Words Mean Things
Paul,
You have raised many issues in the last post that would take a book to answer. If I may, I would like to ask a few questions that might help us to clarify the issues on which we disagree. First, I want to state a couple of points on which I think we agree. Incidentally, I am convinced Piper and others would also agree.
1. Justification and sanctification are separate works of God.
2. Justification is based on the work of Christ alone and our works do not contribute to it at all.
3. Sanctification involves our obedience to the commands of Christ.
4, Our obedience to Christ contributes to our assurance since obedience demonstrates the reality of our faith.
Questions:
1. Is it possible for a professing Christian to be deceived?
2. Can a person who has professed faith in Christ but whose faith is not genuine, continue to rest in his good deeds to justify him before God?
3. Can the works he believes he is performing in the process of sanctification become a snare for him so that he continues to trust in his own works rather than trusting in the finished work of Christ?
4, Do such persons need exhortation to avoid “falling from the grace of God” as Paul did in Galatians?
5. If a person should return to a system of legal obedience and thus forsake the way of grace, would we not agree that such a person was never truly justified?
6. Do you believe faith is something we profess once and sort of get that part of it over with and then everything else is accomplished apart from faith, or does the believer go on believing in Christ for life? If his faith doesn’t continue, how can he be pleasing to God, since without faith it is impossible to please him?
7. Have you never known anyone who gave the clear impression that their obedience in sanctification had become their basis of hope for justification? Do you not think such people need to be exhorted to trust in Christ alone and not in anything of their own obedience, i.e., not to trust their own efforts but Christ alone?
8. Do you see not difference between telling a person not to trust his own performance in sanctification and telling him he doesn’t need to obey in the process of sanctification?.
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Submitted on 2011/12/08 at 11:49 am | In reply to gracewriterrandy.
Randy, 1. Separate works, but the same thing. Sanctification, or what they call “progressive sanctification” because they lie all the time, is “justification in action.” Both are justification, but one is a legal declaration, and the other is “the power of the gospel.” That’s what all neo-antinomians believe. 2. First, justification is not by Christ ALONE. If God didn’t elect Christ, elect the elect, and draw them to Christ, along with with sacrificing His only Son, what Christ did would have been for naught. So, justification is not by Christ alone. 3. That’s NOT what New Calvinists believe. They believe that Christ obeys for us. This is well documented in the book, chapter 13. 4. Right. 100% true. 1. Professing? Or genuine? You don’t clarify. 2. Such a person has a wrong view of salvation. How they experience their false profession is not relevant and has no bearing on a theological discussion. 3. No, because it’s not really sanctification. Like New Calvinists, he believes the two are one and he must contribute to maintaining his just standing before God. New Calvinists also believe the two are one, but rightly conclude that there is no way we can maintain our just standing before God. That’s why their daddy, Robert Brinsmead, came up with a theological system where Jesus obeys for us. Graeme Goldsworthy supplied the necessary hermeneutic for the system, Jon Zens helped with how the Law related to the system, and Geoffrey Paxton was the promoter and wrote most of the articles in their theological journal. 4. Yes, in regard to justification, but NOT sanctification. The notion that the first four chapters of Galatians is about sanctification is an antinomian lie. 5. Legal obedience? This is the view that people can sincerely, truthfully, and correctly apply the word of God to their lives, but for the purpose of maintaining their just standing before God. This model is a biblical anomaly. Works salvation, as described in the Bible, ALWAYS involves rituals and standards that are the “traditions and precepts of men.” I reject the premise of your question because it is biblically unfounded. When people are really saved, they have been given a love for the truth, and that’s why they seek to apply it to their life correctly. Therefore, true obedience for the sake of maintaining the legal declaration is an oxymoron. But of course, New Calvinists continually present this type of model in their teachings because they lie all the time about almost everything. 6. Here, you are employing the either/or communication technique. Faith is EITHER all about the Christ/gospel that saved us, OR all about other things that don’t require faith. It’s either/or, faith can only refer to the gospel that saved us. No, faith applies to other realms within sanctification that please God. 7. Again, you present the oxymoronic biblical aonomaly of people presenting true obedience to God in kingdom living for the purpose of maintaining their just standing before God. Unsaved people can have no such desire for the truth. That’s why works salvation always presents an unbiblical standard or ritual. 8. I have a problem with the use of the word “trust” in your question. Again, you employ the EITHER/OR communication technique. The only “trust” there can be in sanctification is EITHER trust in our performance, OR trust in the gospel/works of Christ. In sanctification, it’s trust in the word of God which results in our performance. Also, as Christians in sanctification, we don’t “obey a PROCESS.” We “observe all that I have commanded you.” If Christ meant to say, “teaching them to observe all of the gospel and my personhood,” that’s what He would have said. |
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
Paul,
Would you suggest that at some point we Christians stop believing the gospel that saved us?
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“Paul,
Would you suggest that at some point we Christians stop believing the gospel that saved us?”
Classic: The summation of faith is gospel only. To move on to anything else in sanctification is to leave our faith behind with the gospel, leaving only law. To do anything else is to “leap from the imperative to obedience.” The “process” is Gospel Contemplationism which results in obedience “flowing naturaly” from the gospel. Aint gunna buy it Randy.
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You could at least try to answer the question.
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You have answered nothing. Just give me straight forward answers. Begin by telling me if there is a time in the Christian life when believers stop trusting Jesus as Savior. Then explain to me the difference between the faith that is necessary and the faith that is necessary for the rest of the Christian life. Of course, I am assuming the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews was talking about faith in Christ when he wrote, “Looking unto Jesus, the author and FINISHER of our faith. . . .”
By the way, I am assuming you have read Vos and Ridderbos and are prepared to enter into an in-depth discussion of their writings. I would be interested in knowing what particular parts of their writings you have th most trouble with.
