I haven’t digested the whole negotiation between you and Randy but . . . how to say this nicely . . .? Never mind . . . i’ll be blunt. I think it is a fools errand.
Randy does what every Calvinist on the planet does: deems their subjective understanding as the final definition of Orthodox (read bible) doctrine. So he can at once claim to defend “true” Christianity aka Calvinism while flat dismissing any doctrine he doesn’t happen to believe.
This is the exact same intellectual two step we see in Piper and all the other Calvinist big dogs. They want to make a wholesale claim to authority while maintaining the right to intellectual independence. They frame their existence as defenders of pure doctrine while reserving the freedom to dismiss any idea they don’t accept.
This is exact same fraud we see detailed in Randy’s comments.
This has ONE result. No matter how often you peg Randy into a Calvinist corner he will waive the magic wand of his whim and side step the issue because HE doesn’t believe that. He is not intellectually accountable to any objective standard. No matter how many scriptures you stack in service to illustrating progressive justification he will never concede. No matter how many times you quote Calvin, or Luther or any of the Neo Cal luminaries to illustrate the doctrinal error endemic to the protestant house of cards he will pretend they are some fringe inconsequential distributors of non essential doctrines. (which has pretty much been the rhetorical theme above)
The root issue is . . . Randy accepts no “proof” because he needs no proof. He accepts no definitions other than his own because his mind is the doctrinal plumb line. HE presumes that he understand everything bible correctly and . . . you don’t.
His real doctrinal commitment has nothing to do with orthodoxy, or Calvinism or any of the other pretense.
(Any Calvinist that can honestly parse pervasive depravity to mean anything but the whole of human flesh being evil should have his reformed theology membership card immediately revoked. There can be nothing more theologically vacant and intellectually pretentious.)
anyway . . . His singular rational standard his HIS subjective doctrinal assumptions. He reserves the sole right to determine what is “biblical.”
I’ve said this before but it bears repeating. You can NEVER out authority a Calvinist because they recognize no authority but their own.
Now Paul . . . Barney on occasion had some good things for Sheriff Andy. If nothing else he was good for comedy relief. LOL
Look, if all Randy has is to parse out the meaning of “exact” and he is the standard bearer for all things Protestant Christianity . . . we are winning.
I am intellectually accountable to one objective standard and one objective standard alone. That standard is the Word of God interpreted according to widely accepted principles of interpretation. It is that standard I intend to rely on.
So Randy, you would disagree with the who’s who of NCT that ALL Scripture must be interpreted through the “Spirit of the gospel.” That every verse speaks about Christ and his works, and that every verse must point to Christ. Do you reject the Christocentric hermeneutic?
You do know that we don’t define words subjectively but by observing their usage, don’t you? In order to understand what a biblical word/phrase means, we observe how a Greek word e.g., was used in Classical Greek, the LXX, Common Greek of the first century, and from the NT usage in various contexts. There is hardly anything subjective about that is there?
You are spot on John…he is even denying that he is a Reformed Protestant at this point so that he can disarm me from the vast amount of citations and data concerning our contentions against Protestantism. Someone texted me this afternoon and pretty much stated what you have said here as well almost word for word.
Read the thread Paul. I told you up front that I will be arguing from a NCT position, not a Reformed position. You agreed to the topic and the topic said not a word about anything Reformed. The doctrine I am defending was taught long before there was anything to reform.
You agreed to the topic and that after I had stated that I would not be arguing from a classic Reformed position. I guess you are either going to have to base your argument on Scripture or you are going to have to cancel the debate. I am not going to be impressed with any quotations from the Reformers nor will I even attempt to answer your questions about them in the Rebuttal segment. It was your idea not to have a cross examination segment, not mine.
“Scripture”? You mean Christocentric interpretation or are you now denying that as well? Not a problem Randy, I have a solution for your little games and look forward to debating you.
