“If You Were to Die Today…”
One popular evangelistic technique is to ask someone, “if you were to die today and God asked you why He should let you into heaven, what would your answer be?” While this may seem like a clever intellectual excercise, it is erroneous on two levels:
1. The only judgement Believers will stand before is the Bema, which is a judgement for rewards, NOT salvation. (1 Corinthians 3:12-15)
2. Unbelievers will stand before the Great White Throne. There will be no opportunity for them to testify. All their works are already recorded, they will be judged by them, and their name will not be found in the Book of Life. They will subsequently be cast into the Lake of Fire (the “second death”) where they will experience eternal torment and separation from God! (Revelation 20:11-15)
When we seek to evangelize the lost, we must make sure our message is accurate!
~Andy Young
The Choice
The gospel is the proclamation to all people that they have been purchased by God. Before God ordained the plan of salvation, mankind had no choice, they belonged to a master that the Bible calls “sin.” In the Bible, we find that our birth sold us into slavery to this master.
Salvation is all about choice; a choice between two masters. Man can choose because he has been purchased—he has been set free to choose. A purchase is a choice, therefore, God desires that all men be saved, and calls men everywhere to repent as willing servants. They are free to stay with their present master, or choose Christ as their new master.
Salvation is a choice between two masters. Choice cannot be separated from the gospel. Christ did not die for those unable to choose. The five points of Calvinism do not stand or fall on total depravity, it stands or falls on limited atonement. Christ died to set man free from the slavery of sin—He set them free to choose.
A Doctrinal Evaluation of the Anti-Lordship Salvation Movement: Part 1
Introduction and Historical Background Leading up to the Anti-Lordship Salvation Movement
Not long after I became a Christian in 1983, the Lordship Salvation (hereafter LS) controversy arose. This was a movement against “easy believism” (hereafter EB). The climate was ripe for the controversy because churches were full of professing Christians who demonstrated little if any life change. Members in good standing could be living together out of wedlock, wife abusing drunks, and shysters to name a few categories among many. Sin was not confronted in the church.
Of course, no cycle of Protestant civil war is complete without dueling book publications. Without naming all of them, the major theme was that of faith and works. John MacArthur Jr. threw gasoline on the fire with The Gospel According to Jesus published in 1988. This resulted in MacArthur being the primary target among the so-called EB crowd.
During that time as a new believer, I was heavily focused on the issue, but was like many others: I rejected outright sinful lifestyles among professing Christians while living a life of biblical generalities. In other words, like most, I was ignorant in regard to the finer points of Christian living. I resisted blatant sin, and in fact was freed from some serious temptations of the prior life, but had little wisdom in regard to successful application.
We must now pause to consider what was going in the 80’s. Christianity was characterized by two groups: the grace crowd that contended against any assessment of one’s standing with God based on behavior (EB), and the LS crowd. But, the LS group lived by biblical generalities. Hence, in general, both groups farmed out serious life problems to the secular experts. This also led to Christian Psychologist careerism.
This led to yet another controversy among American Christians during the same time period, the sufficiency of Scripture debate. Is the Bible sufficient for life’s deepest problems? Again, MacArthur was at the forefront of the controversy with his publication of Our Sufficiency in Christ published in 1991. Between 1990-1995, the anti-Christian Psychology movement raged (ACS). The primary lightening rod during that time was a book published by Dave Hunt: The Seduction of Christianity (1985).
In circa 1965, a young Presbyterian minister named Jay E. Adams was moved by the reality of a church living by biblical generalities. The idea that the church could not help people with serious problems like schizophrenia bothered him. He was greatly influenced by the renowned secular psychologist O. Hobart Mower who fustigated institutional psychiatry as bogus. An unbeliever, Mower was critical of Christianity for not taking more of a role in helping people with serious mental problems.
Mower believed that mental illness is primarily caused by the violation of conscience and unhealthy thinking. His premise has helped more people by far than any other psychological discipline and Adams witnessed this first hand. Mower’s influence provoked Adams to look into the Scriptures more deeply for God’s counsel regarding the deeper problems of life. This resulted in the publication of Competent to Counsel in 1970, and launched what is known today as the biblical counseling movement (BCM). Please note that this movement was picking up significant steam in the latter 80’s and early 90’s.