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Paul,
You wrote, “Unsaved people can have no such desire for the truth. That’s why works salvation always presents an unbiblical standard or ritual.” It seems to me that Paul, in Philippians 3, describes his efforts at attaining a right standing before God. Much of what he wrote involved pursuing a biblical standard “as touching the law” “concerning the righteousness that is in the Law” and biblical ritual “circumcised the eighth day.” I agree that unsaved people have no desire for truth, but many unsaved people are going about to establish their own righteousness and are refusing to submit themselves to God’s righteousness. People need to be continually reminded that our hope is not in our faith or our obedience or anything else we wish to put in the place of the one and only Savior of sinners. Our hope is in the Lord.
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“Would you suggest that at some point we Christians stop believing the gospel that saved us?”
Randy, this is so drilled into your head, you cannot see how ridiculous this is? Why would obeying Christ’s commands in scripture AFTER we have been Justified and during sanctification mean we stop believing the Gospel that saved us?
We are saved. The Good News has been heard and we repent and believe (Jesus’ first sermon!). We go on to run the race (sanctification) and obey the teaching of the NT.
If I go with your model, the epistles never need to have been written which are chocked full of instructions, counsel, rebukes, etc, for believers and the Body of Christ. We could stop at the Gospels according to NC.
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Sorry for the moderating delay gang, rough day at the office here in Bowling Green.
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Lydia,
As usual, you have made unwarranted assumptions about my position. Whether we should obey Christ’s commands in Scripture is not the issue. The issue is a return to trusting in such obedience as the basis of our acceptance with God. True believers will not do that, but there are those within the professing Church with a legal bent who are in danger of trusting the evidences of faith rather than the object of faith. If we are truly justified, there is no difficulty in obeying all the instructions, counsel, rebukes etc. since the truly justified will render such obedience looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.
My question is a simple one. Would you suggest that at some point we Christians stop believing the gospel that saved us? My answer to the question is that biblical faith is not like a snapshot but like a video. Evangelicals have become so accustomed to thinking of faith as a decision one makes in an evangelistic meeting that we have lost the biblical concept of faith as a life long response to God’s revealed truth. It is the nature of faith that it perseveres in its reliance on God’s promises. It isn’t something we do and then move on.
This is not NC; it is clearly revealed biblical truth. J. C. Ryle, who ministered and wrote during the 19th (Somehow I think it unlikely that he was a New Calvinist) penned the following words.
““(3) For another thing, if we would be sanctified, our course is clear and plain—we must begin with Christ. We must go to Him as sinners, with no plea but that of utter need, and cast our souls on Him by faith for peace and reconciliation with God. We must place ourselves in His hands, as in the hands of a good physician and cry to him for mercy and grace. We must wait for nothing to bring with us as a recommendation. The very first step towards sanctification, no less than justification, is to come with faith to Christ. We must first live and then work.
(4) For another thing, if we would grow in holiness and become more sanctified, we must continually go on as we began, and ever be making fresh applications to Christ. He is the head from which every member must be supplied (Ephes. iv.16.) To live the life of daily faith in the Son of God, and to be daily drawing out of His fulness the promised grace and strength which He has laid up for His people—this is the grand secret of progressive sanctification” 40-41”
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I just ran across the following from a guy named Robert Traill who wrote the following in 1696. Surely he must have been a New Calvinist.
“And simple as the old remedy for thirst may appear, it is the root of the inward life of all God’s greatest servants in all ages. What have the saints and martyrs been in every era of Church history, but men who came to Christ daily by faith, and found “His flesh meat indeed and His blood drink indeed?” (John vi. 55.) What have they all been but men who lived the life of faith in the Son of God, and drank daily out of the fulness there is in Him? (Gal. ii. 20.) Here, at all events, the truest and best Christians, who have made a mark on the world, have been of one mind. Holy Fathers and Reformers, holy Anglican divines and Puritans, holy Episcopalians and Nonconformists, have all in their best moments borne uniform testimony to the value of the Fountain of life. Separated and contentious as they may sometimes have been in their lives, in their deaths they have not been divided. In their last struggle with the king of terrors they have simply clung to the cross of Christ, Robert Traill’s works, 1696. Vol.I, 266-269.
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Ya, I see the “Centrality of the Object Gospel” and denial of the new birth all over that statement.
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You haven’t yet showed me anyone who denies regeneration in NC
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Their “regeneration” is “Christ formation.” As we contemplate Christ, He is formed in our still totally depraved, unregenerate souls. They don’t deny anything, like cults, they attach different meanings to orthodox terms.
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Paul,
Could you give me an example of a statement in which they say we are still “totally depraved?” Totally depraved people can’t even choose to believe the gospel. How could anyone talk about a believer who is totally depraved? Additionally, can you give an example of a statement in which they define regeneration as you have here?
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Randy,
For now, I have to go, but see if you think that what I am saying could be surmised from today’s post.
paul
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No, it clearly cannot. To say that my best obedience in sanctification cannot satisfy the demands of God’s justice is simply reality. Of course, we may please God as our heavenly Father through Christ, but that is a far cry from satisfying the demands of God’s justice (Talking about God’s justice views him as an unbending judge not as our Father). One of the old hymn-writers said it as follows,
The best obedience of my hands
Dares not appear before thy throne,
But faith can answer Thy demands,
By pleading what my Lord has done.
Talking about the “total depravity” of the saints is vastly different from saying our best works in sanctification cannot bear the weight of God’s justice.
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Randy,
Justification has already been completely satisfied. Our obedience doesn’t belong in a sentence with the word “justification” in it. People who constantly use those two words in the same sentence have something up their sleeve.
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