Chan, Carson, Piper, Tchividjian Versus the Holy Spirit On “Rules”
Here is what the brain-trust of Sonship theology says about “rules”:
Francis Chan: “To change our hearts, what we value, what we risk, how we act, we don’t need more guilt or more rules, we just need to be in love with God. Because when you’re wildly in love with someone, it changes everything.”
DA Carson: “In this broken world, it is not easy to promote holiness without succumbing to mere moralism; it is not easy to fight worldliness without giving in to a life that is constrained by mere rules.”
John Piper: “So the key to living the Christian life – the key to bearing fruit for God – the key to a Christ-exalting life of love and sacrifice – is to die to the law and be joined not to a list of rules, but to a Person, to the risen Christ. The pathway to love is the path of a personal, Spirit-dependent, all-satisfying relationship with the risen Christ, not the resolve to keep the commandments.”
Tullian Tchividjian: “A taste of wild grace is the best catalyst for real work in our lives: not guilt, not fear, not another list of rules.”
What the Holy Spirit says as translated by the foursome’s Bible of Choice, the ESV:
Psalm 18:22
For all his rules were before me, and his statutes I did not put away from me.
Psalm 19:9
the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether.
Psalm 89:30
If his children forsake my law and do not walk according to my rules,
Psalm 119:7
I will praise you with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous rules.
Psalm 119:13
With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth.
Psalm 119:20
My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times.
Psalm 119:30
I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I set your rules before me.
Psalm 119:39
Turn away the reproach that I dread, for your rules are good.
Psalm 119:43
And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for my hope is in your rules.
Psalm 119:52
When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O LORD.
Psalm 119:62
At midnight I rise to praise you, because of your righteous rules.
Psalm 119:75
I know, O LORD, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.
Psalm 119:102
I do not turn aside from your rules, for you have taught me.
Psalm 119:106
I have sworn an oath and confirmed it, to keep your righteous rules.
Psalm 119:108
Accept my freewill offerings of praise, O LORD, and teach me your rules.
Psalm 119:137
Righteous are you, O LORD, and right are your rules.
Psalm 119:156
Great is your mercy, O LORD; give me life according to your rules.
Psalm 119:160
The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.
Psalm 119:164
Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous rules.
Psalm 119:175
Let my soul live and praise you, and let your rules help me.
Psalm 147:20
He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do not know his rules. Praise the LORD!
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
Paul – John MacArthur once said, “when the Bible speaks, the argument is over”. You have proved your point from God’s word. These guys are off the deep end. Thank you for this post.
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Wow Paul,
this is overwelming testimony against them! The Word of God is powerful. It breaks down, literally demolishes, the arguments of those who set themselves up against the knowledge of God. And some, obviously, are ignorant of God!
It’s clear what these Psalms indicate: THE WAY of the Lord is RECTILINEAR. Freedom does not include the right to do anything. The way of Love has guardrails.
But who will be my Helper? How can I walk in THE WAY? Who will put His laws in my mind and write them on my heart so I can obey (Heb 8:10)? Who will rescue me from this body of sin and death? Jesus Christ, God forever praised! Who gives His life, sending the Holy Spirit – the SOURCE OF ALL SANCTIFICATION!
These guys are all smoke and mirrors when they promise “CHANGE.” The word itself is becoming meaningless today. If anybody praises God for the obedience that accompanies the confession of the gospel, they go into the attack mode. They say, only a Pharisee, dishonest about his sin, could say such a thing. In other words, obedience to them sounds too much like law, rules, and bondage. Repugnant concepts in their minds. Again, some are ignorant of God. Thanks!
