Paul's Passing Thoughts

The church has never wavered from a single perspective on the law because it doesn’t understand the Spirit’s two uses of the law or the law’s relationship to the new birth. And frankly, this applies to most movements outside of the church as well. In this one hour live streaming video, we will explore the present-day confusion.
LIVE LINK: Jan 13, 2019 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM

Decided to salvage the live broadcast with video editing and revisions, plus connotations, and make it the first part of a series. The next parts will initially be live, and then edited to make it part of the series. The first part is below:

References:

Andy Stanley

Matt Walsh

Beth Moore

The Emergent Postmodern Church and New Calvinism

Andy Stanley is a megachurch pastor and the son of iconic Southern Baptist pastor Charles Stanley. I know many gifted teachers who are still involved in church that can’t use their God-given gift because they are divorced. But, of course, there is an exception for Charles Stanley who has had a horrible marriage for many years and as far as I know, is still presently separated from his wife. And so it goes, church just being church in so many different ways.

Let’s discuss another way church is church, not leaving any flat rock overturned in being chaotic in ways not even seen among the pagans. This week’s controversy in the midst of the church celebrity pastor super-cult is something that a pastor said in a message that is, “controversial.” Oh my. Remember, you go to church to sit under “gospel preaching” which is one of the church sacraments or “means of grace [more salvation].” And, that sacrament is oftentimes the source of ongoing church drama.

Per the usual, other “men of gawd” who have authority over us as “under-shepherds” disagree with Stanley, and hence, another controversy trends in church-land. In the same kind of Platonist hierarchal collectivism of the secular realm, we call this “war.” In the church realm it used to be war until Britain took away Puritan authority because they were hanging too many people over political and religious disagreements. However, it was too little too late and the American Revolution ensued. The rest is history. The church can no longer burn you, hang you, or drown you, they can only send you to hell. Though God is “sovereign,” due to John Calvin’s “Power of the Keys” doctrine God must accept all verdicts of the church regardless of how unjust. Being under authority is what saves you, not truth, and megachurches like that of Andy Stanley’s is the proof that people have bought into this hook, line, and sinker.

Point: more than 2000 years later, churches don’t even agree on what the gospel is. In this recent trending controversy, the who’s who of church stardom are bickering back and forth. And this doesn’t bother people? Why? Because when it gets right down to it, submission to some authority is what saves you, not the truth.

But at any rate, what’s going on here? Andy Stanley is advocating for New Covenant Theology. I think Chapter 10 of “Religious Tyranny, A Case Study” speaks to the issue well. It is copied following:

Chapter 10: Clearcreek Chapel’s Super-Charged Tyranny Via New Covenant Theology

In the previous chapter, we examined Protestantism’s law-based gospel in contrast to biblical justification APART from the law. Protestantism’s Covenant Theology is also a backdrop for this law-based gospel as well. The ground of true biblical justification is the new birth (1John, chapter 3).

In keeping with Protestantism’s law-based gospel, Covenant Theology posits the idea that Adam and Eve broke the original law covenant in the garden, and the gospel restores that original covenant. So, the gospel is all about restoring a law covenant between God and man (specifically, a “Covenant of Works”). The vast majority of Bible apologetics refutes this very idea from Genesis to Revelation. It’s almost, as it would seem, too simple; justification is APART from the law. The law is for condemning the world and sanctifying the saints, NOT justification. These are the Spirit’s two uses of the law, but the Spirit justifies through his baptism. (Galatians 3:1,2).

As discussed previously, the Australian Forum led by Adventist theologian Robert Brinsmead rediscovered the lost Protestant gospel of salvation by perpetually returning to the same gospel that saves us in order to keep ourselves saved. In this way, Protestants can claim a salvation by faith alone because the gospel saves by faith alone, but returning perpetually to the gospel to keep ourselves saved merely turns a “faith-alone” act into works. If salvation is not finished, something must be done to maintain it; however, Protestants claim that returning to the same gospel that saved us in order to eventually finish salvation doesn’t count as works because it is a faith-alone re-appropriation of the gospel. Supposedly, our work in returning to the gospel imputes the works of Christ to our account through our faith-alone works. So, Christ is the one working, not us. And of course, this faith-alone work is only effective under the auspices of the institutional church.

