Today’s Christian Husband and Father: Killing His Family with Awesome Preaching
Originally posted December 6, 2012
Bob is on his way to Jerry’s house for dinner. Bob is the chairman of their church’s elder board. Jerry is being considered for eldership and Bob will be dining at his house for a pre-interview en lieu of further discussion. Pizza is the cuisine. And apparently, not just on this night—Bob notes that every trashcan in the house is stuffed with pizza boxes. Dishes full of M & Ms also adorn many of the table tops. Bob is taken to the kitchen by Jerry to meet his wife, and Bob perceives no less than twenty-five bags of potato chips staked about in various places. One corner of the kitchen is occupied with a tall stack of Coca-Cola 12packs. Big on taste—small in nutrition.
Precious few will disagree that Bob’s family is headed for serious health problems if they do not change their ways. Yet, Bob is a picture of how the vast majority of Christian husbands oversee the spiritual diets of their families. However, the “Bob” motif falls woefully short of making the point; at least Bob knows what his family is eating for better or worse. Christian husbands of our day don’t even know the difference between Redemptive Historical hermeneutics and Grammatical Historical hermeneutics. In fact, when the subject comes up, a rolling of the eyes follows.
That’s because the preaching/teaching is awesome where they go to church. Uncompromising, and God glorifying. As one pastor exhorted me when inquiring about what hermeneutic he used in his preaching: “Come and see if it tastes good, and if you still want to, we will talk about theology.” But I never doubt it will taste good. Who doesn’t love pizza for dinner, potato chips as a side, Coke to drink, and M&Ms for desert?
Fact is, nearly 90% of preaching/teaching in today’s American church is fundamentally based on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation. This document is the very heart of the Reformation and the engine that drives the present-day New Calvinist movement. Its premise was based on the idea that all spiritual reality, wisdom, and truth comes from the combination of two perspectives, and only these two: the holiness of God, and the wretchedness of all men whether they are Christians or not. Luther called this perspective the “theology of the cross.” It has come to be known as Gospel-Centered preaching/teaching. It is also the foundation of the Calvin Institutes. Everything in the Calvin Institutes, in some way, points to the glory of God “as set against our sinfulness.”
This has become job one: as described in the Heidelberg Disputation; this way of teaching is the “cross story,” and all other spiritual wisdom is the “glory story.” Hence, the contemporary clarion call of the Reformation derived from Luther’s Disputation is, the centrality of the objective gospel outside of us. Anything at all that has anything to do with us is “subjective,” and part of the “glory story.” Unless it concerns our wretchedness. Therefore, the Disputation ridiculed a negative attitude towards suffering as well for this serves to further reveal our woeful state in life which magnifies the redemptive work of Christ and our utter worthlessness. The whole motif can be visualized by the following Reformed chart:
Yes, you can preach wonderful sermons on those two dimensions. They are both abundantly true. Charles Spurgeon is known as the “prince of preachers.” All of his sermons are based on the “cross story.” All, I repeat “all” of John Piper’s sermons and the (seems like) 600 books he has written are based on nothing but, I repeat, nothing but the “cross story.” Amen, pass the potato chips. In circa 1994, John MacArthur abandoned the “glory story” aspects of his preaching and now focuses on the “cross story.” Amen, pass the M&Ms. And those babies slide down nice with a big swig of Coca-Cola.
“But Paul, what’s so sweet about focusing on our own wickedness?” My dear friend, haven’t you seen any Staples commercials? It’s easy. You totally stink. Nothing is expected of you: “Hey honey! Good news! We don’t change! Our marriage isn’t about a bunch of do’s and don’ts! Our failures make us wiser!” That was easy. In fact, teachers like Michael Horton and John Piper continually espouse the idea that expectations are just, “more bad news.” And regarding leaders? “Alright, time to prepare my message for tomorrow, and all I have to do is look for two things, and two things only in the text: how great God is, and how bad we are.” That was easy. In fact, we find the following on a well-known Reformed blog regarding instruction on how to prepare a Bible lesson:
At this time, resist the temptation to utilize subsequent passages to validate the meaning or to move out from the immediate context. Remembering that all exegesis must finally be a Christocentric exegesis.
Look for Christ even if He isn’t there directly. It is better to see Christ in a text even if He isn’t, than to miss Him where He is.
But as the apostle asked rhetorically, “What saith the Scriptures?” Is there another story other than the “cross story”? Anybody interested in the House on a Rock story?
