Ever heard of the 97 Theses? And is There Anything More Brainwashed than a Protestant?
Funny how the Protestants of Western culture fancy themselves as being grounded in objective scholarship. Because of our supposed acute intellect that enables the Bible to kiss logic, light shines from darkness wherever the world is blessed with our storied missionaries proclaiming the “gaaaaassspul.”
Yes, we are supposedly soooo unlike those mystical misfits found in Eastern culture and third world countries. And this is such a lie; perhaps the biggest ever perpetrated on mankind in all of human history. Few Protestants have a clue what the Reformation was really about, and the churches have deliberately rewritten church history to keep parishioners in the dark. Arguably, Protestantism is the most pathetic super-cult ever conceived because its participants don’t even know what their faith really teaches; at least good Hindus have an accurate mental grasp on their religious tenets. The same can be said for those pesky Islamic extremists that we despise.
Point in case: most Protestants haven’t even heard of the documents that really formed the foundation of the Protestant Reformation. We have been deliberately conditioned to believe that Martin Luther’s 95 Theses and the 5 Solas form the doctrinal foundation of the Reformation. It’s deliberate deception.
It supposedly goes without saying that the Reformation was a logical and objective return to the authority of Scripture; ie., “Sola Scriptura,” etc. This is all a steroidal outrageous lie; the exact opposite is true. The Reformation was sparked as a pushback against the Catholic Church’s move towards logical theology. In other words, the Catholic Church was founded on Augustinian Platonic (Gnostic) principles, but in the 13th century, it began moving more towards theological tenets based on logic and objectivism. And Martin Luther would have none of it.
Let me sort of simplify this as much as I can. It is the difference between two schools; one states that man cannot know reality, and the other states that he can. The former one draws a strict dichotomy between the material realm and the invisible realm. In this one; that is, the former, the material realm is an illusion, or subjective. Human experience cannot yield knowledge, and empiricism is a lie or useless epistemology. This usually yields some form of theology that deems all things material as evil/knowable and all things invisible as good/unknowable. In other words, man can ONLY know the material/evil world. I contend that this religion was first introduced in the garden as the “knowledge of good and evil.” I contend that in the creation account God was emphatic that His creation is “good” for this very reason; He knew what was coming.
Part and parcel with this philosophy that has dominated human history is the caste system. Caste systems advocate a knowledge strata that demands rulership over the world for the sake of the collective good. Some force or god from the invisible realm preordains wisemen who aid mankind in making the best of existence in the evil material world. These are Plato’s philosopher kings, and the Catholic Church was structured accordingly. Monks were the ones that separated themselves from the world as much as possible to obtain wisdom from the invisible realm, and then passed their edicts on to the popes for implementation. Usually by force.
The Catholic Church started moving away from this philosophy and more towards the philosophy of Aristotle who believed that the material world is a valid reality.
THIS ALONE IS WHAT SPARKED THE REFORMATION. The rest is a lie dressed in biblical garb.
Far obscured from seminaries and the churches is true knowledge concerning the foundational Reformation documents written by Martin Luther in 1517 and 1518. The two primary documents that form the foundation of the Reformation are the Heidelberg Disputation, and the 97 Theses also known as “Disputations Against Scholastic Theology.” This was 97 disputations against…get this…the use of logic and reason in theology. In fact, the 97 Theses were written one month before the 95 Theses. Also, it is commonly thought that the Heidelberg Disputation, penned 6 months after the 95 Theses, only contains 28 theological theses. No, it contains 12 that are philosophical for a total of 40. In both cases concerning these foundational documents, the major theme is Plato versus Aristotle. This is irrefutable.
And the ignorance of Protestants is no accident—it’s deliberate. What we are seeing today in the New Calvinist movement is a return to Protestantism’s Platonic/Gnostic roots. In a shocking display of blatant deception, New Calvinist leaders claim that hordes of people are being drawn to the movement because they desire a more intellectual faith.