In 1970, the same year that the BCM was born, an extraordinary Reformed think tank was established by the name of The Australian Forum Project (AFP). Its theological journal, Present Truth, had a readership that exceeded all other theological journals in the English speaking world by the latter 70’s. Though the project died out in the early 80’s, it spawned a huge grassroots movement known as the “quiet revolution” of the “gospel resurgence.” The movement believed that it had recovered the true Reformation gospel that had been lost in Western culture over time, and frankly, they were absolutely correct about that.
The movement was covert, but spawned notable personalities such as John Piper over time. Piper exploded onto to the scene in 1986 with his book The Pleasures of God which promoted his Christian Hedonism theology. Unbeknown to most, this did not make Piper unique, the book is based on the same Martin Luther metaphysics that the AFP had rediscovered; he got it from them. At this point, the official contemporary name for the rediscovered Reformation gospel, the centrality of the objective gospel outside of us (Cogous), was taking a severe beating in Reformed circles. This is because contemporary Calvinists didn’t understand what Luther and Calvin really believed about the gospel.
John Piper looked to emerge from the movement as a legend because he had no direct ties to the AFP, but during the same time frame of his emergence, Cogous was also repackaged by a professor of theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. His name was John “Jack” Miller. Using the same doctrine, the authentic gospel of the Reformation, Miller developed the Sonship discipleship program. This also took a severe beating in Presbyterian circles. In fact, Jay Adams wrote a book against the movement in 1999. This was a debate between Calvinists in regard to what real Calvinism is. At any rate, Sonship changed its nomenclature to “Gospel Transformation” and went underground (2000). This started the gospel-everything movement. Sonship was saturated with the word “gospel” as an adjective for just about every word in the English language (“gospel centered this, gospel-driven that,” etc.). If anyone refuted what was being taught, they were speaking against the gospel; this was very effective.
If not for this change in strategy, John Piper would have been the only survivor of Cogous. Instead, with the help of two disciples of John Miller, David Powlison and Tim Keller, the Gospel Transformation movement gave birth to World Harvest Missions and the Acts 29 Network. It also injected life into the Emergent Church movement. Meanwhile, most thought the Sonship movement had been eliminated, but this was not the case at all. In 2006, a group of pastors that included this author tried to get a handle on a doctrine that was wreaking havoc on churches in the U.S. and spreading like wildfire. The doctrine had no name, so we dubbed it “Gospel Sanctification.” In 2008, the same movement was dubbed “New Calvinism” by society at large. In 2009, spiritual abuse blogs exploded in church culture as a direct cause of New Calvinism. We know now that the present-day New Calvinism movement was birthed by the AFP.
The Protestant Legacy of Weak Sanctification
The anti-Lordship Salvation movement came out of the controversy era of the 80’s. The following is the theses, parts 2 and 3 will articulate the theses. The theses could very well be dubbed The Denomination Myth. All of the camps involved in these Protestant debates share the same gospel, but differ on the application. The idea that the debate involves different gospels is a misnomer.
The Protestant Reformation gospel was predicated on the idea that the Christian life is used by God to finish our salvation. The official Protestant gospel is known as justification by faith. This is one of the most misunderstood terms in human history. Justification refers to God imputing His righteousness to those whom He saves. Many call this a forensic declaration by God. At this time, I am more comfortable saying that it is the imputation of God’s righteousness to the saved person as the idea of it being forensic; it’s something I have not investigated on my own albeit it’s a popular way of stating it. This is salvation…a righteous standing before God.
Sanctification, a setting apart for God’s holy purposes, is the Christian life. The Reformers saw sanctification as the progression of justification to a final justification. In Reformed circles, this is known as the “golden chain of salvation.” So, the Christian is saved, is being saved, and will be finally saved. Christians often say, “Sanctification is the growing part of salvation.” But really it isn’t, salvation doesn’t grow, this is a Protestant idea. The Christian life grows in wisdom and stature, but our salvation doesn’t grow, the two are totally separate. One is a finished work, and the other is a progression of personal maturity.
The Reformers were steeped in the ancient philosophy of the day that propagated the idea that the common man cannot properly understand reality, and this clearly reflected on their theology. The idea that grace is infused into man and enables him to properly understand reality would have been anathema according to their spiritual caste system of Platonist origins. This resulted in their progressive justification gospel. Justification by faith is a justification process by faith alone.