Matthew 7:24 -“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
Learn and do. That’s how we have a life built on a rock. It is the very definition of a disciple:
Matthew 19 – Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
So, here is my suggestion. When you go to church this Sunday, and other days following that involve sitting under the teachings of your leaders, take a legal pad with you. Draw a line at a downward angle on the bottom labeled, “our sin.” Draw a line at the top with an upward angle, and label it “Christ.” Then draw a line in the middle and label it, “What? Why? And How?” Or, “Not only what Jesus did, but what did He SAY?” Or simply, “Life built on a rock.” If there isn’t a three-dimensional balance—get out of there. You either love your family or you don’t. You will be judged by Christ accordingly.
I was approached by my wife Susan this morning. My son by marriage had approached her asking questions about demonology. Apparently, he had questions concerning some things he had heard about the subject (demonology) in the secular realm. I was astonished; though both of them have been in church for a combined total of 72 years, they didn’t even know the basics regarding this subject. My wife wanted to know the answers to his questions—other than the usual answers: “Jesus” and “gospel.”
And if we don’t know, the world will gladly inform our children accordingly. Knowledge equals authority.
Men, wake up.
paul
Calvinist Gospel Sexy Time is a Longstanding Reformed Tradition
“Let me add one to the pile: Francis Chan has noted that Christ was his grandmother’s ‘lover.’ What did he mean by that? Well, he is paid millions to be a communicator—you be the judge. Is he overpaid or did he mean what he said?”
Unrivaled by the Marxist masters of propaganda, the Protestant Reformers of old and new have effectively sold the historic motif that they are the antithesis of mysticism. This is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind in all of human history. The results speak volumes: the Calvinist camp exemplifies steroidal confusion and weirdness dressed up in scholarly garb. A good example is John MacArthur Jr. who is the personification of religious academia, but in fact is the King of Confusion. Never in the history of the church has confusion been so well-articulated since the other religious John—Calvin.
You can only dignify mystical despotism for so long before remnants of it start showing; it is the proverbial Freudian slip at the formal dinner party. In regard to “intimacy” with God versus the dreaded “O” word (obedience), or the even more dreaded “D” word (duty), it starts with Jesus is my boyfriend music, and progresses to Jesus is my boyfriend theology, and culminates into including children in the wonderful intimacy with the more dignified covering for them. Admittedly, that is a bit snarky, but one wonders since intimacy is in the eye of the beholder. That’s the problem with going to the Bible with a prism, the results are always unpredictable.
It all starts with the idea that man’s fall was a total fall into madness and chaos. In fact, some in the Reformed tradition assert that man was fallen before the fall by virtue of the fact that he was material. Before the fall, man had some integrity, but lost all of it at the fall. That’s why he was fallible in the first place; his fallibility was predetermined for God’s glory. This was John Calvin’s position, also known as supralapsarianism.
In the scheme of determinism, God also predetermines chosen ones to save humanity from chaos and madness. Almost every leader in human history until the American Revolution, whether secular or religious, claimed determinism as the premise of their authority via the Universe, Mother Nature, or God. In Reformed circles, the practical application for that is reality being a narrative written by God. The elect, who get it, see life as a prewritten redemptive-historical meta-narrative (metaphysical narrative) where everything is predetermined for God’s glory including the good, bad, ugly, and mundane. Leaders that rule in God’s stead and save the masses from chaos are predetermined characters in God’s metaphysical narrative. And characters they are.
This is the premise of Pilgrims Progress written by the Puritan John Bunyan. Like the Bible, it is the “story of every believer” and for that matter, every unbeliever as well. Books like How People Change by Calvinist Paul David Tripp supply an interpretive prism for mentally processing life according to God’s gospel meta-narrative. It rivals any mysticism that a shaman from an obscure rain forest could muster up, but again, the traditional Reformed ability to present it as intellectualism is uncanny.
So, if the narrative is all about what God has done in redemption, and not about anything we do, of course, books like The Song of Solomon must be representative of man’s relationship to God. In this narrative of prewritten reality, everything must be vertical; any horizontal consideration is another story, specifically, man’s story. Martin Luther contended that all reality was interpreted through the cross story, and man’s story was darkness and insanity, what he referred to as the glory story. Anything at all to do with man was a contra reality of insanity—only the cross story was real. Luther asserted that only a theologian of the cross story was a true theologian.
Therefore, sex must have a vertical identity. Sex should reveal more about the gospel. Sex CANNOT be separated from the gospel narrative. Sex cannot be separated from its “gospel context.” So, when we have sex with our spouse, it’s not about us, it’s about the gospel. When you have sex with your spouse, or for the YRR crowd, your girlfriend, don’t you dare forget John Piper, John Calvin, or Charles Spurgeon. But fear not for you who are less able to worship, Viagra is sold at a retail outlet near you.
