Paul's Passing Thoughts

Let me continue to voice my appreciation for the information sent by readers; that’s what this network ministry is all about— cooperation in sharing information about New Calvinism / Gospel Sanctification / Sonship Theology which are all the same thing, and hereafter: NCGSS. Information sent yesterday is the subject of this post.

This particular series is exploring the possibility that New Calvinism was born from the Australian Forum. A working hypothesis chart can be viewed in part 2 of this series

( http://wp.me/pmd7S-Gm ); Horton’s place in the theoretical history can be seen on the chart. One thing thus far is certain: the doctrines are identical. Furthermore, both movements show the same motives, and both claim to have returned to Reformed / Puritan doctrine—this is the same dominate theme / staple of both movements. Also, there is reason to believe that New Covenant Theology was conceived from Jon Zens’ association with the Forum, and he also shared their desire to find middle ground between difficult doctrines.

As I noted previously, the Australian Forum Three were Robert Brinsmead, G. Paxton, and G. Goldsworthy. Brinsmead was excommunicated from the Seventh-Day Adventist Church (SDA) which was founded by Ellen G. White. Though Brinsmead and the Forum were trying to reform SDA, the Australian Forum (hereafter AF) endorsed much of Ellen White’s teachings. In fact, Paxton was infatuated with Adventist theology and lost a teaching position because of his association with the AF. Paxton and Brinsmead also shared a rabid distaste for Charismatic theology (they would not be pleased with New Calvinism’s inclusion of Charismatics). Goldsworthy’s motives for being involved with the AF are yet unclear, but the fact that he is oftentimes quoted by New Calvinist (hereafter NC) is no accident.

The subject of this post is John Frame’s review of Michael Horton’s “Christless Christianity” sent to me by a reader. The review is full of painstaking discernment. This kind of discipline in sorting through the mystical theological world of Michael Horton is very commendable. Frame also mentions what I call Horton’s Kerryisms: “I was for it before I was against it.” Or, “I know I said ‘A,’ but let me clarify so you poor spiritual peasants don’t misunderstand my theological brilliance: I only said ‘A’ in a manner of speaking, unless you agree with ‘A.’ If you agree, I really said it, but if you disagree, I was only saying ‘A’ in a manner of speaking.”

As I was reading Frames’ review—I saw AF footprints everywhere. I will be pointing to that relationship, using Frames review while mentioning other residual issues related to NC.

Frame opens his review this way:

The title of this book is alarming, certainly by design. But the subtitle is even more so. Does it mean that the whole American church (all traditions, denominations, locations) is committed to an “alternative Gospel?” Or is it that, though part of the American church upholds the true, biblical gospel, there is within that church a movement (evidently a significant movement) to the contrary?

John, Horton is what we call a New Calvinist. They hold to the doctrine of Gospel Sanctification. As implied by the title, we are supposedly sanctified by the same gospel that saved us. In other words, we are sanctified by justification, and the contemplation thereof. As John Piper says, “beholding as a way of becoming.” John: yes! Yes! Yes! They believe anything short of monergistic substitutionary sanctification is a false gospel. That’s why Horton’s ministry is named “Modern Reformation.” Listen very carefully to Piper’s “6 Minute Gospel” video on the internet as he calls for Evangelicals everywhere who believe in our efforts in sanctification to be saved from works salvation. It’s why Tullian Tchividjian said the following:

“As I’ve said before, I once assumed (along with the vast majority of professing Christians) that the gospel was simply what non-Christians must believe in order to be saved, while afterward we advance to deeper theological waters. But I’ve come to realize that the gospel isn’t the first step in a stairway of truths, but more like the hub in a wheel of truth. As Tim Keller explains it, the gospel isn’t simply the ABCs of Christianity, but the A-through-Z. The gospel doesn’t just ignite the Christian life; it’s the fuel that keeps Christians going every day.”

These guys believe that God is using them to reform another Dark Age of distinctions between justification and sanctification. They are also very resentful—they believe that Evangelicalism has sold the church a bill of goods about salvation. This attitude can be seen in the many hostile ministry takeovers playing out across this country (of which are finally being spoken of by Ovadal, Hamilton, and others). A good example is Coral Ridge. This mentality is also identical to that of the AF Three. A good thumbnail of this doctrine / mentality can be read in Horton’s Christless Christianity:

“Where we land on these issues is perhaps the most significant factor in how we approach our own faith and practice and communicate it to the world. If not only the unregenerate but the regenerate are always dependent at every moment on the free grace of God disclosed in the gospel, then nothing can raise those who are spiritually dead or continually give life to Christ’s flock but the Spirit working through the gospel. When this happens (not just once, but every time we encounter the gospel afresh), the Spirit progressively transforms us into Christ’s image. Start with Christ (that is, the gospel) and you get sanctification in the bargain; begin with Christ and move on to something else, and you lose both.”

NO ONE has yet demanded that Horton explain this statement. And this is fact: any statement made by NC proponents that seems to contradict this statement is just that—seemingly at odds. Furthermore, in many NC Reformed Baptist churches, they practice what is called “Redemptive Church Disciple.” When a parishioner is caught in a sin, the discipline doesn’t address the sin, it focuses on the supposed fundamental problem of how the “vast majority” of evangelicals understand the gospel. Therefore, the discipline focuses on “redemption.” The sin is supposedly a mere symptom of a false gospel. Hence, the discipline focuses on converting the individual from orthodox Evangelicalism to Gospel Sanctification. The discipline goes from step to step as the victim refuses to “repent” from synergistic sanctification to a monergistic substitutionary form. Moreover, as unsuspecting evangelical married couples join Reformed churches; one spouse in a marriage may come to believe the doctrine while the other spouse doesn’t. The marriage is then deemed a mixed marriage (believer / unbeliever) by the NC leadership. I have firsthand knowledge of this, and it is one of many in regard to the dirty little secrets of NC.

