Outraging the Spirit of Grace by Preaching the Gospel to Ourselves Everyday
There is no new thing under the sun—just different variations of the same thing. Sure, a company in Israel has developed a car that can run on water, that seems to be new, but they stole the idea from fish.
Likewise, man is heck-bent on either being owned to quiet his fears derived from presuppositions or being one of the elite owners of men. The argument most used for this cause is the biblical Old Covenant. Hence, there will always be various and sundry variations of a priestly class ruling over the great unwashed masses.
It goes something like this: the Old Covenant sacrifices were a shadow of Christ who offered himself once for the sins of man. Everybody agrees, but the devil is in the details; was Christ’s death a modification of the Old Covenant covering that still needs to be repeated albeit a different way? Did the Old Covenant sacrifices cover sins, or take them away? Did Christ present a variation of atonement (covering), or did He end atonement? Sure, Christ only died once as opposed to the repetition of the Old Covenant sacrifices, but must we continually return to the one time offering of Christ in order for our sins to be continually covered?
According to this construct, we remain the same except for a continual return to the sacrifice of Christ in remembrance for the forgiveness and covering of sin; after all, we still sin, right? Present sin must still be covered, no? So, instead of offering animal sacrifices, we continue to remain covered or atoned for by “remaining” faithful to the New Covenant.
How do we do that? It’s pretty clear: faithfulness to the local church through formal membership, obeying the New Covenant priests, tithing (and don’t forget “offerings” as well, and the building program, and…), baptism, sitting under elder preaching of the gospel, and especially the Lord’s Table which is one of the “grace imparting” ordinances of the church. We ALL still need grace, right?
But here is the money question: What is meant by “grace”? It can mean “help,” or it can refer to salvation. In this construct, trust me, it’s the latter.
Here is the second money question: is the New Covenant a covering of sin or a taking away of sin? “Paul, it’s only a covering because if our sins were taken away we wouldn’t sin anymore.” One of the most popular rhetorical questions in our day for someone who dares think that Christians no longer need “the gospel” (in a salvation sense) follows: “Did you sin today?” As one commented on PPT, “Well, I would hope we have forgiveness for present sin!” Hence, present sin would condemn us if we don’t continue to receive a covering for our sins. And, this covering can only be obtained in the institutional church through the “ordinances that impart grace.” You still need grace don’t you? “Are you saying that you don’t need grace?”
Therefore, “We must preach the gospel to ourselves every day.” “The same gospel that saved us also sanctifies us.” “You need the gospel just as much today as you did when you were saved.” “The gospel is not the ABCs of the Christian life; it is the A-Z.” “The gospel is not a rung on the ladder, it’s the whole ladder.” “If you leave the gospel and move on to something else, you lose justification and sanctification both.”
What does the Bible really say about all of this?
Let’s start with the Old Covenant which was, in fact, a covering for sin, but spoke of an actual ending of sin (taking away) and saints made presently holy regardless of sin.
In Leviticus 16, we find the regulations for the Day of Atonement (covering). The sacrifice included one bull, one ram, and two goats. Only the High Priest, Aaron, could perform the part of the ceremony that involved entering the Holy of Holies or the “Holy Place.” This was the inner chamber of the tabernacle separated from the entry chamber by a veil where the Ark of the Covenant was located. The fact that only the High Priest could enter the inner chamber is very significant. There was only ONE priest that executed that function. While other ceremonies only required hand washing, this ceremony required the complete washing of the body.
Laxness in regard to any ceremony connected with the Holy Place directly or indirectly resulted in instant death. This is what happened to Aaron’s two sons. The Holy Place was VERY inaccessible. The terror of the Old Covenant was for the express purpose of drawing a contrast between the Old Covenant and New Covenant.
The one priest, the inaccessibility to the Holy Place, the washing of the whole body, and the two goats are what we want to focus on in order to meet the objective point of this post. We have covered the first three, let’s consider the two goats. One was sacrificed. In regard to the sacrifices for sins, Aaron had to wash his whole body and sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat of the Ark in the Holy Place. In regard to the other goat, Aaron laid his hands on it and pronounced the sins of the people upon it, and then turned it loose into the wilderness. So there is a death resulting in a complete washing and the taking away of sin.
Now let’s go to Hebrews to find out how this all applies to the New Covenant. The Hebrew writer, probably Paul writing on behalf of the Apostles, is dealing with the same age-old problem of covering versus ending. That is the mere covering of sin versus the ending of sin. This also defines who the Christian is. If our sins are only covered we are only declared holy, but are not personally holy. If our sins are taken away, we are personally holy and possess the righteousness of God. “But Paul, we still sin!” I will get to that.
