John Piper’s Works Salvation via Gospel Contemplationism
Originally posted August 7, 2013
“’Preaching the gospel to ourselves every day’ and ‘living by the gospel’ are not cute little truisms for sanctification help, they are the prescription for keeping your salvation.”
In the following video excerpt, John Piper explains how you keep your salvation through riveting YOURSELF to the works of Christ seen in the whole Bible. I have posted before on Piper’s view of how Christians continue to be saved by the same gospel that saved us. According to Piper, and the Calvinistic gospel in general, moving on to maturity in sanctification is works salvation. We have to keep our salvation by an ambiguous definition of what is not works in sanctification and what is works in sanctification. “Preaching the gospel to ourselves every day” and “living by the gospel” are not cute little truisms for sanctification help, they are the prescription for keeping your salvation.
Notice that he presents Romans 10:9, a clear onetime event that saved us (a justification verse), as something that we have to continue to confess in order to have assurance of salvation (a perpetual believing and confessing). This is works salvation and heresy of the first order.
Smoking Gun: ACBC is a Nationwide Divorce Mill
Christ made it clear that what God has brought together NO man is to separate. Does this mean God predetermines every marriage in regard to particular spouses? I doubt it. This probably refers to God’s covenant of marriage and the theology of vows. At any rate, death, unrepentant adultery, and an unbeliever who abandons their believing spouse are the only exceptions.
How does one live happily with a spouse who has become difficult? For Protestants, that is a hard question because the focus has been on justification for 500 years with little emphasis on the biblical art of godly living (sanctification). When you are supposedly sanctified by a perpetual “return to the gospel afresh”… knowledge on how to repair a marriage is going to be what it is today, practically nonexistent. And of course, living by the same gospel that saves us (not saved us) is a very complex matter needing the ongoing “research and development” of gospel-centered experts.
Add to that: Protestants don’t even have justification right. Little wonder then that the institutional church is a train wreck after 500 years of scholarship and trillions of hard-earned laity dollars. What is the answer? The answer is a laity movement that will reclaim the priesthood of believers seized by Gnostic hacks dressed in biblical garb.
The answers will come through one Lord, and one word interpreted by individuals indwelt by the Spirit who gives all knowledge needed for life and godliness liberally. In case we forget the obvious, “I was only obeying the elders” will not cut it when you stand before Christ and His blazing eyes of fire. The Nazis were very good at being “subordinate,” and many were hanged accordingly. I realize Reformed elders claim God gave them His authority to rule on earth, but you may want to rethink that claim.
As predicted, the biblical counseling movement overseen primarily by the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC) has become a divorce mill via its efforts to build marriages that “look like the gospel.” And the smoking gun is a book written by Leslie Vernick titled The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope that is widely used among ACBC counselors.
The obvious problems here are first seen in the title of the book. As Christians, is it really our goal to, “find our voice”? I thought it was our goal to please God in every circumstance. Secondly, the idea of emotional destruction is subjective at best and a ticket to do anything you want at worst. To make the point here, Google “American Civil Law.” In a culture judging anything that causes bad feelings to be abuse, such an approach to “biblical counseling” should give one pause.
Thirdly, why do Christians need a 240 page book written by a serial regurgitator of other people’s thoughts to FIND hope? You would think that by now Christians would be fairly certain about where hope is found.
Chilling is the examination of the 61-question survey found in the book that supposedly determines if one is in an abusive relationship or not. In the hands of a person that is unhappy in their marriage, the outcome will be a foregone conclusion. It’s like asking a chicken if Colonel Sanders is an emotional abuser.
The lynchpin becomes the ACBC’s loose interpretation of 1Corinthians 7:12-16. If the spouse is already an unbeliever, emotional abuse is tantamount to departing from the marriage even if they have not left physically or filed for divorce. Church discipline takes care of the pesky obstacle of the “abusive” spouse being a believer—they can be declared an unbeliever…actually MADE an unbeliever by elder authority supposedly vested to them by God. This paves the way for sanctified divorce.
