Paul's Passing Thoughts

“Mainline evangelicals have never, never, never, never, never, never, believed in sanctification by faith alone, period. GS props claim that Walter Marshall (the Puritan) held to this and called it ‘definitive sanctification,’ but trust me, I will be checking into that.”

I have received two links on Tullian Tchividjian’s latest post “Reminders Are More Effective Than Rebukes.” After clicking on the first link and reading the post, I decided that unraveling TT’s usual nuanced double-speak in the article for purposes of a review would be too time consuming. Let me give you an example: when GS propogators protest being “falsely accused” by saying, “What! That’s ridiculous! Of course we believe that the law has a place in the Christian life,” they know you will assume they are using “law” as a collective noun in the plural form rather than how they really mean it; the singular “law of love” or “higher law of Christ” that replaced Bible imperatives. Hence, “the law” as in—the one law. This is also known as being “in-lawed” to / with Christ. In other words, Christ came to fulfill the law (plural) and replace it with the single law of love.

But the second link came with a comment that the article was “shocking.” It is encouraging to be reminded that there are still Christians out there that are shocked by anything being taught these days. The usual is more like, “Hey dude, you won’t believe what I learned today.” What? “Like, God gives us delight before we get saving faith.” Really? So Galatians 3:2 really reads, ‘Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or hearing with delight?’ “Oh ya, for sure bro, because like, in the Bible, faith and delight are synonymous.” Your right, I don’t believe it. “Chill bro-daddy, Mac wrote the forward to the book—it’s all good.” Good grief!

So, roll up my sleeves and blog I must. TT’s thesis is that accountability groups are bad for the following reasons:

“Are you tired of being told that if you’re really serious about God, you must be in an “accountability group?” You know the ones I’m talking about. The ones where you and a small group of “friends” arrange for a time each week to get together and pick each other apart–uncovering layer after layer after layer of sin? The ones where all parties involved believe that the guiltier we feel the more holy we are? The ones where you confess your sin to your friends but it’s never enough? No matter what you unveil, they’re always looking for you to uncover something deeper, darker, and more embarrassing than what you’ve fessed up to. It’s usually done with such persistent invasion that you get the feeling they’re desperately looking for something in you that will make them feel better about themselves.”

Actually, TT may be (unwittingly) referring to a tenet of New Calvinism that he is a part of called “deep repentance.” It is the belief that the more sin you find and repent of, the larger the void will be in your “heart” that will be filled by Christ, and thereby empowering the believer accordingly. It is a “filling of Christ” rather than a filling of the Holy Spirit, but that’s another post. I am unaware of where TT stands on the “practical applications” of Gospel Sanctification, but his complaint sounds like an element of heart theology, one of the four major tenets of the movement. Therefore, it makes sense that he would hear such things among New Calvinist for that reason. Also, many followers of GS, even leaders, have not thought through all of the logical implications of the doctrine.

TT continues,

“The real reason, however, that I hate the kind of ‘accountability groups’ described above is because the primary (almost exclusive, in my experience) focus is always on our sin, not on our Savior. Because of this, these groups breed self-righteousness, guilt, and the almost irresistible temptation to pretend–to be less than honest. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in ‘accountability groups’ where there has been little to no attention given to the gospel whatsoever. There’s no reminder of what Christ has done for our sin–’cleansing us from its guilt and power’–and the resources that are already ours by virtue of our union with him. These groups produce a ‘do more, try harder’ moralism that robs us of the joy and freedom Jesus paid dearly to secure for us. They start with the narcissistic presupposition that Christianity is all about cleaning up and getting better–it’s all about personal improvement.”

That depends on what kind of accountability group he is talking about. Deep repentance accountability groups don’t propose that you make any effort at all to do anything about the sin that has been confessed. The idea is all about what TT, himself teaches! Let me explain. TT believes that we grow spiritually by “moving deeper and deeper into the gospel,” not being saved by the gospel and then “moving on to something else.” Well then, what are the only two things that you can do to be saved? Answer: faith and repentance, right? Well then, likewise, sanctification is by faith and repentance alone. In fact, GS accountability groups believe the exact opposite of whatever type of accountability group TT is complaining about. They believe that acting on repentance breeds a self-righteous attitude, whereas deep repentance breeds a broken, total dependence on Christ. So, the more sin you find, the better, because that keeps you humble and totally dependent on Christ; plus, it’s what empowers you as a believer. When GS advocates talk about “accountability,” this is what they really mean, which of course is just another example of their deception in regard to borrowing orthodox terms.

So, what’s going on here? GS proponents often build straw Godzillas to plead their case. Example: John Piper constantly paints a picture of mainline evangelicals supposedly teaching that happiness in the Christian life is not important. I have been an evangelical for thirty years and have never heard any evangelical teach such a thing. Furthermore, in thirty years, I have had friends who always stood ready to hold me accountable, but I have never heard of any “accountability groups.” That sounds like a GS thing, and TT may be assuming that the groups he is talking about expect people to follow-up on confession with action or effort. Such is not the case. Really, if GS propagators were honest, they would call the tenet “deep confession,” because any effort to “turn from,” is not in the mix.

