Confused in Denmark: Seeker of Truth Wants Answers to Seven Questions About Salvation
“I love you, but your thinking is fraught with Reformed morbid introspection that they want to use to control you. Stop reading John Piper.”
Busy and haunted. I received an email from a person in Denmark that is confused about all of the different positions on the gospel floating about today. Our commentary from the first eight chapters of Romans (compiled manuscripts from the Potter’s House) answer the questions in detail. Susan and I have received positive feedback regarding the book. At least one family is using it for their family devotions. So concerning the Denmark person, I offered to send the book and the offer was accepted. That was easy.
And haunting. I once talked to a Christian who was critical of an elder that she sought out for counsel. With an expression on her face somewhere between disgusted and hurt, she stated, “I came to him for help. Do you know what he did? He gave me a book!” Let there be no doubt about it: Christian books have gone way beyond teaching in our day, they are orthodoxy. And by the way, Neo-Calvinism all but completely owns Christian publishing. “Orthodoxy” is a Reformed term. It is the faith repackaged for the unenlightened masses by the preordained Reformed philosopher kings. For the most part, American Sunday Schools teach from Reformed writings and not the Bible. This is a complaint that this ministry hears constantly. These guys have effectively rewritten systematic theology and church history. They have created another standard of Christian reality altogether and speak from that reality as if there is no other reality.
And this is where the confusion comes in. But confusion is good. Confusion is very good. Concern that you are confused is even better. If you are letting other people think for you—you are not confused. Everything makes perfect sense to you even though it is completely illogical. Jesus warned us about letting other people think for us. He referred to it as the blind leading the blind. That rarely turns out well.
So, we may conclude that confused Christians who know they are confused, and are concerned about it, are the top of the crop among Christians in our day. They are the blue chip because they are thinking Christians. We must not merely hand them a book. Besides, others may have the same questions.
1. Who is a true Christian?!
Answer: Those who place all of their hope in God and believe in His way of being reconciled to Him. Remembering that God has promised to reward those who seek Him is also very helpful. Don’t be too concerned with your confusion at this time: He who has promised is faithful. In regard to your residual question, “Should I just then read the Bible and forget about every other theory and just rely on my Bible reading?” The short answer is, ABSOLUTLEY. I am not discarding the need for teachers, but they must bow to the authority of Scripture. The Bible must be your absolute authority for life and godliness.
2. What does a true Christian look like?
Answer: A true Christian doesn’t “look like” anything. That’s the wrong question coming from Reformed metaphysics where verbs are works salvation. The Hebrew writer framed the question this way: what do Christians DO? See Hebrews 11. Aggressive DOING in our Christian life reveals that we really believe that our salvation is a finished work that we cannot contribute to. Fear of doing in our Christian life reveals an attitude that our salvation must be maintained in some way by living a noun life instead of a verb life. Hence, “what does that look like” rather than “how do I do that?” “How do I please God” becomes, “What does that look like” because it really isn’t me doing it. If I am doing it, I am finishing my salvation in some way. Salvation is finished, and it can only be appropriated through faith alone. But the power imputed to us for Christian living must be appropriated through BOTH faith and obedience. In our Christian life, faith and obedience work together and enhance each other (James 2:22). Hence, assurance of salvation grows as our obedience and faith feed each other.
3. Is there such a thing as a wealthy (monetary terms) Christian?
Answer: Yes. Kingdom living is many faceted and full-orbed. God uses a variety of socio-economic types of people in His kingdom.
4. Does being a Christian mean having no money, no career ambitions.
Answer: Only if you are a follower of Martin Luther. We are free from the law and have incredible liberty to pursue the things we enjoy. However, though free from the law’s jurisdiction, we are “enslaved to righteousness.” The balance of liberty and what is pleasing to God is a complex issue, but that is why God gave us a miraculously designed and capable brain. Be patient and wait on the Lord as you prayerfully search the Scriptures for these answers. Even Daniel lived this way. He searched the Scriptures for answers. And many times, the answers we seek will determine the book where we look for the answers (Daniel 9:1,2).
