egypts_strength_fails – We Love God!

1. The altar call too easily confuses the physical act of “coming forward” (walking an aisle) with the spiritual act of “coming to Christ” (repentance and belief). 2. This confusion deceives people about their spiritual state. 3. This confusion often obscures the requirements of repentance and belief. 4. This confusion encourages people to base their assurance on a one-time event. 5. This confusion brings false converts with false assurance into the church’s membership. 6. The altar call makes conversion look like a work of man, when in fact it is a work of God. 7. The altar call confuses people regarding sacred space [that the front of the church is more sacred than any other place]. 8. The altar call confuses “coming forward” with baptism. 9. The altar call distracts Christians from the main point of the service.

Paul Alexander

In considering the conflict between the sovereignty of God in election and the human responsibility, J.I. Packer writes: What is an antinomy? The Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines it as ';”a contradiction between conclusions which seem equally logical, reasonable or necessary.” For our purposes, however, this definition is not quite accurate; the opening words should read “an appearance of contradiction.” For the whole point of an antinomy – in theology, at any rate – is that it is not a real contradiction, though it looks like one. It is an apparent incompatibility between two apparent truths. An antinomy exists when a pair of principles stand side by side, seemingly irreconcilable, yet both undeniable.

J.I. Packer