Every splinter group that came out of the Reformation founded their gospel on this premise. John Calvin believed that salvation was entering into a rest from works. He believed that sanctification is the Old Testament Sabbath rest (The Calvin Institutes 2.8.29). Hence, the Christian life is a rest from works. The Christian life must be lived the same way we were saved: by faith alone. Part 2 will explain why we are called to work in sanctification, and why it is not working for justification.
Another fact of the Reformation gospel is “righteousness” is defined as a perfect keeping of the law. To remove the law’s perfect standard, and its demands for perfection from justification is the very definition of antinomianism according to the Reformers. A perfect law-keeping must be maintained for each believer if they are to remain justified. Thirdly, this requires what is known as double imputation. Christ not only died for our sins so that our sins could be imputed to Him, He lived a life of perfect obedience to the law so that His obedience could be imputed to our sanctification. So, if we live our Christian life according to faith alone, justification will be finished the same way it started; hence, justification by faith. For purposes of this series, these will be the three pillars of the Reformed gospel that we will consider:
1. An unfinished justification.
2. Sabbath rest sanctification.
3. Double imputation.
As a result of this construct, Protestant sanctification has always been passive…and confused. Why? Humans are created to work, but work in sanctification is deemed to be working for justification because sanctification is the “growing part” of justification. Reformed academics like to say, “Justification and sanctification are never separate, but distinct.” Right, they are the same with the distinction being that one is the growing of the other. A baby who has grown into an adult is not separate from what he/she once was, but distinct from being a baby. Reformed academics constantly warn Christians to not live in a way that “makes the fruit of sanctification the root of justification.” John Piper warns us that the fruits of sanctification are the fruits of justification—all works in sanctification must flow from justification. Justification is a tree; justification is the roots, and sanctification is the fruits of justification. We are warned that working in sanctification can make “the fruit the root.” In essence, we are replacing the fruits of justification with our own fruit. This is sometimes referred to as “fruit stapling.”
How was the Reformation gospel lost?
To go along with its progressive justification, the Reformers also developed an interpretation method. The sole purpose of the Bible was to show us our constant need to have the perfect works of Jesus imputed to our lives by faith alone. The purpose of Scripture reading was to gain a deeper and deeper knowledge of our original need of salvation, i.e. “You need the gospel today as much as you needed it the day you were saved.” Indeed, so that the perfect obedience of Christ will continue to be applied to the law. This also applies to new sins we commit in the Christian life as well. Since we “sin in time,” we must also continue to receive forgiveness of new sins that we commit as Christians. So, the double imputation must be perpetually applied to the Christian life by faith alone. John Piper often speaks of how Christians continue to be saved by the gospel. This is in fact the Reformation gospel.
But over time, humanity’s natural bent to interpret the Scriptures grammatically instead of redemptively resulted in looking at justification and sanctification as being more separate, and spiritual growth being more connected to obedience. This created a hybrid Protestantism even among Calvinists. Nevertheless, the best results were the aforementioned living by biblical generalities. Yes, we “should” obey, but it’s optional. A popular idea in past years was a bi-level discipleship which was also optional.
This brings us to the crux of the issue.
Since the vast majority of Protestants see justification as a golden chain of salvation, two primary camps emerged:
A. Christ obeys the law for us.
B. Salvation cannot be based on a commitment—obedience must be optional.
Model A asserts that since we cannot keep the law perfectly, we must invoke the double imputation of Christ by faith alone in order to be saved and stay saved. Model B asserts that since the same gospel that saved us also sanctifies us, any commitment included in the gospel presentation must then be executed in sanctification to keep the process of justification moving forward. Therefore, obedience in sanctification must be completely optional. A consideration of works is just fruit stapling. If the Holy Spirit decides to do a work through someone, that’s His business and none of ours, “who are we to judge?”
This is simply two different executions of the same gospel. Model A does demand obedience because it assumes that Christians have faith, and that will result in manifestations of Christ’s obedience being imputed to our lives. Because this is mixed with our sinfulness, it is “subjective.” The actual term is “justification experienced subjectively”; objective justification, subjective justification, final justification (redefined justification, sanctification, and glorification). However, model B then interprets that as commitment that must be executed in the progressive part of salvation.
This is where the EB versus LS debate comes into play. This is a debate regarding execution of the same gospel while making the applications differing gospels. Out of this misunderstanding which came to a head in the 80’s, comes the anti-Lordship Salvation movement (ALS). Conversations with proponents of ALS reveal all of the same tenets of Cogous. First, there is the same idea of a final judgment in which sins committed by Christians will be covered by Jesus’ righteousness; “When God looks at us, all he will see is Jesus.” Secondly, there is the same idea of one law. Thirdly, there is the idea that our sins are covered and not ended.