The fact is that it appears intellectual while denying all logic and reason in matters of faith. Perhaps the best example of how this functions is the New Calvinist claim that “Christians” are still “sinners” while the Bible uses that word exclusively for the unregenerate at least 70 times. Words, being objective and meaning things, don’t really mean anything. Truth comes from whatever the philosopher kings say they mean.
Regardless of these modern Reformers claiming a more logical faith, the opposite is true…and they know it.
paul
What is Really Going On With Common Core?
John Immel | March 23, 2016
I was recently asked to give my thoughts on this article and what follows is an expanded version of my response.
After reading the article you can see that Common Core teaching methods makes hash out of mathematics and, of course, the logical question is why? Why create a teaching method that so obviously destroys arithmetical mastery? Common Core math is so disconnected from Classical instruction it seems too bizarre to be accidental. What then is the real motive?
The Common Core glossy brochure says that the reason for its existence is to institute a national standard to measure K-12 academic success. The logic being America lags behind in education, there must be something wrong with how local schools are teaching the Three R’s, therefore the government should be in charge of how teachers are teaching which means the government should be in charge of what teachers are teaching. If the Government can measure the teachers then all will be well in American education. So the first step in making sure little Johnny can get into a good collage comes from government creating a universal standard curricula. Alakazam poof! Common Core.
(You should be very, very nervous when the federal government says it should be in charge of anything because benevolence is never the real motive.)
What then is the motive? What is the real purpose behind this “new” math?
I’m assuming you read the article so I will reference Robin’s face book post. Notice that the 3rd (or 4th ) grader answered the question correctly and then notice that the teacher gives absurd advice on how to “make” 10 from 8+5. What is the practical result to the young grade schooler? Is this a new low in educational stupidity? Did the Department of Education suddenly have an aggregate drop in IQ?
Some variation of this criticism—that teachers and administrators are just stupid—is often offered as the reason for the emergence of this new math. While it is true that the world is full of stupid and ignorant and otherwise naive people whenever you see an ongoing, concerted effort to impose the absurd, the irrational, the erroneous on the masses, know that the reason is never stupidity. There is always a motive; there is always a method to the madness.
In an effort to uncover the motive behind Common Core one person I talked to observed the methods behind the math would crush the student’s self confidence. That is true. Such instruction is sure to destroy the child’s self confidence but I submit that the target is not self confidence but something much more fundamental . . . something much more important.
As a philosopher I try to see the root of things, to identify the foundations of ideas, to find the concepts upon which human existence rests. So follow me in the path to identify this foundation.
Self confidence is a byproduct of competence and competence is a measure of effective action and effective action is the result of conceptual mastery and conceptual mastery is the successful grasp of Aristotle’s Law of Identity.
The average 3rd grader has never heard of Aristotle, let alone the Law of Identity but he has an implicit grasp of its meaning. From the moment he distinguished Mommy from Daddy and then distinguished chair from dog he was practicing the process of identification and conceptual integration. And, assuming his parents affirm the value of a rational world view, he arrives in 3rd grade already very accustomed to using Aristotle’s Law of Identity.
What is the Law of Identity?
It is summed up in these three Aristotelian axioms:
Law of Identity: Whatever is . . . is.
Law of Non Contradiction: Nothing can both be and . . . not be.
Law of the Excluded Middle: Everything must ether be or . . . not be.
Or said another way.
- A = A
- A cannot be B
- A is unique in all particulars
These axioms are the foundation for successful identification and categorization of existence. Without this as the standard, existence does not exist and man is set adrift in a sea of his own consciousness. Or said simply without this standard our 3rd grader can’t tell the difference between Mommy or Daddy or a dog and a chair.
