Dear Pastor Tullian…(or, my emotional response to your apology for your emotional response)
Congratulations Pastor Tullian, you just fell into one of the favorite traps of abusers everywhere: “Let’s make the whistleblower the problem!
**You said, “I’m sorry for saying things in my own defense.”
Last time I checked, some people lied about you, gossiped about you, and oh by the way, they systematically covered over an abuse scandal in the church because, you know, “Buddy System.”
The entire reason for Christians defending the Fatherless and the Widow was, as I understand Scripture, because these are people who can’t stand up for themselves. Where is the Biblical mandate against speaking in your own defense? The Bible says not to resist an evil person. We are never, ever commanded to turn our other cheek against a brother or sister in the Lord.
**You said, “I’m an emotional guy. And in my highly charged emotional state, I said some things in haste, both…
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Predestination and Fatalism: “How Much?” is the Question that Only Leaves Two Choices
“This speaks to conditional and unconditional promises by God, cause and effect, and hope. What is at stake is our very understanding of reality itself.”
“What am I saying? A am saying that predeterminism is not a paradox in and of itself, I am suggesting that we consider the idea in our study that predeterminism is a slippery slope to making all of life a paradox. In other words, it makes objective truth unknowable.”
This is part 6 of our series on predestination. We are in the process of evaluating predestination from the viewpoint of love, promises, judgment, cause and effect, hope, commandments, obedience, fear, foreknowledge, freewill, choice, ability, total depravity, evangelism, the gospel, Bible doctrine, paradox, and salvation. In most cases, determinism creates a strained understanding of what some of these words mean to us in real life.
For instance, if God loves the world and man does not have the ability to choose, why does God choose some and not others? He is impartial, no? Why will God judge those who never had a chance to escape judgment? Would God really command us to do things that He knows we are not able to do? How is God’s love really defined? Paradox is a reality, but to what extent do we except paradox as a replacement for the common understanding of life concepts and the words that describe them? Are the simple concepts of commands, love, and choice really a paradox in spiritual matters but necessarily taken literally in the milieu of life? Does whosoever will really mean whosoever has been chosen? And if it does, why doesn’t God simply state that accordingly?
In part one, we established an important starting point: the doctrine of predestination has always been primarily framed and assimilated by Reformed theologians. That’s a problem because they had/have the gospel wrong. This is a matter of simple theological math; they were on the wrong side of the law and gospel. Therefore, the doctrine must be reexamined.
In part 2, we examined God’s will in regard to the lost and the relationship of evangelism and paradox. Evangelism is another word that becomes paradoxical in light of predestination. Obedience is a paradox, love is a paradox, judgment is a paradox, and evangelism as well because the legitimacy of the offer of salvation is called into question. Whosoever will becomes whosoever has been elected. If election is a paradox, all of the concepts connected to it are paradoxical as well.
In part 2, we established that God does not desire that any person parish. He does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked. Which brings up another paradox: does God plead and exhort man to be saved while knowing that he is unable to respond? When God states, “come, let us reason together,” is he saying that while knowing that man is unable to reason?
At any rate, we concluded in part 2 that God does not desire the death of the wicked—He desires that all would be saved.
In part 3, we established that predestination was not unique with the Reformers. In fact, determinism is an ancient concept that has dominated human history. We also examined the historical bad fruit produced by its ideology, and biblical contradictions as well.
In part 4, we looked at the means by which God seeks man. Man is created with intuitive knowledge of God, man begins life in the book of life and must be blotted out if he/she parishes, and Christ died for all men, not just the elect. Though not in the study, the fact that all sins are imputed to the Old Covenant, and belief in Christ eradicates the Old Covenant and all of the sin imputed to it, implies a readiness and desire of God to vanquish one’s sin. The imputation of all sin to a covenant is sort of the opposite of starting life in the book of life; God wants to keep you in the one book and get rid of the other one.