Also, if our sins are not ended, continued atonement is needed as well resulting in a system that accesses that continued atonement. For the Hebrews, that was easy because Old Covenant Judaism was alive and well. In our day, that has been replaced with some sort of system that returns us to Christ’s sacrifice for sins. Or in other words, a return to the same gospel that originally saved us.
The glaring problem with this is the fact that Christ only entered the Holy Place once to offer one sacrifice for all time, and made the Holy Place accessible to all people. That’s the coup de grace for all of these types of systems; if what Christ did is only a covering, the Holy Place would not be open to all. Christ would still be the only one who could enter the Holy Place on our behalf like Aaron did for the Israelites:
Hebrews 10:19 – Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
We ourselves have access to the Holy Place without the representation of a High Priest walking on holy eggshells lest he is struck dead. There is only one way we can enter that Holy Place—if we are truly holy. If we are not truly holy, and our sins are only covered, only Jesus would have access to the Holy Place—not us. Notice also that we have full access with our bodies completely washed from sin—the sins carried into the wilderness by the other goat.
Curiously, most English translations interpret the Holy Place in Heb 10:19 as “holy places.” Plainly, in the context that is an anomaly, but it should be noted that the KJV (“holiest”) and the Complete Jewish Bible (“Holiest Place”) have it correct.
So, how is it possible for us to have access to the Holiest Place while we in fact still sin? One thing and one thing only: belief in Christ’s death and resurrection resulting in the new birth or the baptism of the Spirt of grace. Legally, we died with Christ and are no longer under the condemnation of the law (Roman 6,7), and Spiritually, our minds are renewed (Ibid) and we have the very seed of God within us (1Jn 3:9). Even though we still reside in a mortal body where sin can harass us, our mind is regenerated and we are enabled to use our bodies as holy sacrifices unto God (Rom 12:1).
Christ offered one sacrifice to set us free from sin’s slavery, and we are now free to offer holy sacrifices to God in sanctification. The flesh is weak, but not inherently sinful. In fact, since the Holy Spirit permanently indwells us, it is His temple:
1Corinthians 6:19 – Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
Unfortunately, sin still dwells in our mortality, but sin’s power comes from its ability to condemn. Christ died on the cross to end the law and its ability to condemn (Rom 10:4, 1Cor 15:56), but that’s only one side of the coin; on the other side is the reality that the Holy Spirit also raised us to new life with Christ. This means we are no longer under the slavery of the law and its condemnation (we were bought with a price from the slave master), and free to serve the Spirit of God (Rom 7:6).
Before we were saved, sin was able to use the law to provoke us to sin through desires of various kinds (Rom 7:5), this is when we were “living in the flesh” because sin was our master and had the upper hand (Rom 6:20). Now, that same sin wars against us and the Spirit who dwells within (Gal 5:16, 17, 1Pet 2:11). The “lust of the flesh” refers to when sin uses our body to bring about fruits for death; it does not mean the flesh is inherently evil. The flesh, like creation, is presently “weak.”
All in all, we must define present holiness the way the Bible defines it. But the denial of our personal holiness also denies the new birth and denies us access to the Holy Place. In that case, only Christ can enter in. Christ has not sat down at the right hand of the Father, but rather still offers the daily sacrifice (Heb 10:10-14). So, instead of our focus being…
Hebrews 10:24 – And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
…and faith working through love (Gal 5:6), keeping yourself saved through a perpetual need for atonement is the focus.
That denies the new birth and outrages the Spirit of grace (Heb 10:29). A return to the same gospel that saved us suggests that we are still under law and did not die with Christ; and additionally, not free to serve in the new way of the Spirit via being resurrected with Christ—Christ must continue to stand in the Holy Place and continue to offer His blood daily. He has not sat down at the right hand of the Father.
This is how preaching the gospel to ourselves every day outrages the Spirt of grace.
paul
“< Tweet, Tweet: Pastors
Pastors who say, "We ARE sinners saved by grace" don't understand the new birth or the gospel. Shouldn't pastors know the gospel?
— Paul M. Dohse (@PaulMDohse) January 25, 2015
Indicative of What Ails the SBC: Johnny Hunt Denies the New Birth at Ohio Men’s Summit
“Hunt’s confusion concerning the new birth was further exemplified when he stated, ‘Christ died for all of your past, present, and future sins.’ This also unwittingly denies the new birth. Christ did not die for sins we committed after we were born again. This makes sin in justification the same thing as family sin in sanctification. Christ did not die to save us from sin that does not condemn us; this denies that the old us actually died with Christ and was ‘under law,’ and where there is no law there is no sin.”
