The Utterly Confused John MacArthur Jr.
While proudly calling himself a Calvinist, John MacArthur teaches in the following video clip that the believer’s baptism in the Spirit only occurs once. Yet, John Calvin and the Reformers in general believed that the believer’s baptism needed to occur daily through the death of deep repentance and the resurrection of new obedience. In other words, self-depravation brings about perpetual death with Christ, followed by the fruits of resurrection expressed in joy or some kind of manifestation of Christ’s obedience. That’s “revisiting the gospel afresh” through deep repentance and new obedience. As a result, the believer supposedly receives a perpetual forgiveness for sins that maintains our justification. It’s heresy of the first order.
Astonishingly, MacArthur also states that the baptism of the Spirit should not be sought or repeated. This completely contradicts what his associates teach in regard to “preaching the gospel to ourselves every day.” The very purpose of this mantra is to advocate a continual return to the gospel in order to “experience” death and rebirth. MacArthur cohort and Reformed hack Dr. Michael Horton stated it this way in his book on systematic theology:
Progressive sanctification has two parts: mortification and vivification, “both of which happen to us by participation in Christ,” as Calvin notes….Subjectively experiencing this definitive reality signified and sealed to us in our baptism requires a daily dying and rising. That is what the Reformers meant by sanctification as a living out of our baptism….and this conversion yields lifelong mortification and vivification “again and again.” Yet it is critical to remind ourselves that in this daily human act of turning, we are always turning not only from sin but toward Christ rather than toward our own experience or piety (pp. 661-663 [Calvin Inst. 3.3.2-9]).
Luther advocated the same in Thesis 16 and 17 of his Heidelberg Confession. There, he posits the Reformed mainstay that Christians need the same grace that saved them continually, and this saving grace should be continually sought. So, baptism does not signify a onetime event, but signifies the need to continually repent in order to receive the perpetual baptism that saved us.
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
Lydia,
Yes. There is no love without relationship. And so how is it possible that God IS love if His love, because of the absence of human free volition, has no objective? One may argue that God loves Himself, but that statement has no logical meaning outside of a place where the efficacy and fruits of love can be revealed and observed as beneficial by and to another individual. If God’s love merely circles back on Himself then ultimately it is irrelevant.
I submit it is impossible to love oneself without loving others FIRST. Because without others, love cannot be revealed as…well, anything at all. Without relationship, you can’t know what love is.
The interesting thing is that, ultimately all reality comes back to the infinite SELF. All actions are in service to the self, no matter how UNselfish we are. So, the more we love others, the more love we bring back upon ourselves. There is a direct relationship. Love is selfish…it is the affirmation of YOUR life BY wholly affirming that of OTHERS. It does not exist without others, but its prosperity ultimately affirms and benifits YOU.
It is a beautiful thing.
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Hey Mom,
You certainly grasp the implications of Abolition of Ambition. And you are categorizing the outworking in each ideology correctly and seeing the dynmaic tension between each Once you see the principle it is a trivial exercise to see it in all its flavors. This is outstanding.
I’m on the road today, so I won’t be able to say much until later but I will address man as a contractual being in a bit.
John
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John,
I can tell you what the problem is. It is the same problem man has had since the beginning. It is the insatiable and indefatigable belief that abstract absolutes can be successfully merged with actual physical things, most relevantly, human beings. It is the idea that absolute ideas, be them external laws of morality or the physical laws of space, time, mathematics, etc. are really what rules the physical universe. That somehow, what is utterly mutually exclusive to physical reality is how truth is revealed in the world. Men have a constant obsession with putting absolute reality/truth OUTSIDE themselves. And if this is conceded, then only MEN can fail. The ideas are never wrong, regardless of who they come from (Calvin, Marx, Kant, et al.) because it is almost automatically conceded that it is the abstract absolutes which govern. We see it all the time. I mean, look at the heavy reliance physicists place on things they affirm are real and yet cannot be ascribed any tangible physical value at all…space and time; all physics is predicated that these things which cannot possibly be real or measured actually exist.
