Paul's Passing Thoughts

Sure he does. “Scandalous obedience” that is. Put your hand on your spiritual wallet. JL3 is not about to settle for the customary obedience of the forefathers, the New Calvinists have something better: high octane obedience because Jesus obeys for us. Throughout the message I suffered through this morning preached on January 1 at Southwood, JL3 frames obedience as something that we watch ourselves do as spectators, and “dancing with Jesus.” Why is obedience “scandalous”? Isn’t that an oxymoron in the way of John Piper’s “Christian Hedonism”? I can answer that, and don’t miss the crux of the matter: it’s “scandalous” because it is obedience apart from the law. That’s the rub. Hence, JL3 reminds us throughout the message that scandalous obedience is “BECAUSE of scandalous grace, not the BALANCE of the two.” Straw man alert. Christians don’t attempt to balance obedience with grace—that’s impossible, grace (used in context of justification) is a finished work and separate from obedience in sanctification.

The message is the same old New Calvinist manifesto throughout. Instead of  following the text, JL3 set up an interpretive prism from which he exegetes the text (Romans 6:1-14). Through the use of compelling stories and spiritual sounding platitudes, the prism is either prison or Jesus, sin or Jesus, and either scandalous obedience that comes from scandalous grace or non-scandalous obedience that DOES NOT come from scandalous grace. If one listens very carefully, the prism JL3 sets up makes prison, sin, and liberty synonymous with law, and in contrast to Jesus/grace. In other words, though subtle, he sets up a distinct dichotomy between Christ and the law.

In fact, he completes the sermon with a story about a girl who turned her back on the faith because she wasn’t willing to accept radical, scandalous obedience that flows from scandalous grace which might have called her to do things she wasn’t willing to do.  Instead, she wanted an obedience that she could control, ie., a list of rules that is a balance to scandalous grace. JL3’s point to this story is clear: living by “checking off the boxes” of  a to-do list rather than letting scandalous obedience flow from scandalous grace in sanctification will cost you your very soul. Supposedly, when this girl realized this, for the first time in her life she understood the gospel well enough to reject it. This part of the message was definitely fear factor 101 and indicative of what I am constantly complaining  about—the cultish techniques employed by New Calvinists to control people. Bottom line: you either become a New Calvinist, or you are going to hell.

In his introduction, he touts this new series on scandalous obedience as being for the purpose of seeing “what it looks like to respond to the grace of God.” His opening prayer asked that we would see more of Jesus’ holiness in the Bible (while insinuating that we have none), and more of Jesus’ holiness in ourselves and others, resulting in us being “shaped” by Jesus. In both of his introductory stories about two men who sought to be put back in prison, JL3 states that Christians are just like these two men, we “share a human nature that loves sin.” This is nothing more than the New Calvinist doctrine of the objective gospel completely outside of us. God’s grace is not internalized in the believer via the new birth (therefore, we are barley any different from the unregenerate), and all of God’s holiness remains outside of us. When we contemplate the objective  gospel outside of us, it results in manifestations of sanctification that have already been secured for us in the atonement, especially obedience to the law. Moreover, JL3 used the stories in his sermon to inform the congregation of what they are asking, fearing, loving, and what they should say amen to. It’s downright creepy.

Another tenet of New Calvinism that was in this message, though very subtle, was the New Covenant Theology concept of the higher law of love which supposedly replaced the written law of God since Christ (supposedly) came to abolish it. Supposedly, since we are free from the law, we are free to love. According to my notes, at one point, JL3 asked the congregation, “Southwood, are you free to love?” Again, according to my notes, JL3 states, “A true Christian is not in bondage to his liberty, but is free to love his brother.” Liberty from what? The law. JL3 plainly states that at the end of the message and uses Romans 6:14 for a proof text. Basically, this advocates a subjective standard of love based on results of contemplating the works of Christ/gospel, which includes the fulfillment of the law for us in sanctification. Specific imperatives in the Bible are indicative of what Christ fulfilled for us as part of the atonement and should invoke thanksgiving, not a list of rules to obey. As Francis Chan said in Crazy Love, “When you are loving, it is impossible to sin.”

JL3 asked repeatedly during the message: “Is the resurrection showing up in your life?” The obvious implication was that there is only one way that resurrection power will start “showing up” in our lives, “Gospel preaching.” Throughout the message JL3 insulted the intelligence of the congregation by implying that all of what he taught in this message was proof that he is a big obedience guy. But who’s obedience? Certainly not ours. And by what standard? Certainly not the law. Like all New Calvinists, JL3 interprets Romans 6:14 in context of sanctification to make this point, but that verse is clearly referring to those who are under the dominion of sin and will be judged by the law. The New Calvinist lie that we are sanctified by justification will not stand.

Paul