5. How do I please God with my life? For example, how much Bible reading am I supposed to do? Should I wait for the Spirit to lead me? Can I continue reading romance novels or should I stop because Christians say it is wrong, yet I still want to read one?
Answer: No, as Christians, we NEVER wait to do anything that is within our power and abilities to do. To do otherwise is to rob blessings from our Christian life (James 1:25). Granted, we will continually rob ourselves of blessings because we are hindered by our mortality: “The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” As Christians, we have new desires. But a remnant of the old sinful desires remain. HOWEVER, unlike when we were unsaved, their power to control us is broken because the old us died with Christ. HOWEVER, the old desires wage war against us through feelings, and the argument that we have to obey those desires can be pretty strong. But because of what we know from the Scriptures, those feelings are lying. The strength of the sinful desires’ argument is strengthened through disobedience.
Christians should listen to their conscience. The apostle Paul said to keep a clear conscience before God. However, as our conscience becomes more and more biblically trained, our consciences will give more freedom. Right now, if reading romance novels makes you feel guilty, I would encourage you to stop. Don’t violate your conscience. Don’t allow a desire to lead you into a watered down blessing that you cannot fully enjoy anyway. I know that there is a, well, for lack of a better way of stating it, “need” for Christian romance novels. Some of the content in the novels you are reading could be the issue. Christians are to “dwell” on what is honorable. That doesn’t exclude creative/interesting thoughts provoked by reading.
6. How do I know I am pleasing God from my heart and not as a result of my intellect?
Answer: Learn and do. ALL truthful obedience is from the redeemed heart. Obeying God when we don’t want to or don’t feel like it is the most self-sacrificial. If we have a desire not to obey a clear biblical imperative, it is probably a “desire of the flesh.” Often, when we obey when we don’t want to, we are merely refusing to obey a desire of the flesh. The Bible has much to say about obedience to desires (ROM 6:11,12). ALSO, this is a result of your biblical intellect which is a GOOD THING! I love you, but your thinking is fraught with Reformed morbid introspection that they want to use to control you. Stop reading John Piper.
7. Sanctification, justification, Grace being born again.. right now I am so confused by all of this I am doubting what I believe and whether I am on the right path or am I just lost and not aware.
Answer: I can tell you that you are not lost. Lost people don’t concern themselves with these things. You have great potential to please God because you are a thinker and not a mindless follower of men. A good example of the latter is your everyday Calvinist. There is hope for confused Calvinists. Here is Paul’s justification/sanctification construct in the book of Romans: the lost and saved fall under two categories:
1. Under the law. Definition;
A. Enslaved to sin and the obedience to sinful desires.
B. Provoked to sin by the law.
C. Will be judged by the law.
2. Under Grace. Definition;
A. Released from the law.
B. Enslaved to righteousness.
C. Provoked to please God by the law.
D. Will not be judged by the law.
E. Harassed by sinful desires.
Read Romans carefully line by line. Read it thoughtfully and prayerfully. Take the words at face value. I will mail the book today or tomorrow.
Stay the course. In all, stand immovable in the Lord Jesus Christ our beloved King.
Your brother,
paul
More Protestant Confusion: “If Everybody is Wrong, What is Right?”
The question has been posed to me thrice this week; twice in person and once by email: “If everybody is wrong, what is right? Can we even know truth if everybody is wrong?” I will answer the question with another one of the rhetorical sort: “Is there a better example of Protestant tradition than this question?”
Notice the link between “truth” and the pronoun, “everybody,” i.e., the most notable Protestant teachers of our day and the past. And with a few Catholics thrown in for good measure. This is classic Protestantism; while denying that truth is embodied in men, that is how we function because of orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is “truth” repackaged for the masses by the “Divines.”
So, let me properly rephrase the question in context: “If all of the Divines and those who cite them as authority are wrong, how can we know truth?” That would be primarily the Westminster Divines who directly and indirectly executed people for disagreeing with them. The Westminster Confession is the toast of Protestant orthodoxy.
But prior to this week’s threesome, another caveat has been added to this line of questioning as well: “So, you must be Catholic?” This is more Protestant tradition in our Western culture; you are either Catholic or Protestant. Supposedly, we were in a “Dark Age” under Catholicism and the Reformers started a “reformation.” Some historians even suggest that the Reformers were the historical segue to the Enlightenment Era which is an utterly absurd idea. The Reformers, like their Catholic mother, were vehemently opposed to free reasoning among the people—especially the common breed.
