Paul's Passing Thoughts

Most evangelicals in America have a balanced view of their role in sanctification. By sanctification, I mean the Christian life. Couple that with the fact that America is in the midst of an authentic Calvinist Resurgence that started in 1970. Even though this movement has all but taken over the American church, most evangelicals are completely unaware of what they are really following. This is by design.

Authentic Calvinism makes the Christian life (sanctification) by faith alone. In other words, it holds to the idea that we are sanctified, or if you will, changed in the exact same way that we were saved: by faith alone. When we speak of salvation, we refer to justification. How were we justified? By faith alone. Most evangelicals believe that salvation (justification) is monergistic. What’s that mean? It means that salvation is a work of God alone and our role is faith alone. They also believe that sanctification is what we call synergistic. What’s that? It means that through the new birth, we are enabled to colabor with God in our change from what we used to be and what we are becoming. Also, the lynchpin of Evangelicalism is the idea that justification is a finished work while sanctification is a progression of personal change for God’s glory.

Stop right there. Authentic Calvinism (hereafter “AC”) rejects that idea as a false gospel and works salvation. Calvin rejected the idea that Christians change, and taught that the Christian life must be lived out by faith alone in order to get to heaven. Calvin’s very definition of perseverance was the idea that we persevere in living our Christian lives by faith alone while shunning good works that are of us. In fact, he believed that the Old Testament Sabbath Rest is New Testament sanctification. He got that idea from the Catholic mystic St. Augustine whom he quotes more than 400 times in the Calvin Institutes.

How in the world does a Christian NOT work in their Christian lives? Well, if you believe Calvin, you better find out or you’re going to hell. Maybe. You see, if you FUNCTION according to Calvin’s Sabbath Rest, and you are faithful to the “church,” you might unwittingly find yourself in heaven. Most AC pastors teach sanctification in a justification way. Out of sight—out of mind in regard to sanctification. So, even though you would intellectually articulate sanctification in a typical Evangelical way, your sanctification functions according to Calvin’s Sabbath Rest.

Let’s pause here and address motives. Do AC pastors partake in a deliberate deception by teaching sanctification in a justification way? Yes and no. It’s really a matter of arrogance. These are men who think they understand things that the average parishioner is unable to understand or accept. This is mythology’s noble lie. Therefore, they do deliberately word the church doctrinal statements to appear synergistic, and this is deliberate deception. Men are free to preach any gospel they want to and stand before the Lord and give an account accordingly, but what we are dealing with here is an unequitable and proverbial boiling of the frog on a massive scale. The parishioner is brought into the fold under false pretense via the church’s doctrinal statement, and then begins to function and think by faith alone in the Christian life.

This is by design. It utterly rejects the idea that a Christian can please God by obeying the Bible. Antinomianism (anti-biblical instruction) in justification is a good thing, but the negative aspect of antinomianism is the idea that the Christian is unable to obey the law in sanctification. Christ said that because of “anomia” (a = anti in the English), the hearts of many would be cold in the last days (Matthew 24:12). Principally, that is exactly what this doctrine is yielding nationwide.

Let me repeat that: this doctrine is producing a coldhearted church nationwide. I am not sure what is more evident in our day, love bombing notwithstanding. This doctrine continues to produce coldhearted beasts that use the word “love” more than they change clothes.

Psalm 119:70 – their heart is unfeeling like fat, but I delight in your law.

Now let’s answer the critical question at hand: How does a Christian live out their sanctification by faith alone? In addition, what do you do with all of the commandments in the Bible? Let’s start with how they use the Bible. This point begins to answer the first question: works are applied to the Christian life through mysticism, starting with how the Bible is utilized. How were you saved? By recognizing your sin and the need to put faith in Christ’s atonement, right? In other words, repentance. The doctrine holds to the idea that the Bible is a tool that aids us in returning to the same gospel that saved us in order to keep ourselves in the Sabbath Rest; i.e., salvation. There are many elements to this, but the primary one is the idea that biblical imperatives where written in order to remind us of “Christ’s doing and dying, not anything we do.” Imperatives represent our inability to do them, and what Christ has done for us.

