A Mere 20-Point Disputation-Focused Sermon on the Foremost Sinner and the Apostle Paul

 Dr. MA Petillo

Naught have I gotten but what I received;
Grace hath bestowed it and I have believed;
Boasting excluded, pride I abase;
I'm only a sinner saved by grace!
Only a sinner saved by grace!
Only a sinner saved by grace!
This is my story, to God be the glory,
I'm only a sinner saved by grace!
Once I was foolish, and sinned ruled my heart,
Causing my footsteps from God to depart;
Jesus hath found me, happy my case;
I now am a sinner saved by grace!
Tears unavailing, no merit had I;
Mercy had saved me, or else I must die;
Sin had alarmed me, fearing God's face;
But now I'm a sinner saved by grace!
Suffer a sinner whose heart overflows,
Loving his Saviour to tell what he knows;
Once more to tell it would I embrace—
I now am a sinner saved by grace!  (TH, 698).

1.  Everyone is conceived and born in original sin.

2.  Not everyone is called from their mother's womb by God.

3.  All of God's elect are called from their mother's womb.

4.  God alone decides to spiritually save whomsoever He wills.

5.  God does not save on something foreseen in the future.

6.   No mere sinner is conceived or born spiritually perfect.

7.  Every sinner is conceived and born as a cosmic villain.

8.  Human beings are sinners because of the fall of Adam.

9.  Original sin means commission and omission of actual transgressions. 

10.  Those who have responded in faith and repentance evidence God's supernatural choice in spiritual rebirth through confession of every degree of sin in contrite repentance (not through the sacramental priesthood) but through the all-exclusive Cross of Jesus Christ alone.  If you add to the Cross, you stand condemned like St. Peter in Galatians chapter 2.

11.  The apostle Paul considered himself the chief of sinners.

12.  St. Paul considered all his sins great because God has great holiness and nothing is equal to Him in this respect.

13.  The only way to be righteous before God is His eternal Son.

14.  The Christian that is truly and spiritually awakened by God's real choice because sees himself as the greatest sinner that ever lived (this is not a spiritual exaggeration to appease some religious zeal of the nature of man but a clear testimony of man's nature in light of the perpetuity of God's infallible Word).  

15.  St. Paul as a great sinner was used by a holy God to preach the written Word to lost Gentiles about the saving knowledge of the gospel.

16.  St. Paul did not add a single thing to the unified merit of Christ alone in how we are right with a holy God, because He honored the solidarity of spiritual salvation in light of God's inerrant Word.

17.  Does a holy God forgive murder?  Surely you know the story!  The apostle Paul murdered a fellow saint when he was outside of Christ.  God used him to further the gospel to the Gentiles, because Jesus does not use the sin of St. Paul against him.  Does this mean God furthers injustice?  No, no!  Have you lost sight of the Cross?  The Cross is the essence of justice on Jesus in behalf of St. Paul and the furtherance of righteousness through Christ alone that the Spirit applies in effectual calling.  This is why there is the all-supremacy of the Cross of Jesus Christ.  No sinner is excused.  Its either divine satisfaction at the Cross or in eternal hell.  That is, justice must be satisfied because God is just and holy.   The Father chose to satisfy divine justice on His eternal Son alone for His chosen alone, because only God in human flesh could take and absorb the supernatural agony of hell (and this was experienced by Jesus at the Cross).  That is, only God in human flesh could appease the divine wrath of God the Father.  In the final outcome, God does not let the elect free without the necessity of a true, actual and efficacious atonement but only through the punishment of a willing and able substitute (the essence, establishment and furtherance of justice) through King Jesus.  That is, He is Jesus Christ, Son of God, where He is, I shall be also!

18.  St. Paul was totally depraved before His spiritual awakening by God' Spirit and He was totally depraved after His spiritual awakening.  What does this mean?  The Bible simply teaches what men have mishandled!  That is, God provides us with a unified covering of the divine righteousness of Jesus Christ through faith alone.  In a real sense, the soul when changed by a holy God is permanently sinless while there are real shadows of sin touching the remaining corruption of fallen elect sinner.  It does not mean God has pronounced a legal fiction.  Rather it means for St. Paul, he is like all of God's people in Christ who possess the real and actual unified righteousness of Christ alone in heavenly garments fitted for the presence of King Jesus alone for the glory of the Father's design.   With these divine garments there is no accusation that can stand.  Dr. Luther wrote,

"Whenever the true message of the cross is abolished, the anger of hypocrites and heretics eases…and all things are in peace. This is a sure token that the devil is guarding the entry of that house, and that the pure doctrine of God's Word has been taken away. The church, then, is in the BEST state when Satan assaileth it on every side…both with subtle sleights, and outright violence. And (likewise) it is in the WORST state, when it is most at peace!"  

19.  No human ceremonies save anybody but incur God's wrath.

20.  It is better to endure the chastening of a holy God like St. Paul when the demon came to chastise him (in that the demon's intent as the second cause is to destroy St. Paul but God's intent as the ultimate cause is to have the Apostle Paul be conformed to the matchless image of Jesus Christ in real foredetermined cross-purpose between Satan and a holy God).  We should not seek an invention of fallen cosmic rebels to forgive sin (that has no spiritual support in light of the infallible Word) like the eleventh century practice of the Roman abomination of indulgences.
  

Fountain of never-ceasing grace,
Thy saints' exhaustless theme,
Great object of immortal praise,
Essentially supreme;
We bless thee for the glorious fruits
Thine incarnation gives;
The righteousness which grace imputes,
And faith alone receives.
In thee we have a righteousness
By God himself approved;
Our rock, our sure foundation this,
Which never can be moved.
Our ransom by thy death was paid,
For all thy people giv'n,
The law thou perfectly obeyed,
That they might enter heav'n.
As all, when Adam sinned alone,
In his transgression died,
So by the righteousness of one
Are sinners justified;
We to thy merit, gracious Lord,
With humblest joy submit,
Again to Paradise restored,
In thee alone complete.  (TH, 440).