Furthermore, the Reformation credits most of its doctrinal construct to Augustine who was always a Catholic. Protestants are conditioned to be comfortable with these contradictions because of the value placed on the traditions of men. The ideology and spiritual caste mentality is the exact same which led to both having a linear gospel. By linear gospel I mean the idea that sanctification finishes justification. Catholicism, according to the Reformers, propagates the idea that the indwelling Holy Spirit aids the Christian in finishing justification. The Reformers believed that any work of grace inside the believer, even by Christ, made Christians participants in finishing justification because like the Catholic Church, they saw sanctification as links of a chain between justification and glorification.
Hence, the Reformers insisted that ALL grace must take place outside of the believer. The belief that any work of grace takes place inside the believer is, “making sanctification the ground of your justification.” This is why we are not EITHER Protestant OR Catholic: because both hold to a linear false gospel. The biblical gospel is a parallel gospel that radically separates justification and sanctification. Justification is a finished work completely separate from works and sanctification. In other words, sanctification can’t affect justification. This is what separates the biblical gospel from the Protestant/Catholic gospel.
Christ promised that the gates of hell would never prevail against His church. The truth of His word has always flourished somewhere in the world. And the propagation of truth has always been possible when a Spirit indwelled believer picks up a Bible and reads it with their own mind.
Paul warned Timothy that there would be a lot of people in our day who are wrong. Wrong people are not the measure of truth, nor can they contribute to it. Those who love truth more than the traditions of men must find like-minded groups. And if you can’t find one—start one.
paul
Tullian Tchividjian is Representative of New Calvinist Anti-Truth
I posted on an article referred to me yesterday written by Tullian Tchividjian. In the post Tchividjian praises his late father for his passive approach to raising Tullian which was dubbed “grace.” And apparently, as one of the premier heretics of our day, Tchividjian thinks he turned out well, thanks to his father’s grace-like rearing. An excerpt:
Years later he told me that he saw all those checks being cashed [checks that Little T-T stole from his father and forged], but he decided not to say anything about it at the time. It didn’t happen immediately (the fruits of grace are always in the future), but that demonstration of unconditional grace was the beginning of God doing a miraculous work in my heart and life. My dad’s literal “turning of the other cheek” gave me a picture of God’s unconditional love that I couldn’t shake…. Steve Brown once said, “Children will run from law and they’ll run from grace. The ones who run from law rarely come back. But the ones who run from grace always come back. Grace draws its own back home.” I ran from grace. It drew me home.
In yesterday’s post I addressed the fundamental misrepresentation of biblical law and grace in all of this. In this post I would like to address Tchividjian’s all-out assault on the plain sense of Scripture. But remember, Tchividjian is representative of New Calvinism and authentic Reformed doctrine in general. Tchividjian has a very strong grasp on what the Reformers believed and taught. And like T-T (pronounced “tee-tee”), they redefined many biblical concepts and realities in opposition to the common sense hermeneutic. In mysticism, common sense is for the common folk.
This isn’t particularly deep; God condemns the passive parenting T-T praises as commendable and supposedly based on grace versus law. As I addressed yesterday, there is no law in the grace of justification, but there is ample grace in the practice of law in sanctification. The fundamental heresy of Calvinism projects the grace of justification onto sanctification which makes law a part of justification. That’s the crux. Fear of law in sanctification reveals a belief that law is also the standard for justification. So, parents who fear law in parenting deprive their children of grace. If for no other reason, it cannot be denied that love is of grace and to deprive your children of discipline is to also deprive them of love:
Hebrews 12:7 – It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Moreover, one can read of the unspeakable tragedy that fell upon the house of Eli and all of Israel because of his passive parenting of his sons Hophni and Phinehas (starting in 1Samuel 2:12). God also accused Eli of honoring his sons above Him because he would not discipline them.
Again, T-T is representative of the authentic Reformed doctrine sweeping the American church and covertly taking over its institutions. Hindering the needed alternative is Protestant propaganda that the average Christian father is not “qualified” to lead his family and others.
