Backslidden Christians: Jeremiah 15:6
The Southern Baptist attitude concerning backslidden Christians reminds me of what Jay Adams shares in a lecture from INS’s biblical counseling correspondence course. He shares that he would often ask audiences for a show of hands by those who would admit that they worry. Apparently, in almost every case, most of the audience would raise their hands with a this is funny because we all know that we worry smirk on their faces. He would then ask for a show of hands from those who would admit that they had stolen in the past, or who were tempted to lie from time to time. According to Adams, the demeanor was instantly less festive and but a few raised their hands—reluctantly. Adams’ point is that we must gauge our concern for the seriousness of an issue according to how God sees it, not us. Like telling lies and stealing, we are commanded in the Bible NOT to worry. By the way, worry can take a person out just as quick as any other sin.
Hence, in this hyper-grace, we can’t keep the law perfectly anyway age that we live in, backslidden Christians are spoken of with the same urgency as aunt Betty’s common cold “that’s going around.” And the prescription is the same: “Take two Jesus Loves You pills and one We can’t Earn His Love Anyway capsules and see me at the next ice cream social. “You are coming—right? We would love to see you there to prove that we don’t judge.”
In Chapter 15 of Jeremiah, we see that Christ died for much more than the common cold. Heaven looks low on an attitude that doesn’t share God’s loathing for what sent Christ to the cross to redeem man. Verse 6 reads as follows:
“You have rejected me,” declares the LORD. ‘You keep on backsliding. So I will lay hands on you and destroy you; I can no longer show compassion.’”
God was not talking to the Canaanites, or the Babylonians, or any other Gentile nation that represents the unregenerate. How can they be backsliders? What are they backslidden from? He is talking to His covenant people—those who claim His name and claim to belong to Him. In all English translations (in other words, all of the translators agree), the idea taken from the Hebrew is that Judah was in a backward motion. Or, if you will, backslidden people who claimed to be of God. God hates sin in general, but apparently, He is particularly agitated by those who claim to be His while reveling in what He hates, or at least indifferent to it. For sure, it could be deemed worse because vile behavior is expected of the unregenerate.
Notice that regardless of one’s claim, backsliding ( Tanakh Jewish Study Bible: “ever backward” indicating a continual pattern) is a rejection of God. From God’s perspective, He is being rejected. Regardless of what we think while raising our hands with a knowing grin, God says: “You have rejected me,” and in case you miss the point, he adds; “declares the Lord.” It’s a declaration by God—any questions?
Just how angry does God get when those who claim His name backslide? We get an idea in this same chapter:
“Then the LORD said to me: ‘Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my heart would not go out to this people. Send them away from my presence! Let them go! And if they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ tell them, ‘This is what the LORD says: ‘Those destined for death, to death; those for the sword, to the sword; those for starvation, to starvation; those for captivity, to captivity. ‘I will send four kinds of destroyers against them,’ declares the LORD, ‘the sword to kill and the dogs to drag away and the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy. I will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh son of Hezekiah king of Judah did in Jerusalem.’”
In contrast to what they had in Him, God asks: “Who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem? Who will mourn for you? Who will stop to ask how you are?” There is only one who really cares for us, but yet, backslidden Christians will not even be a memory to the world they lust for while rejecting the God who gave it all to redeem them.
Backslidden Christians don’t get it, and it is our responsibility to make sure they know that they are rejecting God. Jeremiah did not preach anything different from the apostle John who called on the church to do the following: “If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this.”
Eventually, backslidden Christians will go too far, and prayer will be futile. Unless we pray and come along side with wise counsel (Galatians 6:1), it will be too late. This is no trite matter. Churches that are lax in regard to turning souls from death should ask themselves why they neglect such a high calling of love towards other Christians.
paul
“Lifeway” Publishers Now Serving Antinomian Koolaid to Our Youth: Part 1
Just yesterday, a youth leader from the Southern Baptist church Susan and I attend brought me a copy of a recent edition of “EC,” a magazine published for teens by Lifeway Publishers. By way of description, their website says the following:
“LifeWay Christian Resources was originally created as the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1891. As a denominational publisher, LifeWay provides resources for use in Southern Baptist churches and for the general public. LifeWay publications include curriculum study materials, ministry periodicals, personal growth materials, leisure-reading periodicals, multimedia and Internet resources, and books.”
The leader also brought me a copy of “Life Focus,” the student learning guide for teens. He also suggested that while both were saturated with contemplative spirituality, the student guide was much more nuanced than the magazine because the student guide would involve participation by adult leaders. It wouldn’t surprise me. For purposes of introducing this problem to our church, I will be writing a series on the one edition presented to me which has almost all the tenets of New Calvinism, Gospel Sanctification, New Covenant Theology, Sonship Theology, etc.
I will get the ball rolling in this first part by addressing a concept from page 49 of the July 2011 edition of EC. Don’t get discouraged if this first part is hard to understand—I will have more time to better articulate in the following parts. It states the following to our youth:
“You know you love Christ, and you know how He is calling you to live—and you obey from the heart. That means that the reason you’re obedient to God isn’t because you think you have to, that being “good” will earn you His favor, or that the way to live the Christian life is to follow a bunch of rules. It means that you obey Christ’s commands out of love, recognizing who He is and what He has done for you. When you understand the cost Christ paid to set you free from sin and the depth of His love for you, you simply can’t pursue a life characterized by sin.”