They do differ on the “two natures.” Model A holds to the idea that Christians have the same totally depraved nature that they had when they were saved. Model B thinks the new birth supplies an additional Christ-like nature that fights with the old nature. Model A, aka Calvinists, actually think this is Romanism/Arminianism. Indeed, authentic Protestantism rejects the idea that any work of the Spirit is done IN the believer. Model B has several different takes on this including the idea that Christians are still dead, but the life of Jesus inside of them enables them to obey.
In part 2, we will examine why this construct is a false gospel, and why both parties are guilty. In part 3, we will examine the new birth and the idea that Christians have two natures.
paul
Romans 13:11 | What’s in the Word, “Saved” Part 1: A Salvation Paradigm
“You were purchased and the sale if final. Christ did not purchase you on a Reformed installment plan. We wait for redemption when Christ comes to claim what He purchased.”
“Moreover, if justification and sanctification are not separate, and are the same thing the Bible must be interpreted through the prism of justification only and in fact that is the very interpretive craze of our day; i.e., every verse in the Bible is about Jesus. Unfortunately, this would not explain the interpretive dichotomies of the Bible and would instead make them contradictions. There are many, many examples of this throughout the Bible, but the primary one is works. On the one hand, the Bible continually calls for faith alone without works, but on the other hand, it also calls for vigorous labor and obedience to the law. How can these be reconciled? Answer: some verses are talking about justification while others are talking about sanctification. If justification and sanctification are not separate, the Bible is nothing more than a book of confusion.”
Click to enlarge illustrations if needed.
I am very happy that we have arrived at Romans 13:11 because what Paul states here is the source of much misunderstanding in our day. As a pastor, I have said it: “We were saved, are being saved, and will be completely saved.” What was I thinking when I used to say things like that? I really don’t know. But isn’t that what Paul is saying here in Romans 13:11?
Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.
Paul seems to be saying what I used to say: our original salvation culminates into a final salvation. At TANC LLC, our research institute, we call that the “linear gospel.” In Reformed circles it is called the “golden chain of salvation.” Now listen, this is a really big deal. One must choose between the linear gospel and the parallel gospel. Let’s look at the illustrations below:
Illustration A
Illustration B
I have been making these illustrations for some time, and was surprised to find the following like-illustrations in the archives of the Australian Forum, the reformed think tank that spawned the present-day neo Calvinist movement:
Illustration C
Illustration D
Illustration E
The Australian forum used these illustrations to convince the church that the true gospel of the Reformation had been lost. These illustrations were key in clarifying what the Reformers really believed. And, though the recent Neo-Calvinist movement parrots much of the Forum’s dialect and other illustrations to teach authentic Reformed doctrine, they avoid these illustrations like a plague. Why? Because these concepts are the most clarifying, and what was used to clarify can also be used to refute the same doctrine.
I agree with the Forum, my illustration B and their Illustration C was the model that the church, for the most part, was teaching when the Australian Forum showed up in 1970 (Hereafter: AF). Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the church was applying the model, but it is what they held to. They were actually functioning like model A and E.
Model A combines salvation with the Christian life. That may sound like a statement in regard to the obvious, but it really isn’t. When someone asks us if we are saved, we say yes, but the answer is in regard to models B and C. We were saved, so we are now saved. It was a onetime permanent act. Valerie, the family dog was born in the past, but her dogness is permanent. Valerie is not in the process of becoming a complete dog, she is a dog, she is perfect dogness. The AF would agree with my assessment here. Note in model C that justification is “finished.” When Valerie was born, her doghood was finished. Valerie will now start acting like a dog because that is her nature.
Not so with the Reformed models A and E. If someone asks a Reformed person if they are saved, they most say, “already—not yet” which is the nomenclature of an official Reformed doctrine. It means that one is in the process of BEING saved—their complete salvation is future. Again, the AF would have agreed with this assessment. Note the following illustration published by them:
Illustration F
I would also like to use their illustration to make a point. They, in representing the Reformed view take issue with justification being finished. They believe it is ongoing, but look what they call it: “sanctification.” Why wouldn’t they call it “ongoing justification”? Normally, the term for the Christian life is progressive sanctification, but Reformed theologians stay well clear of the term progressive justification. The only exception is in the Calvin Institutes (3.14.title). At issue is what they illustrate with model E—justification and sanctification are combined. Salvation is a progression and worse yet, we are in the midst of the progression. That means we can mess up the progression, this is an unavoidable inference, and is indeed an element of Reformed thinking.
