If Space Aliens Visited Westminster Seminary
I don’t know what’s wrong with me this morning. I sang to PJ and Phillip while taking them to school this morning: “Let the sunshine in, face it with a grin, frowner’s never win…….” Too much coffee or something. Then I guess I made the mistake of checking my FB wall before getting to work. One of my friends posted an item concerning an apparent, or possible paranormal event concerning the pale horse of the apocalypse. At first, my comment was serious:
“ Interesting. It could be paranormal – that does happen. But for Christians the question is always, “So what?” Or, Objective verses subjective. Like when lightning struck the giant image of Jesus here in Ohio: objective; God doesn’t like idols so He struck it with lightning. This [note] is more in the realm of subjective. Subjective paranormal events are sometimes a judgment because they are often a form of idol worship. People like idols because they can draw any truth they want from them; like the giant Jesus here in Ohio – it meant many different things to many different people. Likewise, people can draw all kinds of different “conclusions” from subjective paranormal activity. The apostle Paul said that in the end times God will send “delusions” as a judgment and Christ said they will be so deceptive that they could potentially deceive the elect “if that were possible.” I believe that as the time draws near we will see strong delusions, and Katie bar the door, if the likes of John Piper can fool people, one can only imagine the wholesale plunge into deeper error.”
Then something happened. You see, I have been in a cage while writing the second edition of “Another Gospel” because I made Susan the chief editor of the book. Her credentials for such a task are over the top, and it has been brutal: no sarcasm, no unprofessional statements, no unnecessary statements that don’t contribute to the main point, etc., etc., etc., and etc. Do you know what I mean? Do you hear me knocking? “No, this won’t work,” she says, “the blog is informal [my translation: fun!], this is serious business.” So, I made a second comment to the note on FB that was in jest – something about an end-time delusion concerning space aliens visiting Southern Theological Seminary and presenting a false gospel. Then I thought, “Hey, that would make a good post!”
But then I thought (Susan never lets me start a sentence with “but”), “It wouldn’t be fair to use Southern since they are primarily influenced by Westminster these days, so I will use Westminster for the imaginary scenario instead. So, imagine with me, the spaceship lands on the front lawn of Westminster Seminary, the aliens emerge, and say, “Take us to your leader.” Undoubtedly, since this would be a counseling situation, and even a possible alien abduction (I could only wish), they would summon profs from CCEF, the counseling wing of Westminster. After listening to the new gospel presented by the aliens, one can only assume they would respond this way:
“No, no, we have a much better gospel than that. We believe in change at the ‘heart level.’ You see, we don’t need to evolve, the church has always had the truth, but then it forgot a bunch of stuff. We realized the church did so when we observed people who hate us developing theories of change based on an ‘inside life.’ Unfortunately, first generation versions of ourselves deny this ‘inside life’ because they are obsessed with what can be known objectively. It is important to overcome that because even though we have recovered truth forgotten by the church, ‘it’s different because it’s always in a different socio-cultural-historical movement, and different forces are at work’ ( see David Powlison interview with 9 Marks Blog). However, this shouldn’t bother our first generation friends because the Bible is not a book of objective truth anyway, it’s a gospel narrative.
Now, on Earth we have flowers called the daisy, and if you just cut down a daisy, it will grow back again because what you need to do is get to the roots and dig them up. Likewise, idols in the heart must be found and destroyed by deep repentance. When we do that, change is just a ‘mere natural flow’ via new obedience. Now, idols in our heart take our desires captive, so we locate the idols by asking ourselves x-ray questions, which will identify desires that have been disoriented / misplaced by the idols. This is very important because like Sigmund Freud, we believe ‘Everything we do is shaped and controlled by what our hearts desire’ (How People Change, p.17). Furthermore, we like to quote a great teacher of the past who said: ‘The heart is an idol factory.’ So, as our nasty hearts continue to create these idols, we must eradicate them by deep repentance.”
At this point, the aliens have a question: “So, your gospel is a gospel that teaches a constant cycle of new idols being created in the heart and the cutting down thereof ?” Answer: “Precisely! Because when we sin, it keeps us humble and prevents self righteousness. But when we obey, it’s not really us obeying; when the idol is eradicated, the void is filled by Christ and he obeys for us. So really, it’s a constant cycle of humbleness and rejoicing in what Jesus is doing, not anything we do. This is much better than the first generation of putting off the old self and putting on the full righteousness of Christ granted to us at salvation.”
