Do you Misrepresent the Pharisees? Well Then, You Just Might Be an Antinomian
Originally published September 7, 2010
I heard it again yesterday in a Sunday morning message: the Pharisees were really, really good at keeping the Law, but at the end of the day Jesus said that our righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees. Alas, proof that we can’t be justified by keeping the Law (which no one would argue with). The pastor, in this message that is one of many in his series on The Sermon on the Mount, even said something like this: “The Pharisees’ efforts at keeping the Law wasn’t the issue, they were good at keeping the Law.” But is that true? And by the way, considering who the audience was at that church (primarily saints gathered for worship and the hearing of the word), and the fact that his topic was the role of the Law in Christian living, why was he even discussing justification in that context? Based on his view of the Pharisees and their supposed efforts to be justified by keeping the Law, one of his statements to *us* was “you don’t keep the Law by trying to keep the Law.” Hmmm, really?
We certainly are not justified by “trying” to keep the Law, but should we try to keep the Law in order to please and obey our Lord? Yes, I think so. Now, I don’t know this pastor very well, but I know him well enough to know that he wouldn’t dream of synthesizing justification and sanctification, but due to the fact that our present church culture is awash in an antinomian doctrine that does just that, are pastors propagating such a synthesis unawares? Yes, I think so. In his sermon notes, the top of the page has statements like ”Things Jesus wants us (“us” would presumably be Christians) to know about the Law.” The top part of the notes are also replete with “we” in regard to the Law, but the bottom part has statements like: “We live in the Age of Grace; salvation is not of works,” but yet, the whole message clearly regards the role of the Law in the life of a Christian. Therefore, whether unawares or otherwise, he clearly extended the relationship of the Law in regard to Justification into the realm of sanctification.
Here is where we must call on our good friend Jeff Foxworthy who developed a program for helping people who may be rednecks but don’t know it. He presents several different questions from different angles of thought, and depending on the answers to the questions, “you just might be a redneck.” Likewise, if you misrepresent the Pharisees, you just might be an antinomian without knowing it.
First of all, we can see from the very same proof text used to demonstrate the idea above that the Pharisees were not guilty of attempting to keep the Law in order to be justified:
[9] “Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. [20] For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:19,20).
So, as the reasoning goes, verse 19 indicates that “we” should revere God’s Law, but since the Pharisees were really, really good at keeping the Law (an assumed interpretive criteria) we shouldn’t “try” to keep the Law because that’s what they tried to do, and our righteousness must surpass theirs because you can’t be saved by keeping the Law (and again, why are we discussing salvation in this context to begin with?). But we can see just from this text alone that this interpretation is not true. In every literal English translation that I could find, the coordinating conjunction “for” links verses 19 and 20. As we know, coordinating conjunctions join two complete ideas together and indicates the connection between the two. In all cases, the translators saw fit to translate the conjunction “for” from the Greek texts. If Jesus was contrasting the two ideas, a different conjunction would have been used like “but,” ie., the Pharisees do verse 19 really well, “but” not perfectly, therefore you need a righteousness that is perfect (this is true, but not what Christ is referring to here). No, the conjunction used is “for” which indicates “reason”(reason why): because the Pharisees were guilty of verse 19, they (the audience) were not going to enter the kingdom of heaven if they where like the Pharisees in regard to habitually breaking the Law of God and teaching others to do so. Also, I think the Lord’s reference to being the least or the greatest “in the kingdom” (verse 19) is in reference to degree and set against the example of the Pharisees who were guilty of doing (breaking the Law and teaching others to do so) habitually which was an indication that their souls were in peril. Therefore, even if the assumption regarding the Pharisees ability to obey the Law outwardly is true, it’s the wrong transition; a better transition would be “but” and would read something like this: “Christians should obey the Law ‘but’ even if you keep the law as good as the Pharisees do, it will not get you into the kingdom, so you need a righteousness that surpasses theirs.”
