Paul's Passing Thoughts

Church orthodoxy and its scholars/academics have redefined every word in the dictionary. In doing this, they play on the assumptions of parishioners to keep them in the camp until they are fully indoctrinated. No pun intended. The following meme posted by Steve Camp is an example. What is the assumption? That the objective truth being spoken of is wisdom for life and godliness, viz, wisdom for sanctification/loving God and others.

Nope, the “objective truth” being spoken of has to do with the “objective gospel experienced subjectively.” I have addressed this Gnostic doctrine in much detail in “Pictures of Calvinism” and other works.

Don’t be fooled by church. Pastors rarely mean what you think they mean by the words they use. Don’t be led to the slaughter like a dumb ox.

As God’s literal children continue to claw their way out of the Protestant Dark Age, we see that the Bible counters the exact same false doctrines of our day that tormented the first century ekklesia. Once we grasp justification by new birth as apposed to the church doctrine of justification by faith, the book of 1 John starts to make sense. Trying to understand 1 John through the prism of justification by faith leads to utter logical chaos.

However, when reading 1 John through the prism of justification by new birth, things start making sense. Seeing the justification by new birth dichotomy between law and love is the key. The new birth, the bigtime theme of first John, changes the believers relationship to the law. CLEARLY, according to justification by faith, a person’s relationship to the law does not change; that’s why Jesus has to keep it for us. That’s why their gospel is substitutionary for both sin and love. That’s why Jesus has to do all of the loving. That’s why Christ warned against “relaxing the law,” because in reality it is relaxing love.

Like justification by faith, many of that day taught that the law of God is a burden. No? During a conference Susan and I attended, we heard John Piper describe how he experiences the day when he first awakes: sin is ruthlessly clawing at him in his mind. Wow. I leaned over to Susan’s ear and said, “That’s a perfect illustration of someone who is under law.” We often hear church scholars speak of the “righteous demands of the law.” Dr. Michael Horton states often that any notion that we can keep God’s law will lead to a “despair of self-righteousness.” Getting back to Piper for a moment, his whole Christian Hedonism construct calls for joy resulting in a greater and greater awareness of our inability to keep the law. As we use the Bible to progressively realize the depths of our own evil as set against God’s holiness, we glorify God based on how different we are from our Father while thinking that we must be more like Him will lead to despair. Hence, Christian Hedonism seeks a joy based on our progressive realization of how much we needed salvation leading to a progressive “gratitude.” This increased vision and understanding is a progressive glory upon glory leading up to redemption. In the end, the level of our gratitude (resulting in joy) will determine the quality of our faith and whether or not we go up to heaven or down to hell.

And then I saw the following meme this morning:

The meme was posted by Steve Camp on Twitter as an attempt towards humor regarding differences between the Reformed and Fundamentalists. The only difference is how two parties apply under law; one relaxes it, what Christ accused the Pharisees of dong, and thereby relaxing love, and those who use it to judge others (condemnation for purposes of control).

Both miss the point of the gospel entirely. We should stop smoking because it isn’t love, not because it breaks the law of sin and death. This is why the law is a burden for those not born again: sin uses the law to create desires to break it. Then, as one partakes in the sin, the depth of desire is increased to the point that saying no is almost impossible, even in the face of dire consequences.

Why are so many famous evangelicals who had the world in the palm of their hand losing everything because of perverted sin? Answer: the gospel of justification by faith that keeps them under the power of sin. Other evangelicals do not fall because they are inclined towards different sinful desires easier to hide or even accepted among evangelicals like control-lust. Evangelicals constantly reveal their desires to control others and this is manifested in church constantly.

When those saved by justification by new birth stop doing A and start doing B because A is not love and B is, and joy comes from loving, REAL change will start taking place. This is John’s point in 1 John 5:1-5:

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God (NIV).

And what is “faith”? It is “faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6). It is no surprise that Charles Spurgeon, being a proponent of justification by faith, was indifferent to  smoking, other than it being his personal desire, because why make an effort to obey any law when the standard is perfect law-keeping? Listen folks, this is Protestant orthodoxy: people cannot obey the law because every human act is tainted by sin and falls short of perfect law-keeping. Since the law is a burden that cannot be endured by anyone, why bother with making an effort to keep any of it? Suuuuuuure, the law of God speaks against homosexuality, but so what? Nobody can keep the law anyway, so they are welcome in the church; if they overcome their homosexuality it is a manifestation of  Christ’s righteousness and not a “righteousness of our own” anyway. But hence, just one more debate in the church adding to its endless drama due to the confusion flowing from justification by faith.