I am a little amazed that a person who advocates his own love as the ground of his justification before God can be so nasty and unloving. I guess you are going to need a lot of love to cover that multitude of sins. I am not playing any games. I am simply referring you back to what we both agreed on re: the debate.
Also, behold his deception: his claim of objective Bible interpretation is the Christocentric hermeneutic which is clearly not an exegetical approach to Scripture. Also, his challenge to me was predicated on this post to begin with, BUT now he is denying that he is a Reformed Protestant.
Now you are accusing me of deception? Your manifestion of “Love” is overwhelming. It was not my challenge. I was accepting your challenge. The post was about the Protestant doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ. It is that doctrine I intend to defend. I don’t need to defend all Protestant doctrine or even refer to Protestant doctrine to do that.
No need to postpone the debate. I am in fine health. I just don’t know where you got the idea that I would be defending Protestant doctrine. The doctrine I am defending was taught long before there was anything to protest. I don’t intend to spend a split second defending anything Calvin, Luther or any Protestant document has stated. We hardly have time to even introduce relevant issues, much less argue over what fallible men have written.
So you are denying that Justification by the righteousness of Christ alone is a Protestant doctrine? Is that what you are saying? And you are also saying that you are not a Reformed Protestant? Is that what you are saying?
Talk about logical blunders. That is a huge one. Perhaps you need to read the threat as well as John. You will find that I said two days ago that I will not be arguing from a classic Reformed position but from a NCT position. I have never considered myself a Protestant. I am a Credo-Baptist.
Do you really believe that because all cattle eat grass, everything that eats grass would be considered cattle? If my dog eats grass, should I milk it?
That is your logical blunder Paul. Your misconception is that because Reformers believe in the imputed righteous of Christ as the basis of justification before God, everyone who believes that doctrine must be a Protestant.
So, you have come to the positions that you now hold strictly according to your own private Bible study and then you stumbled across all of this Protestant stuff later on in life. LOL! Whatever. Then why did you bother going to Westminster?
Paul, You do know that I had been in the pastoral ministry for around 30 years before I ever attended Westminster don’t you? Paul, it is all there clearly spelled out in the Scriptures. You don’t need the Reformers to see it. All you need it the Holy Spirit.
Of course, justification by the righteousness of Christ alone is a Protestant doctrine. Is it also a Baptist doctrine? Yes. Was it taught before the Protestant Reformation? Yes. Must I subscribe to everything any Protestant has ever written in order to believe it? Not a chance.
You wrote, “So you don’t understand my position? Is that what you are saying?” Yes, that is precisely what I am saying. You and Andy are both self-contradictory. In one sentence you state that there is no law, therefore Christians cannot sin.
Since under grace the law is love’s standard, Christians fail to love, but they don’t sin. How does the Bible define the word, “sin”? It is an act that eternally condemns. “ALL” sin is against the law, and where there is no law there is no sin. Failure to love as Christians can bring chastisement and “Judgement begins in the household of faith.” Chastisement can be particularly severe for those who use God’s grace as a cloak for unrighteousness.
Then you state “the new birth sets us free to aggressively love ACCORDING TO THE LAW.”
You wrote, “The new birth set us free to aggressively love according to the law without fear of condemnation. It set us free to serve the law without being condemned by it. Do Christians sin? Well, notice…”law of SIN and death.” Those who sin are under law and that’s why it is called the “law of s-i-n.” Not complicated. You are either under law or under grace.”
And you make these statements without any indication whatsoever about in what sense you are talking about law. Can you not see how that might be a bit difficult to understand. Does law exist or not? You have made two contradictory statements and you expect me to understand your position? I don’t think you understand your position.
You make the law as a standard for love the law of condemnation. Hence, one failure to love violates the whole law but that is only true for those under law. For those under grace the opposite is true. Your argument is common except for the fact that love fulfills the law and “covers a multitude of sins.” This can also be illustrated by reward or wages depending what master you are under: Christ or Sin; under law or under grace. One can only earn wages of death, and the other can only earn wages of life. Each earns one or the other according to more or less sin or service of love. See Romans 6. That’s what isn’t complicated, not your one-sided argument that doesn’t explain how love fulfills the law, or how love covers sin.