Arkansas Bill
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Thanks for commenting guys:
Ya, this whole thing about being freed by God’s law is new to me. I knew it intuitively, but of late, I now “see” it. I have been reading Chantry and Gerstner some, so I am not sure where exactly I got this, but:”because of rules, we are now FREE to play football.” Or as Bill said above: “Love has guardrails.” Or as one of the other two guys said:” If the music you play on a violin is beautiful–you have to follow rules that dictate the sound.” Wasn’t that Paul’s point in 1Corintians 13? Yes, American Christians have been taught that God’s law is all about things we can’t do, and warnings / threats etched on cold, hard, rock. Hardly. I can’t tell you enough how much joy I find in applying God’s word to my life and the freedom that it gives me from the old way of bondage to ignorance. Yes Lord–teach me how to think, teach me how to pray, and tell me what to do. Experiencing the difference between the old ways and the new ways–it would seem, shows us more and more what we were saved from.
paul
> —–Original Message—– >
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Training in righteousness can be easy or hard. Depending on how you look at it. It sure doesn’t seem possible that it’s “more blessed to give than to recieve.” Or that diligence is actually the easy way: “The way of the sluggard is blocked with thorns, but the path of the upright is a highway (PV 15:19).” Resisting temptation is hard in our areas of weakness.
I must confess, after 1.5 years of GS/Sonship sermons I really got lazy and flippant about “the righteous life that God desires (Ja 1:20).” I could see others were slipping too. I eventually became sure that it was not in conformity with the gospel and the chief end of man. GS/Sonship is “ON TILT” and “OFF BALANCE” when it comes to the goal of Christian life, which is to be like Christ, the image of God.
Through the GS/Sonship errors I have learned so much. It forced me to “Be careful how you hear” and careful who you hang out with. One thing the Lord showed me that is very important is “motive.” The Pharisees knew there was a God but didn’t know Him on an intimate basis (not born again). They made every human effort to do what was written on tablets of stone thinking it made them righteous. Well, we can see their motives were never to please God. It’s the same with unbelievers who are civilized and law abiding. The motive is always to benefit themselves or somebody other than their source of existence – the True God. God asks, “was it really for me that you fasted (Zech 7:5)?” and “the Lord searches the heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts (1Chron 28:9).” All our acts should be directed toward God. True Sonship puts us at great advantage when it comes to pleasing God. How can pagans be better than Christians in the eyes of God? This is why “without faith it is impossible to please God.” Apparently, Keller and others do not understand this.
Arkansas Bill
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“I must confess, after 1.5 years of GS/Sonship sermons I really got lazy and flippant about “the righteous life that God desires (Ja 1:20).” I could see others were slipping too” yep–ditto. With me it was more like 5 years. Everyone knew there was something different about the preaching, but they didn’t know what.Several people left because the preaching changed, but I wasn’t going to leave until I knew why. Then there was denial as well–the elders of said church are highly respected in reformed circles–it was just really hard to believe they bought into that stuff.I kept saying: “no, this isn’t happening.”
> —–Original Message—– >
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Hate to be the odd man out again, but there is a difference between “no rules” and “mere rules.” An adherence to “mere rules” is legalism; an insistence that there are “no rules” is libertineism. But, even at that, rules don’t bring about biblical sanctification. Biblical sanctification will bring us into conformity with certain rules, but the rules will not effect it.
If rules could have made people holy, the Israelites should have been the holiest people on earth. But Paul wrote that God’s name was blasphemed among them, even though they knew the Law well and could even sit in judgment on others.
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Randy, Orthadox Christians have never said that the law in and of itself sanctifies–that’s a classic NC straw man, and an either/or false premise (it’s either law or Spirit and can’t be both). We believe the Holy Spirit sanctifies as he aids us in walking the pathway of kingdom living paved by the law. This is Gerry’s complaint againt you–your deceptiveness as learned from the NC crowd.
> —–Original Message—– >
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Reblogged this on Clearcreek Chapel Watch.
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Yeh- the Holy Spirit!!! Yes, this is what NC do NOT understand. We are to freely come to the throne of God; Jesus Christ is our High Priest. The Holy Spirit aids us in our time of need. I tell you this what is not widely known because we have been bamboozled by “church doctrine” to believe we are in it all alone, yet then we can’t do anything. What a crock! God loves our active obedience and in that the Holy Spirit is an active agent in changing the person. When we do struggle with a certain sin (and we all do) we AS PART OF OBEDIENCE are to cry out to God; trust in Him to do all that we ask and He will do it. The tricky part is patience- this is where the average American has a really hard time. We are a quick fix nation; when things do not happen right away, we leave the hand of our Savior and stop trusting. This is where we then slip back into disobedience and distrust or we then put our trust in men who will gladly take your burden and make “hay” out of it.
