Eph 689-705, 856ff, 906ff 9/21/88
Spir Dynamics 445-6, 7/10/94; Eph 913ff, 919 10/16/88
A. How does God solve problems?
1. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit all share the same characteristics: sovereignty, righteousness, justice, love, eternal life, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, immutability, and veracity.
2. God possesses three different categories of love.
a. Each member of the Trinity loves the other two members of the Trinity with perfect personal love because they possess perfect righteousness. The object of God’s personal love is always perfect righteousness.
b. Each member of the Trinity loves His own righteousness, which is God’s divine self-esteem.
c. From His self-esteem, God has perfect impersonal love for spiritually dead mankind who only has relative righteousness, Isa 64:6. Impersonal love emphasizes the virtue of the subject rather than the virtue of the object. Jn 3:16, “God loved the world so much that He gave His uniquely-born Son, that whosoever believes in Him should never perish but have eternal life.”
3. There never has been a problem in all of human history to which God did not have the solution. Eternal and perfect God has the solution to every problem which has ever existed. Problems come from the volition of mankind and angelic creatures.
4. The greatest problem in life is that of having no relationship with God, no salvation, no eternal life. How did God solve the greatest problem?
a. God begins to solve problems by isolating the problem. God isolated the problem of man’s sinfulness long before man existed on the face of the earth by the divine decrees. He entered into one PROM chip all the sins of mankind.
b. The second thing God did to solve the problem of man’s sinfulness was to isolate the problem in time by establishing a barrier between Himself and sinful mankind, so that we could do nothing to solve the problem.
c. The problem of our sins was solved in time when our sins were judged on the Cross, so that the barrier between Himself and man was removed. Jesus Christ came to earth with the express purpose of being the only solution to the problem. There is no other solution except God’s solution. All sins were imputed to Christ and judged by God the Father. “He who knew no sin was made sin as a substitute for us.”
d. The barrier is removed by the work of God. God the Father functioned as judge and imputed all sins to Christ. Our Lord carried our sins in His own body on the Cross, 1 Pet 2:24.
e. Mankind participates in the solution provided for him by non- meritorious faith in Christ. Mankind crosses the barrier through faith in Christ. All divine solutions require volition in a non-meritorious manner.
f. Why can we simply believe in Jesus Christ?
(1) It is because God provided the solution. He isolates the problem in eternity past. He demonstrates the problem in time—the barrier. He provides the solution from the source of mankind—the humanity of Christ in hypostatic union. Mankind is reconciled through faith in Christ.
(2) Because God is propitiated and mankind is reconciled, the conclusion becomes very simple. Because all sins of human history were judged on the Cross, sin is not an issue in salvation. The issue is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
5. In postsalvation experience we are going to have many problems. Every problem that any believer can ever experience was solved in eternity past. God isolated all the problems of the believer and provided for them in eternity past. God has provided a system which has a solution for every problem in life. The solutions were provided in eternity past as a part of our very own portfolio of invisible assets. You have the power options, the spiritual skills, and the ten problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul.
B. How did God solve our greatest problem of spiritual death?
1. One verse which occurs in all three of the original languages of the Bible, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, teaches us how God works. How God works is the basis for all the problem solving devices in the Christian way of life or the protocol plan of God
. 2. This one verse is “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
a. This cry of our Lord on the cross is first prophesied in the Hebrew in Ps 22:1.
b. The repetition of the Greek vocative ELI, ELI is addressed to God the Father as a call for help to solve a problem.
c. The repetition of the vocative in the Hebrew means perfection.
d. The singular of ELI means this vocative is addressed only to God the Father.
e. The repetition of the noun in the Hebrew is an idiom of intensity. It expresses the highest quality of two categories.
(1) The highest quality of the person, God the Father.
(2) The highest quality of the two attributes of God the Father used in problem solving, i.e., righteousness and justice.
3. The perfect righteousness of God cannot accept man with his relative righteousness. Therefore, God solves this problem with both His justice and His love.