So, when Dort damsel Ann Voskamp wrote of her gospel sexy time with G __ __, was she able to defend herself from the rest of the Reformed, Oh crap! You can’t just come right out and say it plainly like that crowd? Absolutely. Note this post here: http://www.aholyexperience.com/intimacy-with-god/, along with the soft music in the background, where she shows decisively that gospel sexy time is a longstanding Reformed tradition. Let me add one to the pile: Francis Chan has noted that Christ was his grandmother’s “lover.” What did he mean by that? Well, he is paid millions to be a communicator—you be the judge. Is he overpaid or did he mean what he said?
True, at times, the apostle Paul used marriage as an idiom to make a theological point. But this goes far beyond that. This is the idea that sex enhances our actual experiential intimacy with G __ __. Paul used marriage as a metaphor to distinguish the differences between law and gospel. The goal was understanding law and gospel, not a means of experiencing part of our future glorification.
This is a segway into the vital union aspect of the Reformed gospel that keeps us saved by faith alone in our Christian life. The idea of the church being the bride of Christ, oneness with Christ like a married couple become one, and the Reformed doctrine of the vital union are closely related here. We remain one with Christ by faith alone by believing that we can do no work pleasing to God; we are merely playing the part he wrote for us in the gospel narrative. We have all said it: I didn’t do that good thing, it was the Spirit! lest we do a good work and make “the fruits of sanctification the root of justification.”
Hence, all spiritual disciplines merely enhance the gospel experience of grace in our lives resulting in a transformation from “glory to glory” as far as what we experience, see, or perceive, not anything we do. This is an increased experience of the actual full glory that we are to experience at the resurrection and a source of our present assurance. Experiencing more and more of the future full glory is evidence that we are abiding in the vital union. Church fellowship, the Lord’s Table, baptism as the initial experience, trials, John Piper’s exultation style of worship, and yes, sex, all contribute to the experiential future glory found in the gospel narrative. Otherwise known as the “means of grace (salvation).”
Justin Taylor, VP of Editorial at Crossway:
“I think Peter Kreeft is on the right track in his analysis:
For we are designed for something beyond morality, something in which morality will be transformed. Mystical union with God. Sex is a sign and appetizer of that.”
Mysticism is no less mysticism though dignified with credentials.
paul
Notes from aforementioned citation:
The Language and Analogy of Scripture & Historical Protestant Christianity:
John Piper:
“Hosea 2:14-23 is one of the tenderest and most beautiful love songs in the Bible…
In the context of a broken marriage being renewed with the fresh vows of betrothal must not the words, “and you shall know the Lord,” (v. 20) mean, you shall enjoy an intimacy like that of sexual intercourse.
~ John Piper The entire sermon is available here.
Timothy Keller:
“Sex is for fully committed relationships because it is to be a foretaste of the joy that comes from being in complete union with God. The most rapturous love between a man and woman is only a hint of God’s love for us (Rom. 7:1–6; Eph. 5:21–33). …
Positively, we are called to experience the spousal love of Jesus.”
J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible Radio:
“When a man and a woman give themselves to each other in an act of marital love, they can know the love of Christ as no one else can know it.”
Jonathan Edwards in the Excellency of Christ:
“So again, we being united to a divine person, as his members –
can have a more intimate union and intercourse with God the Father.”
~ John Calvin:
“The strong affection which a husband ought to cherish towards his wife is exemplified by Christ, and an instance of that unity which belongs to marriage is declared to exist between himself and the Church. This is a remarkable passage on the mysterious intercourse which we have with Christ.”
~John Calvin’s Commentary on Ephesians 5
“…a loving soul wants fresh food every day from the table of Christ.
And you who have once had the kisses of His mouth, though you remember the past kisses with delight, yet want daily fresh tokens of His love.”
–Charles Spurgeon’s sermon on “The Church’s Love To Her Loving Lord
“Consider he makes love to thee. Not one soul that hears me this day but the Lord Jesus is a suitor unto, that now ye would be espoused to him; “He came unto his own, and they received him not.” Whatever the secret purpose of Christ is, I regard not.
In this evangelical dispensation of grace, he makes love to all.…
‘Tis fervent, vehement, earnest love… The Lord longs for this… pleads for this,… mourns when he has not this… Take thy soul to the Bride-chamber, there to be with him forever and ever….” ~ Read the rest of the sermon at Puritan and Reformed Sermons
Peter Leithart, Reformed Pastor: “Sex is allegory… and as allegory it is …theology. For Christians, sexual difference and union is a type of Christ and the church… Only as allegory can the Song play its central role in healing our sexual imaginations.”
