Commendation, and Hyper-Grace Pharisees
Offended, he was, when I told a pastor that his sermon was a “home run.” “I don’t hit ‘home runs,’” he said, obviously offended because I didn’t “give all of the glory to the Lord.” Besides, depending on his flavor of hyper-grace theology prevalent in our day, he might also believe that Christ actually delivered the sermon “through him.” Hence, we are merely lifeless vessels that Christ uses to do His work. It is more than fair to say that this kind of theology is being propagated by some of the most respected leaders of our day. Then there was the time I was talking to the recipient of an astounding gift from another Christian family who was a family of little financial means. The gift (to meet an important need) was a proverbial giving of the right arm. I commented to the recipient regarding how amazed I was at such a sacrificial gift. The response: “they didn’t give me anything, it was the Lord.” It was obvious that the recipient was not only offended by my remark, but was defending the other family from the sin of not “giving all of the glory to the Lord.”
Yes, grace is in the air like never before. Jesus does it all. As Steve Green sings, we are “empty vessels waiting to be filled.” We are empty, and all we can do is *wait* and hope that Jesus will do something in our lives, so when he does, everyone will know it was the Lord because we are “empty,” dead vessels. And as Steve Green also notes in the same song, “That’s Were The Joy Comes From,” when we see Jesus obeying for us. Therefore, to commend others is to deny that Jesus did it all; a sin worthy of receiving the dreaded label spelled P-h-a-r-i-s-e-e.
There is only one problem. We have let theologians of our day define *legalism* which the Pharisees were supposedly guilty of. Their definition of legalism is any effort on our part to do what God wants us to do. I like what Jay Adams has to say about this notion:
“Strangely, there are, today, those who believe that if we do anything to please God, we are acting by ‘the arm of flesh.’ By that they mean we are doing something solely in our own strength. But, by making it an either/or matter, we upset the biblical balance of loving obedience and strengthening grace” (“What is Sanctification” INS blog, September 16, 2010).
In a book that I would not recommend (“Introduction to Biblical Counseling” by the Master’s College faculty) because it gives unwarranted credibility to some who are not doctrinally sound (ie., David Powlison and others), Dennis Swanson rightly notes that “legalism is a term that is frequently tossed around without much thought to its meaning” (p. 381). He proceeds to define legalism in these biblical terms: “In legalism someone establishes an external standard of spirituality and then judges everyone by that standard.” And that’s what the Pharisees were guilty of. They mingled the Law of God with their own tradition making it “void” (Matthew 15:1-9). All of today’s much-ado-about-nothing regarding the fear that we will unwittingly offend God by doing what he wants us to do scripturally, because it is us doing it and not Him, is not legalism.
Though many other examples could be used, let me now continue to use “commendation” as an example of how this passive view of Scripture is actually legalism, and not our “own”(as if the exercise of our efforts automatically denies God’s efficacious involvement) efforts to please God. Simply put, to not recognize the good works of others (Christians, of course) because it supposedly takes glory from God and implies that we have a role in good works, is an external standard that is not biblical, and therefore is really legalism. The apostle Paul explicitly commands us to commend others and recognize them publicly, and did so himself on many occasions:
“So then, welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor people like him, because he almost died for the work of Christ. He risked his life to make up for the help you yourselves could not give me”(Philippians 2:29,30).
Paul also called Timothy God’s “co-worker” (1Thessalonians 3:2 ESV). I mean really, do we need to look up “co-worker” in Webster’s Dictionary? We are to commend those who do their part in God’s work. And frankly, I find the disclaimer “we know the Lord did it all” whenever we do commend saints, annoying. Let me use one more example other than “commendation” before I close. Since I mentioned him above, David Powlison has said to never tell a counselee to “just stop it,” and that the Lord would never say that to one of his children (see full article here: https://paulspassingthoughts.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/will-the-poo-pooing-of-scriptures-plain-sense-ever-cease/ ) This is a standard set by Powlison, not Scripture (see John 5:14, Acts 15:29, 21:25, 1Peter 2:11). Abstinence is clearly one of many weapons in our sanctification repertoire. Again, many other examples could be cited, but legalism is the following of a false standard, not biblical standards, we call that “obedience.”