Moreover, God sent the Holy Spirit to convict the world of sin and the judgment to come while the works of God’s law are already written on the heart of every person. On the one hand, God has set up a gargantuan infrastructural reality to facilitate the salvation of man, but in all of this, who enters in is ultimately predetermined by Him. Why all the drama? Why all of the paradox? Why all of the confusion? Yet, another paradox that could be added is the Holy Spirit’s warning in regard to judgment along with all of God’s prophets; why offer this incentive to escape judgment to those who are unable to respond? This speaks to conditional and unconditional promises by God, cause and effect, and hope. What is at stake is our very understanding of reality itself.
In part 5, we begin to answer the question, “How much?” Let’s say that man is unable to choose God initially, but what about post new birth? Is man then able to make choices? Curiously, the Reformers say, “no.” We looked at the Reformed redemptive-historical hermeneutic that interprets all reality as a gospel metaphysical narrative. We simply put ourselves in the narrative by believing everything in life points to a truth about Christ and is predetermined. We called this plenary determinism. Also, while discussing this, we introduced the possibility that certain things are predetermined by God, while other things are not. We used the following chart to illustrate this:
Granted, we want some things to be predetermined by God. We want a happy ending. We want justice. We want the good guys to win. We want everyone to live happily ever after. In times of danger, we want our fears tempered by knowing that God is control. In the book of Revelation, for certain, the opening of the six seals will make it seem like the earth is in complete chaos and spinning out of control, but the fact will be that God is in control of every bit of that. Will that temper the fear of those who know that at the time? Sure it will.
But is everything predetermined? Does man have any role in reality at all? The main source for predestination doctrine has always been the Reformers, at least in Western culture, and they disavow choice in both the saved and unsaved state. Consequently, from an eschatological view, there is only one judgment in which both believers and unbelievers stand in to determine one’s eternal fate. Opposing eschatological views posit a separate judgment for believers and unbelievers, one for reward (believers), and one that condemns (unbelievers).
Obviously, the idea of reward strongly suggests that the reward is for something earned by making a right choice. In Reformed circles, rewards spoken of in the Bible are attributed to salvation (the reward[s] is salvation), but now we have yet another paradox because it is not really a reward that we get for something that we did! What am I saying? A am saying that predeterminism is not a paradox in and of itself, I am suggesting that we consider the idea in our study that predeterminism is a slippery slope to making all of life a paradox. In other words, it makes objective truth unknowable.
However, the Reformers state that truth can be known, and that there is no paradox at all: Man and history were created to glorify God. Everything that happens is predetermined by God (cause), and everything that happens is for God’s glory, and in fact, does glorify Him (effect). Hence, man has no ability to choose in being the cause for anything that happens. Judgment reflects God’s glory alone in simply revealing what God has preordained via good or evil. If this is not true, then how much choice does man have? That must be determined. If true, then how much choice does man not have? This must be determined as well.
At the T4G 2008 conference, John MacArthur stated the following:
The sum is that man is evil and selfish, unwilling and unable because he is dead. He loves his sin. He loves the darkness. He thrives on selfish lust. He’s happy to make a god of his own, manufacturing and convinced himself that he is good enough to satisfy that god. He may see his sin in his sin, but he does not see his sin in his goodness, and he does not see his sin in his religion, and it is his sin in his goodness that is most despicable for there is the deception and it is his sin in his religion that is most blasphemous because there it is that he worships a false god…
The contemporary idea today is that there’s some residual good left in the sinner. As this progression came from Pelagianism to Semipelagianism and then came down to sort of contemporary Arminianism and maybe got defined a little more carefully by Wesley who was a sort of a messed up Calvinist because Wesley wanted to give all the glory to God, as you well know, but he wanted to find in men some place where men could initiate salvation on his own will. That system has literally taken over and been the dominant system in evangelical Christianity. It is behind most revivalism. It is behind most evangelism. That there’s something in the sinner that can respond.