But we must ask ourselves: “We can’t do better than this? Really? We don’t know that Eli’s example is a bad idea? Protestant pastors are on such a higher spiritual plane than we are that the obvious really isn’t true?”
In our day, if you can discern reality—you’re qualified.
paul
Tullian Tchividjian’s Grace Post Reveals His Fundamental Lack of Salvific Knowledge
“If children who have a proper view of salvation run to God, it will be from the condemnation of the law to the blessings of the law in sanctification, not grace apart from the law in both sanctification and justification.”
Tullian Tchivijian doesn’t understand the basics of salvation. This is revealed in a recent post in which he uses his late father’s demonstration of what Tullian calls “grace.” Like all New Calvinists, and for that matter, authentic Calvinists, law and grace are separated into a strict dichotomy. Because sanctification is seen as the horizontal maintenance and completion of vertical justification, the necessary separation of law and grace in justification is also extended to sanctification.
Unfortunately, this reveals an attitude about justification; specifically, that law is a standard for justification that must be maintained in sanctification. Since this is impossible for mortal Christians, law and grace must be kept separate in sanctification as it is in justification. It makes mortality and the new birth mutually exclusive because Christians still clothed in mortality don’t keep the law perfectly. Hence, according to New Calvinism, Christians must be sanctified apart from the law. That’s a huge problem because Christ stated in John 17:17 that God only sanctifies by the truth of His word. Exacerbating the problem is the confusion caused by traditional Protestant dichotomies concerning the Ten Commandments and God’s word. “Law” is a generic term for God’s full counsel contained in the Bible. This is very demonstrable, but I would mention Matthew 5:18 and 1Corithians 14:34. In both cases, more than the Ten Commandments are clearly in view.
The thesis of Tullian’s post is the idea that passive parenting demonstrates grace, while rules in parenting demonstrate law and the idea that children must earn favor with God for salvation. Tullian concludes the post with the idea that children will never return to law, but will always return to grace:
Years later he told me that he saw all those checks being cashed, but he decided not to say anything about it at the time. It didn’t happen immediately (the fruits of grace are always in the future), but that demonstration of unconditional grace was the beginning of God doing a miraculous work in my heart and life. My dad’s literal “turning of the other cheek” gave me a picture of God’s unconditional love that I couldn’t shake….
Steve Brown once said, “Children will run from law and they’ll run from grace. The ones who run from law rarely come back. But the ones who run from grace always come back. Grace draws its own back home.” I ran from grace. It drew me home.
This misrepresents law to our children in two ways. First, it denies children from experiencing the blessings of living life God’s way. This demonstrates the wisdom of God and the fact that He knows what He is talking about. Second, it implies that law and grace are mutually exclusive in justification and sanctification both. Instead of the gospel’s message concerning the different relationships to the law in justification and sanctification, it makes our relationship to the law the same in both. This is a major circumvention of the true gospel. There is no law in justification, and as unbelievers, that which is good (the law) provokes us to sin and threatens to be our judge in the end. But once born again, the law provokes us to righteousness (ROM 6:17-23, 8:3-8). “Grace” is not only unmerited salvation; it is the blessings of sanctification as well. But those blessings primarily come through the law (Matthew 7: 24, 25, James 1:25, Psalm 119). If children who have a proper view of salvation run to God, it will be from the condemnation of the law to the blessings of the law in sanctification, not grace apart from the law in both sanctification and justification.
An unmerited blessing apart from the law in sanctification shows clearly a belief that we did not receive righteousness apart from the law for our justification (ROM 3:21). “Under law” means we are enslaved to sin, provoked to sin by the law, and will be judged by the law. “Under grace” means we are enslaved to righteousness rather than sin, will not be judged by the law, and are provoked to righteousness by the law. Paul stated that his mind served the law (ROM 7:25).
Therefore, we are still under the law according to New Calvinism because law is separated from grace in sanctification. It is still a standard for justification. No relationship to the law has been exchanged from unregenerate to regenerate.
That’s why Calvinism is a false gospel. The saved are still “under the law.”
paul
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