Paul and Sandi Round 2
Paul that was quite a tirade! I don’t think you really understand the Sovereignty of God …it does not mean we sit back and do nothing! We do have a responsibility but we do not run around and try to establish our own righteousness, We rest on the finished work of Christ! Jesus said without Me you can do nothing, but the Word says also that we can do all things through Christ! I will say again salvation is totally of the Lord, not because I am humble or trying to be humble BUT because the bible says so. And Paul contrary to what you say I am not under the law of sin and death because I know that the Law of the Spirit of Life has set me free! Romans 8:1
Sandi,
Your very reply condemns you. You think it is possible for a Christian to establish their own righteousness for justification. If you really believed the following: “I am no longer under the law of sin and death,” you would know that’s impossible. And, “We rest on the finished work of Christ!” For justification, not sanctification. Your call for rest in sanctification shows clearly that you believe that you are still under the law of sin and death and it is not ended. Otherwise, no rest at all is needed in sanctification. Rest and love are mutually exclusive. Calvin’s false gospel is exactly why there is way too much rest in “Christianity.” Furthermore, Christ told the apostles that they would not be able to do their apostolic work without Him, that wasn’t a plenary statement concerning sanctification, and notice how you contradict yourself with, “it does not mean we sit back and do nothing!” and then you rip said text out of context to say exactly that!
Also, notice what else you say: “I will say again salvation is totally of the Lord,” ie., salvation (justification) still continues in sanctification. Your Reformed clarion call is “salvation of the Lord” in sanctification. As John Piper states accordingly: the gospel continues to save us perpetually as Christians. Clearly, justification is not finished.
Now I challenge you: what exactly are you to “do” in sanctification that is NOT a work that establishes your OWN righteousness? State the Christian practice that prevents this. Good luck. I made a chart to help you:
,,,and by the way, you mean Romans 8:2 which also by the way is not saying we are set free from the law of sin and death to rest and feed on Jesus, it means we are set free to obey the law of the Spirit of life in order to serve Christ. The rest of the chapter makes this abundantly clear.
Calvinism and a Humbleness that Leads to Hell
The Sovereign Lord is my salvation from beginning to end and everything in between. I could not keep myself one day without Him. He is my Saviour, Lord and Keeper! He has promised to perfect all that which concerns me and it is HE that works in me to will and to DO of His good pleasure according to the scriptures.
He says in the gospel of John that…”All that the Father gives me I shall lose NONE but shall raise him up at the last day! Praise His name.
Sandi
Sandi,
Like all Calvinists, you dress up evil in a “humbleness” that totally depends on God and gives Him ALL the credit for your Christian walk as well as salvation. Like the “wicked lazy” servant in Matthew 25:14-30, you propose to merely give back what Christ has given you. You hide the gospel of “God does it all” in the ground for fear that anything you do in your Christian life is an attempt to fulfill the law of sin and death rather than walking in obedience to the law of the Spirit of life. You do not see yourself as free from the law of sin and death; therefore, your true role of loving Christ is relegated to the Holy Spirit. Like the wicked lazy servant, there is fear in your love because you are still under the law of sin and death.
Therefore, you are not a true friend of Christ, or a brother, but a parasite; viz, in the words of Calvinist Paul David Tripp we are only to “rest and feed on the living Christ.” That’s what a Calvinist is: a parasite that only “rests and feeds on Christ” instead of offering one’s body as a living sacrifice. Christ died for you, and you offer nothing in return but your blemished totally depraved self that is still under the law of sin and death. You are not free to…”if you love me, keep my commandments.” You must make those commands to the Holy Spirit because you are still under the law of sin and death.
Worse yet, like all Calvinists, and antithetical to love, you rejoice in this evil. As you plunge the depths of your own depravity (mortification), you experience the joy which is a gift from heaven (vivification). The doctrine of mortification and vivification is official and well documented Reformed orthodoxy. Clearly, it is a joy that results in the reality of our own depravity, and makes God a rewarder of such, but love “does not delight in evil.”
Granted, there is to be fear in sanctification as we look for the redemption of the body, but you make that the same as a fear of judgment in regard to justification because you are still under the law of sin and death, and not freed by the perfect law of liberty. You are not free to love Christ as a “doer of the word.” Your “love” is therefore full of fear.