Where to even start? This statement, though nuanced, and as the youth leader also suggested; speaks of the sanctification process in a justifying way, is fraught with error and a twisting of phraseology. Notice that the sanctification concept of “making it our goal to please Him” (2Cor. 5:9) is twisted into the concept of earning God’s favor for salvation by trying to be “good” (the implication is perfection, which we know will not happen until glorification). Of course, the error plays on the fact that most Christians, especially youth, do not know the difference between justification, sanctification, and glorification. Hence, trying to please God in sanctification is synonymous with trying to earn His favor for justification.
Then the most disturbing statement: “….or [notice “or”:other than; what?] that the way to live the Christian life is to follow a bunch of rules.” Notice how Christ’s mandate to put all that He has said into “practice” (Matt.7:26,27) is reworded as “a bunch of rules.” Clearly, the statement doesn’t qualify what “rules” are being talked about (the Psalms calls God’s word “rules” in many places), and the qualification thereof in the following sentences insinuates that obedience “from the heart” comes from one thing and one thing only: a deeper and deeper appreciation of what Christ did for us on the cross.
And that is what I am going to focus on here in the first part. This is the same contemplative spiritually presently overrunning the American church like a giant Tsunami. It holds that obedience flows naturally from a gushy, romantic like love that is produced from our gratitude for what Christ did for us on the cross, and is propagated by highly acclaimed teachers such as Francis Chan, John Piper, and Michael Horton. Supposedly, disobedience is always the result of lack in a “deeper and deeper” understanding of the gospel, who Christ is as a “real person” (whatever that means), and the depth of His love for us, as seen in the EC quotation:
“It means that you obey Christ’s commands out of love, (= the following) recognizing who He is and what He has done for you. When you understand the cost Christ paid to set you free from sin and the depth of His love for you, you simply can’t pursue a life characterized by sin.”
Of course, this assumes that Christ wanted Peter, who witnessed what Christ did firsthand, to qualify his love for Him this way: Do you love me? Then always contemplate what I did this week. Do you love me? Then study my personhood. Do you love me? Then figure out how much I love you. And by the way, teach my sheep to do the same thing.
Francis Chan, in his highly acclaimed book “Crazy Love,” compares this love to what it feels like when we fall in love with a girlfriend: “Because when you’re wildly in love with someone, it changes everything” (back cover forward: “Crazy Love”). Throughout the book, like his good friend John Piper, the legitimacy of love toward God is determined by feelings only. Francis Chan writes in the same aforementioned book on page 110: “When we work for Christ out of obligation, it feels like work. But when we truly love Christ, our work is a manifestation of that love, and it feels like love” So much for the Evangelical battle cry of past years: “Love is a verb.” Completely absent in Chan’s book is the concept of love that beseeches God Almighty for a passing of the cup of suffering if it be His will while sweating great drops of blood. On page 100, he says Christ was his grandmother’s “lover.” On page 101, Chan eludes to the New Covenant Theology concept of God’s law being replaced with a single law of love that is always accompanied by giddy, romantic feelings: “When we love, we’re free! We don’t have to worry about a burdensome load of commands, because when we are loving, we can’t sin. Do you feel free in your Christian life?” Notice: Chan’s standard for loving obedience in the Christian life is clearly; “Do you feel free in your Christian life?”
Michael Horton puts this in systematic theological terms with the following formula: Gratitude > Doxology > Obedience. I will now conclude this first post of the series with an excerpt from another article written to answer a reader’s question concerning this theological formula:
So, help me understand. I pulled the following quote from an article published in Modern Reformation, posted here, http://www.ouruf.org/d/cvt_sanctification.pdf. Why are you so against this way of thinking about the Christian life. If I am not motivated to obey the commands of scripture by the fact that I am already justified, then what would you suggest should be my motivation?
“I began to see that we stand before God today as righteous as we ever will be, even in heaven, because he has clothed us with the righteousness of his Son. Therefore, I don’t have to perform to be accepted by God. Now I am free to obey him and serve him because I am already accepted in Christ (see Rom. 8:1). My driving motivation now is not guilt but gratitude.”
And my answer:
Great question. One: Modern Reformation (MR) presents “gratitude” as the primary motivation for obedience to the exclusion of almost everything else. Second point under One: supposedly, our gratitude is increased by pondering / contemplating / meditating on the “gospel” or works of Christ which results in obedience that is qualified as acceptable before God because it is accompanied by joy, and a willing spirit. This is exactly what John Piper believes also; the moral character of obedience is ALWAYS determined by joy. Both of these points are indicative of Quietist, contemplative spirituality that Matt mentioned in the comment section of the other post.