Not that I get paid for it, but I will inform any SBC pastor who cares to know why the SBC is a dying unregenerate cesspool. You can hide the fact by squeezing out the smaller churches and pointing to the emotional orgies at the megachurches, but the numbers do not lie. And listen, the praise and worship format that is presently redistributing the sheep will eventually get old—this ministry is already seeing sharp declines in megachurch attendance.
The present-day SBC Neo-Calvinist surge is the same movement that has come and gone exactly five times since the Protestant Reformation. My guess is that it will die again. Susan and I recently visited churches that were on the cutting edge of this movement back in the 80’s, and the deadness that we experienced was explained this way by our teenage son: “That place is just creepy.” The energy once associated with the format is waning because there is no underlying substance and the novelty is passing. Yet, the format continues without the energy which projects an almost surreal creepiness experienced by those who visit. For the longtime members it’s a slow leak going unnoticed, for visitors it’s a blowout.
Aside: Was all of the recent Mark Driscoll drama just cover for the fact that the Mars Hill campuses were in decline? I wonder.
Another aside: The Catholic Church has bought the defunct Crystal Cathedral. It would seem that the Catholic Church is the only institution with the money to buy defunct Protestant campuses. Why does the Catholic Church have so much money? Answer: because it has always been upfront about its salvation by institution gospel. Will the Neo-Calvinist movement begin to be more out-of-the-closet about that approach in order to save the movement? It already is. People will pay big bucks to be saved by merely giving at the office (see, “Roman Catholic Church”).
Johnny Hunt would deny that he is a Neo-Calvinist and that is probably fair, but what I heard him say at last night’s Men’s Summit at Urbancrest Baptist church in Lebanon, OH is indicative of the problem. If there is confusion among Southern Baptists regarding the role of the Holy Spirt in Christian living, and there clearly is, that should explain everything, and it does.
Look, I don’t have the mp3 yet, but a slight paraphrase of a particular sentence spoken at the summit by Hunt goes like this: “The righteousness of Christ is the only thing that gets us into heaven.” Here we have a former president of the SBC, and a premier SBC pastor for something like thirty years, and that statement is just really bad theology if not an outright false gospel.
I keep saying it and will continue to do so: the Bible never states that the righteousness of Christ has been imputed to us. Though you can take a leap from one logical point to another on a few verses, why the steroidal emphasis on Christ’s righteousness when the Bible clearly states that it is the righteousness of God the Father that we possess? Is this emphasis important? It is if the Bible emphasizes the righteousness of the Father, and it does. Why not emphasize what the Scriptures emphasize?
But the concern goes way beyond semantics. In his Friday sessions, Hunt peppered that concept with the often heard idea that we don’t possess a righteousness of our own. Come now, would any of us still be working if we had a dollar for every time we heard that in SBC circles? But what is it saying?
First, if we ONLY possess the righteousness of Christ, fire insurance is the only gift and not righteousness. Follow? When you receive a gift, you take possession of it…no? Is the idea that we possess no righteousness of “our own” a backdoor way of saying we have not been made righteous and possess no personal holiness? Yes, I think it is. And by the way, forget all of the fuss about election—that idea is Calvinism in a nutshell.
Secondly, while one properly concurs that our sins were imputed to Christ because the Bible states that specifically, is it correct to say that righteousness has been “imputed” to us? I contend that this is NOT correct, and in fact is a denial of the new birth. Why? Because righteousness is not imputed to us, we are MADE righteous through the new birth. The whole “our own” business is a red herring deliciously favored at the table of demons. We don’t tell people we have no life of our own because we were born of parents. That’s just plain silly. “I have no life of my own; it was imputed to me by my parents.” No, you are alive just like your parents because they gave birth to you. In the same way, we ARE righteous because we were given life by a righteous Father through the Holy Spirit.
Hunt’s confusion concerning the new birth was further exemplified when he stated, “Christ died for all of your past, present, and future sins.” This also unwittingly denies the new birth. Christ did not die for sins we committed after we were born again. This makes sin in justification the same thing as family sin in sanctification. Christ did not die to save us from sin that does not condemn us; this denies that the old us actually died with Christ and was “under law,” and where there is no law there is no sin.
The idea that Christ died for our sin post salvation, at the very least denies the death part of the Spirit’s baptism and keeps the “believer” under law (see Romans 7:1ff). In not sparing any confusion in his lame presentation of the gospel, Hunt concurred that God chastises us for sins we commit as Christians which means God chastises us for sins Christ already died for. Hence, why wouldn’t God also chastise us for sins committed before we were Christians?