A.W. Tozer: The Pursuit of God … to read the entire compelling excerpt, click here …
“We have almost forgotten that God is a Person…
The continuous and unembarrassed interchange of love and thought between God and the soul of the redeemed man is the throbbing heart of New Testament religion.
This intercourse between God and the soul is known to us in conscious personal awareness.
It is personal: that is, it does not come through the body of believers, as such, but is known to the individual…
And to the body through the individuals which compose it. And it is conscious: that is, it does not stay below the threshold of consciousness and work there unknown to the soul (as, for instance, infant baptism is thought by some to do), but comes within the field of awareness where the man can ‘know’ it as he knows any other fact of experience.
From the hymn: The Church is One Foundation
The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her
And for her life He died….
’Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
Till, with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.
Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won,
With all her sons and daughters
Who, by the Master’s hand
Led through the deathly waters,
Repose in Eden land.
C.H. Spurgeon: Morning and Evening
Song of Solomon 1:2
Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth.
For several days we have been dwelling upon the Saviour’s passion, and for some little time to come we shall linger there…. let us seek the same desires after our Lord as those which glowed in the heart of the elect spouse.
How bold is her love! …
Esther trembled in the presence of Ahasuerus, but the spouse in joyful liberty of perfect love knows no fear. If we have received the same free spirit, we also may ask the like.
By kisses we suppose to be intended those varied manifestations of affection by which the believer is made to enjoy the love of Jesus.
The kiss of reconciliation we enjoyed at our conversion, and it was sweet as honey dropping from the comb.
The kiss of acceptance is still warm on our brow, as we know that He hath accepted our persons and our works through rich grace.
The kiss of daily, present communion, is that which we pant after to be repeated day after day, till it is changed into the kiss of reception, which removes the soul from earth, and the kiss of consummation which fills it with the joy of heaven.
Faith is our walk, but fellowship sensibly felt is our rest.
Faith is the road, but communion with Jesus is the well from which the pilgrim drinks.
O lover of our souls, be not strange to us; let the lips of Thy blessing meet the lips of our asking; let the lips of Thy fulness touch the lips of our need, and straightway the kiss will be effected.
This Evening’s Meditation
C. H. Spurgeon
Art thou, beloved one, with Christ Jesus? Does a vital union knit thee to Him?
… Come, my soul, if thou art indeed His own beloved, thou canst not be far from Him.
If His friends and His neighbours are called together to see His glory, what thinkest thou if thou art married to Him? Shalt thou be distant?
Though it be a day of judgment, yet thou canst not be far from that heart which, having admitted angels into intimacy, has admitted thee into union.
Has He not said to thee, O my soul, “I will betroth thee unto Me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness”?
Have not His own lips said it, “I am married unto thee, and My delight is in thee”? If the angels, who are but friends and neighbours, shall be with Him, it is abundantly certain that His own beloved Hephzibah, in whom is all His delight, shall be near to Him, and sit at His right hand.
Here is a morning star of hope for thee, of such exceeding brilliance, that it may well light up the darkest and most desolate experience.
~ Thomas Watson, Puritan (1620-1686):
There is a closer union in this holy marriage than there can be in any other.
In other marriages, two make one flesh, but Christ and the believer make one spirit: “But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.” (I Cor. 6:17).
Now as the soul is more excellent than the body, and admits of far greater joy, so this spiritual union brings in more astonishing delights and ravishments than any other marriage relationship is capable of.
The joy that flows from the mystic union is unspeakable and full of glory (I Peter 1:8).
To read his entire sermon: Mystic Union of Christ and the Saints
“Yet you were naked and bare.
Then I passed by you and saw you, and behold, you were at the time for love;
so I spread My skirt over you and covered your nakedness I also swore to you and entered into a covenant with you so that you became Mine,”
declares the Lord GOD.
Then I bathed you with water, washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil…
32″You adulteress wife, who takes strangers instead of her husband!“
“God very commonly takes on the character of a husband to us. Indeed, the union by which he binds us to himself when he receives us into the bosom of the church is like sacred wedlock…
“Therefore that joining together of head and members, that indwelling of Christ in our hearts—in short that mystical union—are accorded by us the highest degree of importance.”
John Calvin ~ Institutes of Christian Religion
14″Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her…
16″And in that day, declares the LORD, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’…
19And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.