4. The problem is caused by the billions of sins of mankind. God collected all the sins of human history into one prom chip in the computer of divine decrees. When our Lord Jesus Christ hung on the cross, the omnipotence of God the Father called for the printout of all these personal sins in history. Then the justice of God imputed all those sins to the Lord Jesus Christ. Finally, the justice of God judged all those sins in Christ on the cross. By this salvation work of God, the problem was solved.
5. However, as a result of this judgment, Jesus Christ called out to God with this question, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?”
6. The answer to the question is found in Scripture.
a. Rom 5:8, “God demonstrates His love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died as a substitute for us.”
b. Ps 22:3, “Because You are holy.” Holiness is a combination of the righteousness and justice of God. The righteousness of God the Father rejects sin. The justice of God the Father therefore did something about that rejection; He judged all those sins in Christ.
c. 1 Pet 2:24, “He carried our sins in His own body on the cross.”
d. Ps 22:6, “But I am a worm.” The TOLAH worm was crushed in large vats, whose crimson blood was used to dye the robes of kings. By analogy, our Lord Jesus Christ was crushed on the cross that we might wear the robes of kings forever.
7. Now that this greatest problem was solved by the work of salvation, the door of salvation is wide open to anyone, who can walk through it by personal faith in Jesus Christ.
8. Mt 27:46 states this same question of our Lord in the other two languages, the Aramaic and the Greek. “And about the ninth hour [3 p.m. Roman time], Jesus shouted with a loud voice, saying, `Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’, which means, `My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?’”
a. The Aramaic is a Semitic language and very similar to the Hebrew and Phoenician languages, merely a different dialect.
b. Aramaic originated in Aram in Mesopotamia, and spread to the northwest. The eastern form of this dialect is called Syrian; the western form is called Aramaic or Chaldean.
c. In this verse, Greek letters are used to produce this Aramaic phrase as uttered by our Lord on the cross.
d. This Aramaic phrase is translated into the Greek in the last half of the verse.
e. In the Greek, the verb EGKATALEIPO not only means to forsake and abandon, but even stronger, it means to completely depart in the sense of retreating from someone who is repulsive.
f. The culminative aorist of EGKATALEIPO contemplates the verb in its entirety, Jesus Christ being judged for our sins and being forsaken by God the Father with whom He had eternal and infinite love, and emphasizes the result: “whosoever believes in Him shall never perish but have eternal life.”
9. God solved the greatest problem of our spiritual death by imputing the sins of the world to Jesus Christ and judging them, forsaking Him as a result. We could not solve the problem at all, being totally helpless in our spiritually dead state.
10. The answer to our Lord’s question was that God was solving the greatest problem of humanity by the use of His justice, motivated by His love.
11. Rom 8:31-32, “If God is for us, who can be against us? For He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us the all things?”
C. God does all the work in problem solving.
1. God did all the work in solving our problem of spiritual death.
a. God the Father imputed and judged our sins in Christ on the cross.
b. God the Son received that imputation and judgment. So great was the agony of it all that He screamed these words.
c. God the Holy Spirit sustained our Lord on the cross, and now He reveals this Gospel information to mankind under His ministries of common and efficacious grace.
d. This is called salvation grace. In grace, there is no place for human merit or ability of any kind.
e. Eph 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved [in the past with the result that you stand saved forever] by means of faith, not from yourselves; it is a gift from God, not of works, lest any man should boast.”
(1) We are unable to attain salvation by any human works. God did all the work for us. God’s policy in dealing with sinful man is grace.
(2) Faith is a transitive verb; it has a subject and an object. You are the subject; you have the faith. Jesus Christ is the object and He has all the merit.
(3) After salvation people in moral arrogance often boast about how they did something for their salvation. For example, they gave up something, stopped sinning, or felt sorry for their sins.