When a truly born again believer starts focusing on doing things because those things are love, not the condemnation of the law, the sinful desire is stripped of its power to enslave and real change is far more likely. CONDEMNATION is sin’s power; that’s what the Bible says. If people are still under the condemnation of the law, and the only righteousness we have is an “alien righteousness” completely outside of the believer that we can only perceive internally (the Protestant definition of faith), we, ourselves, do not love, and have no real power over sin.

Why do you think church looks the way it does in our day? Joy comes from pondering and seeing the depths of our depravity resulting in deeper gratitude for our salvation. What do you think “praise and worship” at church is all about, and listen to the lyrics of these songs; it is all about your sin as set against Jesus’ holiness. While this is not particularly the doctrine of sinning more that grace may abound, it merely assumes the presence of abundant sin is already present. So, rather than making a point to perform the act, you instead sit under “gospel preaching” that enables you to see the sin that is already there and consequently more grace.

Come now, be honest, you hear this in church constantly.

paul

Dear Phil,

Recently in a Twitter conversation, you stated,

Truly, I am not trying to confuse people, but only trying to help Calvinists to understand what Calvin taught because there seems to be a lot of confusion among Calvinists about that. Aside from the fact that there are one, two, three, four, and five-point Calvinists, even the five-pointers are in disagreement about what constitutes justification. Also, please consider that you guys, as God’s soteriological authorities on earth, and “ordained by God to save His people from ignorance,” have had over 500 years to figure this out. That is, the gospel. I am just a humble pilgrim who has actually read the Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion, which John Piper has said is too long to read. So, hey, I am just trying to do the work here.

In a conversation with John Piper, he said that he was dedicated to the whole Calvinist scheme including final justification. But when I started talking about things that are in the Calvin Institutes; specifically, Calvin’s temporary election construct, Piper then asserted that he only holds to the five points of Calvinism. However, the five points are predicated on Calvin’s three classifications of elect; one of them being the temporary elect (the called) versus the permanent elect (those who persevere). The temporary class, according to Calvin, are also temporarily illumined. Do you see what I mean here? I just want to help.

At some Shepherds Conference, I think 2009, your boss ambushed everyone with the idea that stuff like Amillennialism is inconsistent with Calvin’s election. If Israel is elected, how could sin disqualify them in regard to anything? This caused a pretty big kerfuffle among the Calvinists, but actually, the idea of Israel being temporarily elected fits perfectly with Calvin’s five points. See, even your boss is confused, and as I said, I really just want to help.

I should make it clear that I am not the least bit confused about what salvation is. It is a desire to be recreated in the likeness of our Father and calling on the Lord and His Spirit to baptize us in the Lord’s death and resurrection. This not only changes our relationship to the law, but makes us righteous and justified as a state of being. The new birth does not merely impart an ability to perceive our deserved condemnation that no longer exists, it changes our true status from “sinner” to one of holiness. We are not only declared just, we are just. If God’s seed is IN us, and it is, if we are saved, we are sealed by the Spirit until the day of redemption. By the way, redemption is not the saving of the soul which is finished and completed by the new birth.

Hence, our relationship to sin and law is changed, and we are literally holy as our Father is holy. This is an irrevocable one-time event. One cannot be unborn. Our assurance stands in the fact that there is no longer any law to condemn us, and our sins are ended, not merely covered. This is justification by new birth, a justification APART from the law, and not justification by faith alone because someone kept the law in our stead. Who keeps/kept the law is not the point, a justification APART from the law is the point. The law of sin and death cannot give life even if someone kept it perfectly. Furthermore, Jesus did not ratify a covenant that was already ratified by promise hundreds of years before the law. Nevertheless, we are not saying there is no law in grace, we are saying it is a different relationship to the law distinguished between the old man that died with Christ and the new man resurrected with Christ. This is the Spirit’s two uses of the law that did not require Christ to keep the law of sin and death perfectly. Nor do real Christians need a covering from it presently.

Obviously, if some are temporarily elected, assurance is impossible, unless we discuss Calvin’s power of the keys. Whatever elders bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you guys loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. So, if you guys like someone, and think him or her saved, according to Calvin, they are saved. And frankly, according to you as well and stated often. This is the significance of church discipline; if you excommunicate someone, their salvation is taken away. Supposedly. If you deny someone the Lord’s Table, you are denying the “means of grace” (the means of salvation). My point here? One can elect God’s election by being faithful to the church. That’s why you guys make salvation synonymous with church membership. But again, the best way, if not the only way, for a Protestant to be assured of salvation is to choose God’s election through faithfulness to the church and being an elder lackey. John Piper and Kevin DeYoung endorsed this idea in a video they did together.

Also, regarding church membership, let’s not forget what Calvin and Luther both taught about water baptism by a “lawful minister of the gospel.” Water baptism is what makes you a legitimate church member where only the “means of grace” (salvation) can be obtained. Not only that, water baptism, according to Calvin and Luther, has a perpetual cleansing effect as long as one remains faithful to the church, viz, that being defined by obeying the dictates of the church elders. Phil, you are totally in the right business, and the massive infrastructure of the church certainly indicates that. Nothing sells like eternal salvation albeit institutional salvation.