I beseech all Calvinists to cry out to Jesus and affirm that His death has ended the law of sin and death, and freed us to love Him with the Holy Spirit as our counselor resulting in a life that is built upon a rock.
paul
Umbrella of Protection, or Authority?
Here is the popular illustration that offends some people (click on to enlarge):
You’re offended by that? Here is how it really works (click on to enlarge):
Any husband who leads his family in signing a church covenant with a Neo-Calvinist church (or for that matter, any church) is woefully naive.
Piper, Tchividjian, Christian Counseling, and the Calvinist False Gospel: The Law of the Spirit has NO Power to Change
DOING THE CROSS ONLY TO KEEP YOURSELF SAVED
The Bible is two different laws to the only two people groups in the world: the lost and the saved. To the lost, it is the law of sin and death. To the believer, it is the law of the Spirit of life:
Roman 8:1 – There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
We are no longer UNDER LAW, but UNDER GRACE, and being under grace is the same as being under the law of the Spirit of life. As Christians, the Spirit does in fact use the law to change us:
John 17:14 – I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
As I will keep proclaiming, the Achilles’ heel of Calvinism is law. Calvinism keeps the Christian under the law of sin and death. Hence, Jesus must fulfil the law of sin and death for us, and this is made up to be part of the atonement. But the law of sin and death has no part in justification—that’s why there is “no condemnation” for believers. But clearly, Calvin taught that Christians are still under the condemnation of the law and that Christ must perpetually save us from it by reapplications of the cross. In particular, note 3.14.9-11 in the Calvin Institutes. This construct turns the Bible and grace completely upside down. This is also why John Piper refers to the Bible as a book of “saving acts” (plural).
Note that John Piper, like Calvin, keeps Christians under the law of sin and death:
What Then Shall Those Who Are Justified Do with the Law of Moses?
Read it and meditate on it as those who are dead to it as the ground of your justification and the power of your sanctification. Read it and meditate on it as those for whom Christ is your righteousness and Christ is your sanctification.
Notice that Piper replaces the law of the Spirit of life with Christ alone as our sanctification. Notice also that we are to PRESENTLY read the law as those who are dead to it…[for] the power of your sanctification. Piper, like Calvin, only recognizes ONE law, the one we are dead to.
Tullian Tchividjian is more pointed about it:
So do you think the law no longer has—or should no longer have—a role in the Christian life?
No, I wouldn’t say that. While the law of God is good (Romans 7), it only has the power to reveal sin and to show the standard and image of righteous requirement—not remove sin. The law shows us what God commands (which of course is good) but the law does not possess the power to enable us to do what it says. You could put it this way: the law guides but it does not give. In other words, the law shows us what a sanctified life looks like, but it does not have sanctifying power—the law cannot change a human heart. It’s the gospel (what Jesus has done) that alone can give God-honoring animation to our obedience. The power to obey comes from being moved and motivated by the completed work of Jesus for us. The fuel to do good flows from what’s already been done. So, while the law directs us, only the gospel can drive us.
This, of course, asserts the idea, per Calvinism, that the power of our sanctification comes from justification. Per the usual, “gospel” and “Jesus” are words used to replace “justification” for cover on this issue. If our sanctification comes from justification, the law of sin and death is not ended and Jesus must continue to save us from it. The “finished” work isn’t so much finished, it needs to be perpetually applied to save us from the law of sin and death. Simply stated, Calvinism keeps us under the law of sin and death and ignores the law (“nomos”) of the Spirit of life. In other places, Tchividjian posits the idea that “the Bible never says that the law can give life.” That isn’t true,
Psalm 19:7 – The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul;
Psalm 119:93 – I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life.
I won’t belabor the point, but Christ also said that man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God, and when Moses said to “choose life” he was talking about the law.
In the final analysis, it’s works salvation via antinomianism; we have to work hard at doing nothing but the cross to keep ourselves saved from the law of sin and death which Calvin, even from the grave, keeps poised over our heads, ready to damn us at any time unless we live by faith alone in sanctification. And of course, faithfulness to the institutional church which has the “power of the keys” is our best shot to be “ready for the judgment.” Frankly, a judgment that we will not be attending because the final judgment is according to the law of sin and death, not the law of the Spirit of life that the Spirit does in fact use to change us.
And also take note: 95% of the Christian counseling going on in the institutional church is based on Christians being yet under the law of sin and death with Christ fulfilling it in our stead as part of the atonement. Good luck with that—it’s a false gospel.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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