Notice how MacArthur combines ability with goodness. Ability is made to be a moral issue. Why does an ability to choose something, or make a wise choice, or desire to have something that is rooted in anthropology, have to be an issue of inherent goodness? If unregenerate man can make wise choices, or at least correct choices, and certainly he can, why couldn’t one of those wise choices be that of salvation? Yes, certainly the Bible teaches that man’s inclination is away from God, but once God seeks him out and confronts him, does he have the ability to be persuaded? Why is man able to choose to stop at a red light (cause) to prevent an accident (effect), but unable to choose God?
Throughout the same message, MacArthur asserts the following like points:
Wesley wanted to give all the glory to God, as you well know, but he wanted to find in men some place where men could initiate salvation on his own will.
Here, MacArthur makes an ability to choose equal with initiating the means of salvation and initially seeking God. Our previous lessons assert that man doesn’t initially seek God, but once God seeks him by various means, man has the ability to choose. Man has many abilities that are morally neutral, even in his weakness, why can’t the ability to choose be one of them when he/she is aided by God and convicted by the Holy Spirit? In Scripture, we have instances of men being nearly persuaded (Mark 12;34, Acts 26:25-32); what are we to surmise from this, that man has the ability to be partially persuaded, but not the ability to be fully persuaded? James suggested that some men can believe in God, but fall short of believing in a saving way (2:19). This means man has an ability to believe in God intellectually, but is unable to understand saving truth about God and make his own choice? Why would man then have the ability to believe in God at all?
According to MacArthur,
A new wave followed as people struggled to hang on to human freedom which said that Adam’s sin had “in some measure” affected and disabled all men, but sinners were left with just enough freedom of the will to make the first move of faith toward God. And then God’s grace kicked in. But sinners made the first move, and that’s what became known as semi-Pelagianism. Some would call it prevenient grace. There’s a component of grace in all human beings that gives them in the freedom of their own will the ability to initiate salvation. The idea is that depravity is real, but it is not total. Saving grace from God then becomes a divine response rather than the efficient cause of our salvation. This view is denounced, as you know, by several councils starting around 529.
How does an ability to choose equal the initiation of salvation? How does an ability to choose, or the freedom of the will to choose equal us making the first move? We by no means made the first move! Clearly, God made the first move by supplying the means of salvation, and the second move by calling all men unto salvation. After this, how does our abilty to choose constitute the “first move”? It’s not the first move, it’s a response to God’s love. And in regard to the point of our first lesson, throughout his message, MacArthur validates his points by citing St. Augustine; that is very problematic in and of itself. MacArthur then moves on in the same message to make the new birth synonymous with our ability to choose. If we have an ability to be persuaded, that is supposedly like giving birth to ourselves:
When the Bible speaks about the condition of the sinner, with what words does it speak? Well, when the Bible speaks of the sinner’s condition, it is usually in the language of death, sometimes darkness, sometimes blindness, hardness, slavery, incurable sickness, alienation, and the Bible is clear that this is a condition that affects the body, the mind, the emotion, the desire, the motive, the will, the behavior. And it is a condition that is so powerful no sinner unaided by God can ever overcome it… John 3, you are very familiar with it, Nicodemus, and no one is going to be able to see the kingdom of God unless he’s born again, Jesus said in verse 3, very interesting. Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” He is not stupid. He’s a teacher in Israel. He’s speaking metaphorically. He’s picking up on Jesus’ born again metaphor and asking the question, how does that happen? How does it happen? You can’t do it on your own. You can’t birth yourself. That’s his point. He gets it. He understands that man has no capability to bring birth to himself. Jesus follows up by saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit,”
First, MacArthur’s concession, perhaps unwittingly, that “it is a condition that is so powerful no sinner unaided by God can ever overcome it” is exactly what we are saying, and not by any means that man can choose God solo. God supplies the means of salvation and seeks after man with the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the word of God. But in the end, man is able to neglect this great salvation, and to his own eternal detriment. Also, the new birth is part of the means of salvation totally out of man’s control; the new birth is a promise to those who believe, and obviously not man giving birth to himself.