So contrast Aristotle’s foundation with the teacher’s assertion that you can “make” 10 from 8 + 5. Notice that this teacher is laying waste to the roots of the child’s conceptual faculty. And now you get a glimpse into the nefarious purpose behind Common Core math. I suspect that Common Core teachers are more like useful zealots than pedagogical Dr. Evil’s. I suspect they are Department of Education trained parrots merely trying to emulate the teaching methods learned from university professors . . . but that does not change their culpability or the underlying educational intent.
I submit that the real purpose of Common Core math is a direct assault on the Law of Identity. If A does NOT = A then A cannot equal anything. If you can really “make” 10 from 8+5 then 10, 8 and 5 have no identity nor is there a concept subtraction, addition, multiplication, or division. Indeed the arithmetic operators are not operators at all; they are not symbols denoting mental actions to be performed with the identities.
But 1 is an identity and so is 5 and so is 8. Students first grasp these identities and then build to higher level conceptual integration to concepts like 10. And then 10 soon becomes the concept 100 and then becomes the concept 1,000 and so on until a child has tools to quantify vast subsets of particulars. So to render these concepts meaningless is to undercut conceptual integration at the root which has the practical effect of undercutting man at the root.
So the purpose of Math (of the Common Core kind) is specifically designed to elevate “making stuff up” to a science. It is designed to give academic credence to whim worship. The “system” illustrated in the article to show how to “make” numbers is merely window dressing masquerading as Logic.
I submit that the Common Core endgame is to teach young minds that A can equal anything. And if A can equal B, or C or Z then A can be anything. A is NOT A. A is whatever conceptual abstraction one chooses to apply in the moment. Whatever lip service Common Core advocates pay to knowledge and learning they can never escape the conclusion that there is nothing to know. If A is everything then A is nothing. If A has no identity then A is infinite and the infinite has no identity. (See Aristotle’s response to Zeno)
As a brief historical aside, whenever man has concluded that there is nothing to know—because they formally rejected Aristotle and the roots of objectivity— philosophy has collapsed into skepticism. This has happened three times in the progression of human thought. And all three times civilization collapsed into barbarism and irrationality. For a lesson in what that looked like see any good history book about the dark ages.
So, returning from the commercial break, the only conceivable purpose of Common Core Math
is to unravel man’s conceptual faculty and make the world unintelligible.
Why would they do such a thing?
Very simply because Classical education—the focus on the Three R’s—was a profound global success and the source of almost unlimited human freedom because it drove back the frontiers of ignorance and almost banished the destructive power of mysticism and superstition. Notice that in Classical education young minds are first introduced to formal logic when they start mathematics. Students learn the concept of identity 1 and 2 and 3 etc and then they learn to combine identities to form higher concepts 9 +1= 10.
(The tens place opening up a vast horizon of measuring capabilities)
Then young minds learn to sequence ideas: (2X2) + 2 = 6 thus learning how to organize thoughts in order of importance. And then young minds learn to identify inter relating principles: For example a + b = c thus grasping that they can quantify many identities under the variables a, b and c and successfully find relationship between their sums. No matter how good a student is at arriving at the correct mathematical answer, the root lessons are logic lessons.
So now consider the “systems” of Common Core math that remove the mathematical rules and process. Notice that Common Core “math” is really removing logic (the formal organization of concepts to create larger concepts) from education as such. This can only have one purpose: to destroy man’s capacity to reason. People “educated” to believe they can make up whatever reality they choose are mere putty in the hands of anyone demanding that 8+5= 10.
Dictators and thugs and despots the world over have always known they must first cut off Aristotle’s head before they can shackle man’s body because self-confident men will not bow to subjugation. Men and Women who can effectively grasp the world in which they live will never need a mystic despot to tell them what the world means. And as I pointed out earlier in the article the root of self confidence is really Aristotle’s laws of identity.
So it should be no surprise that all tyrannical ideologies seek to first and foremost destroy the Law of Identity (Excluded middle, Non-contradiction) because they must first separate man from reality so they can easily separate man from his mind.