You wrote, “Any Calvinist that can honestly parse pervasive depravity to mean anything but the whole of human flesh being evil should have his reformed theology membership card immediately revoked. There can be nothing more theologically vacant and intellectually pretentious.)”
Though evil is not necessarily a word I would use for the flesh, I would not deny that “flesh” as Paul used the term is completely averse [hostile] to God. Contrary to your “understanding” of the term flesh, neither Paul nor we use the term to refer to the material as opposed to the spiritual as the Gnostics did, for example. If that were the meaning, Christ would have been evil since he was in a body of flesh. If you are going to accuse us, at least learn what we believe well enough to state it accurately.
Perhaps you should take a quick course in logic before the debate so you will be able to follow. How would you ever get the idea from anything I have said that I deny the doctrine of double imputation?
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
Paul, Sigh . . .
I haven’t digested the whole negotiation between you and Randy but . . . how to say this nicely . . .? Never mind . . . i’ll be blunt. I think it is a fools errand.
Randy does what every Calvinist on the planet does: deems their subjective understanding as the final definition of Orthodox (read bible) doctrine. So he can at once claim to defend “true” Christianity aka Calvinism while flat dismissing any doctrine he doesn’t happen to believe.
This is the exact same intellectual two step we see in Piper and all the other Calvinist big dogs. They want to make a wholesale claim to authority while maintaining the right to intellectual independence. They frame their existence as defenders of pure doctrine while reserving the freedom to dismiss any idea they don’t accept.
This is exact same fraud we see detailed in Randy’s comments.
This has ONE result. No matter how often you peg Randy into a Calvinist corner he will waive the magic wand of his whim and side step the issue because HE doesn’t believe that. He is not intellectually accountable to any objective standard. No matter how many scriptures you stack in service to illustrating progressive justification he will never concede. No matter how many times you quote Calvin, or Luther or any of the Neo Cal luminaries to illustrate the doctrinal error endemic to the protestant house of cards he will pretend they are some fringe inconsequential distributors of non essential doctrines. (which has pretty much been the rhetorical theme above)
The root issue is . . . Randy accepts no “proof” because he needs no proof. He accepts no definitions other than his own because his mind is the doctrinal plumb line. HE presumes that he understand everything bible correctly and . . . you don’t.
His real doctrinal commitment has nothing to do with orthodoxy, or Calvinism or any of the other pretense.
(Any Calvinist that can honestly parse pervasive depravity to mean anything but the whole of human flesh being evil should have his reformed theology membership card immediately revoked. There can be nothing more theologically vacant and intellectually pretentious.)
anyway . . . His singular rational standard his HIS subjective doctrinal assumptions. He reserves the sole right to determine what is “biblical.”
I’ve said this before but it bears repeating. You can NEVER out authority a Calvinist because they recognize no authority but their own.
soooo…. good luck with this Paul.
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“exact same” is redundant. If it isn’t “exact” it isn’t the “same;” it is similar.
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Randy, frankly, you correcting John Immel is like Barney Fife correcting Albert Einstein. It’s an embarrassing absurdity.
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Now Paul . . . Barney on occasion had some good things for Sheriff Andy. If nothing else he was good for comedy relief. LOL
Look, if all Randy has is to parse out the meaning of “exact” and he is the standard bearer for all things Protestant Christianity . . . we are winning.
yee hawwwww!
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John,
I am intellectually accountable to one objective standard and one objective standard alone. That standard is the Word of God interpreted according to widely accepted principles of interpretation. It is that standard I intend to rely on.
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So Randy, you would disagree with the who’s who of NCT that ALL Scripture must be interpreted through the “Spirit of the gospel.” That every verse speaks about Christ and his works, and that every verse must point to Christ. Do you reject the Christocentric hermeneutic?