When you start thinking about these things apart from Reformed orthodoxy, some observations become interesting. MacArthur used the following proof texts to make one of his points:
But let me just work you through John for a minute, John 1:12-13. “But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become the children of God even to those who believed in his name who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of men, but of God.” That is unmistakable. Unmistakable. Salvation being the work of God.
First, notice that man’s role is simply to receive, and then man is “given” the “right” to become the children of God. Then MacArthur bemoans the following:
It is behind most revivalism. It is behind most evangelism. That there’s something in the sinner that can respond. And this is sort of like the right in a free country. You have to have this right. This wouldn’t be fair if God didn’t give the sinner the right to make his own decision so that the sinner unaided by the Holy Spirit must make the first move. That’s essentially Arminian theology. The sinner unaided must make the first move. And God then will respond when the sinner makes the first move.
This is exactly what the proof text that MacArthur stated says, that those who receive Christ do in fact have the “right” to become part of God’s kingdom. Also, in stating his Reformed logic in another way, he suggested that hearing the gospel message and receiving it was the same thing as preaching ourselves:
What can remedy that? We do not preach ourselves, verse 5, we preach Christ Jesus as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. We preach the gospel of Christ as lord and ourselves as slaves. And what happens? Verse 6, God who said light shall shine out of darkness, that’s taking you back to creation, God who created, who spoke light into existence is the one who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Aside from the fact that having the ability to be persuaded is not preaching ourselves rather than Christ, note that MacArthur equates creation with the gospel which insinuates that the fall was built into creation itself. This is part and parcel with the supralapsarianism that we discussed in previous lessons.
But the thrust of this lesson centers on the “how much” when it comes to any role at all for man in salvation and the logical end of it, and in the final analysis how God’s love is defined. This is a sobering consideration. In both the 2013 Shepherds’ Conference and T4G 2008, MacArthur presents the idea that John 3, regarding the new birth, is something that is done to the individual without any participation on the part of the believer. The clear message in both cases was that any decision or belief on the part of the believer was excluded also. It was very much like the following rendition of the same text:
When we consider the great teachings of Scripture, they are not there just to give us information and they are not to teach us what we can do in our own strength. In Musings 34 (http://www.godloveshimself.org/?p=2018) we looked at how believing that the doctrine of justification is true is not the same thing as being justified. The new birth was also mentioned at the end. In the passage above (John 3:3-5) Jesus speaks pointedly and with power in a way that reflects on the issue being mused on here. Jesus did not tell Nicodemus that he must know the truth about the new birth in order to enter the kingdom. Jesus also did not tell Nicodemus that he must believe the truth about the new birth in order to enter the kingdom. Instead of that, Jesus told Nicodemus that he must actually be born again in order to enter the kingdom. There is a huge difference between believing what is true and what is true actually happening to you.
If we take this as a picture or even as an example of the teachings of Scripture, we can view what it means to believe something with different eyes or with a different perspective. Neither Jesus or Paul declared that a person must believe the facts about justification in order to be justified, but simply that a person must be justified (God Loves Himself .wordpress .com: Musing 35; February 10, 2014).