This is where I want to make a point about illustration D. The AF, like all of the Reformed, refutes this model as Christ plus something. Salvation only covers past sins, but we have to do something in our sanctification to maintain our righteous standing. In both models justification (salvation) is not finished, but the Reformers say that is ok for their model because justification is finished by justification.
But yet, this is the problem with all linear gospels like model A: we are in the middle of the process, so the question must be answered; “what is our role?” And that very question is a huge problem because mankind has NO role in being justified. No man other than Christ could pay the penalty for our sins. However, the Reformed answer is, “The Vital Union.” Basically, it is ok for us to be in the midst of the unfinished justification process because we participate in the same way that we were saved; viz, by faith alone. So models A, D, and E are the same thing, but the Reformed say that is ok for their model because it is Christ plus faith alone in Christ. In order to keep justification moving along properly, we must live our lives by faith alone.
Personally, I contend that if we have ANY role in our salvation other than the decision that brought the death of the old us and the birth of a new us, that’s works salvation by doing nothing with intentionality. In fact, it’s called abstaining and that’s a verb. Salvation by Christ plus doing nothing is still model D. Calvinist Tullian Tchividjian wrote a book titled Jesus plus nothing equals everything, but in a linear gospel where justification and sanctification are fused together, IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO DO NOTHING because doing nothing is something. The only way that we can do nothing is if …
1. The work itself is finished. You can’t do anything to finish a finished work.
2. You are not present to do anything. The work is not located in your realm of operation.
This requires a discussion regarding the separation of justification and sanctification which is anathema to the Reformed thinker. They say, “Justification and sanctification are never separate, but distinct.” However, because of the terms used by Scripture, the Reformers are forced to do something with sanctification, especially in light of 1Thess 4:3,4, so the progression of justification falls under the auspices of progressive sanctification. This brings us back to illustration F. If Valerie, a dog, specifically a beagle, is justification, why would we call her something different because she gets up and starts walking? Is that cause to call her a duck? Indeed, a Valerie sitting is “distinct” from Valerie walking, but does that make her something other than a dog? If Calvin himself spoke of justification as being progressive in the title of chapter 14 | book 3, and that in fact is what you deem it to be, why not call it progressive justification and be done with it?
We hold that justification is a finished work and completely separate from the Christian life. Model B is the ONLY “plus nothing” model because you cannot add to a finished work nor can you work on something that is otherworldly. Christ came to finish a work that we cannot touch. Justification declares that the law that would judge us has no jurisdiction over us. Our sanctification comes from the regeneration of the new birth, not the finished work of justification. This was the rhetorical question that Paul asked of the Galatians:
3:2 – this only do I wish to learn from you—by works of law the Spirit did ye receive, or by the hearing of faith?
3 so thoughtless are ye! having begun in the Spirit, now in the flesh do ye end?
(YLT).
In other words, after receiving the Spirit, do you finish a finished work by circumcision? Note the previous verse:
3:1 – O thoughtless Galatians, who did bewitch you, not to obey the truth—before whose eyes Jesus Christ was described before among you crucified? (YLT).
Christ’s death on the cross finished the work of justification.
But doesn’t Paul say that our salvation is future? The question is salvation from what? We know it is not salvation from sin that would condemn us for sin is not counted where there is no law (Rom 4:15, 5:13) and Christ put an end to the law (Rom 10:4). However, it is clear that the world will be judged by the law (Rom 3:19, 20). It is not salvation from sin that would condemn us.
While the believer is born again and truly righteous, we must carry around the old us that was crucified with Christ. The things Christ died for are still with us (2Cor 4:7-18). As Christians, we await a deliverance from this body of death. (Rom 7:25). Clearly, salvation from condemnation is finished (Rom 8:34), salvation from the sin that condemns is past and complete, but there is left a salvation from sin that harasses us daily. If the gospel is linear, and justification is not finished, Paul is speaking of a future salvation from condemnation—we reject that idea with prejudice, Paul is talking about the other salvation from the sin of our mortality.
