Paul's Passing Thoughts

The Apostle Paul spent his whole ministry fighting a doctrine of salvation exactly like Protestantism. Paul was primarily an opponent of justification by law. Clearly, Protestantism defines righteousness as perfect law-keeping. That’s not a righteousness apart from the law (Romans 3:21). Protestantism gets cute with its justification by law, deceptively calling it, “justification by faith,” by claiming that Jesus kept the law perfectly and through faith alone his perfect law-keeping is imputed to our Christian life in order to keep us saved. This is the doctrine of “Double Imputation.” But you see, who keeps the law is not the point; the point is the law period. In Protestantism, perfect law-keeping defines righteousness, and again, that’s not a righteousness apart from the law.

Also note that in Protestantism’s primary doctrine of salvation, double imputation, Jesus’ perfect law-keeping must be imputed to sanctification in order to complete salvation. Therefore, to deny that the logical conclusion of double imputation is a progression of salvation is nonsensical. Furthermore, if salvation is not finished during the life of a “believer,” the so-called believer must do something or NOT do something with intentionality in order to stay saved. Abstaining from something, like an attempt at good works, is doing something. This is where the traditions of men come up with formulas to impute Jesus’ perfect law-keeping to the Christian life. This is exactly what the Pharisees were guilty of, and Protestantism is just another version of the same thing. The whole idea that men want to try to justify themselves through perfect law-keeping is not something the Bible even addresses, it’s a pink elephant. Justification by the law is really defined by the replacement of God’s law with the traditions of men.

God’s law has two definitions in the Bible and two definitions ONLY: One; a law that can only condemn, or a “ministry of death,” and two; the use of the law to inform love towards God and others. The whole concept of men trying to earn salvation through perfect law-keeping with antinomianism being the so-called antitheses is a false and deceptive idea. In reality, and according to the Bible, justification by the law is defined as antinomianism in totality. Why? Because the law of God is replaced with the traditions of men. The key to understanding this is the Holy Spirit’s two uses of the law: to condemn, and to sanctify (Romans 8:2, John 16:8, and John 17:17). Why would Jesus come to keep the law perfectly for purposes of imputation when all it can do is condemn? Also, Paul said there is no law that can give life. In the Bible, law-keeping is defined as love. Protestantism deceptively delineates between “good works” and love. While its doctrine of double imputation denies that men can do good works of any kind, on the other hand, it tells people they should go to church where people “love you.” Nay, if all of their works are as “filthy rags,” so is their love. You cannot separate love from good works. If you can’t do a good work, neither can you love. But, the following can also be noted: they do couch the language in things like, “Come to church where you will find the love of God.” Note that it is God’s love, and not necessarily the love of the parishioners. Get it? Yes, when you get into how Protestantism applies double imputation to real life, you must consider realm manifestation; the idea that God’s love is only experienced by people, but not performed by them. Some Protestant scholars are fond of saying that “sanctification is done TO you, not BY you.” Get it? This is a concept that Americans have a hard time getting their minds around because we are not taught world philosophy growing up in school. Protestantism uses this ignorance to deliberately deceive parishioners by allowing them to assume what things mean while manipulating them into functioning according to salvation through church membership.

In a nutshell, double imputation teaches that Christ died to pay the penalty of our past imperfect law-keeping, and presently imputes his perfect law-keeping to our lives in order to keep us saved IF we partake in the “ordinary means of grace [ordinary means of salvation]” found only at church. What are those ordinary means of grace? Stuff you do at church; ie., the traditions of men. This is Paul’s definition of justification by the law; loving God and others by obeying scripture is replaced with the traditions of men. Perfect obedience is not the standard; a desire to obey the whole law is a love that fulfills the law while falling short results in a loss of reward, not condemnation. Clearly, the doctrine of double imputation keeps Protestants under the law and thereby under condemnation as well.

So, if the law is not the basis of righteousness (justification), what is? Answer: the new birth (Romans chapter 6 and 1John chapter 3). The seed of God being inside of us through the new birth is what makes us righteous and nothing else. This eternal seed of God results in us loving the word of God with our human mortality being a hindrance. We are not sinners under condemnation; we have this treasure in earthen vessels and fail to love because of weakness. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. And yes indeed, Protestantism has railed against the new birth and spoken against it since its conception and declared it a false gospel. The clarion call of Protestantism decries “infused grace.” Viz, infused righteousness; viz, infused salvation. Get it? So, how does Protestantism get around the obvious scriptural claim that God’s seed is permanently within us forever? That would be the doctrine of the “Vital Union” also known as “participation in Christ.” The vital union only takes place during the vivification part of the Protestant doctrine of “Mortification and Vivification.” Now, if you are inclined to believe that few confessing Protestants even know what these doctrines are, you would be absolutely correct.

Protestantism replaces the biblical new birth with the doctrine of mortification and vivification. What is it? It is a PROCESS of perpetual re-justification and re-salvation. “Present sin,” according to John Calvin and Martin Luther, continually “removes us from grace [read, ‘salvation’].” Hence, we must “revisit our original salvation.” Going to church is really about doing the doctrine of mortification and vivification every Sunday. Few Protestants understand what church is really about, which is not commendable. What did you do to become saved? You repented. That’s the mortification part of mortification and vivification. It’s what Protestant hacks like Paul David Tripp call a “lifestyle of repentance” because you are still under condemnation and present sin removes you from grace or the loving actions of God. Grace is love in action by God or a person. Of course, the ultimate act of grace was the death of Christ on the cross.

According to this doctrine, once we repent and confess our sins to God, we EXPERIENCE another new birth which is a temporary union with Christ that is a re-visitation of the joy experienced in our original salvation. This is the vivification part of mortification and vivification and is stoked by church music. Biblically, the new birth is a onetime and for all-time transformation into new creaturehood that cancels the condemnation of the law. The goal of the real Christian is to gain and not lose eternal rewards; the goal of a Protestant is to worship at the alter of traditions and beg to keep their salvation. Of course, Catholicism is little different as well but more honest about the fact.

This is why Protestantism calls justification a mere “legal declaration.” Pray tell; how is a legal declaration a righteousness apart from the law? According to the Bible, saved people are righteous as a state of being because they have the life of God infused into them. Protestantism claims that this is the same as “having as righteousness of our own.” But if salvation is a free gift from God, does the receiver not take ownership of the gift? If righteousness is a gift, but we don’t possess it, how was it ever a gift?

The apostle Paul railed against those who promoted sin so “grace may abound.” But this is exactly what the doctrine of mortification and vivification does. Sin is the supply side of Protestantism’s salvific supply and demand. Without ample sin, the cross is made smaller. The more sin, the more salvation. The more repentance, the more joy that is experienced in the re-visitation of salvation.

Paul also said that love does not rejoice in evil, but this is exactly what Protestantism proffers: mortification results in the joy of vivification. Martin Luther argued that a focus on repentance and the sin under the sin would not lead to depression but the joy of vivification.

Paul said that we were saved so that we could put sin to death in the body. That would put Protestantism out of business. The goal of Protestantism is to make salvation bigger by finding more and more sin.

Protestantism is a mockery of Pauline theology while claiming Paul as its primary doctor of soteriology. Likewise, demons present themselves as angels of light and Protestants, like the Pharisees, will travel land and sea to make people twice the children of hell that they are. That’s what justification by the law does.

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