Roger Olson, Bikers, Calvinists, and Arminians: Can’t We All Just Get Along?
“EXACTLY like Calvinists, Olson decries the Christian message of ‘Do, do, do, do,’ while unwittingly propagating the false gospel of keeping ourselves saved by doing nothing. Making sure that we don’t do anything is in fact doing something while begging the question: why is it so important that we continue to do the same thing that originally saved us lest it be a false gospel?”
“Be not deceived: antinomianism is defined by an aversion to the law in sanctification. Antinomianism is defined by ‘one way love’… Be not deceived by the philosopher kings of the institutional church, or simply ‘church.’ When they decry ‘Do, do, do do,’ they are really decrying, ‘Love, love, love, love.’”
There is one reason and one reason only why New Calvinism has completely taken over the institutional church; fundamentally, Protestantism has always been predicated by weak sanctification because of its foundational beliefs in regard to justification. In other words, our functional sanctification is the true indicator of what we believe about justification. And in Protestantism, that has never changed. Therefore, the institutional church has always been primed for a return to the original article.
In the same way, all outlaw biker clubs should unite into one happy family; after all, they all believe in hedonism by unfettered lust alone. Why quibble about the best way to rob a liquor store or beat your “biker bitch”? Those are matters of hedonology. If I am not mistaken, a famous biker once said…
In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.
However, bikers wouldn’t let some Protestant sins be named among them once; e.g., pedophilia. One biker club has even formed an effective child abuse advocacy program where they support victims through the legal process and accompany them when they testify in court. This is in stark contrast to Protestants, like their Catholic kin, who defend the pedophiles and blame the victims. Pedophiles have to be isolated in prison, but among Protestants they find that good old fashioned “grace.” While many Neo-Calvinists tacitly support ISIS, biker clubs in Europe have joined the Kurds in fighting ISIS on the ground in Iraq. So, a unification of outlaw biker clubs and Protestantism is unlikely—the bikers wouldn’t have them, but there is still hope for the unification of Protestant factions and even the Catholic Church that spawned them.
Roger Olson, the Mr. Rogers of Protestantism, bemoans the reality that he was forced into a situation where he must defend Arminianism. It is a gig he didn’t want. Good Protestants should be above the fray of public debate. After all, public brawls are biker-like. He argues that Calvinists and Arminians believe the same gospel, and he is absolutely correct about that. And what is that gospel? According to Olson’s spot-on assessment, progressive justification. Of course, he doesn’t use those particular synonyms because it undresses the Protestant emperor, but as we shall see, it is the same thing. Calvinists and Arminians believe the same false gospel that is foundational to Protestant “essentials.”
At one point in Olson’s call for Calminianism, he notes his respect for moderate Calvinists as opposed to the radical Young, Restless, and Reformed (YRR). But of course, he loves the Calvinist, but hates the Hyper Calvinism, not the moderate Calvinism. This is the constant mantra of Baptist leaders who say that a playing card can barely be slipped between moderate Calvinism and Arminianism, and again, they are absolutely right about that. Only one adjustment needs to be made: there is no difference between “moderate” Calvinism and “radical” Calvinism. That’s the same difference between moderate and radical Islam. To show that he knows what he is talking about, Olson cites examples of moderate Calvinists from his contemporary church history mojo. He cites Donald Bloesch and G. C. Berkouwer as examples of moderate Calvinists.
Only problem is, Bloesch, as I document in The Truth About New Calvinism, was one of the forefathers of the present-day New Calvinist movement. He was a champion of the “gospel recovery” movement that was spawned by the Australian Forum. As documented, he promoted the Australian Forum study groups in Presbyterian circles. One of the Forum’s most quoted Reformed teachers was G.C. Berkouwer, who stated unequivocally that Reformed soteriology is predicated on the belief that there is absolutely NO difference whatsoever in an unbeliever and a believer in their state before God. Bloesch was a strong advocate of the EXACT theology that drives YRR.
And what is that theology? What is that gospel? Olson tells us in his Calminian treatise:
Evangelical Calvinists and evangelical Arminians need to reach an accord, an agreement, to put down the long knives and cooperate with each other in opposing the real “default heresy” of American Christianity—moralism.
And what is this “moralism” that is the common foe of the Calminians?