It all started when man conceded that there was good OUTSIDE of himself. Once man affirmed that truth could have nothing to do with his physical SELF, all hell broke loose.
Literally.
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Addendum to my last post.
And what this does is tell people that their own self worth is ultimately and perpetually subjective. That something ELSE beyond them is the only thing that is really and truly good.
So, inevitably, people hate themselves because it is only through self hatred that any “good” can be manifest. And when you realize your first divine priority is to destroy yourself, you will have little problem destroying others. For only death is good. Death is the point of life.
It is a sick, evil abstract world.
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John Immel,
Yes, if you could expound on man as a contractual being when you get a chance, I would find it helpful. I really want to make sure I understand this. I think others would benefit as well.
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“This kind of mass self imposed blindness, across so many ideologies cannot be an accident. There is something exceedingly potent at work here… There is something profoundly corrupt about American culture that has leaked into the very core of our willingness to identify the stated, the intentional, overt relationships between ideas and outcomes.”
I ran into this all the time in a different venue: Organizational development. Corporate cultures. It is a microcosm of what takes place on a larger scale in society. The majority WANT to be in denial. Ignorance is bliss. To be anything else means one must think and act. It is a way of not rocking the boat. These are the people who say, “that will never happen” and accuse others of being over the top and emotionally driven because they see the results. They are connecting dots which others either refuse to see or cannot see.
(A classic case of this is Enron and MCI)
The others in that microcosm were few in number but represent those who are see the problems and are willing to make changes (usually not the top leadership but a rung or two under) and those who actively work against it for whatever reason (turf, personal ambitions, etc, often in the top leadership).
I once read something interesting and checked it with a few other sources which I cannot remember now. But I read that during the Revolutionary War, it is thought that only about 30% of the population were actively supporting the war in some capacity. The rest were either fence sitters or pro England.
Yet, we won. Was it the force of ideas winning the day because those who loved the truth stuck with it—– because we were definitely not the stronger and more experienced army!
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Argo, Another illustration of what you are talking about might be found in the Milgram experiment:
And, The Lucifer Effect
http://www.lucifereffect.com/guide_cialdini-intro.htm
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oops, I did not realize the link would come up as a video!
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Lydia,
Excellent connection. I saw this as well. I think many people who work in corporate America are over-leveraged, living on a financial cliff, and scared for their jobs. The sad result is stifled conscience, freedom is traded for trivial/designer stuff, they are slaves to the boss/company. You have a bunch of yes men who will never rock the boat or float up an idea. Plug in and shut off brain, worth the trade-off? Cult of personalities rise to the top and run the show. True for the financial industry as well. Compensation packages for the VPs encourage short-sighted, personal-gain decision making. And companies end up imploding in the long run. It has become a numbers manipulation game (cutting expenses isn’t a long-term growth strategy) and in a down economy it falls apart. There must be innovative thinkers and innovation for a company to thrive.
The hoops and barriers to entry small businesses face are crazy.
The middle class is shrinking downward.
Mega and seeker churches patterned themselves after corporate America. There are many similarities. These churches grew, but what has been produced and at what sacrifice? Young pastors entering tiny churches are also following this growth mold. Not much difference between churches and corporations.
P.S. There are people who find themselves in a pinch due to a string of unfortunate circumstances. This comment is not about them. It’s about people who trade freedom for lifestyle.
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Man as a contractual being
Historically the assumption has been that since man interacts with other men i.e. he is “social” . . . man is made to be part of a group. While it is true that man interacts with other people he is not “Social” like animals are social. This presumption reduces man to a pack animal. He is only marginally different than dogs, fitting into a hierarchy of predefined rolls. (If you have seen my final TANK session for 2013 you will recognize the underlying roots of Collectivism within this presumption.)