Aliens: “But isn’t that what Ephesians 4:20-24 says to do? And isn’t it more objective than idol hunting?” Answer: “That’s first generation thinking. We thought you guys are supposed to be more highly evolved than us. The Bible is a gospel narrative, and ‘Christ is a person, not a cognitive concept we insert into a new formula for life’ (How People Change, p.27). The Bible is a big picture model / story of every believers life, and we are invited to enter into the plot ( How People Change p.94).”
Aliens: “Your concept: the Bible is personal truth embodied in a person [Christ] and expressed in a narrative; therefore, it cannot be applicable truth; isn’t that postmodernism? Another one of your earthly leaders says it is (John MacArthur, Truth War pages 12-14).” Answer: “Guilt by association! Are you guys really blogwatchers posing as aliens?!”
To conclude my narrative, one of the aliens keys his communicator and says the following: “Ground to command, beam us up, there’s no intelligent life down here.”
And once again, CCEF’s research and development team has saved planet Earth!
The end.
(Don’t tell Susan I wrote this).
paul
Is Gospel-Driven Sanctification Really “Sonship” Theology?
Two weeks ago, sitting in my office with my feet propped on a bookcase and chatting with Susan, I happened to be looking up at my Jay Adams shelf. Since it had been too long since I’d read any of his material (at least two weeks), I put my feet down on the floor and began perusing what I haven’t lent to other people; and thinking, “Hmmm, wonder what this is: ‘Biblical Sonship.’”
I always read the preface. So you have the cover, cover page, copyright, contents, and preface. I was reading the first page of the preface, and in the third paragraph, when I read the following: “It claims that a person can change this sad state of affairs by continuing to preach the gospel to himself and by repenting and believing over and over again. It teaches that not only justification, but also sanctification, is by faith in the good news.”
Barely a hundred words into the book, and I was stunned. That is the exact same thesis as gospel sanctification, a movement I have been researching for three years. The movement (gospel sanctification, or “gospel-driven sanctification”) is huge and its propagators are the who’s who of the evangelical world that they are supposedly trying to save: DA Carson, Michael Horton, Paul David Tripp, David Powlison, Tim Keller, John Piper, Al Mohler, Mark Devers, Francis Chan, Jerry Bridges, and many, many others. The theology is also propagated by several missionary alliances and church planting organizations like the Antioch School in Ames, Iowa.
As Jay Adams notes in his book, the Sonship movement was started by Jack Miller, a former professor of practical theology at Westminster Seminary who is now deceased. According to other sources, Jack Miller’s epiphany concerning Sonship occurred while he was on an extended trip in Spain with his family. An article I read by Geoff Thomas in Banner of Truth was written in 2003, and he mentions the trip to Spain as being about twenty years prior; so figure 1980, or around that time, for the birth of Sonship theology.
In all of my studies concerning gospel sanctification, I had never heard of Jack Miller or Sonship theology, but it became clear from the Jay Adams book that the two theologies are the same thing with the usual peripheral aberrations from the basic form; and the basic form being, but not confined to, progressive justification, sanctification by faith alone, substitutionary monergistic sanctification, and the total depravity of the saints. There is absolutely no doubt – this theology turns orthodoxy completely upside down while the intestinal fortitude of the rest of the evangelical community wanes. Apparently, big names like Jerry Bridges and others are like GM, they’re just too big to fail. As one brother wrote to me: “How dare you criticize DA Carson, one the greatest theological minds of our day!” Furthermore, as Dr. Peter Masters has noted, it is interesting that doctrine doesn’t matter if you are “gospel-driven” in your beliefs. For example, Charismatic and emergent church leaders are readily excepted into the new Calvinism clan if they are “gospel-centered.”
But what came first? Sonship, or gospel sanctification? Did gospel-driven sanctification come from Sonship? Is Jack Miller the father of new Calvinism? It’s looking that way. Historical precedent for gospel sanctification (GS) cannot be found before (approx.)1980. It is the brainchild of Dr. David Powlison, professor at CCEF, the biblical counseling wing of Westminster Seminary. GS came out of his “Dynamics of Biblical Change” curriculum developed and taught by him at Westminster. Two of his former students articulated the doctrine in the book “How People Change.” This is made clear by Powlison in the forward he wrote for the same book. Shortly prior to the book’s release, the doctrine’s theories were tested in local churches via a pilot program. In the reformed church I attended that was part of the pilot program, the curriculum was taught in a Sunday school class with a limited number of participants.
