A Call to the Laity: The New Birth is the Infusion of God’s Word
Other than the use of a few facts in the commission of first-degree premediated falsehood, the Protestant Reformation did not get one thing right. The Protestant Reformation is plenary falsehood. This post is about the Reformation’s most grievous falsehood; the denial of the new birth as defined by the Bible.
John Piper once stated that the Reformation’s cardinal argument with Rome was the issue of “infused grace.” He is absolutely correct in that self-condemnation. The Protestant Reformation, as constantly stated by the Neo-Calvinists of our day, was all about an objective gospel that remains completely outside of us. What they call the “Objective Gospel.” This is Martin Luther’s “alien righteousness.”
Fundamentally, the objection was grounded in Augustine’s Neo-Platonism that disallowed the fusion of goodness with evil matter, but this post is not about that aspect.
If there is ever an escape from the present Protestant Dark Age, it will be the result of the laity’s collective study of God’s word to the exclusion of Protestant caste scholarship. The laity must recognize that we are God’s elect, and once again seize our rightful calling in the prevention of losing full reward. Our present day represents the Corinthian problem once again in which philosopher kings subjugate the gifts assigned to God’s offspring.
After more than 500 years of making every verse in the Bible about justification, there is much work to be done for the glory of God and His truth. One place where study is much needed regards the word, “seed.” Before one is born again, the law (God’s word) judges and condemns, but the new birth makes the same word a living seed that is infused within the believer. This is what the Bible teaches.
Seed theology, so to speak if I may, is a deep and vast continuity throughout the Bible and an element of the new birth. There is a link between the one seed, Christ, and Him as “the word,” and how the truth of Scripture is life to the believer as opposed to death and condemnation.
James 1:21 – Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you (NIV).
Got that? The word of God, also called a “seed” that is planted and gives life (see the parable of the sower etc.), is planted IN US. Is there a more glaring contradiction as set against the Reformation’s Objective Gospel? Also, in the Bible, “saved” doesn’t always mean the salvation of the soul. And, it NEVER means a progressive saving of the soul. In sanctification, the believer can still make life or death decisions by saying yes or no to proper or improper desires. There is also a saving of the body that saves us from the weakness of the flesh (redemption). At any rate, the point here is that the life giving word of God is In US via the new birth.
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'” (NIV).
Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, (NIV).
In these verses, growth/nourishment from the word of God refers to the putting on of the new man (Eph 4:24) who is already a new man. The new creature grows up in newness, not some striving to finally achieve a state of newness. This is a true progressive holiness that is already holy, not progressive justification posing as progressive sanctification. Sanctification does not flow from a “legal declaration,” it flows from a state of being defined by an infusion of God’s life-giving word.
Well, there you have it; the vast seed doctrine of the Bible. This post is meant to point you in that direction. Get busy and obey your calling and teach me a few things about it. That’s how this all works.
Strive for your full reward and be transformed by the renewing of your mind with God’s word. This is your “reasonable” (literally, “logical”) service.
paul
The Dirty Dozen: 12 Things that the Lying Calvinists Want You to Assume
Originally published June 16, 2013
1. Total Depravity pertains to the unregenerate only. No, they mean the saints also.
2. Sola Fide (faith alone) only pertains to Justification. No, it pertains to sanctification also.
3. Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone) means “alone” and not other “subordinate” truth that also has authority though “subordinate.” No, creeds and confessions also have authority; it is not Scripture “alone.” What does “alone” mean?
4. Solus Christus (Christ alone) only regards the way to the Father. Not so, Christ is the only way to understanding all of reality. This was the crux of Luther’s Theology of the Cross.
5. Progressive sanctification sanctifies us and is separate from justification. No, they say, “never separate” but “distinct.” Then why not call it “progressive justification”? Why not clearly say that we are sanctified by justification?
6. Election predetermines our eternity. No, the elect have to persevere. The perseverance of the saints is not a characteristic of the saved, it is something that the saints have to add to their faith to complete their justification. They call this “already-but not yet.” The promises of God are “conditional.”
7. Proponents of synergistic sanctification are mistaken. No, Calvinists think they are lost and promote a false gospel.
8. Spiritual growth is about change. Absolutely not. Calvinists believe we experience manifestations of Christ as we live by faith alone.
9. The imputation of Christ’s righteousness is only imputed for our justification. No, they believe it is imputed to our sanctification as well.
10. We should learn what the Bible teaches and apply it to our lives. No, they believe we should look for the cross in every verse which results in Christ manifestations in the Spirit realm. They call this “the imperative command is grounded in the indicative event.”
11. Calvinists don’t believe in absolution. Not so. Calvin believed Christians need a perpetual forgiveness of sins that can only be found in the church. Augustine and Luther propagated this as well.
12. Christ works within us. Only BY faith, and faith only exists in the object that it is placed in. Calvinists believe that when the work of Christ moves from outside of us to inside of us that it makes “sanctification the ground of our justification.” The contemporary doctrinal term for Calvinism is “the centrality of the objective gospel outside of us.”
If Calvinists want to deny this, have them explain to you what all of the aforementioned para-biblical expressions mean. If they don’t mean what is stated above, what do they mean? Perhaps there is a perfectly logical explanation for all 12.
paul
…Because they may or may not be of the ‘Elect’
Anyone else catch the veiled implicatations behind this?
Andy
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