Unfortunately most anti Aristotelian ideologies present themselves as saviors of human existence (Augustine, Kant, and Berkeley et al) and therefore as saviors of people. The glossy brochure leads people to believe that banishing existence from logic and reason is for the benefit of mankind so people never notice that the outcome is fantastically anti-human. When existence is set up as the metaphysical villain it certainly follows that any tools that help measure (or master) existence must be a direct threat, so people are seduced into accepting the premise that identities are not really real and that subjective “Making” is the highest “rational” ideal.
But there is no such thing as a, “little bit of subjectivity.”
Either existence is a self created manifestation of man’s consciousness (subjective) . . . or . . . Man’s consciousness is the mechanism that identifies existence (objective). Either man can “make” 10 from 8+5 by the worship of his own whim . . . or . . . existence requires that 8+5 = 13.
A is A . . . or . . . A is nothing.
And if A is nothing how do you refute subjectivism?
How can you demand an objective standard of measure when the right answer is: there is nothing to be objective about?
Or more practically, how can you respond to a Tyrant that says individual wealth is an abuse of power and it is his moral prerogative to seize your money?
You say: “I made my money by hard work.” He says: “You stole your money by an abuse of power.”
You say:” 8+5 = 13.”
He says: “Make 10 from 8+5.”
In the end it is all semantics: You say tomato he says toomaato but he has the guns so the correct answer is “8+5 = 10” and while you’re at it give him your money, give him your life because the tyrant already has your brain.
And this is exactly the point.
I suspect that the powers behind this body of education (those few intellectuals behind the educational curtain driving and shaping the curricula) know that one of the things that have prevented a Western culture from total collapse into the dark ages of subjectivism has been mathematics. Since so many people in the world have been taught the rudiments of logic via mathematics — and introduced to Newtonian mechanics and more fundamentally Aristotle’s Law of Identity through math—Western civilization maintains a (tenuous) commitment to logic and reason. Or said simply: Western culture is reluctant to abandon the idea that words mean things.
But if the Federal government can create a monopoly on education and then educate an entire generation that words don’t mean anything: Symbols don’t mean things. Ideas don’t mean things and therefore anything can mean anything . . . which means that everything means nothing. . .
. . . Totalitarians know if they can destroy the minds of your children they will own the world.
John Immel
Calvinists: Going to Hell and Proud of It
Originally published January 5, 2015
“[T]he Bible is absolutely clear that ALL of those who will supposedly bark triumphantly at that judgment are among those already damned by virtue of the fact that they are standing at that judgment. That judgment is called the “second death” in Scripture; all who stand there are already damned. Yet, Calvinists constantly boast that they will stand in that judgment.”
I hear it often, but I think this is the first time I have really parked on it and pondered; this whole thing with Calvinists being proud of the fact that they will “stand in the final judgment with no righteousness of their own.”
PPT logged a comment yesterday from “Frank” that once again proffers this idea with all of the delight of a newborn’s arrival into the world.
The Gospel very simple: God is holy and He is just, and I’m not. And at the end of my life, I’m going to stand before a just and holy God, and I’ll be judged. And I’ll be judged either on the basis of my own righteousness – or lack of it – or the righteousness of another. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus lived a life of perfect righteousness, of perfect obedience to God, not for His own well being but for His people. He has done for me what I couldn’t possibly do for myself. But not only has He lived that life of perfect obedience, He offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice to satisfy the justice and the righteousness of God.
The great misconception in our day is this: that God isn’t concerned to protect His own integrity. He’s a kind of wishy-washy deity, who just waves a wand of forgiveness over everybody. No. For God to forgive you is a very costly matter. It cost the sacrifice of His own Son. So valuable was that sacrifice that God pronounced it valuable by raising Him from the dead – so that Christ died for us, He was raised for our justification. So the Gospel is something objective. It is the message of who Jesus is and what He did. And it also has a subjective dimension. How are the benefits of Jesus subjectively appropriated to us? How do I get it? The Bible makes it clear that we are justified not by our works, not by our efforts, not by our deeds, but by faith – and by faith alone. The only way you can receive the benefit of Christ’s life and death is by putting your trust in Him – and in Him alone. You do that, you’re declared just by God, you’re adopted into His family, you’re forgiven of all of your sins, and you have begun your pilgrimage for eternity.