The true, biblical, evangelical gospel is difficult to find in American churches or hear from their pulpits…Not far from my house is a church that purports to be evangelical. For weeks now the marquee has said simply “Decide to grow.” Decide to grow? What does that mean? Ah, much to my dismay I think I know what it means: “Being a good person, even a good Christian, is totally up to you. Use your will to decide to change and become the person that pleases God.” The missing all-important truth is that no one can do that by themselves, on their own, just using their will power.
This is Calvinism to a T including its Gnostic either/or emphasis interpretation of reality. Notice that Olson excludes any discussion of colaboring between us and the Spirit. It’s either ALL of our will, or ALL of the Spirit. We hear this coming forth from the Calvinist camp constantly along with the deliberate use of the words “us alone” as a red herring to throw you off the antinomian scent. When you read, “no one can do that by themselves,” which goes without saying, what isn’t discussed is the truthful discussion of colaboring: out of sight, out of mind.
Olson then goes on to present the same worn-out misuse of Scripture used by Calvinists constantly:
“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” End of story, for most American Christians. Do, do, do. Work harder at being a disciple, a good citizen, a church person, a good neighbor, a successful person.
But Philippians 2:12 can no more be taken alone, without 2:13, than 2:13 can be taken alone without 2:12. “For God is at work in you, to will and to do for his good pleasure.” The Greek word translated “work” in 2:12 is not the same translated “work” in 2:13. So it’s not a sheer contradiction or even a paradox (as many have claimed). The message is: “Carry your salvation out to its best possible conclusion in being Christ-like and do it with care knowing all the time that you aren’t really doing it at all because God gives you everything you need to do it and is even the one doing it in you.”
From beginning to end, everything about being a Christian, in more than a merely nominal sense, is gift. All we have to do, all we can do, is receive the gifts—forgiveness, regeneration, justification, sanctification, glorification. At no point in the process does anyone have the right to claim some good accomplished or achieved as his or her own.
The American gospel, however, is that you must use your will power to change and grow. It’s totally up to you—so just “do it.” The vast majority of sermons focus on that message of moralism. “God would be more pleased with you, you would be more pleasing to God, if you exercised your will to change and grow and become a better person than you are.” That’s not the gospel. The gospel is that you can’t do it. As songwriter Jeremy Camp said in a song popularized by Amy Grant: “Being good is just a fable; I just can’t ‘cause I’m not able. Gonna leave it to the Lord”—the “Lord” being the Holy Spirit.
That’s Calvinism plain and simple that can be tagged with all the Reformed essential truisms: “Christ 100% for us” (in both sanctification and justification), “The vital union” (we keep ourselves “in the love of Christ” by faith alone), “Justification by faith alone” (in sanctification also), and the idea that the Christian life is a “rest” in which we “rest and feed on the saving works (plural) of Christ.”
EXACTLY like Calvinists, Olson decries the Christian message of “Do, do, do,” while unwittingly propagating the false gospel of keeping ourselves saved by doing nothing. Making sure that we don’t do anything is in fact doing something while begging the question: why is it so important that we continue to do the same thing that originally saved us lest it be a false gospel?
Because it demonstrates the fact that both Calvinists and Arminians believe that justification is not a finished work and that it must be maintained the same way it was initiated—by faith alone.
This is irrefutable and unavoidable: note once again the very words of Olson:
From beginning to end, everything about being a Christian, in more than a merely nominal sense, is gift. All we have to do, all we can do, is receive the gifts—forgiveness, regeneration, justification, sanctification, glorification.
Hence, all we can do is receive, and this includes love. Sanctification, like justification, can only be received. Pray tell, what is the difference between this and Tullian Tchividjian’s Liberation 2014 theme “One Way Love.”?
Christ stated clearly what the results of the latter-day religion of lawlessness (anomia) would be: “the love of many will wax cold.” Are we to assume that this love doesn’t include love for God? Just what would be our first clue in all of this? What does “one way” mean? What does it mean to “receive” only?
And lest Olson fall short of defining himself as a pure Calvinist, he dissed the first thinkers in human history to stop the constant flow of blood from determinism’s spiritual caste system of the church state:
This is the gospel, folks. But, by and large, we have lost it. For it we have substituted false gospels of morality, prosperity, “success in life,” niceness, effort, churchmanship, citizenship, the “American way.”
