The New Calvinist Mega-Lie: Obedience and Truth are Separate
“Therefore, Christians don’t obey for the purpose of maintaining our just standard; it is a finished work by Christ that needs no further maintenance. We obey for other reasons….”
Have you ever noticed? The Scriptures NEVER call “obedience” works salvation. We are never told that people are trying to earn their way into heaven through “obedience.” Obedience, in the Scriptures, is ALWAYS associated with the truthful application of God’s word to our lives in how we think and what we do. It is the truthful application of our role in sanctification which is putting off the old self and putting on the new creature (Ephesians 4:20-24). In the Scriptures, truth is always assumed in obedience.
This is New Calvinism’s greatest deception, the idea that one can sincerely seek to apply God’s word to their lives in a truthful way, and at the same time do so to maintain a just standing before God without realizing they are doing so. This invokes a dependance on them, a don’t try sanctification at home mentality. Though they claim that obedience is motivated by fear within the evangelical community, their sanctification formula propagates an unfounded fear that obedience is nothing more than works salvation, in and of itself. The fact of the matter is that works salvation is always based on falsehood.
Unlike the Bible, New Calvinists don’t associate obedience with truth, a love for the truth, and faith. They separate the two, specifically by separating “law” and “gospel.” Law is obedience, whether practiced in truth or not, and gospel is truth. There are many examples of this, but here is the best one I have seen of late:
This is fundamentally no different than Islam! The Gospel offers us freedom from our sin-stained hearts and our obedience-stained garments and bids us rest in the finished work of Christ which is better than us being better!!!” (Jean F. Larroux, III, Green Grass of Grace Southwood blog).
Notice: obedience is obedience whether it is Christian or Islam. Truth isn’t the issue. But the apostle Paul clearly unites the two:
They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:19-24).
Obviously, Paul is calling on Christians to learn truth, and put off what we learn to put off, and put on what we learn that is to be put on. The Bible calls this “obedience” when it is done as biblically prescribed. If I tell my son to take the trash out to the curb, but instead he leaves it halfway down the driveway, that’s not obedience. Unless you’re a New Calvinist. With them, truthful obedience is neither here nor there because it is impossible for Christians to accomplish anyway:
The bad news is far worse than making mistakes or failing to live up to the legalistic standards of fundamentalism. It is that the best efforts of the best Christians, on the best days, in the best frame of heart and mind, with the best motives fall short of the true righteousness and holiness that God requires [notice that there is no distinction between this sentence and the one prior (legalistic standards verses true righteousness)]. Our best efforts cannot satisfy God’s justice. Yet the good news is that God has satisfied his own justice and reconciled us to himself through the life, death, and resurrection of his Son. God’s holy law can no longer condemn us because we are in Christ (Michael Horton, Christless Christianity p. 91).
It is also extremely important here to notice the crux of New Calvinist error in this statement; specifically, the supposed need to maintain justification: “….the best motives fall short of the true righteousness and holiness that God requires…. Our best efforts cannot satisfy God’s justice.” But in sanctification, God no longer requires a just standard to maintain salvation, that has already been accomplished as a finished work. God no longer “requires” perfection that maintains our just standing. Therefore, Christians don’t obey for the purpose of maintaining our just standard/standing; it is a finished work by Christ that needs no further maintenance. We obey for other reasons—to glorify God, to experience the reality of our new birth, to show others the abundant life, and to destroy evil works, to name just a few. And also, our God-given love for the truth compels us to apply it to our lives.
Therefore, New Calvinism fuses what shouldn’t be fused and separates what shouldn’t be separated, turning orthodoxy completely upside down. They fuse justification and sanctification, and separate obedience from truth, while fictitiously calling obedience “law” (whether Christian or Islamic), and encapsulating truth in the “gospel” which is supposedly distinct from “law.” But what would we know about the gospel apart from Scripture? Christ said man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Wouldn’t that include the law? Paul told Timothy that we are fully equipped for every good work by ALL Scripture. Wouldn’t that also include the law?
This fusing of what shouldn’t be fused and separating what shouldn’t be separated is the basis of their Gospel Contemplationism. Law (any effort to obey, whether according to the truth or not) is separate from gospel and impossible for us to obey perfectly in order to maintain a salvation that doesn’t need to be maintained to begin with. The formula? Contemplation on the truth that results in a “Christ formation” within totally depraved, dead jars of clay. Doubt that? reread Larroux’s quote; our hearts are sin stained as well as any obedience we may perform.
The truth: we are declared righteous and are righteous, though hindered by the flesh. Though our striving falls short of perfection, we know that can’t affect our righteous standing that has already been declared based on the finished work of Christ. And that cannot be revoked. As we strive, we also long for the day when we can obey our Lord perfectly without hindrance. So like Paul, we cry out, “who will deliver me from this body of death?”
Our striving creates that thirst, experiencing both the blessings of that truth and the failures that prevent the full experience. Peter states clearly that we are to strive for a “rich entry,“ not the beggarly entry that comes from let go and let God theology.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
I am seriously concerned about attending any NC church because they do not have to be obedient to the Word after they are saved. That tells me they are not safe. Just like the seekers were not safe because sinning is no big deal..just continual mistakes….. and expected continually and even willfully after salvation.