That’s the simplicity of the gospel.
This is why we should in no wise be surprised that an Adventist theologian rediscovered the real Protestant gospel in 1970 which is predicated on this idea.
The SDA gospel focuses on being able to “stand in the final judgment.” So, the “Christian” life focuses on that; the endeavor of sanctification is to prepare for this one final judgment. For years, the mainline SDA take followed: beginning salvation takes care of past sin, and then the new “believer” labors with the Holy Spirit to become good enough to stand in the final judgment. Some substitution by Christ to achieve perfectionism was involved, but it required the best efforts possible by “believers” in order to warrant Christ topping off the difference with His own righteousness. The doctrine, known as the “investigative judgment” is extremely complex and downright confusing, but what I have stated here is the gist:
While the investigative judgment is going forward in heaven, while the sins of penitent believers are being removed from the sanctuary, there is to be a special work of purification, of putting away of sin, among God’s people upon earth.
Those who are living upon the earth when the intercession of Christ shall cease in the sanctuary above are to stand in the sight of a holy God without a mediator. Their robes must be spotless, their characters must be purified from sin by the blood of sprinkling. Through the grace of God and their own diligent effort they must be conquerors in the battle with evil.
Ellen White ~ The Great Controversy, chapter 24.
The understandable angst among the SDA faithful peaked in the 1950’s which spawned the Progressive Adventist movement. One of the major players in that movement was an Adventist theologian named Robert Brinsmead. Due to his intellectual prowess, he was able to plow through the writings of the Reformers and understand what their take was on the final judgment. Not only that, Brinsmead was, and I assume still is, a master communicator of ideas.
The message he brought to the SDA faithful follows: one is able to stand in the final judgment if they live their Christian life by the same gospel that saved them; i.e., by faith alone. If you do that, Christ will continue to cover you with His righteousness. If you disavow any righteousness of your own, and believe in being covered by the alien righteousness of Christ as depicted in the wearing of a white robe, you will be able to stand in the judgment.
So, let’s be clear: formally, the SDA as a whole advocated a do your best to keep the law and if you do that well enough Christ will completely cleanse you and declare you righteous. Then you will be able to stand in the judgment. What is the problem with that other than its fundamental falsehood? The SDA faithful had no way of knowing until the final judgment whether or not they did that well enough to warrant Christ’s complete cleansing.
Brinsmead traded that for what the Reformers advocated: rather than partaking in the heavy burden of law keeping, if one only lives by faith alone apart from the law, Christ will stand in the judgment for us. The one who lives their Christian life by faith alone will stand in the judgment covered by the righteousness of Christ apart from any righteousness of their own.
This spawned the Awakening movement which turned the SDA completely on its head. But not only that, it also spawned a return to the authentic Reformation gospel by evangelicals worldwide who had drifted away from it through a more literal interpretation of the Bible because literal interpretation is intuitive. In other words, that’s our natural bent.
The Reformers saw the Bible as a tool for continually returning to the same gospel that saved us by faith alone in order to keep oneself covered by the righteousness of Christ, and therefore making one able to stand in the final judgment.
A literal interpretation of the Bible suggests that God’s people are to work in sanctification, or the Christian life. That’s a problem because the Reformers saw the Christian life as the progression of salvation to a final salvation determined at a one, final judgment. Therefore, biblical imperatives must be interpreted in their “gospel context,” viz, God commands us to do things in order to show us we are not able to obey perfectly. Hence, many of the Reformed in our day suggest that a literal interpretation of the Bible is tantamount to works righteousness.