Granted, depending on how you diagram the sentence, you might be able to make a case either way, but is it true that the Pharisees were experts at keeping the Law outwardly? No. From other Scriptures we know that the Pharisees were guilty of verse nineteen; specifically, they replaced the Law with their own traditions. That’s why Jesus immediately launches into the whole “you have heard that it was said….but I tell you”starting in the following sentence (verse21). Not only that, Jesus says specifically in Matthew 15:1-9 that His contention with the Pharisees (and the teachers of the law as exactly referred to in verse 20) was the fact that they twisted the Scriptures according to their traditions:
[1] Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, [2]”Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”[3] Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? [4] For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ [5] But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’ [6] he is not to ‘honor his father’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. [7] You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: [8] ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. [9] They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'”
The Pharisees were not proficient at keeping God’s law outwardly. In fact, they didn’t do so at all, but rather propagated teachings that were “rules taught by men.” Therefore, the Pharisees were guilty of neglecting the true Law and teaching others to do so (Matthew 5:19). They were not the poster-children for some campaign to demonstrate the futility of Law-keeping, especially in regard to believers. In fact, Christ said their lax attitude toward the Law was indicative of those who will not enter the kingdom. For this reason the Pharisees were not the greatest in heaven as the masses supposed, but the least, if they were even in the kingdom at all. Therefore, when Christ told the crowd that their righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees, He wasn’t talking about the imputed righteousness of Christ that the Pharisees were supposedly trying to obtain themselves for salvation (besides, they were not attempting to do that to begin with as I have demonstrated), but rather the true righteous behavior demanded of kingdom citizens. If Christ was talking about an imputed righteousness (for sanctification), why would He have not simply said so? For example: “Your righteousness must not only exceed that of the Pharisees (which wouldn’t have been hard to do anyway, and therefore by no means a profound statement by Christ), but ( a contrast conjunction) must be a righteousness that comes from God alone”…for sanctification.
If you misrepresent the Pharisees as the first century poster-children for “let go and let God theology” because they supposedly tried to keep the Law, you just might be an antinomian. But in part two, we discuss another question that may give credence to the possibility: Do you misrepresent obedience as outward alone? Well then, you just may be an antinomian.
paul
Does the Law Really Lead People to Christ by Revealing Sin Only?
Originally published October 14, 2013
The insanely celebrated return to our Reformed roots teaches the following about the law:
We are unable to keep the law perfectly. And since a perfect keeping of the law is the standard for righteousness required to live with God forever, our inability to keep the law perfectly leads us to Christ who must keep/fulfill it for us. As Christians, we continue to use the law in this way to “preach the gospel to ourselves.” The more we use the law to show our innate sinfulness, the more we experience “vivification” (a joyful, perpetual rebirth).
The bogus idea that perfect law-keeping is justification’s standard aside, the most popular text that supposedly supports this idea is Galatians 3:24 –
So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
To make that verse work, “guardian” (paidagōgos) is often translated as “tutor.” That’s a stretch. The word is better translated “protector”:
Among the Greeks and the Romans the name was applied to trustworthy slaves who were charged with the duty of supervising the life and morals of boys belonging to the better class. The boys were not allowed so much as to step out of the house without them before arriving at the age of manhood (Strong’s Dictionary).
Furthermore, the Reformed gospel teaches that the law is used by the Christian for this same purpose in our Christian walk—to continually lead us closer and closer to Christ by showing forth sin. This blatantly contradicts the context of the passage:
Galatians 3:25 – But now that faith has come, we are no longer [added] under a guardian,
Reformed doctrine clearly teaches that Christians are still under the law’s purpose to show us a deeper and deeper need for Christ and His grace as we see our own sinfulness in a deeper and deeper way. In other words, for Christians, God’s word still has a redemptive purpose. This is the basis for Historic Redemptive hermeneutics. However, even in regard to the lost, the showing forth of sin is only one purpose for the law, but far from being the only one.
