Paul's Passing Thoughts

Islam’s penchant for death is well documented and publicized often. In the Quran, the crown of martyrdom guarantees forgiveness of sins and entry into paradise. This is a consistent theme throughout the Quran. If words mean anything, and I think they do, a popular slogan among such groups like Hamas should be telling: “We love death more than the Jews love life.”

And that was Martin Luther’s same problem with humanity in general; the whole loving life more than death sort of thing. His 95 Theses was a morale indictment against the Popes, not the Catholic Church in particular; six months later, Luther hammered out the framework for the Reformation in his Heidelberg Disputation which is clearly a doctrine of death.

In fact, death and suffering is the prism for understanding reality itself according to Luther in his foundational document for the Reformation. This results in Calvinists like John MacArthur Jr. suggesting that Christians doubt their salvation when they don’t suffer enough. Therefore, clearly, Christians should desire suffering. Think about this in context of the fact that 90% of all biblical counseling in our day is under the control of Neo-Calvinism.

In said document that laid the foundation for the Reformation, Luther states the following:

This is clear: He who does not know Christ does not know God hidden in suffering. Therefore he prefers works to suffering, glory to the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly, and, in general, good to evil. These are the people whom the apostle calls “enemies of the cross of Christ” [Phil. 3:18], for they hate the cross and suffering and love works and the glory of works. Thus they call the good of the cross evil and the evil of a deed good. God can be found only in suffering and the cross, as has already been said. Therefore the friends of the cross say that the cross is good and works are evil, for through the cross works are destroyed and the old Adam, who is especially edified by works, is crucified. It is impossible for a person not to be puffed up by his good works unless he has first been deflated and destroyed by suffering and evil until he knows that he is worthless and that his works are not his but God’s (Theses 21).

As will be discussed in volume 3 of TTANC, the doctrine of death is the basis for most religions of the world, and is grounded in the idea that the visible/tangible is evil and the invisible is good. This was Luther’s assertion as well:

He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross. The “back” and visible things of God are placed in opposition to the invisible, namely, his human nature, weakness, foolishness. The Apostle in 1 Cor. 1[:25] calls them the weakness and folly of God. Because men misused the knowledge of God through works, God wished again to be recognized in suffering, and to condemn wisdom concerning invisible things by means of wisdom concerning visible things, so that those who did not honor God as manifested in his works should honor him as he is hidden in his suffering (Theses 20).

Volume 3 will delve deeply into Dualism which almost always leads to a doctrine of death. Suffering alone, or knowledge about suffering, leads to spiritual awareness with death itself being the final escape from this material world. Why do Calvinists so disdain the doctrine of the Rapture? Because it bypasses death.

The commonality of death-love between Islam and Calvinism will be examined, as well as Calvinism’s other astonishing commonalties with Islam, particularly the “Gospel of Sovereignty.”