Therefore, Hunt, like most SBC pastors, flirts with John Calvin’s double imputation. This is the idea that Christ died for our justification, and lived a perfect life to fulfil the law so that His perfect righteousness can also be imputed to our sanctification. This is exactly why the “righteousness of Christ” is so strongly emphasized. The Bible is clear: this is a justification by the law that leads to antinomian living (see “a typical life in the SBC”). Why? Because we only have the righteousness of Christ and no righteousness of our own which is nearly a verbatim quote by Calvin from his Institutes of the Christian Religion (3.14.11).
This is an outright denial of the new birth and keeps the “Christian” under law. It doesn’t matter who keeps the law, even if the law was kept by Christ in our stead, it is not another seed that can give life (Galatians 3:15-21). We are like Christ because He is our brother by birth, righteousness was not imputed to us—we are MADE righteous by the new birth. We are literally new creatures, and ALL things are new.
But, if we have no ownership of righteousness through the new birth, if only our standing is exchanged and not our lives, Christ’s righteousness must be perpetually imputed to our “Christian” lives because we are still under law and not under grace. This would require a return to the same gospel that saved us in order to receive perpetual forgiveness for sins committed under the law, and this is exactly what is behind the viral mantra of “We must preach the gospel to ourselves everyday” running amuck in the SBC. Forbid that we would lose our gratitude for salvation and only limit its remembrance to the Lord’s Table for we still supposedly need that forgiveness.
And this is exactly what John Calvin believed; that new sins committed as saints removes us from grace and perpetual forgiveness must be sought which can only be found in the institutional church where we continually “revisit the gospel afresh.” Yet, the who’s who of the SBC continually affirms that the issue with Calvinism in the SBC is a secondary issue unworthy of parting fellowship. It’s cluelessness on steroids. Calvin advocated the belief that necessarily goes hand in glove with progressive justification; and, sanctification is the Old Testament Sabbath rest. If we do any works on our sanctification Sabbath, it’s the eternal death penalty. As a result, Christ’s perfect obedience to the law must be imputed to us. This is where antinomianism and justification by law are the same thing; a perfect keeping of the law, which we of course can’t obtain so we must let Jesus obey for us lest we have a “righteousness of our own” becomes another seed other than Christ.
At the end of one session Hunt suggested that those who made a profession of faith follow up with the elders at Urbancrest concerning their “new relationship” with Christ. New relationship? Really? It’s not just a new relationship—it’s literal death and rebirth. We don’t just add Jesus to our still under the law lives for fire insurance or as Hunt put it, in essence, daily rescue. It’s not a daily rescue because we long for the one future rescue by Christ from this mortal body where sin still resides, but our inward man has been literally raised with Christ and free to love God and others through obedience to the same law that once condemned us.
It has been suggested to me that institutional religion and the new birth mix like oil and water: “Paul, if believers are truly born again and endowed with the power of the Holy Spirit, why would they need an evangelical industrial complex?” Indeed, that may well be the money question. I have been at two institutional church gatherings this week, and in both cases pastors were held up as upper strata of spiritual caste. At Urbancrest, the emphasis was totally over the top and downright shameful. Other than handing out freebies to the pastors who attended, the senior pastor at Urbancrest talked of a program of sorts through which parishioners could show their pastor that, “I have your back.”
So, is the new birth a threat to religious institutions? Can Holy Spirit empowered ministries thrive in an institutional setting? We will not know until pastors stop denying the new birth. But nevertheless, this is a gut check for every SBC pastor and Hunt in particular. What would be the result of a poll in most churches where the following question is asked?
“Are you only positionally holy in Christ, or are you a holy person?” I fear most would answer, “I am only positionally holy because I still sin.” Yet, pastors who continually wax eloquent about Christians not having any righteousness of their own somehow expect decent behavior from their parishioners.
To his credit, Hunt did advocate obedience, but anyone who was listening closely would have found that confusing. Hunt also emphasized “finishing strong.” He even said that all of his accomplishments in ministry would be worthless if he didn’t finish well. Here is what pastors need to understand: finishing well may mean you end up pastoring a church of 25 people because you stood for the truth. It is high time that pastors draw a line in the sand and definitively define the new birth in no uncertain terms. Please tell your parishioners who they are—are they positionally holy, or are they personally holy?
Did they exchange one “standing before God” for another one, or did they exchange their old life for a new one through the baptism of the Holy Spirit?
paul
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