It boils down to this: whoever is handed the book by the counselor is coronated as the abused spouse. Be sure of this: if both counselees in a bad marriage were handed the book, both would be guilty of the same thing. This is the smoking gun: it depends on who the ACBC “biblical counselor” wants to label abusive for whatever the motives might be.
I think a present situation that I am involved in says it all. I know enough about the situation to know that if the person I am talking with took the book’s survey, the other spouse would be judged as emotionally abusive hands down. The other spouse was handed the book because of who the ACBC counselor wanted to label “abusive.”
This is the niche service that Leslie Vernick now supplies to ACBC counselors.
paul
Gospel Sanctification: The End Times False Gospel
The Potter’s House 7/5/2015
Part 1 – 50 minutes.
Part 2 – 15 minutes.
The Reformed False Gospel of “As If”
Gospel Sanctification is the original false gospel of the Reformation that presently dominates the institutional church. Basically, it is the gospel of New Calvinism. It is often expressed by the truism, “We must preach the gospel to ourselves every day.” Most people assume this to be a biblical prescription for enhancing our sanctification, or a reminder to be thankful for our original salvation.
In reality, what is it? It is a perpetual return to the same gospel that saved us in order to keep ourselves saved. It confines all obedience to repentance via focusing on our sin. This ongoing need for repentance unto salvation is satisfied by returning to the same gospel that saved us because as many proponents state it: “We never stop needing the gospel.” This is because “Christians” are said to have an ongoing need for salvation.
Dr. John Piper, the elder statesman of New Calvinism, states the position in no uncertain terms:
“We are asking the question, How does the gospel save believers?, not: How does the gospel get people to be believers?… Believers need to be saved. The gospel is the instrument of God’s power to save us. And we need to know how the gospel saves us believers so that we make proper use of it.” Part 2 of a series titled, “How Does the Gospel Save Believers.”
Obviously, if salvation is not a onetime finished work by God alone, and we have to do something to obtain continued salvation – in this case a return to the gospel for re-forgiveness of sins – that is a form of works salvation. It also denies the new birth which makes us new creatures that have “passed (past tense) from death to life.”
One aspect of this gospel is called “double imputation.” Each time we return to the same gospel that saves us, the perfect obedience of Christ is credited to our account. This is the idea that Christ came to die for our sins (Christ’s passive obedience), and also came to live a perfect life so that His obedience can be imputed to our lives each time we return to the gospel (Christ’s active obedience).
When proponents of Gospel Sanctification speak of the “obedience of faith,” what they mean to say is that Christians only EXPERIENCE the obedience of Christ imputed to us, and are not really performing the act directly. This leads many to believe that proponents are advocating direct obedience by the “believer,” but that is not the case at all.
Therefore, according to Gospel Sanctification, the “believer” is able to live a life of FAITH ALONE, or in other words, a like faith alone that saved him/her. This is nothing new. In his epistle to the Jewish Christians, James refuted a “faith without works.” In reality, FAITH WORKS through love (Galatians 5:6).
Of late there is a new truism roaming about that depicts this double imputation aspect of Gospel Sanctification: “On the cross Jesus was treated as if He lived our life so we could be treated as if we lived His life.” Notice that we are treated “as if” we live a godly life, but we really don’t. We are only experiencing the active obedience of Christ. If we are directly responsible for any act of obedience; that’s supposedly works salvation.
Hey Bristol, It’s Not About the Law—It’s About Love
The present 20-40-something generation indoctrinated by the Protestant institutional church keeps on doin’ its thing. Yes, this is the “sinners saved by grace” generation. These are sinners that love on their own terms.
What brought all this up? My present midlife blogger crisis. In 2009 when I started blogging, a Protestant scandal only came along once a year or something like that. What made that blog worthy is that Protestants are supposed to be one-up on the Catholics as far as righteousness goes. Everybody knows Catholics do anything they want to and then go to confession afterwards. Protestants have always been deemed as above such religious wantonness.