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I realize that this is a snarky comment, but: Maybe their hatred of rules extends to laws concerning reporting child abuse. They were too busy wildly loving God to follow relevant biblical rules, let alone mere secular laws, which are way beneath them. I realize that none of these guys were, as far as we know, pastoring churches that hid child abuse. But they had the ears of those who did (particularly Piper), and apparently said nothing. We know, at least, that some of them didn’t mind visiting their churches and sharing the speaking platform with them.
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Interesting how all four men teach works for salvation, by believing that every verse in the Bible is about salvation/getting eternal life. Thus they have to flush all commands of the Lord (commands which lead to growth, and that is why you rarely see growth in adherents of NC), and instead of commands of the Lord, they have to hope that they are part of the “elect” that will automatically see all these changes occur in them.
It’s one giant web of garbage that ignores the Bible entirely.
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Yep, when just. and sanc. are fused together, EVERYTHING IS A WORK.
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“DA Carson: “In this broken world, it is not easy to promote holiness without succumbing to mere moralism; it is not easy to fight worldliness without giving in to a life that is constrained by mere rules.”
I am trying to figure out why personal moralism is a bad thing. You gotta wonder what they are teaching their kids.
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Personal moralism is a bad thing because it is objective. Unity is the issue, and we can have Plato’s social justice defined by unity if we agree that only the gospel is objective and life is subjective. Notice that the Anchored conference is hosted by the “Arizona chapter of T4G.” Doesn’t anybody see what’s going on here? An institution will ALWAYS evolve into an animal of politics and dominion.
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One thing to consider here when we are all talking about “keeping the law” or “living a righteous christian life”. The point that I’ve heard from all the mentioned pastors above (Chan, Carson, Piper, Tchividjian) is not a low view of the law, but instead a very high view of the law. What do I mean by that? It means, can I look honestly into my own vile heart and ask myself if I can keep just one of Jesus’ commands (Law) perfectly all the time in thought, deed and action. For example “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48 Have I ever completely and perfectly kept that command in my life? The answer must be an astounding NO! I am incapable of keeping that command since I am still stuck in this sinful body until I go home to be with the Lord. A low view of that command (Law) would give me the impression that I can somehow slowly but surely attain being perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect. But instead, I’ll rest in fact that I am made perfect by the imputation that the perfect Christ gave to me on the cross, not in my keeping the law and becoming righteous which is impossible until I go home to be with Him. And that’s just one of the many many perfect commands that Christ gave. All of God’s law is absolutely perfect, not try harder suggestions. Think of the ten commandments, think of the rich young ruler etc. and you get a glimpse of just how perfect God’s law is and just how incapable of keeping even just one of them perfectly would be. And so keeping a high view of the law is stating what Jesus did for us and not what we can do for Jesus. It’s from the flow of Grace that our christian living will come and I believe that christian living is slowly becoming more and more like Paul, that at the end of his ministry he realized just how desperate and vile he actually was in calling himself the chief of sinners while at the same time placing all my trust and all of who I am in Christ alone. That to me is what sanctification is. Not becoming a better and better person, but instead relying more and more on the perfection of what Jesus did for me.
God bless brothers!
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Matt,
What yo have articulated here is a false gospel. You believe in a false gospel, and I believe you are correct in saying that Chan et al stand with you. I wouldn’t be so fast in calling me “brother” because i stand in doubt of you. Of course Chan et al take a high view of the law–they believe, as you have stated here, that the law must be fulfilled for justification. That is NOT justification APART from the law–who keeps it isn’t the point–there is NO law that can give life. LOVE fulfills the whole law in the same way that one act of disobedience violates the law on all points. But we are not under law, we are under the law of liberty that works through love apart from the law for justification. Calvinism keeps “Christians” “under law,” hence we have to live by faith alone without works of love so that Christ’s obedience will continue to satisfy the law–this is a false gospel, and your soul is in peril.
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