This is the redemptive-historical use of the Bible. The Bible, and All life events, continually “show forth” Christ’s doing and dying and not anything we do. When we live this way, by faith alone in the gospel, Christ’s doing and dying are perpetually applied to our lives and we remain justified. “Are you saying they believe Christ obeys the law for Christians?” Yes. “How in the world does that work?!” It’s a Gnostic application. They believe that we merely EXPERIENCE the works of Christ being performed in our lives via our faith alone. It is like standing in the rain: you are experiencing the rain, but obviously, you can’t make it rain—you can take no credit for it at all. We live our Christian lives by the “subjective power” of the “objective gospel.” The Christian life is SUBJECTIVE. In other words, we have no idea when we are working or when Christ is working through us, but if we acknowledge that we can only sin, and that we are only EXPERIENCING the works of Christ imputed to our sanctification—it’s all good, we remain in the Sabbath rest. An example of this follows:

When we think, desire, speak, or act in a right way, it isn’t time to pat ourselves on the back or cross it off our To Do List. Each time we do what is right, we are experiencing [underline added] what Christ has supplied for us. In Chapter 11, we introduced some of the fruit Christ produces. We will expand the discussion here (Paul David Tripp: How People Change; Punch press 2006, p. 215).

Hence, nothing should ever be done in the Christian life out of “duty.” Also, and this is a key element as well, Christian “change” is defined as a mere capacity to experience our future glorification progressively. So, justification, sanctification, and future resurrection (glorification) are all fused together into one salvific progressive process. We are saved by the gospel, sanctified by the gospel, and progressively experience more and more of future glory until the day of glorification. This speaks to their take on assurance: the more we experience the joy of future glorification, the more we are convinced that we will be glorified. If we see ourselves as passive in His-[s]tory and the story of redemption (which defines all reality), we get to stay in the Sabbath rest. The new birth is redefined as a process of repentance, viz, using life and the Bible to see our depravity in a deeper and deeper way resulting in an increased capacity to experience future glorification. When “heart transformation” is spoken of, that speaks solely to the increased ability of the heart to merely experience future glory and the accompanied joy. Their actual title for this in Reformed systematic theology is mortification and vivification.

Accordingly; justification, sanctification, new birth, obedience, change, repentance, etc. are all redefined. However, eventually the idea is assimilated into the minds of the listeners and they begin to function this way because of what is emphasized, left out, and applied according to covert redefinitions.

This now brings me to the reason I want to use the doctrinal statement of Roosevelt Community Church in Lancaster, California. Their statement is worded in a way that conveys strong Evangelicalism. Evangelicalism is a movement that sought to bring extreme views of the Reformation closer to the center, and for all practical purposes covered for what the Reformers really taught. For instance, Calvin taught in no uncertain terms that sins committed in the Christian life separate us from salvation and need forgiveness in the institutional church. If one is not a member of a church, they cannot receive forgiveness for sins committed in the Christian life. Calvin also taught that elders have the authority to forgive such sins:

Nor by remission of sins does the Lord only once for all elect and admit us into the Church, but by the same means he preserves and defends us in it. For what would it avail us to receive a pardon of which we were afterwards to have no use? That the mercy of the Lord would be vain and delusive if only granted once, all the godly can bear witness; for there is none who is not conscious, during his whole life, of many infirmities which stand in need of divine mercy. And truly it is not without cause that the Lord promises this gift specially to his own household, nor in vain that he orders the same message of reconciliation to be daily delivered to them (The Calvin Institutes: 4.1.21).

To impart this blessing to us, the keys have been given to the Church (Mt. 16:19; 18:18). For when Christ gave the command to the apostles, and conferred the power of forgiving sins, he not merely intended that they should loose the sins of those who should be converted from impiety to the faith of Christ; but, moreover, that they should perpetually perform this office among believers (The Calvin Institutes: 4.1.22).