Sigh. Again, we see Olson’s kinship with Calvinism’s Gnostic dualism: if you believe in individualism, you are also guilty of everything in column A, including a prosperity gospel. If you believe you can do anything, that means you believe you must do it all, etc. It’s either material evil, or invisible good. It’s either Luther’s cross story, or the glory story. It’s either all about your glory, or Christ’s glory. It’s either about what you do, or what “Christ has done.”
It’s all the same antinomian false gospel. Sure, “the law is good,” but Jesus must keep it for us lest we do something. Be not deceived: antinomianism is defined by an aversion to the law in sanctification. Antinomianism is defined by “one way love.”
Olson put the icing on the cake by stating the following:
Now I’m sure some readers are wondering how this is not Calvinism. Well, it is! It’s also Arminianism!
Precisely. He goes on to say, in essence, that It’s Not About Election. That’s a title of a book. It’s about Protestantism’s false gospel of progressive justification which both Calvinists and Arminians hold to. Both deny the new birth and new creaturehood that is troubled by a profession of faith not accompanied by a changed life, or denoting a changed life as works salvation. Love is one way. Love is redefined as believing you are loveless. That’s what Calvinists and Arminians alike are saying when they say they love you: it is a statement that you are both loveless.
Also, Olson, like the Calvinists, makes sanctification the exact same gift that justification is.
So what is the true gospel? The true gospel demands a radical gulf between justification and sanctification. How wide is that gulf? 430 years apart. As far as the east is from the west. It also denies that regeneration is powered by the finished work of justification. It also denies that sanctification is a rest. There remains a rest for God’s people, and it is not sanctification. No, the heretic Roger Olson has it wrong: justification is the free gift, sanctification is a responsibility. We have been assigned as “ambassadors.” That’s not a gift—it’s a job. The Hebrew writer stated that God would be “unjust” if he forgets our works and service of “love.” Unjust? How can that be? Because sanctification has to do with rewards, and that is totally different than justification. Rewards are earned, the free gift of justification cannot be earned. Roger Olson, like the Calvinists he pines away for, is a false teacher who will lead many to hell at worst, and will rob many Christians of their reward at best.
Why? Because not doing something to maintain your salvation is doing something. You may not do anything at Mass to get absolution, but you had to do something to get there in order to keep your salvation. Progressive justification is no different.
Justification is a finished work and there is no law to judge the Christian. The law that formally condemned us is now our instruction for loving God and others. In regard to justification, we are perfect because there is no law to judge us and we are literally born of God. We are the holy ones of God saved by grace, NOT “sinners saved by grace.” Where there is no law, there is no sin. We are born anew and long for salvation from mortality. There may be fear in working out that salvation, but there is NO fear in love. Our sanctified life of love drives the fear of judgment far from us. We are free to labor aggressively in love without fear of condemnation.
Be not deceived by the philosopher kings of the institutional church, or simply “church.” When they decry “Do, do, do, do,” they are really decrying, “Love, love, love, love.”
Come out from among the wicked false teachers and their false antinomian gospel of lovelessness.
paul
The Truth About Paul Tripp’s “How People Change”
How People Change
by Paul David Tripp and Timothy S. Lane
Punch Press: Winston-Salem (2006, 2008)
Reviewed by Donn R. Arms
The Journal of Modern Ministry: Volume 8, Issue 1, Winter 2011
Jay E. Adams Founder and Senior Writer; Kevin Backus General Editor
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The traditional view of the gospel’s relationship to change is that salvation is foundational to change. Once a person is justified before God by believing in Christ’s saving work on the cross, and made a new creature, he then begins the work of co-laboring with God in the growth process, also known as sanctification. The traditional view sees our role, after being made a new creature (born again), as many-faceted in regard to biblical instruction—the primary role being the learning of God’s Word and the application of it to life via obedience in how we think and behave (Matthew 7:24).
The traditional view makes a significant distinction between justification (redemption), sanctification (growing into Christ-likeness), and glorification (complete transformation). It sees justification and glorification as acts of God alone apart from human participation or monergistic, but sees sanctification as synergistic or a cooperative (but none the less dependent) work with God. Obviously, an accurate view and description of our participation is vital to affecting real and lasting change.