20 I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD.
Edward Fisher in his 1650 book The Marrow of Modern Divinity (Christian Focus, 2009):
––––––––––––––––––
I tell you from Christ,
and under the hand of the Spirit,
that your person is accepted,
your sins are done away,
and you shall be saved;
and if an angel from heaven should tell you otherwise,
let him be accursed.
Therefore, you may (without doubt) conclude
that you are a happy man;
for by means of this your matching with Christ,
you are become one with him,
and one in him,
you ‘dwell in him, and he in you’ (1 John 4:13).
He is ‘your well beloved, and you are his’ (S. of S. 2:16).
So that the marriage union betwixt Christ and you
is more than a bare notion or apprehension of your mind;
for it is a
special,
spiritual, and
real union:
it is an union betwixt the nature of Christ,
God and man,
and you;
it is a knitting and closing,
not only of your apprehension with a Saviour,
but also of your soul with a Saviour.
Whence it must needs follow that you cannot be condemned,
except Christ be condemned with you;
neither can Christ be saved,
except you be saved with him.
And as by means of corporeal marriage all things become common betwixt man and wife;
even so, by means of this spiritual marriage,
all things become common betwixt Christ and you;
for when Christ hath married his spouse unto himself,
he passeth over all his estate unto her;
so that whatsoever Christ is or hath,
you may boldly challenge as your own.
‘He is made unto you, of God,
wisdom,
righteousness,
sanctification,
and redemption’ (1 Cor. 1:30).
And surely,
by virtue of this near union it is,
that as Christ is called ‘the Lord our righteousness’ (Jer. 23:6),
even so is the church called, ‘the Lord our righteousness’ (33:16).
He leans on Christ his beloved and lives by communications of grace from him.
“His life is hid with Christ in God;” and “the life which he now lives in the flesh, he lives by faith on the Son of God.”
This is the vital or real union; the union of affection between Christ and believers. Faith has be some been called the hand or instrument by which believers lay hold on and receive Christ.
But with more propriety may it be called the act of unition itself, or the uniting act, by which Christ and the believer
become one.
~ Jonathan Edwards: The Works of Jonathan Edwards
And would you have him nearer to you than to be in the same nature, united to you by a spiritual union, so close as to be fitly represented by the union of the wife to the husband, of the branch to the vine, of the member to the head; yea, so as to be one spirit?
For so he will be united to you, if you accept of him.
~ Jonathan Edwards: the Excellency of Christ
There he is, for “he feeds among the lilies.” The spouse sees him of whom she speaks; he may be a mere myth to others but he is a substantial, lovable, lovely, and actually beloved person to her.
He stands before her, and she perceives his character so clearly that she has a comparison ready for him, and likens him to a gazelle feeding on the tender grass among the lilies. This is a very delightful state of heart. Some of us know what it is to enjoy it from year to year.
Christ is ours, and we know it. Jesus is present, and by faith we see him.
Our marriage union with husband or wife cannot be more clear, more sure, more matter of fact, than our oneness with Christ and our enjoyment of that oneness.
Joy! joy! joy! He whom we love is ours!
More on why New Calvinism Has Massive Appeal
“So what is the appeal of New Calvinism? Basically, five things….”
Mass appeal, rarely commendable in the Bible, is an earmark of New Calvinism. But why? As cited in another post, this quote from a New Calvinist organization reveals one primary reason:
What, then, is the subjective power of this message? Firstly, we find that there is real, objective freedom, the kind that, yes, can be experienced subjectively. We are freed from having to worry about the legitimacy of experiences; our claims of self-improvement are no longer seen as a basis of our witness or faith. In other words, we are freed from ourselves, from the tumultuous ebb and flow of our inner lives and the outward circumstances; anyone in Christ will be saved despite those things. We can observe our own turmoil without identifying with it. We might even find that we have compassion for others who function similarly. These fluctuations, violent as they might be, do not ultimately define us. If anything, they tell us about our need for a savior (David Zahl and Jacob Smith: Mockingbird blog).
This enables New Calvinists to boast an objective, factual gospel, while claiming that the objective gospel functions subjectively. In other words, the gospel (Christ and His works) is factual, but obtaining a deeper and deeper knowledge of those facts imputes those objective facts to our lives subjectively. This enables us to live our Christian lives by faith alone, while leaving the subjective results to God. Our primary goal is to contemplate the two things that saved us (the gospel): God’s holiness and our sinfulness (faith and repentance), and then as we go about living our lives, we don’t have to take anything that happens too seriously because it is all preordained by God.