While claiming to be on a crusade to save the church from Pharisee-ism and legalism, they are really the ones that are the Pharisees of our day. Specifically, they are hyper-grace Pharisees.
paul
So, When Did New Calvinism Hijack Westminster? And…
I own a couple of online bookstores and enjoy reading some of the older Christian books. As I was entering books the other day, I picked one up from the stack entitled “The Infallible Word” written by the faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary, the one in Philadelphia. The book is a real keeper; It is in very good condition, and is the third revision of a symposium on the doctrine of Scripture. It was written in 1946, and the third revision (the copy I have) was printed in 1967. The forward is written by Dr. M. Lloyd Jones. Apparently, the contributors are from the Westminster faculty of that time (1946) as follows: John Murray; Edward Young; N.B. Stonehouse; John Skelton; Paul Wooley; R.B. Kuiper; Cornelius Van Til.
As Dr. Masters of the Metropolitan has noted, New Calvinism’s claim of historical precedent is far from impressive. And as others have noted, New Covenant Theology (which is joined at the hip with New Calvinism) was probably conceived at Westminster around 1980. So, when I picked up the next data entry and realized what it was, my first thought was, “this should be interesting.” Yes, especially with Paul Wooley stating in the Preface: “It continues to be our conviction that this is the basic position of the divines who made up the Westminster Assembly which convened in 1643…”
There is no room here to state all of the glaring contradictions between Old Calvinism and New Calvinism provoked by the reading of this book, but I will rather focus on what New Calvinism and its tenets (NCT, Gospel Sanctification, Heart Theology, Christian Hedonism, and Redemptive Historical Hermeneutics) should stand on, or fall: its view of Scripture.
First, the faculty didn’t share New Calvinism’s Christocentric view of Scripture. Their view of Scripture was very similar to traditional Evangelicalism, which is disdained by proponents of New Calvinism. Before I continue, I might also add that Geerhardus Vos and his Biblical Theology is not once mentioned in the book, or if it is, I certainly missed it, and he (Vos) definitely appears nowhere in the index of names. Instead of “gospel” being used to refer to Scripture (actually, I remember “gospel” being used once, maybe twice, in the whole book), the term that all faculty members used throughout the book to describe Scripture, seemingly on every page, was “the objective divine authority.” Throughout the book, the emphasis was *objective authority* NOT *gospel narrative.* John Murray states the following on page 29:
“It is precisely in this estimation of the Scriptures and in such illusion to them, as not only prophetic of what took place in the fullness of time but also as having direct bearing upon the most practical and abiding of Christian duties, that the New Testament abounds.”
Got that? The Scriptures are not only about what took place in “the fullness of time” (ie., the gospel), but “also” have a “direct bearing” on practical Christian “duties.” To the New Calvinist, this statement is barley less than heresy. Furthermore, *obedience* to the *authority* of Scripture is a constant theme throughout the book. N.B. Stonehouse further elaborates on page 99:
“It is our conviction that the idea of canonicity has meaning and validity only if Christian theism, the theism of the Bible, is true. Implicit in the idea of a divinely authoritative Scripture is the thought of God as self-existent and self sufficient, the creator and ruler of the universe. His works necessarily constitute a disclosure of his mind and purpose.”
Not only does this make my prior point, but introduces another: this is a far cry from John Piper’s Christocentric assertion that God “entered history through the works of Christ.” No, redemption entered history as a disclosure of God’s mind and purpose. This leaves room for other things God may want to disclose about Himself, obviously. And this was also the position of the Westminster faculty. In fact, Edward Young attributes Luke 24:44 to the idea that Christ was speaking only of those scriptures that He prophetically and historically fulfilled, not New Calvinism’s idea that all Scripture is Christicentric. Here is what he said on page 61:
“What, however is meant by Christ’s use of the word “psalms”? Did he thereby intend to refer to all the books in the third division of the canon, or did he merely have in mind the book of Psalms itself? The latter alternative, we think, is probably correct. Christ singled out the book of Psalms, it would appear, not so much because it was the best known and most influential book of the third division, but rather because in the Psalms there were many predictions about himself. This was the Christological book, par excellence, of the third division of the Old Testament canon.