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Paul,
I don’t know anyone who would claim that every verse speaks about Christ and his works. Perhaps you can quote someone who makes such a claim.
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John,
You do know that we don’t define words subjectively but by observing their usage, don’t you? In order to understand what a biblical word/phrase means, we observe how a Greek word e.g., was used in Classical Greek, the LXX, Common Greek of the first century, and from the NT usage in various contexts. There is hardly anything subjective about that is there?
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You are spot on John…he is even denying that he is a Reformed Protestant at this point so that he can disarm me from the vast amount of citations and data concerning our contentions against Protestantism. Someone texted me this afternoon and pretty much stated what you have said here as well almost word for word.
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Read the thread Paul. I told you up front that I will be arguing from a NCT position, not a Reformed position. You agreed to the topic and the topic said not a word about anything Reformed. The doctrine I am defending was taught long before there was anything to reform.
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Paul,
You agreed to the topic and that after I had stated that I would not be arguing from a classic Reformed position. I guess you are either going to have to base your argument on Scripture or you are going to have to cancel the debate. I am not going to be impressed with any quotations from the Reformers nor will I even attempt to answer your questions about them in the Rebuttal segment. It was your idea not to have a cross examination segment, not mine.
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“Scripture”? You mean Christocentric interpretation or are you now denying that as well? Not a problem Randy, I have a solution for your little games and look forward to debating you.
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Chat do you mean my “Christocentric interpretation?”
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I am a little amazed that a person who advocates his own love as the ground of his justification before God can be so nasty and unloving. I guess you are going to need a lot of love to cover that multitude of sins. I am not playing any games. I am simply referring you back to what we both agreed on re: the debate.
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Also, behold his deception: his claim of objective Bible interpretation is the Christocentric hermeneutic which is clearly not an exegetical approach to Scripture. Also, his challenge to me was predicated on this post to begin with, BUT now he is denying that he is a Reformed Protestant.
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Now you are accusing me of deception? Your manifestion of “Love” is overwhelming. It was not my challenge. I was accepting your challenge. The post was about the Protestant doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ. It is that doctrine I intend to defend. I don’t need to defend all Protestant doctrine or even refer to Protestant doctrine to do that.
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Paul,
No need to postpone the debate. I am in fine health. I just don’t know where you got the idea that I would be defending Protestant doctrine. The doctrine I am defending was taught long before there was anything to protest. I don’t intend to spend a split second defending anything Calvin, Luther or any Protestant document has stated. We hardly have time to even introduce relevant issues, much less argue over what fallible men have written.
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So you are denying that Justification by the righteousness of Christ alone is a Protestant doctrine? Is that what you are saying? And you are also saying that you are not a Reformed Protestant? Is that what you are saying?
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Talk about logical blunders. That is a huge one. Perhaps you need to read the threat as well as John. You will find that I said two days ago that I will not be arguing from a classic Reformed position but from a NCT position. I have never considered myself a Protestant. I am a Credo-Baptist.
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Paul,
Do you really believe that because all cattle eat grass, everything that eats grass would be considered cattle? If my dog eats grass, should I milk it?
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Huh?
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That is your logical blunder Paul. Your misconception is that because Reformers believe in the imputed righteous of Christ as the basis of justification before God, everyone who believes that doctrine must be a Protestant.
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So where did you get the belief from prior to reading the Protestants?
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Paul, I read the Bible.
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So, you have come to the positions that you now hold strictly according to your own private Bible study and then you stumbled across all of this Protestant stuff later on in life. LOL! Whatever. Then why did you bother going to Westminster?
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Paul, You do know that I had been in the pastoral ministry for around 30 years before I ever attended Westminster don’t you? Paul, it is all there clearly spelled out in the Scriptures. You don’t need the Reformers to see it. All you need it the Holy Spirit.