Another member of the core four of the Australian Forum, Jon Zens, saw a huge problem with the standard-bearing Covenant Theology. What problem did he see? Basically, the same problem described in chapter nine of this study. In response to his concern, Zens created New Covenant Theology (NCT) which was coined such circa 1981. How does that work? Instead of Christ justifying believers by keeping the law for them, Christ came to end the law completely and usher in a singular law of love.

But is that not what this book advocates as opposed to authentic Protestant orthodoxy? No.

Here is the key: NCT abrogates both biblical perspectives on the law while Covenant Theology maintains a singular perspective on the law that remains unchanged for the lost and saved both. NCT abrogates both of the Spirit’s uses of the law, and adds a third option: revelatory interpretation through the Spirit and confirmed by one’s conscience; i.e., “love.” In other words, Christ not only ended the condemnation of the law, He also ended the law’s use for love and replaced it with one single law: whatever the Spirit reveals to you when you interpret all reality through the gospel.

Let’s put some feet on this. The Bible, according to NCT, has one purpose and one purpose only: to show forth the gospel, or justification. And, all of life is to be interpreted through redemption. If the Bible is used for practical living, that’s a misuse of the Scriptures according to NCT. Guidance for practical living is to come through the elders who are experts at interpreting reality through the gospel. This is known as “Christocentric hermeneutics.”

But don’t miss the cardinal point here: elder imperatives are based on this single law of love that is unwritten and totally subjective. A mandate by the elders might totally contradict the plain sense of Scripture (grammatically), but if the elders agree on a certain course of action and their consciences are clear, that is the final word on the issue and tantamount to God Himself speaking on the issue. And, according to the single law of love.

Not only is the aforementioned Chad Bresson (a former elder at the Chapel) a charter disciple of NCT, but this is the stated Chapel theology. And, this is exactly how they function. Over, and over, and over again the Chapel elders take courses of action that totally contradict the plain grammatical sense of Scripture.

That which makes the Bible the Bible is the gospel. That which makes the Bible the Word of God is its witness to Christ. When the Spirit bears witness to our hearts of the truth of the Bible, this is an internal witness concerning the truth of the gospel. We need to be apprehended by the Spirit, who lives in the gospel, and then judge all things by that Spirit even the letter of Scripture (Chad Bresson citing Robert Brinsmead on his blog, “The Vossed World”).

[In other words, the grammatical sense of Scripture is completely irrelevant; true interpretation comes from those “apprehended by the Spirit,” viz, the church elders].

Now consider; in addition to the fundamental Protestant principles already discussed, NCT makes elders a virtual law unto themselves with their self-proclaimed stamp of approval from the Holy Spirit.

Protestant tyranny has persecuting principles in the Westminster Confession to begin with; the addition of NCT supercharges the tyranny, and what does that look like? It looks a lot like Clearcreek Chapel.

Before we move on to the final chapter, this study will add one more perspective and clarify what we have discussed so far. The Bible states two uses of the law by the Holy Spirit. He uses it to condemn the lost and to sanctify the saved as they colabor with the Spirit in loving obedience to the law minus all fear of condemnation. The Spirit’s use of the law has changed in regard to the saved because of the new birth (Romans 8:2). The Spirit justifies apart from the law; the new birth is what justifies the believer.

In Protestantism’s Covenant Theology, the law only condemns, and it is the standard for justification. Because of the law’s “righteous demands” being the standard for justification, and no person lost or saved can keep the law perfectly, the law can only condemn. Hence, Christ came to fulfill the law’s, “righteous demands.” Remember, this is the doctrine of “double imputation.” By the way, this is exactly what the apostle Paul argued against in Galatians, chapter 3. In that chapter, he argues that such a view makes the law an additional life-giving seed, but there is only ONE seed; Christ. Regardless of who obeys the law in order to fulfill its “righteous demands,” it is then the law that gives life. As Paul argues in Galatians, chapter 3, this makes the law an additional member of the Trinity.

In NCT, Christ came to end all aspects of the law…period. Granted, NCT does not make the law a life-giver like Covenant Theology and Protestantism in general. The law was “abrogated” in totality and replaced with the “law of Christ” or the “one law of love.” More like the biblical take on justification, one is justified because the law is gone—there is no law in which to judge or condemn a believer. But here is the huge problem with NCT: according to the Bible, there is no real love apart from the law in sanctification. The NCT concept is nothing new; this is why the Bible also states that one is justified by loving obedience to the law. Believers are not justified by loving obedience as cause and effect, but loving obedience shows that they have been justified through the new birth. In fact, NCT’s rejection of an objective grammatical application of the law as a means of love in the Christian life is the very biblical definition of antinomianism.