For Tripp and Lane, the gospel message is not only for the unregenerate, but efficacious for real and lasting change in the life of a believer. Certainly, as Christians move into our relationship with Christ as not only Savior, but also Lord, we should never leave behind an appreciation for the sacrifice of Christ that saved us. The authors claim, however, that the same elements of justification must be carried forward into sanctification without anything being added. In fact, for believers to even make an effort to align our thinking with Scripture is an act on our part that denies Christ as Savior:
. . . and the Bible does call us to change the way we think about things. But this approach again omits the person and work of Christ as Savior. Instead, it reduces our relationship to Christ to “think his thoughts” and “act the way Jesus would act” (p. 27, 2006 edn).
Throughout the book, the authors embrace parts of the traditional view, but view the traditional elements through a non-traditional prism, and give the traditional elements of change a different meaning. In this case they trade the traditional idea that Christians are to make an effort to align our thoughts with Scripture with the idea that we should do something else instead that leads to biblical thinking as a natural result of the “living Christ” acting on our behalf and apart from our initial efforts. According to the authors, the traditional approach omits the “work” of Christ in our sanctification and omits Christ as “Savior.”
Lane and Tripp do not deny that Christians have a role in the sanctification process. But what exactly is that role? If the traditional view of our exertion (effort in aligning our life with Scripture) in sanctification is out, what is in? Answer: deep repentance, the second major thrust of the book.
Repentance is a form of emptying the heart . . . Along with deep repentance, Scripture calls us to faith that rests and feeds upon the living Christ. He fills us with himself through the person of the Holy Spirit and our hearts are transformed by faith. (p 28)
Our efforts are out; a faith that “rests and feeds” is in. So, like justification, sanctification is limited to the narrow elements of faith and repentance only. We don’t apply effort to align our lives with Scripture in order to be saved, and we don’t for sanctification (real and lasting change) either.
Throughout HPC, Christ is referred to as “the living Christ.” Believers have no ability to perform works, or add works to their faith because believers are still spiritually dead, and the only life within us is Christ. On pages 64 and 65 of the 2006 edition Christians are described as being dead, powerless, enslaved, alienated from God, enemies of God, fools, and those who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. In other words, our condition is not changed from what we were before salvation. Referring to believers, the authors write: “when you are dead, you can’t do anything” (p. 64). Therefore, we can’t do anything leaving only the “living Christ” to perform works on our behalf.
This is a synthesizing of justification and sanctification. Our ability to perform works pleasing to God is in the same context as those who are unregenerate. We are clearly unable. The authors illustrate this with the story of Andy:
In both phases of his Christian life, the work of Christ on the cross was radically minimized by Andy’s own efforts. The first three years evidenced a Christ-less activism that produced pride and self-sufficiency (p. 184, 2006 edn).
Andy’s “own efforts” in “his Christian life” are in direct relation (according to the authors) to how prevalent redemption (“the work of Christ on the cross”) was in Andy’s life. The fact that Andy’s efforts to obey might have been misguided is not the point that the authors are making here. The authors only cite Andy’s “own efforts” in “his Christian life” with no traditional consideration of erroneous efforts to obey that are inconsistent with the Scriptures being rightly divided.
In essence, it resembles an ongoing need to be saved (redeemed) daily through the works of Christ only. Referring to 1 Cor. 10:13-14 the authors state:
What Paul envisions here is not just the change that takes place when we come to Christ, but the lifestyle of change that results from an ongoing sense of our need for redemption (progressive sanctification) [p. 102, 06 edn].
Progressive sanctification is redefined as “an ongoing sense of our need for redemption.” However, the redemption he is speaking of is the same redemption that originally saved us (“when we came to Christ…and the ‘ongoing’ need for it”). Tripp and Lane believe that there is little difference between justification and sanctification. If we can’t do works to be saved, neither can we do works in the sanctification process.
But what about all the commands in the Bible that are obviously directed toward us? Are we not supposed to obey the principles and commands of Scripture? Yes, but . . .
. . . a behavioral approach to change is hollow because it ignores the need for Christ and his (sic) power to change first the heart and then the behavior. Instead, even the Christian version of this separates the commands of Scripture from their Christ-centered, gospel context. [p. 26]
By “Christ-centered, gospel context,” they mean obedience via the cross (works of Christ, not ours). This can also be seen in their view of the use of Scripture as instruction, or “directions” to be read and then followed:
One of the mistakes we make in handling God’s Word is that we reduce it to a set of directions on how we live. We look for directions about relationships, church life, sex, finances, marriage, happiness, parenting, and so on…..This does violence to the very nature of the Word of God and robs it of its power. The Bible is the world’s most significant story, the story of God’s cosmos-restoring work of redemption. The Bible is a “big picture” book. It introduces us to God, defines our identity, lays out the meaning and purpose of life, and shows us where to find help for the one disease that infests us all—sin. If you try to reduce the Bible to a set of directions, not only will you miss its overall wisdom, you will not make sense of the directions. They only make sense in the context of the whole story (p. 92, 2006 edn).