“How People Change” articulates a theology that is virtually identical to Sonship theology. And, it just so happens that David Powlison himself claims that Jack Miller is his “mentor.” He recently stated this as fact while teaching a seminar at John Piper’s church, and in the midst of fustigating Jay Adams for criticizing Jack Miller for telling people to “preach the gospel to themselves everyday” *see endnote. I thought this phrase was originally coined by Jerry Bridges, but Jerry Bridges attributes the phrase to Jack Miller in the preface of “The Disciplines of Grace.” Tim Keller, a looming figure in the new Calvinism / gospel-driven / gospel sanctification movement, was teaching GS under the “Sonship” nomenclature as late as 2006. On the Puritan Board, a faint cry for help was uttered by a person saying the following: “ The Sonship theology of Tim Keller has taken a hold of the church I attend. Am I the only one, or does anyone else have a problem with this?”
Furthermore, my research would strongly suggest that the development of other contemporary theologies like New Covenant Theology, (many attribute its conception to Westminster Seminary sometime during the 80’s or 90’s), heart theology (definitely conceived at Westminster during the 90’s), redemptive-historical hermeneutics, and Christian hedonism (latter conceived by John Piper in the 80’s) were primarily driven by the need to validate Sonship / GS doctrine. Sonship needs the NCT perspective on the law, the supposed practical application of finding idols in the heart via heart theology, the perspective of how Sonship is experienced through Christian hedonism, and more than anything else, an interpretive redemptive prism supplied by the redemptive-historical hermeneutic.
But why has gospel sanctification enjoyed freedom from ridicule not afforded to Sonship? They are, for all practical purposes, the same exact thing and encompass many of the same teachers. Probably because gospel sanctification has the word “gospel” in it. In this age of hyper-grace, people will shy away from any appearance of being against “the gospel.” I have to believe that the movement has traded the Sonship label, with its share of bullet holes, for the “gospel-driven” label. Sonship has been besieged by two works, the book by Jay Adams and a lengthy article by Van Dixhoorn, a former student at Westminster. Sonship has also been pelted with its share of the “antinomian” accusation, and rightfully so. In my second addition of “Another Gospel,” I write the following on page 78:
“….if the same gospel that saved us also sanctifies us, and Christ said that we are sanctified by the word; and certainly He did say that as recorded in John 17:17, then every word in the Bible must be about justification, or what God has done and not anything we could possibly do, being a gospel affair. Furthermore, if we are sanctified by the gospel which is God’s work alone, we may have no more role in spiritual growth than we did in the gospel that saved us. The Scriptures are clear; no person is justified by works of the law. Is that not the gospel? Therefore, when the antinomians speak of obedience, it should be apparent that they are not speaking of our obedience, even though they allow us to assume otherwise.”
At least one book, a lengthy pamphlet, and several articles defend Sonship against Adams and Van Dixhoorn, but the theological arguments are woefully lame. Nevertheless, my point is that gospel sanctification, though the same thing, is enjoying widespread acceptance throughout the church without controversy while unifying camps that are theologically suspect to say the least.
It is what it is; while mad theological scientist concoct all sorts of new potions in the lab and send their minions out to commit first-degree doctrinal felonies in broad daylight, while many who profess to love the real gospel say nothing. I pray that will change, while thanking God for those who love the truth more than the acceptance and praises of men.
Endnote:
Powlison failed to mention that the criticism came in the form of a book that is an apology against Sonship theology. Failure to mention that put Adams in an anti-gospel light as well as depriving him of the ability to contextualize the criticism. As an aside, Powlison, in the same seminar, criticized “idol hunting”; but yet, he is the inventor of “X-ray questions”(which he also mentioned in positive terms without the “X-ray” terminology, but rather something like “reorienting questions”) which are designed to identify heart idols (see page 163 of “How People Change”). His mentor, Jack Miller, developed a complex system of idol hunting that included twenty different categories of heart idols (Jack Miller, “Repentance and the 20th Century Man”CLC 1998). This kind of disingenuous double-speak is commonplace within the movement.
