Paul's Passing Thoughts

“If children who have a proper view of salvation run to God, it will be from the condemnation of the law to the blessings of the law in sanctification, not grace apart from the law in both sanctification and justification.”

Tullian Tchivijian doesn’t understand the basics of salvation. This is revealed in a recent post in which he uses his late father’s demonstration of what Tullian calls “grace.” Like all New Calvinists, and for that matter, authentic Calvinists, law and grace are separated into a strict dichotomy. Because sanctification is seen as the horizontal maintenance and completion of vertical justification, the necessary separation of law and grace in justification is also extended to sanctification.

Unfortunately, this reveals an attitude about justification; specifically, that law is a standard for justification that must be maintained in sanctification. Since this is impossible for mortal Christians, law and grace must be kept separate in sanctification as it is in justification. It makes mortality and the new birth mutually exclusive because Christians still clothed in mortality don’t keep the law perfectly. Hence, according to New Calvinism, Christians must be sanctified apart from the law. That’s a huge problem because Christ stated in John 17:17 that God only sanctifies by the truth of His word. Exacerbating the problem is the confusion caused by traditional Protestant dichotomies concerning the Ten Commandments and God’s word. “Law” is a generic term for God’s full counsel contained in the Bible. This is very demonstrable, but I would mention Matthew 5:18 and 1Corithians 14:34. In both cases, more than the Ten Commandments are clearly in view.

The thesis of Tullian’s post is the idea that passive parenting demonstrates grace, while rules in parenting demonstrate law and the idea that children must earn favor with God for salvation. Tullian concludes the post with the idea that children will never return to law, but will always return to grace:

Years later he told me that he saw all those checks being cashed, but he decided not to say anything about it at the time. It didn’t happen immediately (the fruits of grace are always in the future), but that demonstration of unconditional grace was the beginning of God doing a miraculous work in my heart and life. My dad’s literal “turning of the other cheek” gave me a picture of God’s unconditional love that I couldn’t shake….

Steve Brown once said, “Children will run from law and they’ll run from grace. The ones who run from law rarely come back. But the ones who run from grace always come back. Grace draws its own back home.” I ran from grace. It drew me home.

This misrepresents law to our children in two ways. First, it denies children from experiencing the blessings of living life God’s way. This demonstrates the wisdom of God and the fact that He knows what He is talking about. Second, it implies that law and grace are mutually exclusive in justification and sanctification both. Instead of the gospel’s message concerning the different relationships to the law in justification and sanctification, it makes our relationship to the law the same in both. This is a major circumvention of the true gospel. There is no law in justification, and as unbelievers, that which is good (the law) provokes us to sin and threatens to be our judge in the end. But once born again, the law provokes us to righteousness (ROM 6:17-23, 8:3-8). “Grace” is not only unmerited salvation; it is the blessings of sanctification as well. But those blessings primarily come through the law (Matthew 7: 24, 25, James 1:25, Psalm 119). If children who have a proper view of salvation run to God, it will be from the condemnation of the law to the blessings of the law in sanctification, not grace apart from the law in both sanctification and justification.

An unmerited blessing apart from the law in sanctification shows clearly a belief that we did not receive righteousness apart from the law for our justification (ROM 3:21). “Under law” means we are enslaved to sin, provoked to sin by the law, and will be judged by the law. “Under grace” means we are enslaved to righteousness rather than sin, will not be judged by the law, and are provoked to righteousness by the law. Paul stated that his mind served the law (ROM 7:25).  

Therefore, we are still under the law according to New Calvinism because law is separated from grace in sanctification. It is still a standard for justification. No relationship to the law has been exchanged from unregenerate to regenerate.

That’s why Calvinism is a false gospel. The saved are still “under the law.”

paul