Most of the books of this third division do not contain direct messianic prophesies. Hence, if Christ had used a technical designation to indicate this third division, he would probably have weakened his argument to a certain extent. But by the reference to the Psalms he directs the minds of his hearers immediately to that particular book in which occur the greater number of references to himself.”
Hence, in the estimation of the Westminster faculty during that time, the whole Bible isn’t a “Christological book, par excellence,” as it is more than fair to say of the New Calvinist mantra, but only the Psalms, which is a “particular” book having a “greater number of references” to himself. “Greater number” of…, obviously implies that their view wasn’t in alignment with a comprehensive soteriology, but rather the latter being among other revelations of God’s will and character, although a major theme.
Secondly, along the lines of Scripture, the faculty did not share the New Calvinist / NCT view that Christ came to abolish the Old Testament Law by fulfilling it, but rather fulfilled it to FURTHER ESTABLISH ITS AUTHORITY. John Murray makes this clear on pages 20 and 21 while commenting on Matthew 5:17-19;
“ The word ‘destroy’ (kataluo) is particularly significant. It means to abrogate, to demolish, to disintegrate, to annul or, as J.A. Alexander points out, ‘the destruction of the whole by the complete separation of its parts, as when a house is taken down by being taken to pieces.’ His emphatic denial of any such purpose in reference to either the law or the prophets means that the discharge of his messianic mission leaves the law and the prophets intact. He utters, however, not only this emphatic denial but also adds the positive purpose of his coming – he came to fulfill, to complete. And so his work with reference to both law and prophets is completory, not destructive. He who can speak in the immediately succeeding context with such solemn asseveration and imperious authority brings all that is involved in such asseveration and authority to bear upon the confirmation of the abiding validity, stability, and authority of both law and prophets. And not only so, but he also grounds his own mission and task upon such permanent validity, and defines his work in terms of fulfillment of all that the law and the prophets provided.”
Murray states here that Christ’s mission was grounded in the permanent authority of the law and the prophets. Could there be a more antithetical statement in regard to New Covenant Theology?
Lastly, Stonehouse makes it clear what the Westminster faculty believed in regard to a centrality of Scripture on page 107:
“ To put the matter in concrete and specific terms, Christianity began as a religion of a divine book, as a religion of authority which definitely acknowledged a book as an objective expression of the divine mind and will. Were it not that so many modern writers have approached the study of the New Testament cannon with the assumption that Christianity is basically not a religion of authority but a religion of “the spirit,” it would hardly seem necessary to emphasize the point that the idea of an inscripturated canon, far from being uncongenial to Christianity, forms an integral element of the Christian faith from the beginning of its life.”
While this statement makes my aforementioned point, let me also ask: what is more indicative of New Calvinism than the claim that it promotes “the spirit” over the authority of Scripture? The Westminster faculty of that time even cautioned against the truth / tension of the illuminating Spirit being set against objective authority: “This doctrine of the inward witness of the Spirit does not sacrifice the objective authority of the Scriptures, as often maintained” (p.101).
Do I have to try to carry all of the water here? Somebody help me out. It seems that these guys (as I gather from my reading) were definitely Covenant theologians. But there is no way that the movers and shakers at the present-day Westminster Seminary are of Covenant Theology. If you believe that, I would like to tell that this book is personally autographed by Van Til with a gel pen, and it can be yours for a modest price of say, 200 bucs. You can’t separate New Calvinism from NCT / Gospel Sanctification, they are joined at the hip. What’s going on over there? It looks like a hijacking to me, and when did it happen? And how do these guys get away with pretending to be on the same par with Westminster tradition? I’m just asking.