Since Collectivism has been the dominant social organization man has tried to operate like a complex pack animal and history attests to its miserable failure. Collectivist cultures are notoriously oppressive and man’s quality of life is miserable because it can never encompass the full scope of individual human needs and desires let alone satisfy them.
The error is in the failure to understand how man fulfills needs and desires.
Let me summarize some fundamentals.
• Life requires action. (Something dead does not move)
• Life requires volition. (Random action cannot sustain life)
• Life requires the ability to choose values. (Should I choose hot or cold, food or poison, water or dirt)
All living organisms are making these choices—in as much as they are empowered by their anatomy and physiology to do so—every moment of its existence. The more complex the organism the greater it’s range of needs and the greater the range of its tools to satisfy those needs.
Man of course is the most complex creature with the greatest range of needs and means. The central feature of man’s means of choosing values is his cognitive faculties. While animals perceive much like man does, Man conceptualizes his sense information into abstractions that gives him a limitless capacity to organize information. And this is why man’s selection of values is vast. The choices that man must make every moment of his existence span a scope of volitional action that is enormous because those values are impacted by many, many conceptual considerations.
But for man this process of volition is NOT automatic. Man must choose to CHOOSE to employ his rational faculties. If he does not, he merely floats without purpose and soon parishes from self-neglect unless he can latch on to someone doing the work that he refuses to do. (This is most men throughout the whole of human existence)
Now the question is how does man achieve his values?
First, he must think about his values. He must define what values advance, sustain, or fulfills his life. Second he must accumulate values (resources). And third he must use his hands—his energies—craft his outcome. This process is called work.
Here is the important part. This process is exceedingly demanding and remarkably individualistic. No one else can choose values, organize rational faculties or employ energies for someone else. That must all be done by the individual.
But here Man’s limitation: Man does not have enough time to do all of the work necessary to acquire all his needs wants and desires. His greatest lever to achieve his goals is the work of other men.
Historically the solution seemed obvious: use a club and take your “need” from the guy who had it.
This of course is not a solution. The moment man is not free… the moment Man fears that the product of his work will be stolen, man quits thinking, which means he quits producing because he quits working. But this is only part of the problem. The greatest problem is the spiritual repercussions. Conquest—in all its forms—wrecks man at his most fundamental level.
We know deep down inside us that we have taken a value that we did not create. We are a little bit sickened by the fact that we did not earn what we have. We know we are a fraud. We might lie to ourselves for a while, but we know that it is all a big joke and WE are the punch line. This whole dynamic tears us up inside and it eventually destroys those who practice it with impunity.
Conversely Man’s greatest satisfaction comes from achievement: the completion of the entire process of creation to final product. Then we are proud in the most righteous sense of the word. It is this end product of creation—the culmination of the process—that we want to share with the world. The OUTCOME, the FULFILLMENT, the GRATIFICATION is what we are willing to share with the world . . .But we expect a reciprocal value for what we have created.
And now I finally get to the contractual part of man’s existence.
Our means of exchanging values is by agreement. The greater the values, the more complex the exchanges, the longer period of time that will be required to give one to another, the more detailed the covenant.
The higher the personal value the more we expect in return. The greater the work, the more specialized the commodity the more “holy” the reciprocal value must be. For man his greatest most prized possession is not measured by its specific monetary value, but by the nature of the work that it required to obtain. (Combined with the scarce resources)
The producer knows how much integrity he needed to achieve his outcome. How much perseverance he had to employ to persist through the hard times. How much honesty was required of him to judge reality correctly to successfully define his values. How much patience he needed. How much peace and joy and satisfaction that he reaped as a result. And finally he knows how much self-esteem he earned when he looks in the mirror.
And when he goes to trade that value he is damned sure that he will expect that in return. This is the essence of being a contractual being: FREELY exchanging values that have been earned with people who have earned their own values.
It is only when man is a contractual being that all sides of the value exchange are satisfied. And the volitional satisfaction of wants, needs and desires is the point of life.
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