New Years Day 2011: The Second Coming of John Piper
On John Piper’s “Desiring God” website, he wrote the following on March 28, 2010:
“….the elders graciously approved on March 22 a leave of absence that will take me away from Bethlehem from May 1 through December 31, 2010.”
And in the same correspondence:
“The difference between this leave and the sabbatical I took four years ago is that I wrote a book on that sabbatical”
I have not read the book he mentions, but I have read the manuscript from the sermon he preached upon his first return on August 6, 2006 which summarizes the major premise of the book written while on his first sabbatical. The first sabbatical was ten weeks, and he took that sabbatical to document his fresh insights into the subject of how biblical imperatives relate to justification, and primarily from the four gospels. Much of this same thesis was reiterated in his message at the 2010 T4G conference. More on that later, and how it relates to the subject at hand.
Piper also wrote the following in the aforementioned post:
“I hope the Lord gives me at least five more years as the pastor for preaching and vision at Bethlehem.”
And, “Personally, I view these months as a kind of relaunch of what I hope will be the most humble, happy, fruitful five years of our 35 years at Bethlehem….”
Piper: a History of New Visions
It is well said that Piper is the elder in charge of “vision” at his church, for he has had several. In fact, one can only stand in amazement to see the pass he gets from the rest of the Evangelical world concerning very questionable events. His first epiphany that gave birth to Christian Hedonism, the doctrine that he is most noted for, is recounted by Piper himself as follows:
“Before I saw these things in the Bible, C. S. Lewis snagged me when I wasn’t looking. I was standing in Vroman’s Bookstore on Colorado Avenue in Pasadena, California, in the fall of 1968. I picked up a thin blue copy of Lewis’s book The Weight of Glory. The first page changed my life….Never in my life had I heard anyone say that the problem with the world was not the intensity of our pursuit of happiness, but the weakness of it. Everything in me shouted, Yes! That’s it!”
In Dr. Peter Masters’ critique of John Piper and his doctrine, he gives credit where credit is due, but his assessment is none-the-less, scathing:
“At times in his books Dr Piper wants us to see this as an old idea, but his claims are not convincing. It does tend to look no older than C S Lewis, (1) whose famous book, Weight of Glory, had an explosive influence on Dr Piper in his younger years….Dr Piper often quotes Jonathan Edwards, who said much about delighting in God and Christian joy. By reference to Jonathan Edwards, Dr Piper effectively says, ‘Look, this is as old as the hills. This is the way our forebears thought.’ Certainly Jonathan Edwards provides choice passages about delighting in God, as did the English Puritan writers, but at no time does he [Edwards] frame a system in which this becomes the key principle of Christian living. Joy in God always sits alongside other equal duties….Dr Piper really knows that he is promoting something novel. He even uses the term, ‘my vision’, and that is what it is, for however well intended, it is Dr Piper’s personal vision. He also calls it ‘my theology’” (“Christian Hedonism: Is it Right?” Sword & Trowel 2002, No. 3 by Peter Masters).
Piper’s Second Vision
Piper’s second vision further defined Christian Hedonism in his book, “The Pleasures of God.” This time, his epiphany came from reading a book by Henry Scougal. In the book “The Life of God in the Soul of Man,” Scougal suggested (in the book) that the excellency of a man’s soul is determined by what he loves. Piper then thought something like this: Hmmm, then could it be that the same is true about God? “Is it not also the case that the worth and excellency of God’s soul is measured by the object of his love?” (p.15, “The Pleasures of God”). Two pages later, Piper had talked himself into swallowing the light-bulb moment hook, line, and sinker. He then decided to take a four-day study leave from his church with a Bible and concordance to confirm this new idea. The following is what Piper said about “The Pleasures of God” on page 17:
“I regard this book as a vision of God through the lens of his happiness.”