Tragedy is a good thing because it testifies to our need for Christ; good works give us joy as we “experience” them, but we really don’t know whether they are in “our own efforts” or conducted by God. It’s subjective. According to Martin Luther, if we believe that we did the good work, that’s works salvation. If we attend our good works (as Christians) with fear that it could be us who did it and not God, that’s venial sin and not mortal sin. Hence, part of the New Calvinist daily repentance regiment is asking forgiveness for good works that we have done just in case it was us who did them. All in all, it insulates from responsibility for sin, and enables us to detach ourselves from negative emotions. Joy is a result of God’s goodness and good works. Tragedy reminds us of what we deserve and what God has saved us from—it’s just more good news!
Further appeal can be seen in a recent post by Dr. Ed Welch of CCEF. He starts off with the usual metaphysical curve-ball that seems to come in straight with the idea that our faith is objective truth. Then when he gets us swinging at that pitch, it curves with….
Faith is a way of seeing
Scripture is also fond of describing faith as the way to see God’s realities. ( By: Ed Welch Topics: Faith Published: July 17, 2013 http://www.ccef.org/blog/what-faith).
Welch continues to expound on how the subjective facts of the gospel leads to subjective “reality”:
With the naked eye we can see the physical world, but faith—which comes by hearing the word of God—allows us to “see” the Creator of the physical world (Heb. 11:3). Faith allows us to see that Jesus is the Word, the Son of God, the Rescuer of the world.
With a twisting of 2Corinthians 4:18, Welch, like all New Calvinists, attempts to make the case that the physical world isn’t what really needs to be “seen” because the physical can be seen and therefore is not of faith. Hence, the Bible is to be used to see the Savior only, leading to a faith that enables us to see beyond the physical. In other words, borrowing his terminology, the Bible enables us to “see” beyond creation to the Creator Himself. Of course, this is merely hanging Bible verses on Plato’s Theory of Forms.
Welch then explains, in the same post, a technique that can be added to Bible induced gospel contemplationism:
One way to use this perspective on faith is to pray with another, “Lord, open our eyes. Help us to see what is really happening.” And then ask at the end of your time together, “What did we see?”
Here at the Potter’s House, what we study, what we read, is what you get. To the contrary, in this technique also promoted by John Piper and many other New Calvinists, the Bible speaks to you, presumably through the Spirit, subjectively, following a gospel-centered contemplation of the Scriptures. The plain sense of Scripture can now be traded for subjective experience. Apparently emboldened by the mindlessness of American Christians, Welch further explains this approach with the following:
Another way to use this is to encourage others to live with their eyes closed. Let me explain. The world that is available to our physical senses can dominate our spiritual sight. Physical trials, fiscal uncertainty, the safety of those we love, the intrusion of hard pasts—this whirlwind can blind us to the spiritual realities that are deeper and longer lasting. So in a sense, we need to close our eyes to the circumstances of life, so we can open them to hope. It might happen like this:
“What do you see?” ‘I see the rejection of my spouse.’ “Close your eyes, and keep looking. Look around with eyes of faith. Now what do you see?” ‘I see the rejection of my spouse.’ “Okay, keep your eyes closed and look at the world through the lenses of Ephesians 1, now what do you see?” ‘I see . . . nothing.’ “No problem, we just need help. Let’s pray, which, in itself, is an expression of how we see by faith.”
The important point is that you are closing your eyes—not as a form of denial—but as a way to see more.
Welch then completely mocks discernment by suggesting that people are saved by reading Christian mystics like CS Lewis:
Back to the story, my friend became cynical toward his friend’s beliefs, but he was still a seeker. Soon after he graduated from high school, a co-worker gave him Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. On the very first page he began to “see.” After taking the next eight hours to read through the book, he knew he wanted to follow Jesus, though he didn’t know what that meant, and he did not know one other Christian he could ask.
So what is the appeal of New Calvinism? Basically, five things:
1. It enables people to deflect the negative emotions of life and trade them for joy by disconnecting from the physical world. This idea is sanctified by eradicating all value of earthly things (and people) for Christ.
2. It gives a simplistic answer for everything. All events in life are to either glorify God or show us our worthlessness.
3. Escape from responsibility and accountability. “I sinned? Well duh, that’s what sinners do.”
4. We already know what every verse in the Scripture is about, and by meditating on that, we can have a subjective result of our own choosing.
5. It eliminates the hard work of studying and wrestling with truth. Every verse is about Jesus, and the results are automatic. Also, hard work in spiritual matters is works salvation. As Calvin and Luther believed, sanctification is represented by the Sabbath rest. If you work, you die; hence, no work is more good news!
