Paul's Passing Thoughts

The apostle Paul made it clear in Galatians through His famous rhetorical question that the Spirit (the Holy Spirit) is received the same way Christ is received: BY FAITH! No Holy Spirit—no salvation. Christ Himself said, “You must be born again.” We baptize in the name of the Trinity, not Christ alone.   

 

I was emailed this morning by a “missionary” who is busy spreading the evil doctrine of New Calvinism abroad, presumably at the expense of some evangelical church in America. He considers himself a New Covenant theologian and also strongly advocates Gospel Sanctification / New Calvinism (because NCT is the covenant expression of GS). While my thoughts in regard to his email were fresh in my mind, I wanted to put them in writing because I thought it might lend clarification to others who are trying to get this problem figured out.

First his email, then my response—hope it helps.

Paul,

Do you not understand that there is a difference between saying,”the ground [or basis] of our justification is not the work of Christ in us” and saying “Regeneration is not necessary?”  There is nothing in Piper’s statement that suggests he believes regeneration is not necessary.  You are going to have to try harder if you are going to convince anyone who understands anything about theology at all.

Randy

Randy,

Piper clearly says it’s a false gospel if we (as in CHRISTIANS) emphasize it more than justification. But, that’s exactly what evangelicals do. That’s our contention. We believe that a born again Christian does in fact put a greater emphasis on our task at hand in sanctification than we do in regard to already being declared righteous POSITIONALLY. Therefore, our primary emphasis regarding justification is our duty to proclaim to people everywhere that they must be reconciled to God as one of our many tasks in sanctification. We do not believe that it is necessary to preach justification to ourselves as we are already justified (reconciled).

Now, behold your classic New Calvinist deception: You, and Piper constantly preach the gospel (justification) as the primary means for spiritual growth (which I contend that by this you mean more and more of Christ’s active obedience is being shown through our spiritually dead souls even though you call it “spiritual growth”). Since ALL “spiritual growth” must come by that means (supposedly), anything that is given the same emphasis will circumvent grace. No, you don’t deny the new birth, but here it is: you teach that the new birth is “moving on to something else” other than the gospel and therefore MAKING THE FRUIT THE ROOT which is works salvation by virtue of circumventing the works of Christ or the “historic Christ event” or Christ Himself.

Hence, when you wicked deceivers (Piper included) get cornered with the question, you can affirm the new birth and speak to the questioner in a condescending manner saying: “Where do you get it that we don’t think the new birth is necessary? We are merely saying that the fruit of salvation isn’t the ground of justification.” The victim then thinks to himself: “Well, that’s true, we don’t get saved and then keep ourselves justified by our own works in sanctification. Oh, I see now what they are saying [while a faint voice in the back of the questioner’s mind asked: ‘Why are they talking about that to a Christian audience to begin with? Besides, you can’t believe that and be saved anyway’].”  This makes what orthodox Christians don’t believe (and the fact that it goes without saying adds to the deceptive power of it) the issue because everything is interpreted through justification. In other words, anything you do in sanctification must be seen through a justification prism. In fact, one tenet of New Covenant theology states that “all reality is interpreted through Christ and the gospel.”  Therefore, there is supposedly no such thing as obedience for other reasons that are not connected to justification, but they of course don’t say that when someone is asking the question—they just let the questioner assume they are speaking of  a Christ plus works gospel which doesn’t pertain to orthodox Christians to begin with. To say that New Calvinist are not honest about their interpretive prism would be an extreme understatement.

But this clearly prevents Christians from making the new birth a priority as it should be because we are already justified. But if we do make it a priority and see it as the primary means of growth, we are “eclipsing the Son (or gospel).” Yes, you believe regeneration is “necessary” because it is Christ working through us, but if we make THE FRUIT THE ROOT—you teach it is classic Roman Catholicism and therefore a false gospel (because Catholic doctrine teaches that we have to add to Christ’s works), but working in sanctification does not equal adding to justification. Orthodox evangelicals do not interpret everything through a justification prism.

But again, this is exactly what the Scriptures call Christians to do EXCEPT you (and the rest of the New Calvinist nation) employ a false interpretive criteria to make the judgment; specifically, the much employed either/or hermeneutic. Everything is either gospel, or not gospel. The new birth is true and good, but it’s not “gospel.” Therefore, anything that doesn’t have gospel/justification as its focus is not the objective gospel; it’s subjective—it might be good and “necessary,” but it is still subjective and cannot be given the same priority. To give anything equal significance in regard to the power to transform is supposedly robbing Christ of His glory and eclipsing the gospel. So, the focus of sanctification must be what? Justification/gospel—of course. That’s why I heard a New Calvinist false teacher by the name of Russ Kennedy say, “Any separation of sanctification from justification is an abomination.” That’s because (supposedly) all of sanctification must have justification as its focus.

Also, “the ground of our justification” is nebulous and other than biblical language. Yet this is another evangelical contention. To begin with, Christ alone, I repeat, Christ alone is NOT THE “ground” (basis) of our justification ALONE. Yes, faith in Christ is “the only way to the Father,” but that is not the only “basis” of our justification. The Father planned salvation, elected, and called. The Son purchased it with His own death, and the Holy Spirit effected it. The basis of our justification is Trinitarian. I repeat, the basis of justification is TRINITARIAN. The apostle Paul made it clear in Galatians through His famous rhetorical question that the Spirit (the Holy Spirit) is received the same way Christ is received: BY FAITH! No Holy Spirit—no salvation. Christ Himself said, “You must be born again.” We baptize in the name of the Trinity, not Christ alone. Therefore, to say that the new birth is in no way part of our ground for justification is blatantly anti-biblical.   

It’s all very confusing and deceptive, but if one carefully examines Piper’s “Gospel in 6 Minutes” video, they will see what I am saying. One way the Australian Forum framed it was, “Emphasizing the new birth is making a good thing the best thing and robs Christ of His glory.”  I think my wife Susan had a good observation on that: “It could be argued that ‘glorification is the best thing.’”

paul