paul
Straight From the Antinomian’s Own Mouth: What is New Covenant Theology? Part 7; The “Newfangled” Fifteen
Like the Antinomianism of the 19th century, the contemporary version of our day, primarily expressed in New Covenant Theology, is fraught with the same kind of “newfangled phraseology” that JC Ryle complained about. Ryle’s complaint is worth another look before we proceed:
“Finally, I must deprecate, and I do it in love, the use of uncouth and new-fangled terms and phrases in teaching sanctification. I plead that a movement in favor of holiness cannot be advanced by new-coined phraseology, or by disproportioned and one-sided statements–or by overstraining and isolating particular texts–or by exalting one truth at the expense of another– or by allegorizing and accommodating texts, and squeezing out of them meanings which the Holy Spirit never put in them”
Likewise, NCT is not without its own newfangled phraseology. There are primarily fifteen:
1. Rich Typology: It’s so rich, that it doesn’t read like typology, but rather seems to be literal, being so “rich.” Example; “Israel” doesn’t really mean “Israel,” but is always a reference to Christ. God’s word really doesn’t mean “word,” or “Law,” but is also 100% synonymous with “the person of Christ who personifies the Law.” This typology is sooooo rich, that even though Proverbs personifies “wisdom” as a woman, that’s still speaking of Christ also. Wow, now that’s really rich.
2. In-Lawed in Christ: The Law is completely fulfilled in Christ because, He obeyed it perfectly. Therefore, we have no need to obey it, nor does it have any role in sanctification.
3. Deep Repentance: The process in which heart idols are discovered by evaluating desires that the idols produce. When we repent of specific idols, it empties our hearts and leaves a void that is filled by Christ, who then obeys for us.
4. New Obedience: The result of deep repentance – Christ obeys for us.
5. Progressive Sanctification: Ongoing justification, which isn’t a one time act, but is continually applied to us as needed. Some advocates of NCT acknowledge a daily “re-saving.” Paul Tripp says that Christians need a “daily rescue,” and cites Romans 7: 24.
6. Redemptive-Historical Hermeneutics: Invented by the liberal theologian Johann Philipp in the 17th century and further developed by Geerhardus Vos. It makes NCT possible by supplying a prism that will always yield redemptive concepts from the text.
7. Christian Hedonism: Invented by John Piper in 1980. He believes that people are driven by their desires. Therefore, change the desires and you change the behavior. Piper believes that we can only change our desires by meditating on the glory of Christ as seen in the Bible. He also believes that biblical imperatives only serve to make us dependant on Christ and cherish Him more, because we are powerless to keep the Law. He cites Romans 6:17 to make this point, and believes Christians are still “enslaved” to sin.
8. The Imperative Command is Grounded in the Indicative Event: All biblical imperatives illustrate the work of Christ, not anything God expects us to do. As Paul Tripp states it: All biblical commands must be seen in their “gospel context.” If that’s not Antinomianism, what is?
10. Good Repentance: Repenting of good works, or anything we try to do in “our own efforts” as opposed to yielding to Christ and allowing Him to obey for us. Paul Tripp says this will result in “new and surprising fruit.” Tim Keller also suggests that repenting of good works is an essential part of a saving profession. As these people continue to pontificate such lunacy, nobody blinks and they are continually supplied with credibility by the who’s who of the Evangelical community, such as John MacArthur and RC Sproul.
11. The Apostle’s Hermeneutic: A supposed pattern of interpretation that’s patterned after RHH. However, despite numerous challenges from various writers, NCT proponents have never been able to articulate it.
13. New Calvinism: The expression of NCT and all of its tenets; Heart Theology, Gospel Sanctification, Christian Hedonism, and the Redemptive-Historical hermeneutic.
14. Word Pictures: If your pastor starts using this phraseology, it’s a red flag. The insinuation is that the Bible writers were writing a gospel narrative / novel / story rather than a document containing specific ideas / instruction to be drawn from the text by evaluating grammatical construction and historical context.
15. What does that look like? If your leaders start using this phraseology, again, it’s a red flag. It’s an attempt to eradicate the implication that Christians are supposed to participate in the verb world. Instead of: “what should we do?” It’s: “what does that look like when Jesus is doing it for us?”
I don’t suppose this newfangled 15 would arouse any suspicions among God’s people, for I fear that we also “look like” another complaint leveled by JC Ryle:
“There is an Athenian love of novelty abroad, and a morbid distaste for anything old and regular, and in the beaten path of our forefathers. Thousands will crowd to hear a new voice and a new doctrine, without considering for a moment whether what they hear is true.”
paul
From the Antinomian’s Own Mouth: What is New Covenant Theology? Part 6; Bresson’s Gospel According to Green Grass and Dinosaurs
“The Vos hermeneutic is new, disregards the plain sense of textual content, contains pagan philosophy, and in reality, is just plain goofy.”
