Paul's Passing Thoughts

This blog has always been a tool for working through the best ways to earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. For three years this blog has tested theses after theses with an open invitation to be proven wrong on every point by the New Calvinists. And no doubt, adjustments have been made. Though mostly personal attacks and the pointing out of 2-3 grammatical errors in a 2000 word post, acceptance of criticism has been key to where this ministry has come. And it has been a long, hard road. I didn’t just put up a blog and start writing, among many other preparations, I took college courses for the specific purpose of being as effective as I could be.

Some critical emails serve my purpose, and this morning, I received a New Calvinist jewel. It is a wonderful piece of Reformed talking points that exposes their egregious false gospel and the verbiage they attempt to use in the winning of an argument. The email can be addressed in order and point by point. Mighty convenient.

You would have made an excellent Pharisee. Like you, they delighted in law, instead of delighting in Christ. They searched the Scriptures because in them they thought they had eternal life, but Jesus said “they [the Old Testament Scriptures] are they that testify of me, but you do not wish to come to me that you might have life.” Then he makes the bold claim about Moses’ writings, “he wrote of me.”

First, Reformed hacks have fed on the Pharisee lie for a long time. The Pharisees were NOT “legalists” (a word that is not in the Bible), but were rank antinomians (“anomia,” a word that appears throughout the New Testament). They didn’t love the law, they loved their tradition. Christ’s specific indictment against the Pharisees was that they made the law void by integrating it with their traditions (Matthew 151-9, Mark 7:9-13).

Like you, they delighted in law, instead of delighting in Christ.

As we have seen, they DID NOT delight in the law, they delighted in their tradition. But note that although the Scriptures say Christians delight in the law (Romans 7:22), according to the Reformed false gospel, we can’t delight in the law and Christ both. To delight in the law is to delight in the law “instead” of Christ. It’s either the law or Christ—it can’t be both. This should speak for itself, and I have written extensively on the Reformed heresies that this reasoning is founded on. Primarily, Luther believed that reality could only be interpreted through one of two prisms: the cross story (the works of Christ [reality]) or the glory story (anything we do [unreality]). This can also be seen in the first tenet of New Covenant Theology which is the stream of Reformed thought that came out of the Australian Forum via Jon Zens:

New Covenant Theology insists on the priority of Jesus Christ over all things, including history, revelation, and redemption.  New Covenant Theology presumes a Christocentricity to the understanding and meaning of all reality.

It’s Gnosticism—pure and simple. Christ is the “vision of the good” and everything else is evil.

They searched the Scriptures because in them they thought they had eternal life, but Jesus said “they [the Old Testament Scriptures] are they that testify of me, but you do not wish to come to me that you might have life.” Then he makes the bold claim about Moses’ writings, “he wrote of me.”

Of course Moses wrote about Christ, but does that mean that everything in the Old Testament is about Christ only and not what he tells us to do? Part and parcel with being saved is a commitment to follow Christ by obeying the law (“follow me”). When we commit to Christ, we are recognizing that He will (after the commitment) make us slaves (douleuo) to His law (Romans 7:25). In what I call the gospel according to Moses in Exodus 21:3-8, he splatters them with blood AFTER their commitment to obey the law. Peter alluded to this event specifically in 1Peter 1:1, 2. Before the foundation of the world, and according to God’s foreknowledge and our setting apart by the Spirit, we were set apart “FOR obedience to Jesus Christ” and for “sprinkling with His blood.”