Seeking, then, to find in the Scriptures instruction in Godliness (2 Tim 3:16) “does violence to the very nature of the Word of God and robs it of its power.”
The second tenet advocated by Tripp and Lane is deep introspection, or “deep repentance.”
Repentance is a form of emptying the heart….Along with deep repentance, Scripture calls us to faith that rests and feeds upon the living Christ. He fills us with himself through the person of the Holy Spirit and our hearts are transformed by faith. [p. 28]
Deep repentance, also called “intelligent repentance” by the authors, is a necessarily embellished form of orthodox repentance because of the narrow approach (faith and repentance only as our role) the book’s theory takes in regard to change. Heart idols must first be identified. Then repenting of them leads to the elimination thereof, creating a void that is filled by Christ and the release of His power accordingly.
Elements of deep repentance include asking God to forgive us of our own efforts, i.e, “repenting of righteousness” (p.190, 2006), and “seeing the sin beneath the sins” (p. 190, 2006) which requires an understanding that it is impossible to violate commands 4-10 (of the 10 commandments) without first violating commands 1-3, which are the commands that speak to heart idols. Therefore, you must get to the heart of why you sinned (idols of the heart covered in commands 1-3) before the violation of all other sins can be prevented. On pages 163-165 Lane and Tripp suggest a list of “X-ray questions” to determine types of desires linked to heart idols to aid in this “deep repentance.”
The third tenet is that of “the Bible as a narrative for change.” The authors say that the Bible is a simple story that all Christians can understand, and that God uses creation to write the book in word pictures (p. 93, 2006). The very purpose of the Bible, according to the authors, is to supply believers with a model of change that involves four basic elements: heat, thorns, cross, and fruit (p. 96, 2006). The authors say the Bible is a grand gospel story that encompasses all of the necessary elements needed for life and godliness in regard to our life story. Therefore, God calls us to come to the grand story with our story, and He invites us to place our life story into the grand story, discovering where our experience of life fits into one of the four elements of heat, thorns, cross, and fruit:
This big picture model is the story of every believer. God invites us to enter into the plot!”(p. 94, 2006).
All of Scripture falls under one of these categories, and these categories form the grand gospel story, which is the sole purpose of the Bible—to present a gospel story of real change that reveals God’s grace and provision accordingly.
By seeing our circumstances in heat (circumstances of life), thorns (desires and idols of the heart that cause us to sin), fruit (Christ working in us, or the consequences of sin), and God’s provision for all three (cross), we gain wisdom, encouragement, and a mentality that seeks to know a deeper need and dependence on Christ. Using Scripture for this purpose exalts Christ in our minds, makes us desire Him more, and deepens our sense of dependence on Him. This deepening sense of our dependence on Christ, which results from using the Scriptures in this way, creates a lifestyle of change because we come to realize that we need redemption every day, not just when we were originally saved. Total dependence on Christ becomes synonymous with faith to the exclusion of almost everything else. The Bible, then, is designed for the sole purpose of aiding the believer in faith (total dependence on God) and deep repentance.
How People Change is a pronounced departure from the traditional (or nouthetic) model of biblical change. It starts by synthesizing justification and sanctification, and narrowing our role in spiritual growth to faith and repentance only. The authors then present a “big picture” model of interpretation that describes their view of the proper use of Scripture in the change process, and the role the Bible plays accordingly. Their model presents the Bible as a gospel narrative, and to the exclusion of all other purposes. The authors of HPC present a strange picture of believers who are still dead in trespasses and sins while being indwelled by Christ who is the only life within us, and therefore the only one working in the change process. Accordingly, total dependence on Christ is the key to real change—a Christ Who obeys for us!
Christ referred to the Holy Spirit as our “helper” in John 14:16. Who is he helping? And what is He helping with? The verse begins with a coordinating conjunction that connects it to the idea presented in the preceding verse, which says: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” One of the ministries of the Holy Spirit is to help us obey Christ. Let’s teach counselees to do just that.
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