Secondly, This benefit is so peculiar to the Church, that we cannot enjoy it unless we continue in the communion of the Church. Thirdly, It is dispensed to us by the ministers and pastors of the Church, either in the preaching of the Gospel or the administration of the Sacraments, and herein is especially manifested the power of the keys, which the Lord has bestowed on the company of the faithful. Accordingly, let each of us consider it to be his duty to seek forgiveness of sins only where the Lord has placed it. Of the public reconciliation which relates to discipline, we shall speak at the proper place (Ibid).

…by new sins we continually separate ourselves, as far as we can, from the grace of God… Thus it is, that all the saints have need of the daily forgiveness of sins; for this alone keeps us in the family of God (John Calvin: Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles; The Calvin Translation Society 1855. Editor: John Owen, p. 165 ¶4).

Not only is this not lost on contemporary AC, the arrogance of it lags not far behind. And the need for perpetual resalvation is evident: new sins committed in the Christian life separate us from our salvation.

Roosevelt’s  doctrinal statement is typical of AC churches that want to hide what they really believe and feed the AC gospel elephant to parishioners—a bit at a time. Words are used that are less specific to the point in order to deliberately nuance what is conveyed. For example, “salvation” will often be replaced with more generic words like “grace” which can pertain to salvation or the help we get from God in sanctification. This is deliberate nuance. However, with careful examination, some of the doctrinal anomalies can be spotted. But first, let’s examine an outright lie in Roosevelt’s doctrinal statement:

We teach the literal, grammatical-historical interpretation of Scripture which affirms the belief that the opening chapters of Genesis present creation in six literal days (Genesis 1:31; Exodus 31:17).

The grammatical-historical interpretation of Scripture takes sentence structure and the use of words at face value. It doesn’t pick and choose what is literal. True grammatical-historical interpretation not only holds to a literal view of creation, it holds to a literal view of biblical imperatives; i.e., that they are not merely written in a redemptive context. Hence, Christians can please God in sanctification via righteousness of their own gifted to them by God, and are indeed able to obey the commandments. On the “Web Links” page of Roosevelt’s website, the who’s who of “Evangelicals” that indorse a Christocentric view of the Bible are indorsed. Christocentric interpretation is a synonym for redemptive-historical. The fact that Roosevelt only mentions grammatical-historical is disingenuous at best and outright deception at worst.

Remember, AC have redefined nearly every term used in the discussion of the gospel. What seems to be stated is not what they mean and plays on the lack of theological education in the local church. Nevertheless, some of the real intent can be detected:

We teach that there is also by the work of the Holy Spirit a progressive sanctification by which the state of the believer is brought closer to the positional standing each believer enjoys through justification.

Notice that the believer is not personally changed, but their “state” is brought closer to their “positional standing” of justification. Notice also that ONLY the work of the Holy Spirit is mentioned in regard to sanctification, and not ours. We see that despite all of the other verbiage in the statement, it really boils down to progressive justification and the fusing together of justification, sanctification, and glorification and using sanctification to make justification an unfinished work.

Again, all in all, and regardless of the wording, Roosevelt’s statement must be confronted with who they endorse. Several people listed on the Web Links page were involved in writing a book of essays that honored Pastor John Piper. Piper, in an article on the Reformation, defined his understanding and beliefs in regard to the authentic Reformation gospel. It entails the belief that ALL righteousness remains outside of the believer, and in fact, Christ does not even work within us. Again, the inner workings of grace are by experience only. The Christian heart is still wicked, and its transformation is only an increased capability to experience a remnant of future glory. It’s purely passive, and not active.

The point of this article is to emphasize the meaninglessness of doctrinal statements and the reading thereof for purposes of choosing a church home. And Roosevelt Community Church in Lancaster, California is an excellent example. Read the statement, and then come to grips with what they really believe.

paul