Primarily, the law shows forth life. This is by far the primary theme of law throughout the Scriptures. The law shows forth the wisdom of God, and the wellbeing (blessings) of those who follow it. The law is also framed in the context of promise much more than it is judgment.
This gets into the major crux of the Reformed false gospel; the fusion of justification and sanctification concepts. The blessings of law-keeping can be experienced by unbelievers and believers alike, but such cannot obtain eternal life. The point is that the law shows forth life as much as it does death. It shows both. Again, this is a constant theme throughout the Scriptures. Who will deny that unbelievers will have a higher quality of life to the degree that they follow God’s law? No, it can’t gain salvation for them, but the law brings horizontal blessings by virtue of its wisdom.
Point in case:
1Peter 3:1 – Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, 2 when they see your respectful and pure conduct.
In this passage, the husband is not won over by the wife demonstrating how sinful we are and our subsequent need for Christ; she is showing forth the blessings of being a believer. These are blessings that he is also experiencing because the home is sanctified by her presence:
1Corinthians 7:14 – For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. 15 But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. 16 For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?
So, there is a sense in which the unbelieving spouse is blessed by the believing one. The law not only shows forth sin, but also shows forth life. The latter is the way the law leads people to Christ just as much as the former.
paul
Connecting the Dots: Tullian Tchividjian and Luther’s Theologian of the Cross
The Magnum Opus of the Reformation: Martin Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation; Part 5
The Reformed community will hardly shed a tear in regard to the recent demise of Tullian Tchividjian. A consummate theologian of the cross in accordance with Martin Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, his lack of nuance drove other Reformed leaders to distraction.
Tchividjian is the premier example of the authentic Reformed gospel applied in our day. His life and teachings will be compared to what we have learned thus far from the foundational doctrinal statement of the Reformation.
Join the discussion @ 7pm on Friday, 6/26/2015. Program link:
World Philosophy, Politics, and Christianity: John Immel, TANC 2014; Sessions 1-3
SESSION ONE
JOHN IMMEL: I know that people online can’t see this, but this is – luckily, you guys can see this. So about three weeks after the conference last year, I get an e-mail from Paul, Paul Dohse, the organizer of this conference. And the title of the e-mail is “Thoughts?” In the body of the e-mail it says, “See attached jpeg.” That’s it. So I read this and I can’t for the life of me figure out what he’s talking about. So I write to Paul back and I say, “Paul, can you explain this?” Now you have all heard Paul speak. So it is at no end of irony that Paul’s e-mails are notoriously short to the point of cryptic. There are no rabbit trails in Paul’s e-mails. So I write on the reply, “I have no idea what you want from me here.” So finally, Paul writes me back and he says – is this hot? Is this a little too hot?
PAUL DOHSE: A little, yeah.
JOHN IMMEL: Can you turn it down just a touch? Check, check, check? Does that work?
PAUL DOHSE: That’s better.
JOHN IMMEL: That’s a whole better? Okay, good. All right, so he writes me back and he says, the idea – now mind you, with this in mind, this is Paul’s response. “The idea that freedom of man is practically a pipedream because he is enslaved to his own desires spiritually, hence, at the very least indifferent to political freedom on a social level.” So, here’s his question. “So will the New Calvinist Movement cause political indifference in American society among Christians?” And I’m like, “Oh, I get it.” So then I go back to this. And for those of you online, you can’t see this. But this guy, Mark Ray, I get to use the cool pointer now. Mark Ray here, I don’t know who he is, don’t care, don’t matter. He says right here, “It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.” And this is when I finally understood what Paul’s after. And he’s interested in me commenting on the impact of New Calvinism on American culture, what it’s trying to do.