TT continues:

“Ironically, when we (or our “friends”) focus mostly on our need to get better we actually get worse. We become neurotic and self-absorbed. Preoccupation with my guilt over God’s grace makes me increasingly self-centered and morbidly introspective. Real Christian growth, according to Jeremiah Bourroughs (1600-1646), “comes not so much from our struggling and endeavors and resolutions, as it comes flowing to us from our union with him.”

TT must know a little bit of GS history because he quotes a Puritan. This is standard GS procedure that sends the following message: “No, no, we have been around waaaay longer than 1980—see, the Puritans believed this stuff too.” Regardless of all the quotes presented by various Puritans, nobody has yet produced a Puritan quote anything near this statement: “We must preach the gospel to ourselves everyday.” Furthermore, Puritan authors and writings are practically innumerable, but yet, GS props primarily quote Walter Marshall and a few others like Bourroughs. Even if these few believed anything like GS, they would constitute a ridiculously low percentage of Puritan representation. Additionally, I have original copies of books from that era and assume they are translated into modern English for readability, which makes original intent questionable to begin with. Anyway, this whole GS endeavor to find credibility in Puritan literature because such credibility cannot be found in the Bible is just too rich, and is an area that I am researching via the encouragement and help from a reader. I might also mention that Dr. Peter Masters has called-out Piper on this issue as well.

In regard to TT’s concern over guilt and morbid introspection, GS advocates do not believe we are obligated to keep the law to begin with, so why the guilt? This is probably just another straw Godzilla. Anywhere you poke this article results in goo coming out and I really don’t want to write a book here, but let me at least mention that the article is saturated with blatant contradictions to the plain sense of Scripture, so let’s move on to the smoking gun items.

Ok, if you have made it this far, this is really what we need to focus on:

“Christianity is not first about our getting better, our obedience, our behavior, and our daily victory over remaining sin–as important as all these are. It’s first about Jesus! It’s about his person and subsitutionary work–his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, ascension, session, and promised return. We are justified–and sanctified–by grace alone through faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone. So that even now, the banner under which Christians live reads, ‘It is finished.’”

This rich statement is fraught with the heart of GS dogma. First, we see the postmodern side of GS doctrine: “It’s first about Jesus! It’s about his person….” Let me make this point from “The truth War” where MacArthur disses all of his friends unawares. This is what he says about postmodern thought on page 14: “If truth is personal [‘….It’s about his person….’] it cannot be propositional. If truth is embodied in the person of Christ [emphasis mine], then the form of a proposition can’t possibly express authentic truth. That is why most of Scripture is told to us in narrative form [the premise of redemptive-historical hermeneutics]-as a story—not as a set of propositions.”

This idea was also the thesis behind John Piper’s keynote address at the T4GS 2010 conference, and if I’m not mistaken, Mac was sitting in the audience. Really, these guys are just killin’ me. But from a practical standpoint, if the focus is on Christ’s personhood (whatever that means), instead of what Christ says, then all bets are off; you have moved from the objective to the subjective and you can teach anything you want to. This also explains the relationships and fellowship that “mainline evangelicals” have with postmoderns like Mark Driscoll that raises controversy from time to time. And to add to the deception, some GS churches have seminars that oppose the emergent church movement. It’s truly a chaotic spectacle.

Secondly, we see the totally unorthodox element of sanctification by faith alone in “ We are justified–and sanctified–by grace alone through faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone.” Mainline evangelicals have never, never, never, never, never, never, believed in sanctification by faith alone, period. GS props claim that Walter Marshall (the Puritan) held to this and called it “definitive sanctification,” but trust me, I will be checking into that.

Thirdly, we see the GS element of monergistic substitutionary sanctification in “….sanctified….in the finished work of Christ alone.” This is the idea that past, present, and future active obedience was part of the atonement. TT adorns this idea throughout the same article (“And what is the gospel? Not my work for Jesus, but Jesus’ work for me.” Notice the present tense of his statement). Christ died for our sins and imputed his righteousness to us, but the Scriptures do not teach that He also died for our active obedience so that He could obey for us and in our place.

Fourthly, it is easy to conclude from point two and three that TT’s gospel presentation would not include repentance. This is an obvious GS reality propagated by the likes of Michael Horton and others. At least once in this article, TT refers to the gospel as an “announcement” as opposed to what Jesus Himself called the gospel: a “call[ed].” Again, this is a Michael Horton staple, the whole gospel as indicative announcement only and not a calling. Like most GS error, it is very subtle, but nevertheless, just as deadly as the most grievous of error. This is a half gospel of Christ as savior only, and not Lord.

Lastly, this post is four pages and I have not even scratched the surface. The article by TT is a theological train wreck. And my parting comment is this—this hideous doctrine was at the core of the hostile takeover of Coral Ridge where he is now the “pastor.”

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paul