So, if reality is a prewritten metaphysical narrative for the sole purpose of glorifying God in all that happens in the narrative, it only stands to reason that God is motivated by self-glorification and self-love as the highest purpose for all that he does:
Perhaps this concept that Edwards gives just above cannot be stated too strongly or emphasized too much since all true Christianity depends on the truth of it. If God is not centered upon Himself and He does not do all for His own glory, then God Himself is not holy and acts against the perfection of His own nature, wisdom, holiness, and perfect rectitude. If God Himself does not love Himself and do all He does out of love for Himself (as triune), then He does not keep the same standard that He commands all others to do. If God does not love Himself and do all He does out of love for Himself, then the both the great Commandments and the Ten Commandments are not a transcript of the character of God. If God Himself does not love Himself and do all He does out of love for Himself (as triune), then He does not do what He requires of others in the first three petitions in the Lord’s Prayer. If God Himself does not love Himself and do all He does out of love for Himself (as triune), then He does not do all in His own name as He requires others to do so. If God Himself does not love Himself and do all He does out of love for Himself (as triune), then He does not do all for His own glory which He requires others to do (God Loves Himself .wordpress .com: Edwards on the God Centeredness of God; 11 December 7, 2013).
Add yet another paradox in regard to love. God didn’t send His Son to the cross because he loves mankind, he sent His Son to the cross because He loves Himself. The list of commonly understood words in a grammatical reality that have been redefined by the doctrine of determinism is now very lengthy. Why indeed did God even bother to write the Bible in a grammatical format? No wonder that Rick Holland, a former associate of John MacArthur has stated that good grammar makes bad theology. No kidding? Add yet another paradox: the idea that God is not a God of confusion. Of course, the Reformed would say that there is no confusion at all—ALL things are predetermined for God’s glory and completely out of our control—end of story.
Let’s pad this point a little more with some quotes from John Piper:
I would like to try to persuade you that the chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy himself forever. Or to put it another way: the chief end of God is to enjoy glorifying himself.
The reason this may sound strange is that we tend to be more familiar with our duties than with God’s designs. We know why we exist – to glorify God and enjoy him forever. But why does God exist? What should he love with all his heart and soul and mind and strength? Whom should he worship? Or will we deny him that highest of pleasures? It matters a lot what God’s ultimate allegiance is to! (Desiring God .org: Is God for Us or for Himself?; October 23, 1984).
Actually, the Bible states that the chief end of man is to obey God, and that God takes more pleasure in obedience than sacrifice (Ecc 12:13,14 1Sam 15:22). I am not sure that the Bible ever states any “chief end” of God. Really? God’s life has a primary purpose that we can understand? And its narcissism?
Though there seems to be many Scriptures that bolster determinism, it requires the redefining of many commonly understood word meanings, and inevitably leads to an unavoidable illogical outcome. If the doctrine of predetermination in and of itself was the only paradox, that would be different, but the problem we see here is that it makes all of reality a paradox unless you accept the mythological Reformed metaphysical narrative.
Rick Phillips and Reformation 21 on the Law/Gospel Controversy: Liars? Or Just Confused?
Neither. After seven years of researching Neo-Calvinism and its historical roots, the proponents are what we call noble liars. They think they are gifted, educated, and preordained to understand things that the common parishioner is unable to understand, so they lie about “truth” that the pathetic totally depraved zombie sheep are not able to handle. It boils down to what Jack Nicholson said to Tom Cruz in A Few Good Men: “Truth! You can’t handle the truth!”
And that’s the problem with double T (Tullian Tchividjian); he plainly teaches the practical implications of good ole’ fashioned Geneva style Calvinism. TT has his own niche and following in a unique culture and doesn’t need the massive cash flow that feeds the Neo-Calvinist subculture. Really, it’s a massive institutional network that is building a church/state wannabe subculture within American culture. Its mega churches, or “campus” networks are anywhere from a couple to twenty campuses in a given geography. These are mini communities within the communities at large, and most have their own police departments posing as in-house “security.” These departments, often manned by former law enforcement professionals, are used to intimidate people who ask questions. In my own personal experience, a police detective church member of a community police department was called on to intimidate me by phone.
At any rate, T4G, TGC, or the GRN and their state affiliates (you heard that right; the sheer massiveness of this network would indeed be an interesting study) can’t afford to have the likes of TT throwing around verbiage that raises red flags and makes the herd pause in their grazing. He must be neutralized.