Let me be clear: we don’t do anything to be saved, but when Christ makes us new creatures, He also enslaves us to His law and enables us to obey it. Though we can’t do anything to be saved, we should know that when Christ answers our plea for salvation—He makes us His slave. We now seek to “follow” Him in obedience and love Him by keeping his commandments. I can’t state this fact better than the apostle Paul:

Romans 8:1 -There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

The Pharisees didn’t search the Scriptures for that purpose. This Calvinist, like all of them, makes the fact that they searched the Scriptures for something other than Jesus synonymous with searching the law for ways to work your way into heaven. Christ didn’t even begin to give them that much credit for being closer to the truth. He stated that they made the law of God “void” altogether. Furthermore, many Jews thought they were saved by virtue of the fact that God had appointed them as caretakers of His word. He could have just as easily been referring to that, but it is clear that Christ’s broader point was the following: while claiming to be experts on the law, they were rejecting Him who is one of the major themes of the Scriptures. The other major themes are the other two members of the Trinity.

A person would have to be spiritually blind to miss the typological relationship between the Old Testament Scriptures and the truth revealed in Christ. You are right to observe “The Bible has built-in rules for interpretation throughout.”  Not only did God reveal his truth through Jesus and  the Apostles; he also revealed to us through their example how we are to interpret  the Scriptures.

You seem to have misunderstood the nature of biblical typology.  One of the characteristics of a type is that, unlike allegory, it is based on historical fact.  We reject the allegorical method of interpretation, but fully embrace the typological pattern Jesus and the Apostle’s used and taught.  If you should try to interpret the Book of Hebrews, for example, apart from typology you would be completely at sea.  And what of John’s declaration  “Behold the Lamb of God?” and Jesus’ declaration “I am the bread of life.”   Typology is not a Greek hermeneutic; it is a biblical hermeneutic.

I don’t misunderstand the Reformed approach to “typology” at all. The following is the 6^th tenet of New Covenant Theology:

All of the Old Testament scriptures are inherently prophetic in that the entire Old Testament, the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, point forward to and anticipate the WORD Incarnate, Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:1-2). New Covenant Theology presumes that Jesus Christ, in his person and his saving acts, is the hermeneutic center of the Bible.

Then, John Piper states that our justification is maintained by meditating on those saving acts alone:

In the first image, the believer has no security or confidence that he will make it to heaven. In the second image the believer has security in the wrong place; a kind of automatic eternal security that can get you to heaven another way than by the chain of God’s saving, persevering acts revealed in Scripture.

Hence, we persevere to the end by God’s “saving” “acts” PLURAL as “revealed” in “Scripture.” It’s salvation by seeing all of Scripture as redemptive acts. Typology is needed to do this because a literal interpretation causes many problems with this approach. The whole Bible must be interpreted by “rich typology.” Meditation on the works of Christ alone in the Scriptures enables us to live by faith alone in sanctification as a means of maintaining our just standing. Again, Christ plus mediation on his works alone as found in the Scriptures to keep our salvation intact. We are doing something (meditation), and not doing something (obeying the law in sanctification) to keep our salvation. That’s a problem.

You wrote, “To take away from this construct by making the Bible a narrative rather than objective law is to drive a stake through the essence of the of the gospel.”  For you, law is the gospel.  You even stated that “Law” and “gospel” are used interchangeably.  It is true to state that on occasions the term “law” is used as a synonym for the revealed truth of God, but that is altogether different from stating that law and gospel are used interchangeably. You would have found full agreement with the Pharisees. The reality is that Law and gospel are founded on two distinctively different principles. The principle of law is “the man who does them shall live by them.”  The principle of the gospel is “the righteous shall live by faith.”  Those principles are mutually exclusive.  If it is of works, it is no longer by grace.

This statement reveals how ignorant Calvinists think the average parishioner is. “Gospel” means “good news.” All of God’s word is “good news.” This Calvinist, like all Calvinists, makes the good news of the blood synonymous with all of the good news in the Bible, and then makes it mutually exclusive from the law. The Sermon on the Mount is the “good news of the kingdom,” but Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection is not once mentioned in the sermon. The death, burial, and resurrection is the good news of “first importance” (protos 1Cor. 15:3). The word speaks of the order, or what is before what is next. We are to then add works to the foundation of our faith in sanctification (1Peter 1:5-11).