Again, let’s pause for some clarification: The SDA and the Reformers BOTH saw the Christian life as part of salvation culminating in a final determinative judgment. Both define justification, the state required to be saved, as an ability to keep the law perfectly. Both believe that a means of obtaining a perfect law-keeping as something accredited to our account for standing in the final judgment is paramount. The SDA believed that best effort law-keeping resulted in Christ topping off our account at the judgment. The Reformers believed that effortless living by faith alone resulted in being covered by the righteousness of Christ alone at the judgment. For example, John Calvin believed that the Christian life is the Old Testament Sabbath rest.
Luther described the believer’s “triumphant” declaration to God at the final judgment as, we have NO righteousness but Christ’s. This motif was once again echoed by Frank on PPT.
But there is only one problem; the Bible is absolutely clear that ALL of those who will supposedly bark triumphantly at that judgment are among those already damned by virtue of the fact that they are standing at that judgment. That judgment is called the “second death” in Scripture; all who stand there are already damned. Yet, Calvinists constantly boast that they will stand in that judgment.
Revelation 20:4 – Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. 5 The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.
7 And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. 9 And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, 10 and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. 13 And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. 14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
In the Bible, there are multiple resurrections and judgments. Believers, who are already deemed righteous because they are in fact righteous, will be judged for rewards, not righteousness, because they are already righteous. They are resurrected to determine rewards, not righteousness. In the passage cited here, it is obvious that these are two different resurrections and two different judgments. One judgment has multiple thrones, while the other only has one throne and one judge. The latter judgment is the second death, and those who partake in the first resurrection are blessed. And, the latter judgment is identified as the one Calvinists say they will attend because it judges righteousness, and Calvinists, generally speaking, advocate a one judgment only position. Said another way, this is the only judgment they could possibly be talking about because there is only one according to them.
Why do they advocate a one judgment only when there is obviously more than one? Well, because that matches their gospel of beginning salvation, progressive salvation, and final salvation. It also matches the idea that perfect law-keeping is the required standard for being saved. If salvation is a settled issue that takes place for each individual in a moment of time, why would there be a need to finalize salvation at any other time? Also, there is only a future need to judge righteousness if perfect law-keeping remains the standard for Christians. If perfect law-keeping is not a determinative standard for Christians, the judge at the final judgment is without a law in which to judge righteousness. The judgment is without any law to judge.
In contrast, this is the case with the true gospel: the believer is made righteous through the new birth, and the law is ended for righteousness. The new birth is a gift, but like any gift, once you receive it, it belongs to you. This whole “righteousness of our own” business is a red herring. It’s like looking at someone living and besmirching them for believing they have a life of their own because they were born. We are righteous because we have the seed of God within our very being because of the new birth (1Jn 3:9). We still sin because the flesh is weak while our righteous soul is willing. It is sin against our Father, not our righteousness because Christ ended the law for that purpose.
This happened through the new birth. We were once under the law and its power to condemn us. Because we were unregenerate, sin within us used the law to provoke us to sin. When we died with Christ, it was like the death of a spouse—we are no longer obligated to that marriage covenant (law).
Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code (Romans 7).
So, we now “serve” in the “new way of the Spirit.” What’s that? That’s sanctification which is the use of Scripture to love God and others (Jn 17:17, Rom 8:4, Rom 8:7, Matt 4:4, Ps 1:1-6, Ps 119). Perfect law-keeping is not the standard for being justified—there is no law in justification, we are justified apart from the law (Rom 3:21). It would be futile for real Christians to stand in a judgment where Calvinists are present, the law they will be judged by doesn’t pertain to us:
Romans 3:19 – Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
Romans 4:15 – For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.