So, Rick Phillips and the Gospel Reformation Network have published yet another Reformed catechism to calm the herd and keep‘em grazing. I will address each point by point.
Gospel Reformation Network Affirmations and Denials
Article I – Legalism is a Real Problem
•We affirm that legalism is a dangerous problem that the church must always address.
•We deny that legalism is the primary enemy of the gospel to the exclusion of spiritual bondage, moral rebellion and a love for sin.
Comment: There is no such thing as legalism in the Bible. The word does not appear anywhere in Scripture. Notice what is missing in the above list of concerns, what the Bible emphasizes from front to cover: antinomianism. It’s absent because when it all boils down to a proper understanding of law/gospel—that’s what Calvinism is.
Article II – The Gospel and Total Depravity
•We affirm that unregenerate man, being totally depraved, is unable to obey or please God unto salvation.
•We deny that the believer, being regenerated by the Holy Spirit, remains unable to obey and please God, by grace and in Christ.
Comment: This is a classic and longstanding Calvinist noble lie. Calvinism holds to the total depravity of the saints and they know it. I have documented this extensively in two books and on my blog. Suffice to say that Article II is prefaced with… “by grace and in Christ.” “by ‘grace’” is a replacement word for “justification.” “In Christ” is a replacement for the “vital union” which enables the realm manifestation of Christ’s obedience “through faith [ALONE].” This is all doublespeak; they do not believe anything different from what TT does.
Article III – The Gospel Includes Sanctification
•We affirm that the gospel provides salvation for the whole man, including man’s need for both imputed and imparted righteousness.
•We deny that the gospel provides freedom from the guilt of sin in justification without deliverance from the power of sin in regeneration and liberation from the practice of sin in sanctification.
Comment: They all speak of the Christian life being “the subjective power of the objective gospel.” Obedience is a manifestation of Christ’s righteousness that we EXPERIENCE only—it is done to us and not by us. Luther stated it this way:
He, however, who has emptied himself (cf. Phil. 2:7) through suffering no longer does works but knows that God works and does all things in him. For this reason, whether God does works or not, it is all the same to him. He neither boasts if he does good works, nor is he disturbed if God does not do good works through him (Heidelberg Disputation Thesis 24).
As TJ Jakes has said concerning the Trinity: he has no problem believing in three distinct persons as long as you are talking about “manifestations,” but, “I am not crazy about the word person.”
Article IV – Union with Christ and Sanctification
•We affirm that both justification and sanctification are distinct, necessary, inseparable and simultaneous graces of union with Christ though faith.
•We deny that sanctification flows directly from justification, or that the transformative elements of salvation are mere consequences of the forensic elements.
Comment: Again, this is a longstanding Reformed metaphysical two-step. Justification and sanctification are “distinct” but “inseparable.” They deny that the “transformative” elements are exclusively of the static or “forensic” reality of justification. It’s like saying that the life of a cat doesn’t come from its fur only, but it’s still a cat. Also notice that the two are “simultaneous graces.” This is Calvin’s “double grace” in which he taught that sanctification is a mere amplification of justification; ie, everyday progressive justification.
Also, all of these transformative manifestations happen within the “vital union” which is ONLY maintained by faith alone. In other words, while saying they deny that works flow from forensic justification alone, they are saying that works flow from the vital union which is only maintained through faith alone in forensic justification. It’s deliberate deception.
Article V – Gratitude and Motivation
•We affirm that gratitude for justification is a powerful motivation for growth in holiness.
•We deny that gratitude for justification is the only valid motivation for holiness, making all other motivations illegitimate or legalistic.
Comment: They affirm everything else, but remember, everything else is experienced only through the vital union which is maintained by faith alone in sanctification. This is the clear teachings of New Calvinism’s elder statesman, John Piper.
Article VI-Good Works not Merit
•We affirm that believers are not under the Law as a covenant of works, where the believer is required to merit his or her own righteousness before God.