He continues:

The reality is that Law and gospel are founded on two distinctively different principles.

How can that be? We wouldn’t know anything about the gospel if it wasn’t for the law. Law isn’t just the Ten Commandments, it’s the full counsel of God (Matthew 5: 18). Instead of the law (word of God) informing us on the gospel, he makes the gospel a separate entity “founded” on a different “principle.” But we are either “under law” or “under grace.” And “under grace” DOES NOT EXCLUDE THE LAW, but in fact ENSLAVES US TO THE LAW (Romans 7:25). A Christian is also defined by his/her ability to keep the law as opposed to those who are under it (Romans 8:7,8). Furthermore, one of the primary purposes for which we were saved was so that the righteous requirement of the law could be fulfilled in us (Romans 8:4).

His erroneous Reformed position is further stated:

The principle of law is “the man who does them shall live by them.”  The principle of the gospel is “the righteous shall live by faith.”  Those principles are mutually exclusive.  If it is of works, it is no longer by grace.

This is a clear fusion of justification and sanctification by virtue of the fact that law/works and faith/grace are mutually exclusive. Law is totally separate, rather than having a different relationship to both. Hence, those “under grace” cannot be enslaved to the law which is synonymous with unregeneration. If the law is mutually exclusive—there is no gospel. A saved person is enslaved to the law.

Moreover, his statements lack a context in regard to justification and sanctification because the Reformed see them as the same thing. Hence, “The principle of law is ‘the man who does them shall live by them’”….for justification or sanctification? “The principle of the gospel is ‘the righteous shall live by faith’”….for justification or sanctification? If the Reformed answer honestly, they say, “both” because they see the two as being the same.

I have never encountered an individual who claimed to be a Christian as you do who seemed to delight so much in detracting from Christ.  There is no question the Scriptures provide us with moral principles and flesh and blood examples [usually negative examples in the OT Scriptures] of how we should live, but the Scriptures are more than a legalistic manual for life.   If you read the Scriptures and miss Christ, you have missed the heart of the biblical message.

You have often stated that we believe “every verse in the Bible is about Jesus.”  It is difficult to imagine that anyone could believe 1 Chron. 26:18 “at Parbar westward, four at the causeway, and two at Parbar” for example, could be a reference to Jesus.  Your claim, as is usual for you, twists our position.  What we do believe is that the Scriptures are not primarily a book about laws, but primarily a book about Christ. Even those passages that report the abysmal failures of prophets, priests, kings, judges, etc. point forward to him who will fulfill these offices perfectly to the glory of God.

I will conclude with the simple truth that these last two paragraphs by him illustrate the Reformed, and very Gnostic Emphasis hermeneutic.

Sure, shadows are true, but to the degree that we focus on the shadows, we detract from the full life-giving powers of the sun Son. Sure, the new birth is true, but to the degree that we focus on a work that is supposedly done within us, we detract from the Son. Hence: “I have never encountered an individual who claimed to be a Christian as you do who seemed to delight so much in detracting from Christ.” Other Reformers warn of “eclipsing Christ” by emphasizing the Father and the Holy Spirit as much as Christ. In Gnostic venues, focus on the material detracts from the “vision of the good.”

Therefore, though I say they believe every verse in the Bible is about Christ to make a point, more accurately, they believe that Scriptures where Christ can’t be seen shouldn’t be “emphasized. ”  That would be a problem because Christ stated that man lives by “every word” that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4).  An example of how this incites the Reformed to approach the Bible follows:

Immediate context is vital; however this is a starting point and not an end. From the immediate context begin to think of the wider contextual range (Sentence, Paragraph, book, whole Bible). At this time, resist the temptation to utilize subsequent passages to validate the meaning or to move out from the immediate context. Remembering that all exegesis must finally be a Christocentric exegesis.

Ever wonder why everything is About Jesus in Reformed churches and the Holy Spirit and the Father are seldom mentioned?

That’s why.

paul