The First Sabbatical
In the sermon that marked his first return, Piper said the following:
“Many of you know that I spent a large portion—at least 10 weeks—of the sabbatical immersed in the commands of Jesus, writing a book that is now titled What Jesus Demands from the World. “
Biblical imperatives / commands are a problem for the doctrine Piper advocates, but never mentions by name; specifically, New Calvinism, or Gospel Sanctification, or New Covenant Theology. Whatever you want to call it, it’s an antinomian doctrine. More on that later, but the primary goal of the first sabbatical was to form a treatise on the whole pesky idea that obedience serves a purpose in the sanctification process. Upon his first return, he emphasized the urgency of this new bent to his congregation:
“Bethlehem, this is serious. We are not justified by the righteousness that Christ works in us, but by the righteousness that Christ is for us. Would you receive this, and glory in this, and pray toward this, and stand for this? I summon everyone in the hearing of my voice: Give Jesus Christ his full glory—not half of it. Give him the glory, both as the one who is perfect righteousness for us—which we have by faith alone and the one who, on the basis of justification, works progressive righteousness in us. Don’t rob him of the glory of his role as your righteousness. He is your righteousness. And because he is your righteousness, he can, and will in time, make you righteous. Look to Christ alone, trust in Christ alone—not your righteousness—for your right standing in God’s court and your acceptance with him.”
I must admit, I have a morbid respect for Piper because of his ability as a slick word-crafter. You have to study long and hard to realize that the preceding statement is talking about the GS (Gospel Sanctification) tenet / element of “progressive sanctification” which is really justification extrapolated forward through the (normally understood as orthodox) sanctification process. The GS doctrine sees justification and sanctification as one and the same. Though the topic of his message was justification, if you note carefully, he was also talking about sanctification as if it is the same thing. As I said before, Piper reiterated this position at the 2010 T4G conference, and an excerpt from another post on this particular element (regarding what he said about it at the 2010 T4G) may be helpful:
“While his message was supposedly focused on justification, he makes the following statement in the same message:
‘All the good that God requires of the justified is the fruit of justification by faith alone, never the ground of justification. Let the battle of your life be there. The battle to believe. Not the battle to perform.’
Is that true? Should Christians focus solely on belief only? Isn’t there ever a ‘battle to perform’? According to Piper, and what can be clearly gleaned from this statement, no. Notice how sanctification is not mentioned in regard to what we should be doing now, or a ‘battle’ to please God with our lives. Regardless of the fact that he is speaking in the present tense, he only qualifies the ‘battle to perform’ in regard to justification. He says that everything God requires flows from the fruits of justification, and then we should only ‘battle to believe,’ not battle to perform. Read the statement very carefully as you must with this master word-crafter; if you make a battle to perform [effort in the sanctification process] one of your battles as a Christian, you are also making that the grounds of your justification!”
In other words: monergistic sanctification, and in the same way that salvation is monergistic. And, works in sanctification equals salvation by works; and therefore, the Law has the same role / significance in sanctification as it does in justification (Antinomianism. James Durham: “The antinomains make all sanctification to be justification”). That’s why Piper implored the congregation regarding the gravity of the message, because synergistic sanctification (normally understood as orthodox) is supposedly a false gospel, or works salvation.
Also note, per the GS doctrine, that justification is not seen as a one-time act by God, but ongoing: “And because he is your righteousness, he can, and will in time, make you righteous” Furthermore, it is clearly sanctification by faith alone, which orthodox Christians have never endorsed. Here is what JC Ryle said accordingly:
“It is thoroughly Scriptural and right to say ‘faith alone justifies.’ But it is not equally Scriptural and right to say ‘faith alone sanctifies.’”
In order to make this case, Piper emphasized, in the same message, that all of the Gospels (Mathew, Mark, Luke, John) need to be seen “in the shadow of the cross,” and therefore, the imperatives therein also. Paul David Tripp, an associate of John Piper, often states it this way: “Biblical commands must be seen in their gospel context.” The GS “gospel” that Tripp is referring to includes the “imputed active obedience of Christ.” This is the belief that Christ’s perfect obedience performed while He was on Earth was not only relevant regarding Him being a perfect sacrifice for sin, but that He obeyed perfectly to fulfill the Law (and therefore disposing of its usefulness), and to impute that obedience to us which also negates the relevance of the Law for New Covenant believers. In short, Christ obeys for us. Therefore, proponents of GS often say, “the imperative command is grounded in the indicative event.” They also believe that commands in the Bible are only useful to be pondered as a way to “go deeper into the gospel” because they (commands) are indicative of what Christ has done for us – biblical commands are not instruction from God to be understood and executed by us. Supposedly. Here is how Piper verbalized it in the message we are discussing:
“Another way to say it is that the cross of Jesus, where he took our place and became a curse for us and bore our sins and completed his obedience, casts a long shadow back over every verse in the Gospels. Every verse is meant to be read under the shadow of what Jesus did for us on the cross. Or to put it still another way, the four gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—are meant to be read backward. Children, remember I said that and at lunch today say to your mommy and daddy, ‘Why did Pastor John say that we are supposed to read the Gospels backward?’ And don’t panic, mom and dad. Here’s the answer. Tell them, he meant that when you start reading one of the Gospels you already know how it ends—the death and resurrection of Jesus for our sins—and you should have that ending in mind with every verse that you read.”