Now, of course, he, this Mark Ray, is actually quoting a guy by the name of Edmund Burke. You can look him up. He’s not really an enigmatic character. But Edmund Burke held the fundamental assumption about human existence, and this quote ultimately that the nature of man requires that man can only be governed by a totalitarian government, that the function of government is human restraint. So anyway, Paul is asking me to weigh in on this particular issue. And my response was, yes. I’ll summarize. Yes, this is exactly what the Neo-Calvinist movement is willing to do. Now my e-mail response to Paul was about 500 words. I gave a detailed explanation, and it turns out – well, I gave that explanation. I won’t tell you what I said. And so then, I send them off to Paul, and Paul says to me, “This would be a perfect progression from this year to next year. This could be your 2014 thesis for next year’s conference.” So this is exactly what we’re going talk about, the Edmund Burke comment and its specific impact on the progression of American thought, where we are. Now of course the flyer says that I’m going to talk about National Socialist Germany. That is true. We are going to talk about that.
But before I get too much farther into this, I guess I do need to make some introductions. My name is John Immel. I like to introduce myself this way. I am no one from nowhere. And the important thing about this is that there is a general trend and a general move within Christianity. The assumption being that if you’re standing behind a pulpit that you bear some form of authority, and that the expectation is that whatever I say, you have some obligation to accept. I reject that as a fundamental premise. I’m not here as a representative of authority. I am here to present to you ideas and the most powerful arguments that I can bring to you. And your part of this conversation, and it is a conversation, is for you to bring your highest and best rational self to this engagement. I’m going to make the most powerful argument I can, and I want you to engage your brain and to think and to analyze and to find out what is correct, what is true. And if I’ve done my job well, you will end up agreeing with me because I believe I hold right ideas. But here is how this works. If you can find a flaw on what I said, then you have the ability to say ,”Hey, John. Now here I think is an adjustment.” And if you make a powerful argument, if you make a good argument, and I apply my rational individuality to that, I go, “You know what? That’s true.”
Now having said that, I did write a book. I wrote a book, this book, called Blight in the Vineyard: Exposing the Roots, Myths, and Emotional Torments of Spiritual Tyranny. You can buy this online at amazon.com. It’s $23.99 online. If you like what I say in the conference, those of you who are watching online, if you like what I say, you’re going to find more of the same in here. Now I will say this. I wrote this, and I’ll get into this just a little bit more here in the moment. I wrote this using a modern denomination called Sovereign Grace Ministries as my anecdote. But the book is not about Sovereign Grace Ministries specifically. The book is about how the ideas embedded in what we’re going to talk about shaped this specific ministry. So I talk about a who so we can talk about a what. And the what are the ideas that are behind it. And in particular, the Neo-Calvinist, the new resurgent movement of Calvinism in the United States.
Now it is a little dated because when I wrote this, most of the major players, and those of you familiar within evangelical Christianity certainly will have heard names like CJ Mahaney, Brent Detwiler, Joshua Harris. These were all people at the top of the uber super apostles, whatever they want to call themselves now. There’s been a split within that denomination, and so that current history is not reflected in the book, but it actually doesn’t matter because the book is not about the personalities or the organization of that denomination. The book is about how the ideas were used to create this denomination in Sovereign Grace Ministries and ultimately how that causes them to act within that denomination. So you’ll still get the same things even though like I said it’s historically dated.
So this conference, this specific conference represents the culmination of about – at least 20 years of thinking for me. And to give you a sense of scope, which is what I think I do best, I think I give people the framework best. I need to actually talk about me personally a little bit. I got born again when I was 15. So my exposure to Christianity is going on 30 years. Now I got born again and became immediately a part of a brethren church in Eaton, Ohio, actually not too far from where we are now. And my introduction to Christianity was dramatic. I’m confident there are people that can tell you about my life during my high school career. But I took Christianity seriously, and I invested in Christianity. I invested in what I believe to be the truth with absolute commitment. So by the time I was 18, I was fully invested and fully committed to Christianity, modern American Christianity. Now I’m going to make a distinction here. (more…)
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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