6. The Reformed, “power of the keys.” This is the idea that whatever Reformed elders bind on earth will be bound in heaven whether right or wrong. Hence, by merely staying in the good graces of your local neighborhood elders, you’re guaranteed to be in the graces of God. You’re in because the elders say you’re in.
http://apprising.org/2012/01/06/beth-moore-and-john-piper-lead-lectio-divina-lite-at-passion-2012/
Advocate for the Spiritually Abused? Then Wade Burleson Should Denounce Election in Sanctification
“This is because Western culture has never adequately exposed Reformed theology for what it really is. As long as Protestantism clings to the Reformation myth, it will never completely break free from its bondage to anemic sanctification.”
“If Burleson wants to be an advocate for the spiritually abused he should denounce his Reformed gospel of spiritual tyranny. While he may help some people heal from abuse, he will go back to his pulpit and produce twice as many abusers.”
Last night at our evening Bible study we discussed election. Not election for justification (salvation), but election in sanctification (our Christian life). This is the Reformed idea that God sovereignly elects all of our good works in our Christian life in the same way that he elects some to be saved and passes over others. This leaves them to the choice that is inevitable if God doesn’t intervene; man will never choose God on his own. In the same way concerning sanctification, man is still totally depraved, and unless God intervenes will only do works that are filthy rags before God. In salvation, God only changes man’s position, not his nature. Therefore, in sanctification, God imputes His own good works to our life via intervention and leaves us to our own total depravity in the rest. Choice in justification; works in sanctification; God completely sovereign in both.
Though the application of this is somewhat complex, it boils down to the Reformation’s definition of double imputation: Christ’s righteousness was imputed to us positionally by His death, and the perfect obedience He demonstrated in His life is imputed to our sanctification as a way to keep our justification intact until glorification. Hence, to not believe in sanctified sovereignly elected works in our Christian life is paramount to works salvation. “The same gospel that saved us also sanctifies us.” Sanctification must be a continual revisiting of salvation by faith alone in order to maintain our justification. This is the very heart of Calvinism. Yes, we do something in sanctification: we continually revisit our need for the gospel, and as we do that, the works of Christ are imputed to us by faith alone in sanctification. This is the theses of the Reformation’s magnum opus, Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation to the Augustinian Order, and articulated by John Calvin in the Institutes of the Christian Religion. This opposes Biblicism which sees double imputation as our sins imputed to Christ and God’s righteousness imputed to us and sanctification being an entirely different consideration.
We discussed how this authentic doctrine of the Reformation has wreaked havoc on the church. When God is seen as completely sovereign in sanctification, ideological conclusions are then drawn from what actually happens in real life. Rape is God’s will, and the perpetrator is seen as one who is acting out expected behavior where God has not intervened. “But for the grace of God, there go I.” We have all said it. No? All of grace in salvation—all of grace in sanctification. The only difference between you and a rapist is grace; therefore, who are you to judge? Even if you are the victim. Luther and Calvin thought righteous indignation a joke, and Calvin called justice, “mere iniquity.” Luther’s theology of the cross deemed suffering as the most valuable asset of the Reformation’s inner-nihilist theology:
He, however, who has emptied himself (cf. Phil. 2:7) through suffering no longer does works but knows that God works and does all things in him. For this reason, whether God does works or not, it is all the same to him. He neither boasts if he does good works, nor is he disturbed if God does not do good works through him. He knows that it is sufficient if he suffers and is brought low by the cross in order to be annihilated all the more. It is this that Christ says in John 3:7, »You must be born anew.« To be born anew, one must consequently first die and then be raised up with the Son of Man. To die, I say, means to feel death at hand (Heidelberg Disputation: Theses 24).
Note that this constant seeking after suffering and self-deprivation leads to being “raised up” in the Christian life. This constant seeking after death leads to joyful rebirths when Christ’s obedience is imputed to us. This is the basis of John Piper’s Christian Hedonism which also implements Theses 28 of the Disputation. As you can see, it’s what they call the new birth. The new birth is something that continually reoccurs in salvation when Christ’s obedience is imputed to us.
The indifference towards suffering that this theology breeds cannot be overstated. It is such that Calvin’s beseechment of the Geneva counsel to have a detractor beheaded rather than burned with green wood is a supposed act of compassion that is Reformed folklore. And be absolutely positive of this: the roots of authentic Calvinism are %99.99 responsible for the spiritual tyranny in the contemporary church—especially among New Calvinists.