So then, it could be said that Covenant Theology necessarily relaxes the law because Jesus keeps it for us, but NCT rejects it altogether for everything. But what is the replacement? Answer: the one, single, “law of love.” What’s that? Whatever the anointed elders say it is at any given time as revealed to them by the Spirit and confirmed by a clear conscience. This is why Clearcreek Chapel is so central to this study; they not only designate NCT as their primary doctrine, this is exactly how they function.

Again, it boils down to salvation by faithfulness to the church and putting yourself “under the authority of godly men.” And what, in reality, defines a “man of God”? Answer: anyone who has the money to get a degree at a Protestant seminary or in some instances, because Protestant elitists confirm someone who may lack formal education. CJ Mahaney would be a good example of that.

Yet, there is one more angle on this that we should consider. Some in the Reformation tradition reject double imputation because of its obvious biblical contradictions, especially in the book of Hebrews. So what do they do with the law? Everything is pretty much the same as Covenant Theology, but the law is defined as a church marriage covenant with Christ. We have all heard this, right? The idea that the church is the “bride of Christ.” Hence, the law is our guide to be faithful to our marriage with Christ which also saves us. If we are not faithful to our marriage covenant with Christ, we are not saved, and again, since the church is Christ’s bride, salvation can only be obtained by faithfulness to the church and membership thereof. Sound familiar?

It’s all the same common denominator; salvation by church membership.

We continue to address this article in CT which states that church is a family metaphorically. According to the article, if we act like a family at church, it will feel more like family but it’s only a metaphor. And if we make it feel like family, rather than an “event,” more people will come into the sheep fold. As I mentioned in the last article, the idea of “event” replaces the idea that church is an institution that doles out more and more salvation via temple sacraments….which it is. For those reading the article without church spectacles, the author actually concedes that church is a place where we go to receive “sacraments.” However, most Churchians don’t stop to ask themselves what the use of these words actually mean and interpret what they hear and read through assumptions.

Consequently, we read the following in the article: “One of the most moving moments of those years was when the boy’s mother was baptized. Standing waist-high in water, she explained a little of her traumatic childhood, her years living rough, and something of the struggles of trying to hold her own family together. Her face shone and her voice clearly articulated her love for the God who had found her and welcomed her home.”

But of course, baptism is just a public confession that one has dedicated their life to Christ. That’s what we heard all of our Churchian lives. NOT. Baptismal regeneration is an official doctrine of the Protestant church. Most Protestants will vehemently deny this, but baptismal regeneration is foundational to Protestant orthodoxy. In no uncertain terms, the big three of the Protestant Reformation, Augustine, Luther, and Calvin, were no-holds-barred advocates for baptismal regeneration. While the who’s who of evangelical scholarship deny this reality, watch closely how the church functions in regard to this reality. It is denied intellectually, but confirmed in church functionality.

Then we have this: “Well, we don’t believe everything John Calvin believed.” Yes, they will actually look you straight in the eye and say this without blinking when what is being discussed is the gospel itself, and you are supposed to be stupid enough to take that as a valid answer.  At any rate, the steroidal cognitive dissonance that we are talking about is illustrated by the following video:

Church is a lie, and the other day I pondered how it also strips us of hope for others. You notice in the article that the mom had “come home to God” because she was standing in a church baptismal. I believe one can come home to God, by the way, the literal home of God, individually, without the church which is all a lie to begin with.

We have this hope: that those who have passed before us whose lives were not all that great, called out to God in a private moment before their passing. What they believe in those moments save them, not the church lie.

paul

A recent article in Christianity Today will have to be addressed even though I am really too busy to address it. Regardless of my schedule which includes returning to school in February, some deceptions are too outrageous to ignore. Also, I have decided to split up the various and sundry deceptions of the article into a series of short posts beginning with this one.

Church leaders are like Democrats; never underestimate their ability to assume people in general cannot think. In this article, CT, via some Churchian scholar, makes an argument that the church is not an institution, but a family, but not really; the article makes the distinction between “family” and “event.”