The Bible also refers to that as redemption. Remember last week and our discussion of the exchange of slavery? We were purchased from the other slave owner by the blood of Christ (1Cor 6:19,20, 7:22,23), and Christ will one day return to redeem His purchase (Gal 3:13, Luke 21:28). In the linear model, there can be no exchange of slavery because we are not finally free till the end. Neither is there an exchange of law because faith only is required to maintain the “vital union” that keeps our original justification moving forward.
Moreover, if justification and sanctification are not separate, and are the same thing the Bible must be interpreted through the prism of justification only and in fact that is the very interpretive craze of our day; i.e., every verse in the Bible is about Jesus. Unfortunately, this would not explain the interpretive dichotomies of the Bible and would instead make them contradictions. There are many, many examples of this throughout the Bible, but the primary one is works. On the one hand, the Bible continually calls for faith alone without works, but on the other hand, it also calls for vigorous labor and obedience to the law. How can these be reconciled? Answer: some verses are talking about justification while others are talking about sanctification. If justification and sanctification are not separate, the Bible is nothing more than a book of confusion.
The linear gospel also leads to all sorts of confusing doctrines that make doing nothing in our Christian life feasible. One is double imputation. This is the belief that Christ died for our justification and lived a perfect life of obedience for our sanctification. That way, Christ’s perfect obedience to the law is imputed to our Christian life as we live by faith alone.
Illustration G
This Reformed doctrine also makes law the standard for justification in regard to Christians. Since perfect adherence to law remains the standard, but Christ fulfilled and keeps it for us, neither is an exchange of law needed in salvation as we discussed last week—the relationship to the law doesn’t change.
This results in an attempt to reduce sanctification to a mere “awareness” or “experience” with all kinds of mystic doctrines following of which there is no shortage in Reformed circles. An excellent example is the following excerpt from a sermon I heard recently:
Years ago, there was a pastor named Ichabod Spencer, and he was talking to a young student who was convicted of a sin and wasn’t a believer but wanted to come to Christ. And he wrote of the conversation, and it’s in a book called Pastoral Sketches, and Ichabod Spencer’s section in there has this conversation. And it’s fascinating because it’s called “I Can’t Feel.” Listen to this interchange. Ichabod Spencer said,
“I don’t know, my dear sir, what more can be said to you. I’ve told you all that I know. Your state as a sinner, lost, exposed to the righteous penalty of God’s law and having a heart alienated from God and the free offer of redemption by Christ, I’ve told you those things, and your instant duty to repent of sin and give up the world and give God your heart and the source of your help through the power of the Holy Spirit assured to you if you will receive Christ.” In other words, self-empty, and believe it, all these things have become as familiar to you as household words. What more can I say? I know not more what there is to be said.” He said, “I cannot read your heart. God can. And you can by his aid. Some things you’ve said almost made me think you a Christian, and other things again have destroyed that hope. I now put it to your own heart. If you’re not a Christian, what hinders you?”
And he thought for a moment, and he said, “I can’t feel.” “Well, why didn’t you tell me this before?” He said, “I never thought of it before, sir.” “Well, how do you know this hinders you?” “I can’t think of nothing else. I’m sure I shall never be converted to God if I have no more feeling than I have now. That is my own fault. I know you can’t help me.” And he said, “No, sir, I cannot, nor can you help yourself. Your heart will not feel at your bidding.” “What then can I do?” said he with much anxiety. “Come to Christ now. Trust him. Give up your darling world. Repent so inequity shall not be your ruin.” Well, he seemed perplexed, annoyed, vexed. And with an accent of impatience such as I had never witnessed in him before, he replied, “That is impossible. I want the feeling to bring me to that, and I can’t feel.”
And Spencer said, “Hear me, sir, and heed well what I say. I have several points. Number one, the Bible never tells you you must feel, but you must repent and believe. Number two, your complaint that you cannot feel,” listen to this, “is just an excuse by which your wicked heart will justify you for not coming to Christ now.”
First of all, this idea that we cannot command our feelings is something that I hear often and is not biblical. The apostle Paul instructed us to keep a clear conscience before God. Elsewhere, we find that our consciences either accuse us or excuse us. We all know how bad we feel when our consciences accuse us; therefore, we may assume that the opposite is true when we do right. We are also instructed by Paul as well to make it our goal to please God; certainly, a feeling of accomplishment can be expected here as well.
