Calvinism: The Manic False Gospel
Isn’t freedom wonderful? You no longer have to argue with Calvinists about election and the myriad of other orthodox distractions that they proliferate. They need to be saved, and the news gets even better: the present-day Neo-Calvinist movement has created a huge mission field white unto harvest. And many evangelical pastors are fearfully close to apostasy because of this movement as well.
Simply stated, Calvinism is a gospel of daily re-salvation. The same gospel that saved us also sanctifies us—that’s what they plainly state; “We must preach the gospel to ourselves every day.” Sanctification is a vessel for maintaining our salvation by the same way we were saved: repentance and faith alone. Perseverance is overcoming our supposed tendency to please God by our “own efforts.” Calvin and Augustine believed that sanctification is represented by the Old Testament Sabbath of rest. In the same way that the Israelites were put to death for working on the Sabbath, we will be put to spiritual death for working in sanctification.
I like to call it the Bachman-Turner Overdrive gospel; according to their hit song, “Taking Care of Business,” we must work hard at doing nothing all day in order to keep ourselves saved. Problem is, we are doing something to keep our salvation; that’s a problem. What we are doing is what the Reformers call, mortification and vivification. As we focus on a deeper and deeper understanding of our total depravity, we die as in the original baptism that saved us. This leads to another resurrection, and joy, or vivification. According to Michael Horton in his systematic theology book popular in many seminaries, this is a “subjective….daily dying and raising” and what the Reformers referred to as the “living out of our baptism….again and again.” (p. 661).
So, as with manic depression, the depression of mortification is followed by the mania of vivification.
Face it—that’s Calvinism in a nutshell. A manic false gospel.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
Reblogged this on Clearcreek Chapel Watch.
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[…] Calvinism: The Manic False Gospel. […]
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Paul, you are quite zealous, but with little knowledge of what Reformed theology is. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone. We aren’t saved over and over and our works don’t contribute to our justification. Our sanctification is God’s work with which we willingly cooperate because we are made alive in Christ and filled with his Spirit (“Having begun by the Spirit are you now being perfected by the flesh?” Gal. 3:3). Perseverance is God seeing that we do not fall from his hand; “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion…” Phil. 1:6. It’s the Arminians who believe they can lose their salvation— not the Reformed! You have confused so many things: justification with sanctification, Arminians and Calvinists; neo-Calvinists with Calvinists (i.e., Reformed); Rome believes baptism regenerates while the Reformed do not. And Horton is NOT Neo-Calvinist. And on your Clearcreek Chapel Watch site I noticed you’ve confused definitive sanctification with progressive sanctification.
Paul, you have misrepresented Reformed theology perhaps even worse than the late Mr. Hunt. I suggest you study the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms along with the Three Forms of Unity (Belgic Confession, Canons of Dort, Heidelberg Catechism. And try reading Horton’s Putting Amazing Back into Grace, And read the book of Romans through completely in one setting twenty times… and do this before any of the other. When you’ve completed all this, then maybe you’ll have something worth saying if you still want to disagree. But for the present you’ve borne false witness against a large part of the world’s Christian population and against Dr. Horton personally. You may not have done intentionally, but still you have. Peace.
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Greg,
A. You are an arrogant jerk.
B. I have forgotten more about Reformed theology than you will ever know.
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