Only problem is, not only is his hermeneutic ridiculous (the end always determines the meaning of every sentence in a text), that’s NOT how the Gospels end! Matthew and Mark end with Christ proclaiming His authority, and a mandate to the church to observe all that He commanded. In other words, the exact opposite of what Piper is saying. Luke ends with the ascension, and John ends with Christ giving Peter final instructions. It’s almost as if Piper thinks people are generally brain-dead. We also see the following in Piper’s nuanced statements: the GS tenet of Redemptive- Historical hermeneutics (every verse in the Bible is about Christ, the gospel, redemption, and justification).
Did Piper Put Himself Under “Redemptive Church Discipline”?
In his most recent sabbatical, Piper disclosed that he hadn’t committed any serious sin that would disqualify him from ministry (how would he know if every verse in the Bible is about the gospel?), but had observed many “species of pride” in his soul. Apparently, the purpose of the sabbatical is to eliminate these creatures, and undoubtedly through what GS proponents call “deep repentance” (another GS tenet). The elders also appointed an accountability team to assist him.
Many are not aware of what New Calvinist believe about church discipline. They don’t believe that church discipline is a four-step process to determine the need for exclusion because of serious sin. GS proponents believe that church discipline, or what they call “redemptive church discipline,” is a tool to fine-tune the saints. Think about it, the traditional view of church discipline requires the subject to respond to objective instruction in order to avoid consequences. This turns New Calvinism completely upside down. Therefore, redemptive church discipline brings salvation / justification principles to bear on the situation which includes meditation on the gospel and “deep repentance.” It’s a complex issue, and there is no room to address it here, but a detailed explanation of this unorthodox procedure can be found in my book, “Another Gospel.”
Piper’s Second Coming
Today is the last day of his sabbatical. If he comes back from this one without a new vision, that will be a first. This is what he wrote regarding this sabbatical:
“ In this leave, I intend to let go of all of it. No book-writing. No sermon preparation or preaching. No blogging. No Twitter. No articles. No reports. No papers. And no speaking engagements.”
Only problem is, reading books written by others, the source of his past epiphanies, is not on the list. God help us (that’s a real request). So, what will it be this time? Who knows other than God Himself, but just for the fun of it, I’m going to make a guess. I believe Piper will come out with a detailed promotion and defense of redemptive church discipline. There is very little doubt in my mind that this sabbatical has been some kind of spiritual expedition for the purpose of articulating something, and that is my best guess. Second to that, before he embarked on this sabbatical, he referenced Paul David Tripp’s view of the GS tenet of deep repentance (which Tripp articulates in the book, “How People Change”) in an interview with a Christian magazine. I surmise that his sabbatical was an expedition to define, by experience, one, or both of these GS tenets. I assume tomorrow, the first Sunday of his return, will also be his appearing before the fawning faithful to reveal what he experienced during his sabbatical.
Piper is a strong proponent of the GS doctrine though he avoids interpretive labels like the Bubonic Plague. Perhaps he will come out of the closet on Sunday. But I can’t help to take notice of when he is returning – the first Sunday of the new year, when Christians really ought to be focused on their own walk with God. And regarding this sabbatical preparing him for the final stretch of his ministry, which he hopes might be five years – I’m surprised he didn’t suggest three.
paul
Commendation, and Hyper-Grace Pharisees
Offended, he was, when I told a pastor that his sermon was a “home run.” “I don’t hit ‘home runs,’” he said, obviously offended because I didn’t “give all of the glory to the Lord.” Besides, depending on his flavor of hyper-grace theology prevalent in our day, he might also believe that Christ actually delivered the sermon “through him.” Hence, we are merely lifeless vessels that Christ uses to do His work. It is more than fair to say that this kind of theology is being propagated by some of the most respected leaders of our day. Then there was the time I was talking to the recipient of an astounding gift from another Christian family who was a family of little financial means. The gift (to meet an important need) was a proverbial giving of the right arm. I commented to the recipient regarding how amazed I was at such a sacrificial gift. The response: “they didn’t give me anything, it was the Lord.” It was obvious that the recipient was not only offended by my remark, but was defending the other family from the sin of not “giving all of the glory to the Lord.”
