Know Your Cuts of Calvinism
1. Total Depravity: Pertains to the saints also.
2. Justification by Faith Alone: Pertains to sanctification also.
3. Mortification and Vivification: Perpetual death and rebirth for living by faith alone in sanctification to maintain justification. The reliving of our baptism “again and again.”
4. Double Imputation: Christ’s passive obedience to the cross for justification, and His active obedience as a substitution for our obedience in sanctification.
5. Deep Repentance (aka Intelligent Repentance): Seeks the death of mortification in re-experiencing our new birth.
6. New Obedience (aka New Fruit): The experience of Christ’s active obedience in sanctification (vivification).
7. The New Birth: Perpetual mortification and vivification.
8. The Objective Gospel: All reality is interpreted through the redemptive works of Christ.
9. Christ for Us: Christ died for our justification, and lived a perfect life for our sanctification.
10. The Imperative Command is Grounded in the Indicative Event: Biblical commands show forth what Christ has accomplished for us and what we are unable to do in sanctification. Works are experienced only as they flow from the indicative event of the gospel.
11. Neo-Nomianism (New Law, aka New Legalism): The belief that we can please God by obeying the law in sanctification.
12. Progressive Sanctification: The progression of justification to glorification.
13. Progressive Imputation: Whatever is seen in the gospel narrative and meditated upon is imputed to our sanctification, whether mortification or vivification.
14. The Golden Chain of Salvation: See cut 12.
15. Good Repentance: Repenting of good works.
16. In-Lawed in Christ: Christ fulfilled the law perfectly and imputed it to our sanctification.
17. Redemptive Historical Hermeneutics (the Christocentric Hermeneutic, aka the Apostle’s Hermeneutic): The Bible as historical narrative for the sole purpose of showing forth Christ’s redemptive works.
18. Faith: A neutral entity within us with no intrinsic worth that is able to reflect the object of its focus outside of us. The object of focus can be experienced within, but remains outside of us.
19. The Heart: The residence of evil desires and faith. It can be reoriented (the “reorientation of the heart” or “reorientation of desires”) to reflect Christ via mortification and vivification.
20. Flesh: The world realm where evil is manifested and experienced.
21. Spirit: The Spirit realm where the imputed works of Christ are manifested and experienced (not applied through our actions).
22. Christian Hedonism: Seeks to experience the joy of vivification.
23. Obedience of Faith: New Obedience.
24. Christ in Us: “By faith,” and faith only has substance and reality to the degree of the object it is placed in; i.e., Christ outside of us.
25. Vital Union: Makes experiencing the gospel possible. Makes mortification and vivification possible.
26. Eclipsing the Son (aka the Emphasis Hermeneutic): Focusing on anything other than Christ. Anything that is not seen through a Christocentric prism creates shadows that we live in. The obstacles that create the shadows may be truth, but they aren’t the “best truth.” “They may be good things, but not the best thing.”
27. Sabbath Rest: Sanctification. We are to “rest and feed” on Christ for our Christian life. The primary day this is done is Sunday. Through preaching and the sacraments we “kill” (mortification, or the contemplation of our evil and misery) resulting in vivification throughout the rest of the week.
28. The Subjective Power of the Gospel: The manifestation of the gospel that flows from gospel contemplationism. We never know for certain whether it is a result of our efforts or the Spirit’s work (although the Spirit’s work is always experienced by joy); hence, the power of the objective gospel is subjective (Heidelberg Disputation: Thesis 24).
29. Mortal Sin: Good works by the Christian not attended by fear that they may be of one’s own effort (HD 7).
30. Venial Sin: Good works by the Christian attended with fear (HD 7).
31. Power of the Keys (aka Protestant Absolution): Reformed elders have the authority to bind or loose sin on earth (Calvin Institutes 3.4.12).
32. Redemptive Church Discipline: In all cases to convert one to cuts 1-31. This redeems them to the only one, true faith. This can be a long process, and said person is not free to leave a given church until the elders bind or loose.
33. Preach the Gospel to Yourself: See cuts 1-32.
The Utterly Confused John MacArthur Jr.
While proudly calling himself a Calvinist, John MacArthur teaches in the following video clip that the believer’s baptism in the Spirit only occurs once. Yet, John Calvin and the Reformers in general believed that the believer’s baptism needed to occur daily through the death of deep repentance and the resurrection of new obedience. In other words, self-depravation brings about perpetual death with Christ, followed by the fruits of resurrection expressed in joy or some kind of manifestation of Christ’s obedience. That’s “revisiting the gospel afresh” through deep repentance and new obedience. As a result, the believer supposedly receives a perpetual forgiveness for sins that maintains our justification. It’s heresy of the first order.
