther understood that this view of Erasmus made the grace of God a reward for our faith.  Put another way, a man believes the gospel and, because of his good work of believing, God gives him the grace of salvation.  

I do not care how you look at it; I do not care how you play with words; I do not care about semantics.  It doesn't matter how you slice it.  In the semi-Pelagian view of Erasmus, and the massive majority of churches even today, some of the credit for a man's salvation goes to him because he deserves it.  Part of the glory MUST GO to man, right?  He did the right thing and chose God.  God had done all He could do by offering up Jesus.  That is His best.  He gave His Son.  Now, man does his thing.  He has to accept the gift.  And when he does, he gets credit; at least some of it.  There is absolutely no way around it.  The glory of salvation, in this stream, is split between God and man....period.  And that is not biblical in the slightest because according to the Scriptures:

Salvation is from the Lord.  (Jonah 2:9)
I am the Lord, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images.  (Isaiah 42:8)

So, what's really at stake in this monergistic / synergistic controversy, that still goes on today, is the glory of God vs. the glory of man; a right understanding of God and who He is vs. a wrong understanding of man and where he stands before God.

This is the synergistic, semi-Pelagian view of salvation.  God has done all He can do.  Now it's up to you.  How many times have you heard, "You take that first step of faith and God'll take the rest and carry you the rest of the way."  That's synergism.  That's semi-Pelagianism.  That's not biblical but it is the dominant view in the church today.

Next time, we'll look at the other side of the fence...monergism.