Yes, grace is in the air like never before. Jesus does it all. As Steve Green sings, we are “empty vessels waiting to be filled.” We are empty, and all we can do is *wait* and hope that Jesus will do something in our lives, so when he does, everyone will know it was the Lord because we are “empty,” dead vessels. And as Steve Green also notes in the same song, “That’s Were The Joy Comes From,” when we see Jesus obeying for us. Therefore, to commend others is to deny that Jesus did it all; a sin worthy of receiving the dreaded label spelled P-h-a-r-i-s-e-e.
There is only one problem. We have let theologians of our day define *legalism* which the Pharisees were supposedly guilty of. Their definition of legalism is any effort on our part to do what God wants us to do. I like what Jay Adams has to say about this notion:
“Strangely, there are, today, those who believe that if we do anything to please God, we are acting by ‘the arm of flesh.’ By that they mean we are doing something solely in our own strength. But, by making it an either/or matter, we upset the biblical balance of loving obedience and strengthening grace” (“What is Sanctification” INS blog, September 16, 2010).
In a book that I would not recommend (“Introduction to Biblical Counseling” by the Master’s College faculty) because it gives unwarranted credibility to some who are not doctrinally sound (ie., David Powlison and others), Dennis Swanson rightly notes that “legalism is a term that is frequently tossed around without much thought to its meaning” (p. 381). He proceeds to define legalism in these biblical terms: “In legalism someone establishes an external standard of spirituality and then judges everyone by that standard.” And that’s what the Pharisees were guilty of. They mingled the Law of God with their own tradition making it “void” (Matthew 15:1-9). All of today’s much-ado-about-nothing regarding the fear that we will unwittingly offend God by doing what he wants us to do scripturally, because it is us doing it and not Him, is not legalism.
Though many other examples could be used, let me now continue to use “commendation” as an example of how this passive view of Scripture is actually legalism, and not our “own”(as if the exercise of our efforts automatically denies God’s efficacious involvement) efforts to please God. Simply put, to not recognize the good works of others (Christians, of course) because it supposedly takes glory from God and implies that we have a role in good works, is an external standard that is not biblical, and therefore is really legalism. The apostle Paul explicitly commands us to commend others and recognize them publicly, and did so himself on many occasions:
“So then, welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor people like him, because he almost died for the work of Christ. He risked his life to make up for the help you yourselves could not give me”(Philippians 2:29,30).
Paul also called Timothy God’s “co-worker” (1Thessalonians 3:2 ESV). I mean really, do we need to look up “co-worker” in Webster’s Dictionary? We are to commend those who do their part in God’s work. And frankly, I find the disclaimer “we know the Lord did it all” whenever we do commend saints, annoying. Let me use one more example other than “commendation” before I close. Since I mentioned him above, David Powlison has said to never tell a counselee to “just stop it,” and that the Lord would never say that to one of his children (see full article here: https://paulspassingthoughts.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/will-the-poo-pooing-of-scriptures-plain-sense-ever-cease/ ) This is a standard set by Powlison, not Scripture (see John 5:14, Acts 15:29, 21:25, 1Peter 2:11). Abstinence is clearly one of many weapons in our sanctification repertoire. Again, many other examples could be cited, but legalism is the following of a false standard, not biblical standards, we call that “obedience.”