What are these subtle distortions? Evidently, what Horton is concerned with is an emphasis. The metaphors of “looking away from” Christ and putting something else on “center stage” have to do with the emphasis we put on Christ.

Right. Horton got this from the AF. Though Horton or the AF affirm many tenets of orthodoxy, they also say that the tenets are irrelevant for all practical purposes. Why? Because they eclipse Christ. To talk about it is to NOT talk about Christ; therefore, “it” is error. So, truthful orthodoxy is true as long as you don’t talk about it—unless you talk about “it” in it’s Christocentric context or it’s gospel context, Or it’s context in regard to justification, or it’s context in regard to what Jesus did—not anything we do. Likewise, that is how the movement denies that we are the subjects of biblical imperatives—because “the imperative command is grounded in the indicative event.”

This is also how the AF and Horton both deny the “new birth,” or the belief that Christians are born again despite what is plainly stated in Scripture. Unless the new birth can be framed in a Christocentric context that completely eliminates us from consideration—it’s error. As long as you don’t talk about it—it’s truth, so if anyone calls them on it—they simply say that “emphasis” is the issue, not a denial of the new birth. Let me further elaborate. I wrote the following in part 4:

“This post is about NCGSS’s  total depravity of the saints—and AF’s denial of the new birth. Obviously, spiritually dead saints (as Paul Tripp teaches), and born again Christianity is a contradiction. In Present Truth Magazine (the official journal of AF doctrine), archives volume 37, article 4, Paxton (one of the AF Three) penned the article entitled “The False Gospel of the New Birth.” Present Truth  had a large readership among Reformed Baptist in the seventies, and many voiced their displeasure at the article…. Take note: Goldsworthy, one of the AF Three and the golden boy of NCGSS hermeneutics, affirmed his agreement with Paxton by footnoting the article in “Obituary for the Old Testament.”:

‘Bultmann’s existential gospel led him inevitably to a negative view of the Old Testament. And the new-birth oriented ‘Jesus-in-my-heart’ gospel of evangelicals has destroyed the Old Testament just as effectively as has nineteenth-century liberalism.^1’”

The footnote  in the same article is the following:

¹ See Geoffrey J. Paxton, ‘The False Gospel of the New Birth,’ Present Truth Magazine 7, no.3 (June 1978): 17-22.

Let me save a bunch of ink here. The premise of Paxton’s article is that since the new birth isn’t as important as focusing on Christ’s works in the gospel—the new birth is therefore not relevant. Again, it’s either / or, which characterizes and saturates NCGSS teachings. While Paxton writes, ‘We [“we” being the AF Three] are not saying that the typical evangelical approach to the new birth is an outright denial of the truth….’ he then continues to write, ‘Rather, it is the corruption of the ultimate truth. It confuses a good effect with the best cause. It puts a good fruit in place of the best root. Many who do this are good people whose Christian status and integrity we do not question. But that is the alarming thing about the newbirth craze.’”

So, the new birth is false because, “it is the corruption of the ultimate truth. It confuses a good effect with the best cause. It puts a good fruit in place of the best root.” Therefore, unless the new birth is taught without considering saintly ramifications, it eclipses Christ and becomes a false doctrine. Horton reflected this exact same maniacal approach to the new birth in:  “In the Face of God.” I will now compare Paxton’s summary quote from the aforementioned article and a quote from Horton in the book I just mentioned:

Paxton: “It robs Christ of His glory by putting the Spirit’s work in the believer above

and therefore against what Christ has done for the believer in His doing and dying.”

Horton: “Is the ‘Good News’ no longer Christ’s doing and dying, but our own’ Spirit-filled’ life?”

The above discussion casts some light on another theme of this book, one which Horton develops in many of his writings. Horton often emphasizes his view that the gospel focuses (again, note the relative term) on the “outer” rather than the “inner,” what happens outside of us, rather than what happens within us, the objective rather than the subjective. He quotes Goldsworthy,

“The pivotal point of turning in evangelical thinking which demands close attention is the change that has taken place from the Protestant emphasis on the objective facts of the gospel in history, to the medieval emphasis on the inner life. The evangelical who sees the inward transforming work of the Spirit as the key element of Christianity will soon lose contact with the historic faith and the historic gospel “(152).

Again, Horton gets this from the AF. And therefore, the quote by Goldsworthy, one of the AF Three, should come as no surprise. The AF wrote no less than 103 articles on this subject. Here is one excerpt:

“The tendency of human nature is to make the subjective aspect of Christianity the focal point of concern. This is what happened in the early church. It lost sight of the great Pauline message of justification by God’s work outside of man. Even in the teachings of the fathers of the post-apostolic church, the objective truth of justification by faith held no prominent place. More and more the church began to focus on the experience of sanctification. Indeed, justification came to be looked upon only as an initiating step at the beginning of the Christian’s life; the mighty Pauline truth about justification was subordinated to what was thought to be the higher blessing of sanctification. The focus of attention was away from the gospel to the fruit of the gospel, away from Christ’s experience to Christian experience, away from the objective to the subjective.”

This second excerpt shows why this subject was core to the AF doctrine:

“The medieval thought was man-centered, experience-centered, and subjective. The Reformation thought was Christ-centered, cross-centered, and objective.”

In these two statements from the AF—we see one of the core elements that NCGSS proponents believe connects them to the Reformation. Arrogantly, they believe that Pauline doctrine on justification was lost twice: once following the Apostolic Age; and again after the Reformation ignited by Martin Luther. Let there be no doubt—New Calvinist believe that they are the cutting edge of the second Reformation in Redemptive History, and they are taking no prisoners.

paul