2. Logistical grace is also the work of God entirely.
a. One-half of God’s integrity, i.e., His justice, sends down the grace pipeline to the other half of God’s integrity, i.e., His indwelling righteousness, all the life support we as believers need to stay alive.
b. Logistical grace not only includes life support, but also blessings. But these blessings are not in any way merited or deserved by believers, but are received only on the basis of God’s grace. God gives in grace so that His justice and righteousness is not compromised.
c. Logistical grace explains why even losers are blessed.
D. The A Fortiori for Problem Solving in the Christian Life.
1. Scriptures which demonstrate that God solved the greatest problem we will ever have.
a. Rom 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died as a substitute for us.”
b. 1 Pet 3:18, “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous One as a substitute for the unrighteous ones, in order that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.”
c. 1 Pet 2:24, “and He Himself carried our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.”
d. 1 Cor 11:24, “and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, `This represents My body, which is given as a substitute for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’”
e. 2 Cor 5:21, “He caused Him who knew no sin to be made sin as a substitute for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
f. Gal 3:13, “Christ has redeemed us separated from the curse of the Law, having become a curse as a substitute for us—for it stands written, `Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.’”
2. If God solved the greater presalvation problem, he can also solve the lesser problems which we call postsalvation problems.
3. Paul used a logical approach to show how God also solves all of our problems in time after salvation. Rom 8:31-32, “Therefore, with reference to these things, to what conclusion are we forced? If God is for us, who shall be against us? The God, who did not even spare His own Son, but delivered Him over to judgment as a substitute for all of us without exception, how shall He not also with Him graciously give to us the all things?”
a. For the believer in Jesus Christ who loves God the Father, God the Father causes all things to work together for good because the believer is in a predetermined plan. God has a system for causing all things to work together for good. But it depends on living the sophisticated spiritual life, having the problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul, and personal love for God the Father.
b. God always solves problems by principle. God never solves problems by compromise. God always solves problems on the basis of Bible doctrine. He never compromises His word or Bible doctrine. God has found a way to maintain His integrity and bless loser believers both in time and eternity. Losers are blessed in certain ways even while they are under divine discipline and the law of volitional responsibility.
c. God is for the loser believer as well as the winner believer. Rom 8:26 tells us that God is for the loser believer because God the Holy Spirit prays for the loser believer. So whether you are a winner or loser, God is for you.
d. A fortiori is a greater benefit principle in God’s solutions to the problems of your life. The lesser benefit is the ten problem solving devices for the Church Age believer. A fortiori is a system that forms a conclusion by comparing a greater accepted fact with a lesser inescapable fact.
(1) Jesus Christ was judged on the Cross for all the sins of the human race without exception. This is the greater solution of all time. This is the accepted fact that produces the inescapable fact. This is the greatest solution in all human history.
(2) The lesser benefit and inescapable fact is that God the Father has graciously given to us a far greater plan than ever given to other believers. He gave to us two power options, three spiritual skills, and ten problem solving devices.
e. If the most difficult problem was solved at the Cross, it follows a fortiori that the least difficult problems (the problems of believers) can be accomplished for each and every believer in his postsalvation experience. Therefore the necessity for: the utilization of the two power options, the function of the three spiritual skills, the deployment of the ten problem solving devices, attaining the four objectives of the spiritual life (a personal sense of destiny, spiritual maturity, occupation with Christ, and maximum glorification of God).
4. In other words, if God solved the greatest problem at the cross, He can solve all other problems in our spiritual lives after salvation.
E. Four Postsalvation Principles.
1. God has a plan for your life. This plan begins the moment you believe in Jesus Christ.
2. God is perfect; therefore, His plan is perfect. Under God’s policy of grace, He has provided a perfect plan for imperfect persons.
3. Contradictions cannot exist in a perfect plan.
4. Fragmentation is contradictory to the protocol plan of God for the Church Age. Fragmentation is the greatest spiritual problem after we believe in Jesus Christ. See the Doctrine of Fragmentation.
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R. B. Thieme, Jr.
Bible Ministries 5139 West Alabama, Houston, Texas 77056 (713) 621-3740
© 1995, by R. B. Thieme, Jr. All rights reserved.
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