This is why I have a problem with Pastor Wade Burleson being postured as a spiritual abuse advocate. I realize that he is a well-known pastor and therefore a valuable advocate for a cause, but promoting him as a defender of the spiritually abused separates logic from consequences. It encourages a hypothetical idea that because all Nazis didn’t execute Jews, Nazism doesn’t necessarily lead to the persecution of Jews. Right, not in all cases, but for every person Burleson helps his doctrine will produce twice the indifference and abuse in other people. Many members of the present-day Nazi party are seemingly quality people who could be utilized in good causes, but the possibility is remote because Western culture has been properly educated in regard to Nazi ideology. Such is not the case with Reformed theology. While a Nazi might make a good carpenter you would likely not hire one as an advocate for the Anti-Defamation League. There are Nazis who would do a fine job in that role but the ideology would do more harm than good in the long run.
We also discussed how authentic Calvinism dies a social death from time to time because of the tyranny that it produces and then experiences resurgence paved by the weak sanctification left in its wake. This is because Western culture has never adequately exposed Reformed theology for what it really is. As long as Protestantism clings to the Reformation myth, it will never completely break free from its bondage to anemic sanctification.
Burleson strongly endorses one of the core four individuals who helped found the present-day New Calvinist movement, Jon Zens:
One of my favorite theologians is Jon Zens. Jon edits the quarterly periodical called Searching Together, formerly known as the Baptist Reformation Review. Jon is thoroughly biblical, imminently concerned with the Scriptures …. The best $10.00 you will ever spend is the yearly subscription to Searching Together (http://www.wadeburleson.org/2010/09/searching-together-edited-by-jon-zens.html).
Zens, who has also been known as an advocate for the spiritually abused, was a key contributor to the Reformed think tank that launched present-day New Calvinism (The Australian Forum) of which some Burleson promoters refer to as the “Calvinistas.” It’s not meant as a compliment. But yet, Burleson’s theology is one and the same with them:
Those who have read Grace and Truth to You for any amount of time know that this author is persuaded the Bible teaches that the eternal rewards of Christians are those rewards–and only those rewards–which are earned by Christ. It is Christ’s obedience to the will and law of the Father that obtains for God’s adopted children our inheritance. It is Christ’s perfect obedience which brings to sinners the Father’s enduring favor and guarantees for us our position as co-heirs with Christ (http://www.wadeburleson.org/2011/11/therefore-knowing-terror-of-lord-we.html).
Those who have faith in Christ will never appear at any future judgment of God, or be rewarded for their good behavior. Our sins were judged at the cross, and the behavior for which we are rewarded is Christ’s behavior (Ibid).
Obviously, other than the previous points made, Burleson’s statement proclaiming Zens as “thoroughly biblical” and his outright rejection of 1COR 3:10-15 and 2COR 5:9-10 are troubling to say the least. Burleson also holds strongly to the exact same method of interpretation that makes elected works in sanctification possible among the “Calvinistas.” That would be the Bible as gospel meta narrative approach. It uses the Bible as a tool for gospel contemplationism which results in the works of Christ being imputed to our sanctification when we “make our story His story.” Luther got the concept from Pope Gregory the Great who believed that meditating on Christ’s works in the Scriptures endears us to Him romantically and thus inspires joyful obedience. It’s all the same rotten mysticism propagated today by John Piper and Francis Chan. It’s a mystical (actually Gnostic) approach to the Bible that makes elected works in sanctification possible.
As a cute way of propagating this nonsense, Burleson has named his para-church ministry “Istoria Ministries Blog.” His blog subheading noted that istoria is a Greek word that combines the idea of history and story:
Istoria is a Greek word that can be translated as both story and history. Istoria Ministries, led by Wade and Rachelle Burleson, helps people experience the life transforming power of Jesus Christ so that their story may become part of His story.
This ministry called him out on the fact that the word istoria does not appear anywhere in the Scriptures which led him to change the subheading a couple of days later. He then changed the subheading to a citation (GAL 1:18) that is the only place in the Bible where the word appears. Only thing is, even then, it’s not “istoria,” it’s “historeo”:
g2477. ιστορεω historeo; from a derivative of 1492; to be knowing (learned), i. e. (by implication) to visit for information (interview):— see.
This citation has nothing to do with his original point of naming his ministry as such. It’s simply the only reference he could find that proves that the word is in the Bible. Kinda, as I said, even then the word is not “istoria.” Istoria is a more contemporary Greek word that in fact can be used as “history” or “story.” But the earliest use of the word seems to be circa 1300, and is most prevalent in referring to the “story paintings” of medieval times. It’s just a lame, almost adolescent attempt to argue for this approach to the Bible.
If Burleson wants to be an advocate for the spiritually abused he should denounce his Reformed gospel of spiritual tyranny. While he may help some people heal from abuse, he will go back to his pulpit and produce twice as many abusers.
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