The real issue at hand is institution versus family. When the Bible speaks of the assembly of Christ being a family, how literal is that? As proponents of justification by new birth as opposed to the church gospel of justification by faith, we believe it is totally literal. Christians should function as a literal family. This is why we meet in private homes; it is a statement of our gospel and justification by new birth. When families assemble together, they don’t go to a purpose build facility. That’s an institutional concept…period.

In the usual church metaphysical slight of hand, the author even calls the biblical concept of church as family a “metaphor.”  What’s a metaphor?

a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.

So, exactly, if you do church, things go better with Coke if you treat everyone LIKE they are family, but it’s not literal. When you are here, you are [like] family as the Olive Garden commercial goes. The author is advocating for the use of a supposed metaphor to make church more like family which will make church family-like but not a real family. Par for the course.

Point: this is why the justification by faith gospel denies the new birth as literal. If God’s people as literal family is a metaphor, so is the new birth. And justification by faith does treat the new birth as a metaphor in no uncertain terms. In Protestant orthodoxy, the “new birth” only illumines the individual to see a greater need for salvation as dispensed by the church institution and NOT a literal new state of being. It’s merely illumination, not change in a person’s actual state of being.

Protestant scholars are really good at using the justification/sanctification word shell game and the whole “ground of justification” verbiage until you pose the question to them this way: “Is the Christian only declared righteous, or are they righteous as a state of being?” As in my debate with Dr. James White on a UK radio program, it’s about the only question that keeps them from running their mouths non-stop. Actually, he was ambushed by the debate as I was invited to the show as a “wildcard participant” and White was unaware of who it was going to be. He had rejected a previous offer of debate by me because, according to him, I am “low hanging fruit” and don’t possess a degree in Hebrew or Greek. However, neither did the big three of Protestantism: Augustine, Luther, and Calvin, although I think Luther might have been educated in Hebrew.

Point: in the article, the author even promotes adding family likeness to the church “sacraments.” What’s a sacrament?

(in the Christian Church) a religious ceremony or ritual regarded as imparting divine grace, such as baptism, the Eucharist and (in the Roman Catholic and many Orthodox Churches) penance and the anointing of the sick.

“Grace” is a soft term for “salvation” and indicative of church word-swapping for purposes of nuance and deception. Church sacraments are all about the continued impartation of salvation and hence, there is really NO difference in Protestantism and Catholicism. BOTH are progressive justification and the fact is irrefutable. Therefore, the continued impartation of salvation necessarily requires an institution ruled and overseen by professional “God appointed” priests.

I ran across some interesting points in the book of Hebrews yesterday. When God did use human mediators, they were always validated with outward testimonies from heaven. In these last days, God only speaks through Christ. That’s why the supposed authority of church pastors in our day has never been outwardly validated from heaven. EVERY believer is their own holy priest in their own temple which is their own bodies. Actually, not just a temple, but the Holy of Holies. Sanctification is about offering “living sacrifices” to God with the members of our body, and we only answer to Christ and no one else.

Purpose build institutional facilities deny this biblical truth wholesale. It denies the individual believer as priest and their bodies as the temple of God. Again, meeting in private homes is a gospel statement, not a preferred mode of operation. There are NO MORE offerings for sin, only “living sacrifices” for sanctification purposes; justification is a onetime finished work IN the believer priest.

In essence, church scholars are doing what they always do; they hijack the meaning of words and redefine them because if you control the definition of words, you control the perception of reality by those you seek to control.

Institutions cannot love anyone, and they cannot be a family. Nor can the use of metaphors that aren’t metaphors change that reality.

paul 

Other than following Tom Brady here and there (because of his life story, which is instructive), I no longer follow the NFL because it allows tyranny. I don’t tune into football to get politics, football is respite care from the rigors of life. Some entertainers like Reba McEntire acknowledge this no-brainer and refrain from politics while entertaining. Paying good money to be entertained and then ambushed with someone’s political views while calling you immoral because you disagree is in-your-face tyranny.

With that said, I don’t tune into football to get my religion either. Yes, I believe God is sovereign, but no, I don’t believe He predetermines the outcome of football games. In fact, while certainly aware that some games are going on, I am not sure He even tunes in. And by the way, God and I get along just fine while I can’t say for certain that He is a football fan.