Calvinists say it’s alright to still be under the law because Jesus keeps the law for us if we live by faith alone, and that is the definition of being under grace: we are under grace if we live by faith alone and the perfect obedience of Christ is imputed to our account. But that’s being under law and under grace at the same time; the Bible is clear that we are either under one or the other (Rom 6:14). Calvinism advocates the idea that the unregenerate are only under law, but are under both law and grace if they are saved. Hence, this is why they cannot advocate separate judgments, but only one. If under law and under grace are separate, any judgment regarding law for the believer is an anomaly regardless of who keeps it—the question of perfect law-keeping is the reason for the judgment in the first place.
This is why in fact there is a separate resurrection for the saved: because their judgment concerns rewards, not a just standing that has already been determined. This is why Jesus called it the “resurrection of the just” because they are already just, only their rewards need to be determined:
Luke 14:12 – He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers[b] or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
Salvation is earned by no one—it is a gift, but rewards are earned by those who are born again. In fact, God would be unjust not to reward them for what they have earned:
Hebrews 6:10 – For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.
If Calvinists are under grace and not under law, why do they need Jesus to keep the law for them? The only possible reason that they could need Jesus to keep the law for them is if they are still under law. This is why they find themselves at a one final judgment that is the “second death.” That is where they will be judged by a law that has “nothing to say” to the born again.
One can only surmise that when they triumphantly claim that they have no righteousness of their own, God will respond with something like…
“You were never born of me, and those born of me are righteous even as I am righteous. My Son died to end the law for condemnation so that you could obey the law in order to love me and your neighbors. You see me as a hard god that reaps where I have not sown, and now present to me the same gospel that I originally gave. You are a lazy wicked servant and confess that you have no love towards me or others. Now your fear of being righteous is your condemnation.”
paul
Condemnation Claims Another Casualty
I was deeply saddened to hear of the recent suicide of Keith Emerson, the keyboard mad scientist of Emerson, lake, and Palmer. My teenage years took place while ELP dominated the progressive rock scene. The depths of their talent created enchanting songs like “Lucky Man” and “From the Beginning.” Their unique brand inspired many rock icons that would follow.
In reading accounts of his suicide and comments from close friends cited in various articles, we find THE familiar theme: fear. If you have been following our recent series on depression from a biblical perspective, you know that I am beginning to suspect ALL, or at least most depression flows from condemnation. Obviously, one who commits suicide has condemned themselves. Perhaps the premier example is Judas. Of course, this doesn’t include other forms of suicide that are in the minority.
Always in every kind of depression and mental illness, and this according to mental health professionals, anxiety is present. In other words, “fear.” Biblically, this makes perfect sense. According to the Bible, the law condemns leading to fear of death and judgement. The conscience also condemns, and you can also add fear of failure and loss of life-purpose to the ugly mix. Granted, present fears of this life may override fear of death, and depending on one’s beliefs, death may be a desperate escape.
However, let me point out that God is not the primary proponent of condemnation. The primary proponents of condemnation seem to be man himself and the kingdom of darkness. Adam and Eve are the ones that chose to hide from God because of what? Right, read it for yourself: fear. God didn’t tell them to hide; in fact, He went looking for them. And what “accuser of the brethren” gets thrown out of heaven in the book of Revelation? And who throws him out? Toward the end of Revelation, who are the ones outside of the holy city? Right, the fearful.
Couple this with the Bible statement that God did not send Christ into the world to condemn the world, but to save it. God does not seek to condemn, he seeks to save that which is lost…mankind. But it doesn’t stop there: He sent His only Son because He wants to save mankind in order to make us His very family for all of eternity: He is the “Son of God” and the “Son of Man.”
The great hope that we represent is escape from condemnation and fear. Sin condemns, not God. He not only hates sin, but He hates condemnation. He sent His only Son into the world to defeat death, sin, and condemnation. Beware of any religion that makes condemnation part of God’s repertoire; God and condemnation are mutually exclusive, and death is the final enemy that He will defeat.
Condemnation is the source of death and fear. God is the source of life and peace. That’s the good news…that’s the gospel.
paul
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