Now blogging has become like children who get chocolate too often. It’s no longer a treat; it’s a common occurrence, and the chocolate just doesn’t melt in one’s mouth like it used to. I have watched trending Protestant scandals increase to bi-monthly, monthly, weekly, and now approaching daily. Yawn, we sit at the dinner table and ask the complaining rhetorical question to momma blogger: “Chocolate again?”
It’s hard medicine, but the only thing to blog about now is the why? The what has run its course. However, what most of us do not realize is that there is a new and exciting trail to blaze in our present day: the art of godly living. But first, we must examine why that is possible in the face of this impossible dream.
It’s possible because Protestant tradition has always made Christian living all about our original salvation. Jesus died on the cross to save us from this horrible world that can be fun at times; Jesus will get us through it, so eat and drink for tomorrow we die. After all, we are all just sinners saved by grace. So, eat, drink, and be merry, and when you get caught, or a bad choice actually yields cause and effect, merely pull out your Woe is me a lowly sinner membership card. Jesus is president of the club.
So what’s the why? The why is because Protestantism with all of its pulpit pounding about justification by faith alone is really about keeping people under the law. We remain under law, and keep it when the opportunity matches our desires or when it is convenient, but all in all, it’s impossible to keep the law perfectly so Jesus came to live on earth to fulfill it for us. When we keep the law, we didn’t do it, Jesus did it “through us.” When we get caught, or a bad a choice yields bad fruit, that’s “disappointing,” but thank goodness that’s why Jesus came to LIVE and DIE.
And that is a lie from the pit of hell. Christ came to end the law, not keep it for us. When we believe on Christ, our past sins are forgiven because Christ ended the law that we sinned against, and in regard to the future, there is no law to condemn us. The law of condemnation has been ended.
How? Because Christ died so that you can follow Him in death, and a dead person is no longer under the law of condemnation. Then, Christ was resurrected so that you can follow Him in resurrection as well. More accurately, when you follow Christ in death, the Spirit comes and resurrects you as He did Christ. That’s the new birth. Now you are free from the law in regard to condemnation, for the old you died and is no longer under the jurisdiction of the law’s condemnation. But…your resurrection to new life frees you to love according to the law of love, not condemnation. Same law—different use. Same law, different state of being.
Oops, I almost forgot, the new scandal. “Which one?” This one: Bristol Palin, Sarah Palin’s daughter, is once again pregnant out of wedlock. The family, members of the New Calvinist Wasilla Bible Church, survived the publicity of the first “disappointing” choice, but obviously nothing was learned from the first incident, the blessings of a child being brought into the world notwithstanding.
I am not going to bore you with what she said on her blog about the news; it is the same old Protestant song and dance. In essence, and for all practical purposes: Oops; me, a lowly sinner, once again has sinned. Per the usual, we all fall short of keeping the law perfectly, but praise God for Jesus—it’s not about what we do, but what he has done.
That misses the whole point. Jesus didn’t come to keep the law for us; He came to end the law, and set us free to love. Like all Protestants, Palin confuses law and love. Here is the huge problem: if Christ kept/keeps the law for us, He also loves for us. Like most Protestants, Palin dichotomizes law and love in Christian living because she remains under the law of condemnation and is not free to follow the law as love.
Hence, as she pontificated on her blog, she can dishonor her family while still loving them. As far as dishonoring her family and bringing shame upon them, Jesus died for that, but of course she still loves her family.
Listen, whenever love is something different than obedience to God’s law, whenever a failure to truly love is not called out for what it is, that means one thing and one thing only: that person is still under the condemnation of the law that Jesus supposedly keeps for us.
Listen “sister,” it’s not about the law, it’s about love. Google the following and find out who said it… “If you love me, keep my commandments.” One cannot change until the real problem is diagnosed. Palin failed to love God and her family.
Christ did not come to keep the law for us anymore than He came to love for us—we either love or we don’t love. If we truly understand salvation, “We love Him because He first loved us.” That means He loved us first by dying on the cross to end the law so that we are free to love him through obedience apart from being justified by the law. And as much as we love Him, we love others as well.
It’s not about the law—it’s about love. And that is the new frontier for recovering Protestants.
paul
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