Calvinists also disagree on whether or not there is a “final justification,” because that would make justification a “process,” and you believe that only the new birth (salvation) is a process. Apparently, it is a really long labor process. This is where we must ask, “Is Calvin, or the Calvinists right?” Or, which Calvinists are right about Calvin? If it is acceptable that Calvinists differ to this degree, does that mean Calvinists don’t have to be right about anything? I hope not, because after all, the Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon, said that Calvinism is not merely a nickname, but the very gospel itself. Whoa!

So, since Calvinism is the gospel, I suggest we go by what Calvin actually wrote, which many Calvinists like John Piper don’t read because it’s too much reading. He complained to me that the Calvin Institutes are over 1000 pages if I remember correctly. I wonder what John Piper’s collective writings would be?

On this differing between elements of salvation, which I apparently don’t understand, Calvin  wrote the following: there are two justifications that differ, which you apparently don’t understand, but that’s ok because Calvinists differ on a bunch of stuff…they even differ with Calvin.

First, we note the title of the most prominent work Calvin  did on Justification: “The Beginning of Justification. In what Sense Progressive.” Note that justification has a “beginning.” Even your boss said, “If sanctification is included in justification, the justification is a process, not an event. That makes justification progressive, not complete.” But Calvin stated that justification has a beginning, which necessarily demands a finishing or an end, and then states that it is, in fact, progressive. Now, just in case someone wants to trifle about the difference between a process and a progression, note that your boss links the two words in his statement. While the accusation I hear often is: “You are just quibbling over semantics,” let’s remember that I am doing so as a result of being accused of conflating theological terms in order to deliberately confuse people.

I need to pause here to clarify why this issue with justification is a big deal. CLEARLY, the Protestant Reformation advocated a salvation that is progressive and keeps so-called believers under the law of sin and death, what YOU call “the righteous demands of the law,” with salvation being a covering of sin and not an ending of sin resulting in a denial of the biblical new birth. In order to cover for that, a distinction is made between justification and salvation while making sanctification a salvation process. Hence, mindless terminally that justification and sanctification are “distinct, but never separate.” This enables the church to give a wink and a node to once-saved-always- saved to prevent the herd from being spooked. The real endgame is institutional salvation by being faithful to church regardless of its rotten fruits and steroidal cognitive dissonance.

Perhaps Calvin was more straightforward in regard to progressive justification because in his day church was not a choice and Augustine believed that people were saved by church even if compelled by the sword. Now that people are free to choose, are Calvin’s original teachings thrown into confusion by the necessity of nuance to hide what the Protestant hierarchy really believes?

But in furthering the point at hand, you are not only wrong about Calvin’s distinction between sanctification and justification, but seem unaware that he made a distinction in justification with another type of justification. Calvin taught that there is a beginning justification, that is, a legal declaration, but also a PROCESS that justifies the works that flow from sanctification. Supposedly, justification is a legal declaration, but also, each work that flows from sanctification must be declared righteous as well.

But now since after such great progress, he is still said to be justified by faith, it thence easily appears that the saints are justified freely even unto death. I confess, indeed, that after the faithful are born again by the Spirit of God, the method of justifying differs, in some respect, from the former. For God reconciles to himself those who are born only of the flesh, and who are destitute of all good; and since he finds nothing in them except a dreadful mass of evils, he counts them just, by imputation. But those to whom he has imparted the Spirit of holiness and righteousness, he embraces with his gifts. Nevertheless, in order that their good works may please God, it is necessary that these works themselves should be justified by gratuitous imputation; but some evil is always inherent in them. Meanwhile, however, this is a settled point, that men are justified before God by believing not by working; while they obtain grace by faith, because they are unable to deserve a reward by works (Commentary on Gen. 15:7).

 Said another way, the Protestant doctrine of Double Imputation is a process that requires a beginning justification (beginning justification), a progressive imputation of justified works (sanctification), and final justification where believers will stand in one final judgement under the law. If they lived by faith alone well enough; ie., John Calvin’s Sabbath Sanctification, the two imputations will result in the so-called believer being justified in full at the “final tribunal” or in other words “final justification.” Regarding the “Golden Chain of Salvation,” based on Romans 8:29,30, the late RC Sproul even described it as a justification process.

Maybe I should give you guys more credit. Perhaps you do know exactly what Calvin taught and while using him as an authority, you know that his unedited teachings would not fly among generations of Christians allowed to read the Bible for themselves. Nevertheless, in my endeavor to think the better of you, I will assume that you are merely confused and make good money for being so.

Paul Dohse