Astonishingly, MacArthur also states that the baptism of the Spirit should not be sought or repeated. This completely contradicts what his associates teach in regard to “preaching the gospel to ourselves every day.” The very purpose of this mantra is to advocate a continual return to the gospel in order to “experience” death and rebirth. MacArthur cohort and Reformed hack Dr. Michael Horton stated it this way in his book on systematic theology:
Progressive sanctification has two parts: mortification and vivification, “both of which happen to us by participation in Christ,” as Calvin notes….Subjectively experiencing this definitive reality signified and sealed to us in our baptism requires a daily dying and rising. That is what the Reformers meant by sanctification as a living out of our baptism….and this conversion yields lifelong mortification and vivification “again and again.” Yet it is critical to remind ourselves that in this daily human act of turning, we are always turning not only from sin but toward Christ rather than toward our own experience or piety (pp. 661-663 [Calvin Inst. 3.3.2-9]).
Luther advocated the same in Thesis 16 and 17 of his Heidelberg Confession. There, he posits the Reformed mainstay that Christians need the same grace that saved them continually, and this saving grace should be continually sought. So, baptism does not signify a onetime event, but signifies the need to continually repent in order to receive the perpetual baptism that saved us.
Election, and the Arena Unlittered by Flesh and Blood
“Does the doctrine of election logically exclude the value of the non-elect?”
When it gets right down to it, ignorance built the people ovens at Auschwitz. Not the builders, they were by no means ignorant, but the ignorance of people in general supplied the mortar. The bloodthirsty are rarely ignorant of knowledge that matters, that’s how they control the ignorant masses. We would expect God to be the master of understatement for the purpose of making a point; hence, “My people die for lack of knowledge.” The Nazis knew exactly what they were doing, and the world finally responded because of the results. And so it goes; the eventual reactionary blitzkrieg by good men is bittersweet for Lady Wisdom. Many must die to make the point, and no consolation can be found in quick death, for the tyrant’s disdain for the victims will not tolerate such mercy.
Christians have always led the pack of ignorance that focuses on the what rather than the why. Our faith is a “license for irrationality” (John Immel: TANC 2012, session 1). Yes, knowledge is puffed up. Knowledge seeks to explain the God so high above us. We embrace the philosophy of our fathers whom we know not: “The truly wise man knows that he knows nothing” (Socrates). Ignorance is child-like faith. We believe that we can remain as harmless doves without the wisdom of serpents. We claim Jesus Christ while parroting Socrates in our ignorance. We worship at the altar of mindlessness while attributing all that we don’t understand to “God’s will.” Prayer is our exhibition of faith that proclaims our helplessness. Stupidity, prayer, and “God’s will” are our functional trinity. Knowledge that feeds our bank account and personal worth is within our domain—knowledge for life and death belongs to the gods. Therefore, our elderly fustigate the young for using bad grammar while wallowing in doctrinal ignorance.
So, week after week, we settle for the same old song and dance at church; literally, seven verses about Jesus repeated eleven times with drums, guitars, and violins. And what will we learn this week? What else? Something about Jesus. When He spoke of wisdom, He was merely speaking of Himself. This is how Churchianity is done; this is our doctrine: to teach ANYTHING ELSE but Jesus is to hinder the sanctification of the saints (John MacArthur Jr.). No, no, we don’t need to know the history and substance of philosophy; that would prevent us from quoting ancient philosophers and attributing their wisdom to Jesus (piously pronounced, “geeee-jussss”).
So this is the lightbulb moment: in the name of Jesus, we watch tyranny grow in our backyard. As it sprouts upward, we attribute its growth to God’s will and we pray about it. The American church has watched the TULIP named Neo-Calvinism grow for 43 years now, and we still attribute it to God’s will and we still pray about it.
I imagine sister Martha is pretty upset about being asked to leave after being a member here for seventy years. Certainly, she must have done more than just ask a few questions. Oh well, God’s will. I asked one of the elders about the situation and he replied, “Jesus.” And who can argue with that answer? We must remember to pray for her.
Dear, could you please pass the fish?
Two articles written by Kevin O’Brian reveal the jolt of reality that can result from a little bit of thinking. I don’t know anything about Kevin O’Brian, but I can tell you that you need to read these two articles: [1] and [2]. Does the doctrine of election logically exclude the value of the non-elect? And what does Nihilism have to do with today’s Churchianity? Is John Immel right? Can the rejection of certain ideologies prevent the tyranny that always follows? Can the arena of ideas prevent the festive arena of humans being devoured by wild beasts?
That question is answered by another must read article [3] by the 12 Tribes organization. I don’t know anything about them either, but I can tell you that you need to read this article also. These three articles together make a strong statement; a wakeup call to the importance of thinking in the arena unlittered with flesh and blood—the arena of knowledge, wisdom, and thinking.
Logic that always leads to tyranny and death must not be allowed to grow. It must be slain in the arena of ideas. And most of all, it must be kept from entering the house of God in the Trojan horse embodied by the minds of men.
paul
[1] http://www.thwordinc.blogspot.com/2013/01/just-kill-it.html
[2] http://thwordinc.blogspot.com/2013/06/calvinism-and-abortion.html
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