Where are the people who become New Creations in Christ and strive for Holiness?
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Anon,
Sounds like you have been reading Hebrews.
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If “believers” are vile enemies of God, they are not believers. It is just that the term “totally depraved” means that ever aspect of a sinners has been radically affected by sin so that he is not able to think right thoughts about God, feel right emotions toward God, or make right decisions concerning spiritual things. For example, Paul, the Apostle, writes, “the natural man does not welcome the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him, neither is he able to know them because they are discerned by means of the Spirit.” That would mean that a person in a state of sinful nature cannot [cannot because he will not] believe in Jesus Christ. Now if a person is a believer, that would mean he is no longer “totally depraved.” otherwise, he would not have believed. It is difficult for me to believe that any informed Calvinist, old or new, would talk about “totally depraved believers.” To date, you have not shown me a single quotation in which anyone said that. Perhaps you can also tell me who said believers are “vile enemies of God.” If someone said that, they are clearly wrong. I just want to see who said it and where. I don’t think that is too much to ask.
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Paul,
I am sorry but I am not sure what the premise of that question that you don’t want to answer is. Perhaps, you could explain to me why you don’t wish to answer such a simple, straight forward question. For you, justification is salvation, or salvation is more than merely being forgiven. Can you think of another option? A or B? It is that simple.
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“It isn’t that people have complicated the gospel unnecessarily, but that 20th Century evangelicalism has treated it so simplistically that any doctrine that requires any thought whatsoever is now though to be complex”
Randy, Your slip is showing. This is one of the biggest problems…you WANT it to be complicated. But it has to pass the ignorant Romanian peasant test…… Can they understand the truth?.
You want it to be complicated because deep down inside you have no where to go if people get it. They won’t need you. (That is what i am hearing from most of your comments and most of what I see coming out of the NC movement and it is a shame. On the other hand, the whole crusade/seeker movement brought us many false converts)\
. and it all boils down to when we are saved, we are to strive for Holiness. Yes, we are a part of that. We can choose to sin or not sin. According to NC we are still totally depraved after salvation and can do nothing
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Paul,
I am confident citing Heb 2:2 with all the funny numbers has meaning for you. I am personally mystified. If you are trying to show that everyone who sinned under the Old Covenant got what was rightly coming to them, I probably already knew that. Those who sinned under that covenant died without mercy upon the testimony of two or three witnesses. What I fail to understand is what it has to do with anything we are discussing. The point of that verse is that neglect of or disobedience to the new covenant requires greater punishment than disobedience to or transgression of the Mosaic Law.
I am sure you would be delighted if I stopped challenging your outlandish statements. That way, spout your ideas without fear of contradiction. I have always observed that anyone who speaks the truth delights in being challenged. The truth can bear scrutiny. Error likes to exclude anyone who might disagree. If you are tired of being challenged, stop making reckless statements that will not stand the scrutiny of Scripture.
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I didn’t say where you answered ONE of my questions. I am talking about answering the particular question I asked here.
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Paul,
Could you please release my comments to Heather from purgatory?
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Randy,
Still looking. Which post?
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Lydia,
Please read what I say and don’t read into what I say. Heather accused Calvinist, New Calvinist etc of “complicating” Christianity with their teachings. I simply said that her version of Christianity is simplistic and it is. That doesn’t mean that peasants can’t understand the teachings of the NT if they apply themselves to studying them. John Bunyan was a tinker who understood a vast amount of Theology. Most of the people I have taught have not been theologians but ordinary people who loved the Scriptures. Do people need teaching shepherds? Yes. If you say they don’t, then I guess you are second guessing the Lord of the Church who gave them to his people to equip them for the work of ministry. If you would like to show me where I said the New Testament is too complicated for peasants to understand we can deal with that statement then. The problem is, I didn’t say that and you are a false accuser.
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Lydia,
Paul seems unwilling to show me a quote from a NC that says believers are totally depraved. Perhaps you can show me one. I have known lots of “new Calvinists” in another sense. By that I mean people who have freshly discovered some things that Calvinists believe and make brash statements about the rest that many times are not true. I don’t know these guys you are talking about. It may well be that some of them are saying things they don’t truly understand. If they understood the term “Totally Depraved” they would know believers cannot be TD. If one of the leaders of the movement said that I would be really surprised. It would be nice to see an actual quote though.
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Anon.
Have you been told by a New Calvinist that you don’t have to be obedient to the Word of God after conversion, or is that just an assumption on your part? There is a vast difference between being told that my conduct has nothing to do with whether God will accept me and being told that once accepted I am not expected to conduct myself in line with what he has accomplished for me in accepting me. It is at just this point we either retain or lose the gospel. It is a razor thin edge we must walk. If, on the one hand, we give the slightest impression that our works of obedience to Christ in sanctification form any part of the basis of our right standing before God, we have lost the gospel to legalism. If, on the other hand, we give the impression that believers may go on living in sin so that grace may overflow, we have lost the gospel to licentiousness. Either way, we have lost the gospel. Jesus died to save his people not only from the penalty of our sins, but also from the reigning power of our sins.
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