While claiming to be on a crusade to save the church from Pharisee-ism and legalism, they are really the ones that are the Pharisees of our day. Specifically, they are hyper-grace Pharisees.
paul
Straight From the Antinomian’s Own Mouth: What is New Covenant Theology? Part 7; The “Newfangled” Fifteen
Like the Antinomianism of the 19th century, the contemporary version of our day, primarily expressed in New Covenant Theology, is fraught with the same kind of “newfangled phraseology” that JC Ryle complained about. Ryle’s complaint is worth another look before we proceed:
“Finally, I must deprecate, and I do it in love, the use of uncouth and new-fangled terms and phrases in teaching sanctification. I plead that a movement in favor of holiness cannot be advanced by new-coined phraseology, or by disproportioned and one-sided statements–or by overstraining and isolating particular texts–or by exalting one truth at the expense of another– or by allegorizing and accommodating texts, and squeezing out of them meanings which the Holy Spirit never put in them”
Likewise, NCT is not without its own newfangled phraseology. There are primarily fifteen:
1. Rich Typology: It’s so rich, that it doesn’t read like typology, but rather seems to be literal, being so “rich.” Example; “Israel” doesn’t really mean “Israel,” but is always a reference to Christ. God’s word really doesn’t mean “word,” or “Law,” but is also 100% synonymous with “the person of Christ who personifies the Law.” This typology is sooooo rich, that even though Proverbs personifies “wisdom” as a woman, that’s still speaking of Christ also. Wow, now that’s really rich.
2. In-Lawed in Christ: The Law is completely fulfilled in Christ because, He obeyed it perfectly. Therefore, we have no need to obey it, nor does it have any role in sanctification.
3. Deep Repentance: The process in which heart idols are discovered by evaluating desires that the idols produce. When we repent of specific idols, it empties our hearts and leaves a void that is filled by Christ, who then obeys for us.
4. New Obedience: The result of deep repentance – Christ obeys for us.
5. Progressive Sanctification: Ongoing justification, which isn’t a one time act, but is continually applied to us as needed. Some advocates of NCT acknowledge a daily “re-saving.” Paul Tripp says that Christians need a “daily rescue,” and cites Romans 7: 24.
6. Redemptive-Historical Hermeneutics: Invented by the liberal theologian Johann Philipp in the 17th century and further developed by Geerhardus Vos. It makes NCT possible by supplying a prism that will always yield redemptive concepts from the text.
7. Christian Hedonism: Invented by John Piper in 1980. He believes that people are driven by their desires. Therefore, change the desires and you change the behavior. Piper believes that we can only change our desires by meditating on the glory of Christ as seen in the Bible. He also believes that biblical imperatives only serve to make us dependant on Christ and cherish Him more, because we are powerless to keep the Law. He cites Romans 6:17 to make this point, and believes Christians are still “enslaved” to sin.
8. The Imperative Command is Grounded in the Indicative Event: All biblical imperatives illustrate the work of Christ, not anything God expects us to do. As Paul Tripp states it: All biblical commands must be seen in their “gospel context.” If that’s not Antinomianism, what is?
10. Good Repentance: Repenting of good works, or anything we try to do in “our own efforts” as opposed to yielding to Christ and allowing Him to obey for us. Paul Tripp says this will result in “new and surprising fruit.” Tim Keller also suggests that repenting of good works is an essential part of a saving profession. As these people continue to pontificate such lunacy, nobody blinks and they are continually supplied with credibility by the who’s who of the Evangelical community, such as John MacArthur and RC Sproul.
11. The Apostle’s Hermeneutic: A supposed pattern of interpretation that’s patterned after RHH. However, despite numerous challenges from various writers, NCT proponents have never been able to articulate it.
13. New Calvinism: The expression of NCT and all of its tenets; Heart Theology, Gospel Sanctification, Christian Hedonism, and the Redemptive-Historical hermeneutic.
14. Word Pictures: If your pastor starts using this phraseology, it’s a red flag. The insinuation is that the Bible writers were writing a gospel narrative / novel / story rather than a document containing specific ideas / instruction to be drawn from the text by evaluating grammatical construction and historical context.
15. What does that look like? If your leaders start using this phraseology, again, it’s a red flag. It’s an attempt to eradicate the implication that Christians are supposed to participate in the verb world. Instead of: “what should we do?” It’s: “what does that look like when Jesus is doing it for us?”
I don’t suppose this newfangled 15 would arouse any suspicions among God’s people, for I fear that we also “look like” another complaint leveled by JC Ryle:
“There is an Athenian love of novelty abroad, and a morbid distaste for anything old and regular, and in the beaten path of our forefathers. Thousands will crowd to hear a new voice and a new doctrine, without considering for a moment whether what they hear is true.”
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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