Bresson, while pretending to be a friend of the Creation Museum, actually has a problem with it. What would that be? In his mind, and many other proponents of NCT, the Creation Museum projects the “unfortunate” idea that Scripture contains subject matter other than “the gospel.” So, Bresson wrote an article to set the record straight. In the article, he insinuates that the designers built the Creation Museum with a predominate “Redemptive Historical” theme in mind. The administrators of the Creation Museum then unwittingly republished the article on their website.
I am going to re-post my review of the article here because it contains further information on NCT, and especially its hermeneutic, or interpretive prism. My review can be read in full here:
paul
Latter-Day Church Reality
What’s wrong with you? “You seem to struggle with being content.” “Well, there’s no such thing as a perfect church,” “Are you one of those ‘heresy hunters?’” “You aren’t a ‘church-hopper’ are you?” “Nobody else has a problem with what your talking about; maybe you should take a deeper look at your own heart.” “Come now brother, you act like there’s a false teacher behind every bush.”
If your a zealous Christian with a deep love for the truth, the above statements might sound familiar to you, but it just might be that the trouble isn’t in your set (or head). It took several years for the following to sink into my head: if one takes Scripture seriously, we must believe that solid New Testament churches will be the exception in our day, and not the norm. In fact, the big question is not where to find a “good” church, but rather what to do, and how to think about the fact that such churches will be extremely rare in our day. Julia Duin took a stab at it in her book, “Quitting Church: Why the Faithful Are Fleeing and What to Do about it.” I think her book describes the symptoms well and offers a reasonable solution to the problem. More on that in my close.
First, I must believe that any mentality that fosters the idea that “there are many good churches out there, but you have to find them,” couldn’t be true. Why? Because the coming of Christ and His ascension marks an “age” that will be characterized by an unprecedented attack on the truth unrivaled in all of redemptive history. I delve into this in detail in the following post: https://paulspassingthoughts.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/an-apostolic-call-to-discernment-in-the-%E2%80%9Clast-days%E2%80%9D/
Christ said the following in Luke 18:8, “…when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” In the very beginning of the New Testament age, all-out warfare between truth and error was a raging fire, mostly WITHIN the church. Almost all of the New Testament books are primarily written to address doctrinal error / heresy WITHIN the church, or address that problem as a secondary issue. The only exception I can think of is Philemon. Furthermore, it is clear that looking forward historically, the apostles made it clear that the problem would only get worse: “while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2Timothy 3:13). Also, the apostle Paul warned Timothy, “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine” (2Timothy 4:2,3). Got that? Men will not TOLERATE sound doctrine in the last days; and again, I think the apostle is talking about men within the the church. And with bad doctrine comes the usual results:
“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God-having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them” (2Timothy 3:1-5).
Paul said the times would be “terrible,” and I have to believe that the Holy Spirit isn’t given to exaggeration. Frankly, when you consider the mindset of today’s church in regard to the sufficiency of Scripture, what could be more descriptive than “having a form of godliness but denying its power”? Forget biblical counseling for serious life problems, its been replaced with Church-in-a-Bottle and Saint Sigmund. Without getting sidetracked further, I might also mention Peter’s description of the latter-day characteristic regarding eschatology (2Peter 3:3-10). The church’s disdain for last things has become very prevalent, especially in this decade.
However, this isn’t the picture we are coming to grips with in our day. We don’t want to think about how bad it really is when the kingdom of darkness has been perfecting its trade for 2000 years. The apostle Paul was consumed with defending the truth on every front, and warned that false teachers would increase, not decrease; and again, that was 2000 years ago!
But there’s hope. The manual for doing church right hasn’t gone anywhere; the truth still waits for all who will follow. Julia Duin seemed to advocate home churches that aren’t constrained by church hierarchies. Perhaps, but I do think new churches that have the right biblical goals are a good solution to the problem. I also think that such churches will have to remember the following: the kingdom of darkness will seek to snuff them out early on; where there is life, there is CHANGE; the Bible must be the final authority on EVERYTHING, and; a hermeneutic used for interpretation of the Scripture must be known and agreed upon. The problem is huge, but God never leaves his children without remedy.
paul
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