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Of course, justification by the righteousness of Christ alone is a Protestant doctrine. Is it also a Baptist doctrine? Yes. Was it taught before the Protestant Reformation? Yes. Must I subscribe to everything any Protestant has ever written in order to believe it? Not a chance.
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So are you denying double imputation?
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Paul,
You wrote, “So you don’t understand my position? Is that what you are saying?” Yes, that is precisely what I am saying. You and Andy are both self-contradictory. In one sentence you state that there is no law, therefore Christians cannot sin.
Since under grace the law is love’s standard, Christians fail to love, but they don’t sin. How does the Bible define the word, “sin”? It is an act that eternally condemns. “ALL” sin is against the law, and where there is no law there is no sin. Failure to love as Christians can bring chastisement and “Judgement begins in the household of faith.” Chastisement can be particularly severe for those who use God’s grace as a cloak for unrighteousness.
Then you state “the new birth sets us free to aggressively love ACCORDING TO THE LAW.”
You wrote, “The new birth set us free to aggressively love according to the law without fear of condemnation. It set us free to serve the law without being condemned by it. Do Christians sin? Well, notice…”law of SIN and death.” Those who sin are under law and that’s why it is called the “law of s-i-n.” Not complicated. You are either under law or under grace.”
And you make these statements without any indication whatsoever about in what sense you are talking about law. Can you not see how that might be a bit difficult to understand. Does law exist or not? You have made two contradictory statements and you expect me to understand your position? I don’t think you understand your position.
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You make the law as a standard for love the law of condemnation. Hence, one failure to love violates the whole law but that is only true for those under law. For those under grace the opposite is true. Your argument is common except for the fact that love fulfills the law and “covers a multitude of sins.” This can also be illustrated by reward or wages depending what master you are under: Christ or Sin; under law or under grace. One can only earn wages of death, and the other can only earn wages of life. Each earns one or the other according to more or less sin or service of love. See Romans 6. That’s what isn’t complicated, not your one-sided argument that doesn’t explain how love fulfills the law, or how love covers sin.
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Paul,
You might want to try reading “Love covers a multitude of sins” in context. It means nothing like what you are trying to make it mean.
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Love does fulfill the law if you get it right. The problem is that none of us get it right yet.
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Love doesn’t cover sin before God, Paul.
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John,
You wrote, “Any Calvinist that can honestly parse pervasive depravity to mean anything but the whole of human flesh being evil should have his reformed theology membership card immediately revoked. There can be nothing more theologically vacant and intellectually pretentious.)”
Though evil is not necessarily a word I would use for the flesh, I would not deny that “flesh” as Paul used the term is completely averse [hostile] to God. Contrary to your “understanding” of the term flesh, neither Paul nor we use the term to refer to the material as opposed to the spiritual as the Gnostics did, for example. If that were the meaning, Christ would have been evil since he was in a body of flesh. If you are going to accuse us, at least learn what we believe well enough to state it accurately.
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(and thank you so much for proving my point . . .)
Somebody really needs to revoke your reformed theology membership card.
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I know Paul is impressed with you, but I am not. So save it.
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John,
Once you finish reading the entire “negotiation” you will have read my statement that I am not arguing from a classic Reformed position.
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Paul,
Perhaps you should take a quick course in logic before the debate so you will be able to follow. How would you ever get the idea from anything I have said that I deny the doctrine of double imputation?
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So is that a “yes” or a “no”?
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Yes or no about what?
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If you are asking me if I believe in “double imputation” according to your definition, I never have believed in it.
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Sooooo, we only have the righteousness of Christ, but there is only a single imputation. I see.
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What do you mean “a single imputation?”
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Paul,
Did you smoke a lot of weed or drink a lot when you were younger?
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I do not believe Jesus continues to obey the law for us so that we don’t have to obey.
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Of course, your definition, like most of what you believe is messed up.
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Anyway, I am really looking forward to the debate. How shall I tell my friends to tune in to it. Do they just log on to your “Radio Broadcast?”
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