•We deny that Christ has freed the Christian from the moral Law as the standard of Christian living.
Comment: Uh, what Calvinists believe is that we are still under the law of sin and death, their standard of righteousness, and Jesus’ obedience will be imputed to it in order to maintain our salvation if we live by faith alone in the vital union. When have you ever heard any of these guys say that we directly uphold the law of the Spirit of life through learning and obedience? Right, that’s what I thought.
Article VII – Adoption and Sanctification
•We affirm that through the finished work of Christ believers are adopted by God as sons and now relate to God as their loving heavenly Father.
•We deny that our adoption precludes God’s fatherly displeasure when His children rebel, or that God’s Fatherly love prevents Him from disciplining Christians who stray from the path of righteousness.
Comment: The justifying work of Christ is finished, but they believe that the “finished work” must be perpetually reapplied to the Chrsitian life by faith alone in order to maintain our salvation (Calvin Institutes 3.14.10-11).
Article VIII – Effort and Sanctification
•We affirm that God-glorifying, Christ-centered, Holy Spirit-empowered effort to put off sin and put on righteousness is necessary for Christian growth in grace.
•We deny that all practical effort in sanctification is moralistic, legalistic or that the only effort required for growth is that Christians remember, revisit, and rediscover their justification.
Comment: Note, “only,” “the only effort.” They still agree that revisiting our justification is a part of the sanctification process, if not of primary importance. The fact of the matter is, justification has NO part in sanctification other than the fact it makes sanctification possible and must preceded sanctification. The two are not “inseparable,” in regard to being empowered in our Christian life, they are mutually exclusive. This was Jay Adams’ very contention against Jack Miller’s Sonship theology of which Reformation 21 finds its contemporary historic roots.
Article IX – Faith and Sanctification
•We affirm that growth in the Christian life comes through faith, which believes and acts on the promises of God in the Scriptures.
•We deny that faith is wholly passive in sanctification or separated from good works in the same sense that justification is by faith alone.
Comment: But again, notice his wording very carefully: WE, or US, is excluded as the specific subjects. The Christian “life” grows (ie, realm manifestation), and it is the “faith” that acts, and “faith” is a what? Right, a gift from God that is done to us and not by us. Also notice: “We deny that faith is wholly passive.” Again, notice the continual replacement of personal pronouns for the noun “faith.” I am not parsing words here, in the following chart indorsed heavily by the GRN, what’s growing? US, or the cross? What is our role in the chart?
Article X – Preaching the Imperatives
•We affirm that faithful preaching of the Law for use in the Christian life must always be done in the context of God’s provision through the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit.
•We deny that preaching the Scripture’s indicatives without the imperatives is a healthy model for Christian ministry because such preaching fails to conform to the pattern seen in Scripture and is dangerous to the life and ministry of the church.
Comment: Mercy. Sigh. They are still propagating the preaching of a mere “pattern” and not specific application performed by us. Even John MacArthur has stated plainly that he does not preach application because that is the Spirit’s job—not ours.
Article XI – Sanctification and Assurance
•We affirm that Christians gain assurance of salvation by cherishing the promise of the gospel and by the fruit of the Spirit’s work in the believer’s life.
•We deny that assurance gained through growth in godliness amounts to a performance-based religion or necessitates an unwholesome spiritual pride.
Comment: This is an easy one. They are saying the same thing TT says: assurance comes from a mere remembering of the gospel and observing the work performed by the Holy Sprit apart from us. TT would agree here 100%
Article XII – Sanctification and Victory
•We affirm that Christians can and should experience victories over sin, however limited and partial, and that these victories bring glory to God and bear testimony to the power of His grace.
•We deny that rejoicing in victories over sin amounts to spiritual pride or performance religion, although Christians may and sometimes do sin in this way.
Comment: This states my case; victory in the Christian life is a what? Right, “experience.” And where does the power come from? Right, “grace.” Any power or ability vested in us by the new birth is excluded.
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