So, at the end of the college football national championship game last night, church, and its silliness, was on full display. But the players and coaches are not the tyrants in this case, they unwittingly make God the tyrant.

I wanted Clemson to win. I like the true freshman quarterback because he is a Tom Brady-like story.  These are men who believe in themselves regardless of the odds and what is not supposed to be. A six-round draft pick isn’t supposed to win five Super Bowls while barely falling short of winning eight.  A true freshman, and his true freshman favorite receiver are not supposed to win a national title against the blue chip of college football. These two young men didn’t get the memo. They not only won, they gave Bama a spanking. Others should never dictate the sum and substance of your life because you alone answer for it; you alone have to live with the results.

So, I wanted to remain tuned in to watch Clemson celebrate a little. Instead, I got a typical church gospel presentation from Clemson’s head coach, and it was surprisingly long, by the way, but had all of the usual church stuff as those listening scratch their heads with the RCA doggy look on their face. Er?

Apparently, somehow, the coach knew God was watching the game in order to make sure it turned out according to His sovereign will. The coach had a typical church answer for why God wanted Clemson to win: they are a Christian team and apparently Bama isn’t. He didn’t say that outright, but it was insinuated. At any rate, logic creeps in and asks why they lost to Bama last year if such was the case. Who knows, God works in mysterious ways. Anything that is a contradiction is actually a “paradox.”

However, A more direct reason was offered by the coach: God wanted the underdog to win so that everyone would know God did it, and not the team. Hey, because the Tigers totally thumped Bama, it was obviously God that did it, not the team.

And no church gospel presentation would be complete without false humility. The coach referred to Clemson as “little ole Clemson'”  prevailing against insurmountable odds only because God intervened for reasons I guess we will never know. If you are skeptical because you think God might have bigger fish to fry than a college football game, I doubt you are very alone. This is just one more point where the church gospel never ceases to confuse; if it was all in God’s hands, and He gets the glory either way (always remember; for mysterious reasons), why was the Clemson couch continually unhinged on the sideline as if the game really did depend on human execution?

Indeed, throughout the postgame interview/gospel presentation the coach continually flip-flopped back and forth between giving God “all the glory” and attributing their success to the team effort. So, which is it? Well, if you are a Churchian, whatever you prefer at the moment. After all, truth is fluid in any given church-speak going on at any given time.

It never ceases to amaze me how I see church-speak being played out according to the ancient doctrines of the church. The questions I pose above can be answered according to those doctrines even though few Churchians have ever read them or even know of them. Because of church tradition and indoctrination, Churchians function according to these doctrines. And in this case, bless their hearts, they aren’t being the tyrants like the NFL players, they make God the tyrant.

You see, and this would be right out of Martin Luther’s Theology of the Cross (1518), If you believe that you can do any good work, and God doesn’t predetermine every human event, you are a proponent of the “Glory Story” (the glory of man) and not the “Cross Story” (the redemptive metaphysical narrative that defines all reality). So, though the coach was very happy that they won, he doesn’t want to go to hell or get struck by lightening before he goes to hell. Giving God this public recognition will prevent such because God is a god that hates the Glory Story and demands that all reality is seen through the cross according to Saint Augustine, Martin Luther, and John Calvin, the big three of church. Therefore, we can’t blame the coach too much because who wants to end up stricken with leprosy or worse?

So, Churchians kinda slip up in their excitement or mere recognition of what normal people know intuitively, but must quickly preserve their lives by sanctifying the previous Glory Story statements with the Cross Story. Their eternal existence depends on it because the church perception of God is that of a merciless tyrant demanding all the glory. While they claim to believe God is merciful and loving, their obvious fear of offending God betrays them. As a former Churchian, I can tell you that when someone says emphatically, “I didn’t do it! The Spirit did it!” you can see the fear in their eyes.

So, the flip-flopping between saying we did it and God did it is really a flip-flopping back and froth from the Glory Story to the Cross Story. If the latter is more strongly emphasized, you might see a long life, but on the other hand, God works in mysterious ways. Let’s just say giving God the glory for everything is your best shot.

The coach even alluded to the idea that many listening would probably think he was crazy. Probably not, because a lot of people go to church and hear the same doublespeak every Sunday. They might not understand the deep theology of the Heidelberg Disputation, but they do understand fire insurance.

paul