I am NOT Robot...

So I will admit that I am a ‘Calvinist’, if you please. Perhaps a Lutheran at heart would be more accurate. However you want to describe it, I am one who believes that God accomplishes our salvation completely (in case you couldn’t tell). I don’t want to take responsibility for any part of my salvation, even the believing, because to me that introduces my sin into God’s perfect equation.

There is one thing that I am not though. I am not a robot. The reason I say that is that I often hear it argued that if we are not in any way responsible for our salvation then we are just God’s little robots. We are playthings like dolls that God can do with as he pleases. Of course we don’t find this idea anywhere in scripture, but to our human reasoning it makes sense and so we hold onto it as a means of preserving at least the smallest bit of ownership in our ‘choice’ to be a Christian. To be ‘saved’ by the pure mercy of God is undignified. How could a being created in the image of God need to rely solely upon the same God for salvation? It’s embarrassing. It prevents me from boasting about anything but Christ.

That last bit sounds familiar. It should. Paul repeats it over and over again in many places. For example:

God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:28-31 ESV)

What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? (1 Corinthians 4:7 ESV)

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV)

By his own words, Paul would have to be condemned by the same argument as a robot. He clearly does not believe that he or his hearers were in the slightest saved by their own actions. Paul’s thinking is an affront to human dignity. It’s preposterous.

Or is it? I used an analogy a while ago that has been coming back to me again and again. Picture yourself as shipwrecked and drifting in a lifeboat. All you can see in any direction is ocean. Your food and water are gone and you have barely enough strength to lift your head occasionally to scan the horizon for land, knowing that even if you spotted land you have no chance of making it there by your own power. You are alive, but only on borrowed time. You can do nothing to save yourself. The only thing left for you is death.

Then, as you lift your head one time you spot a faint dark cloud on the horizon. The next time you muster your strength to lift your eyes you can see that the cloud is smoke from the funnels of a ship. The next time you can make out the funnels themselves and finally the white hull comes into view. The ship puts a boat in the water and your rescuers row to you, retrieving you from your own boat, and bring you aboard the ship. The captain tells you that they have spent days searching for you and the crew rejoices at finding you.

What would you have to be not to love and appreciate the captain of that ship? A robot. What would you think of someone in this situation who boasted along the lines of, “I am so glad that I recognized your ship in the distance! If not for that I might never have been saved!” And yet that is the very kind of boasting that we reserve for ourselves. We cannot bring ourselves to acknowledge that this rescue was completely and utterly one-sided. 

The problem with us is two-fold. First, we rarely acknowledge what dire straits we were in when we were rescued. We really deep-down believe that we were not that bad. We think that somewhere way down in the recesses of our heart is that image of God that responds to God favorably. We don’t recognize that we have neither the strength nor the inclination to respond to God.

Secondly, and perhaps because we are misguided in our understanding of ourselves, we must boast. To allow that God is completely responsible for our salvation is to be embarrassingly at his mercy. It is to acknowledge that there was not one shred of righteousness within us that would merit God’s favor. We can’t stand that. Most of us won’t endure it. So we say that if we don’t choose God then we must be robots. We must be God’s playthings. That if love is not freely brought forth of our will then it is no love at all.

Try and tell that to our fictional cast-away. Does he will to love the captain, or is love for the captain the most honest and natural response for him? Does he even worry about reserving the right to love the captain or not? Or is he so caught up in the joy of being rescued that his rights don’t even come to mind?

Go ahead and believe that we are robots if we don’t respond to God because we will to respond to God. I don’t think it makes you any less saved. Boast in what you feel you need to. But on the last day, when you face God, there is only one boast that counts for anything. Why not accept that and start living it today rather than waiting for that day? That is the gospel truth.

God Bless