Clearly, we can command our feelings by doing what is right. In contrast, the above dialogue is the result of the linear gospel where an act of grace must precede all feelings. Again, if we are in the middle of a process that saves us, and we are good Reformed thinkers with faith alone always in the forefront, we must only believe and merely be a witness to “grace.” Can you see this in the above dialogue? Only believe is the exhortation of the pastor, and we cannot command our feelings anyway.
In contrast, this young man isn’t going feel any different UNTIL he makes a decision to follow Christ. Why? Because he is under judgment! When you are under law, all that awaits you is a fearful judgment under the law. Why would he feel any different until he is no longer under threat of judgment? This would have been my counsel to this young man. At the very least, the vacancy of fear and the knowledge that you are going to spend eternity in heaven will produce good feelings on some level.
Yes, this leads into all kinds of Reformed wackiness that I believe shuts up the door of heaven to many. I myself know of a young man that wouldn’t make a commitment to Christ because he was yet to see Christ as a “treasure chest of joy.” This all speaks to the Reformed concern that man is able to make an intellectual decision that is part of the salvation process. Yea, we must have some kind of sign that we were enlightened first before we make the decision. But why would it be delight? What of a fear of judgment that we know we deserve?
The fact that the aforementioned young man was vexed and in turmoil is a sure sign from heaven that he understand that he is under the law. Good grief! Lord come quickly and deliver us from this ignorance dressed in academic garb! Remember what we have learned previously in this Romans study? Our service to God is a what? Right, “reasonable service.” Remember what that word means? It means “rational.” My father was an intellectual who always had an interest in God throughout his whole life, but in the end, he assured me that he had made a personal commitment to Christ. But be sure of this, my dad would not have made a commitment to mystic nonsense coming from the Reformed crowd. The decision to be saved is a rational decision, and our service to Christ is rational.
“Just believe” is no answer, we must tell people WHY they mustn’t wait on a feeling. It is because feelings follow thinking and doing. For the most part, feelings are a choice. What do you do if you feel unsafe? You make a decision to change your circumstance to something safer, and then you feel safer. My friends, this is hardly rocket science.
But this can now bring us to another consideration of linear versus parallel—that of end times. The linear gospel can only speak of one final judgment where the children of God are “manifested.” If you look at the parallel gospel, it supplies the possibility of two judgments. Note the illustration below:
What comfort is there in thinking that our “final justification” will be confirmed at some plenary judgment at the end of the age? We should take comfort in the fact that we will not stand in that judgment at all! And again, this points to the need for interpretation according to the following interpretive question: Is it a justification verse, or a sanctification verse? In the linear construct, it must always be a justification verse; either a sitting still dog or a walking dog that is apparently a duck because he is now walking. But in the parallel construct, I can point to numerous biblical dichotomies that are defined by parallelism. Let’s look at a couple.
In 1John, John tells us there is no fear in love and fear has to do with “judgment.” But then Paul tells us to work out our own salvation with trembling and fear. This is not the same salvation being spoken of. John is writing of the difference between the law of sin and death that will judge us, and the law of love which is the difference between being under law and under grace. Paul is writing of having a sober stance towards our sanctification. The Christian life isn’t a birthday party; it’s a many-faceted intellectual warfare. “Salvation” in the Bible doesn’t always speak of salvation from eternal judgment, there is yet a salvation for God’s people—the salvation from carrying about in our bodies all of the things that Christ died for. Let’s close by looking at an example of how the linear perspective gets us into difficulty. In the Reformed scholarly work “The Race Set Before Us,” the authors cite Matthew 24:13 as proof that salvation is future and that Christians must persevere till the end of their life:
But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
Again, the assumption is that “saved” always means eternal salvation. But let’s qualify that with Matthew 10:
21 Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, 22 and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 23 When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.
What is Christ saying? He is saying that when you see certain things happen during the tribulation period, you will be able to save yourself from physical death by fleeing from town to town because the Lord’s return is near. He is talking about saving yourself from physical death, not eternal salvation.
“Saved” has more than one meaning. In verse 11, Paul is talking about salvation from this present warfare against evil within and evil without. In the same way Christ stated that those who see certain things in the tribulation period draw near to their “redemption.” That word refers to a ransom that has already been paid on the cross.
You were purchased and the sale if final. Christ did not purchase you on a Reformed installment plan. We wait for redemption when Christ comes to claim what He purchased.
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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