Two: “I began to see that we stand before God today as righteous as we ever will be, even in heaven, because he has clothed us with the righteousness of his Son.” This is true, but MR believes that any attempt on our part to apply that righteousness horizontally is to take away from Christ’ righteousness that has been granted to us. This error is very subtle and is clothed in truth. We are not only righteous positionally, but we are also enabled to be righteous practically. It is up to us to “put on” the righteousness we have been given and to “put off” the remnant of sin left in our mortal bodies (Eph 4:20-24). This process will be EXPERIENCED IN A MYRIAD OF WAYS and will use a wide range of spiritual weapons granted to us, NOT JUST an endeavoring to be thankful for what Christ has done for us. In fact, making use of our complete arsenal is what will lead to deeper gratitude, not the limitation thereof. Paul said to put on the “full armor of God.”
But now let me hasten to reference what I said above (“MR believes that any attempt on our part to apply that righteousness horizontally is to take away from Christ’ righteousness that has been granted to us.”): On page 62 of “Christless Christianity” M. Horton says that spiritual growth only takes place when we, like unbelievers as well, “encounter the gospel afresh.” In other words, contemplation on the gospel is the only thing that produces spiritual growth. Furthermore, this eliminates the purpose of instruction from use of the Scriptures because the Spirit only works “through the gospel.” This is known as the “Christocentric” or Gospel-centric hermeneutic. Also, on pages 189-191 of the same book, Horton propagates the idea that corporate worship is strictly a contemplative affair and that we are a valley of dead bones coming to receive life through the corporate presentation of the gospel and sacraments. Of course, this is a blatant contradiction of Hebrews 10:23-25. In addition, on pages 117-119, Horton says that any attempt on our part to be a testimony with our good works (as Christians) is an attempt to “be the gospel” rather than presenting the gospel. In other words, our own efforts in evangelism is an attempt t to replace the works of Christ with our works. Of course, this is a blatant contradiction to Matthew 5:16 and 1Peter 3:1,2.
Three: “Therefore, I don’t have to perform to be accepted by God.” No, not for justification, but we need to dependently perform in sanctification in order to “PLEASE God” (2Cor 5:9). Note 2Cor 5:9 carefully–for crying out loud, it will even be our goal in heaven to please Him–except we will be unhindered by the flesh, but it will be no less us obeying Him than now, just more, and too perfection. Christ will not be obeying for us in heaven while we please Him there because we will be “like Him.” Neither does He obey for us now, though no doubt, we need to depend on His strength and knowledge to do so, but we are definitely WORKING with God (1Cor 3:9 1Thess 3:2). But Horton believes that justification and sanctification are the same thing. Therefore, any effort to be “accepted”(a salvation concept) by Him in sanctification (a misnomer) equals an effort to be justified by Him as well. This is very subtle and deceptive. However, he states plainly on page 62 in “Christless Christianity” that any effort to grow spiritually apart from contemplation on the gospel will result “in the LOSS of BOTH.” Both what? Answer: both justification and sanctification; ie, your lost!
Four: The Bible designates several other motivations for obedience other than gratitude. Let’s start with MR’s use of guilt because they / Horton know that our society has been conditioned to view guilt as an ill motivation or bad thing. “My driving motivation now is not guilt but gratitude.” This statement insinuates that the sum of sanctification is either / or. Not so. The apostle Paul instructed Timothy to “Keep a clear conscience before God” (1Tim 1:5, 1:19, 3:9, 4:2, 2Tim 1:3). Clearly, one of the goals in sanctification is the consideration and motivation to KEEP a clear conscience. Secondly, under Four, fear of discipline is used to motivate (Acts 5:10-16 1Thess 4:6 1Tim 5:20). Thirdly, the awesome motivation to discipline self to prevent the Lord’s discipline. What a wonderful motivation / promise from our Lord! (1Cor 11:27-32). Fourthly, we are motivated by being promised blessings IN (a preposition) the DOING, (James 1:25) not IN CONTEMPLATION.
Fifthly, God motivates us to good works via REWARDS. Really, hundreds of verses could be cited to make this point, but I will mention Matthew 6:6. Also note that contemplation is not the cure for hypocritical prayer in the context of Jesus’ counsel here, but the practice of private prayer. I will stop here as the biblical points that could be cited on this are endless, but let me say that I am very concerned with contemplation replacing biblical instruction in regard to helping Christians with serious life problems, and being complete before the Lord, lacking nothing (2Timothy 3:16).
Five: MR fails to recognize the all important biblical concept of self-sacrifice. Often, our faith will drag ourselves kicking and screaming into obedience in order to please God; and the belief that blessings will be our reward, though delayed for the time-being. Joy does not always walk with obedience at every moment. In fact, faith often does not care about self at all, but rather takes pleasure in the fact that God is pleased regardless of how we feel at the time. Here, beating our bodies into subjection and self-death is the motivation / goal. Do we always seek to please God because we are mindful of his sacrifice? Or is it our love for Him that is many faceted with gratitude included?
Six: Gratitude alone does not bring us near to God; “adding” to our faith does (2Peter 1:5-11).
Bottom line: The MR quote above is fraught with deception. Contemplative spirituality is a roadway to destruction.
paul
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