John Pavlovitz Sees the Problem with Mud and is Trying to Save It.
I hate Facebook, but can’t live without it. One reason why is an article that was reposted by someone on my Facebook friends list. The article, written by a John Pavlovitz, was posted on his blog John Pavlovitz .com.
As gleaned from the article, JP sees the problems concerning “church” with stunning clarity, and is on a journey to save it from those who have “hijacked” it.
Like so many in our day, JP doesn’t understand that the church which he properly describes as “in the mud” is not in the mud because it has been hijacked—it is the mud.
Like so many in our day, he doesn’t want to “[throw]ing the baby Jesus out with the muddy bath water.” But Jesus doesn’t dwell in any muddy water. If you throw out the muddy bath water of the church, fear not, Jesus is not in there.
Much can be drawn out of JP’s article, but without a doubt the primary reason that the JPs of the world will not succeed in changing the muddy church follows: they think Christianity is a combination of Jesus and mud, the mud being us, and the only problem with church at this time is it’s too muddy. The muddy Christians are being too muddy, but Jesus still loves the muddy church. Therefore, we must save the Church of Mud by making it less muddy.
This is why Luther and Calvin never really left the Catholic Church; they shared the same essential metaphysics, epistemology, and politics (they also killed people who disagreed with them). They only disagreed on the ethics. The Reformation was not a revolution, it was a reformation. The Catholic Church had become too muddy.
This is what the JP’s of the world and all discernment bloggers to boot don’t understand: we don’t need another Reformation—we need a revolution. The problem with the muddy church is: it is made of muddy people and Jesus is not muddy, and those who follow Christ are like Him in the world. We are “washed,” not muddy.
And JP would say: “But we still have mud.” Therefore, a revolution instead of a mere reformation would be “throwing the baby Jesus out with the muddy bath water.” Here is what JP, like many others do not understand: the Church of Mud is muddy for a reason. While sharing the same ideology as the Church of Mud, their primary concern is that things become too muddy. They love the mud as much as anyone and seek to save the mud. However, there must be limits to the mud. The ideology that creates the mud cannot be allowed to create too much muddiness.
Hence, when JP and many others point out that there is too much mud, the others in the Church of Mud should not accuse him and others of, “being angry malcontents; serial complainers who have no real desire to make things better, who simply delight in publicly dragging Christianity through the mud.”
You see, the church being muddy is one thing, but dragging it through its muddiness is something else entirely. Why? Well, according to the formal doctrine of the church, it is the only place where mudders get saved, so you can’t do anything to hurt the Church of Mud. Now you are messing with the gospel of muddiness.
JP apparently means well, but his confusion can be seen in the article, i.e., “The problem is, organized Christianity is no longer truly in the hands of all the people. Like so many riches in this world, it too is being hoarded and held by a small minority who tend to speak for themselves; who are prone to leveraging power and position and platform to control those who they deem to be inferior or dangerous or deviating from the norm.”
This is the contradiction of the post: what was just cited and the whole not throwing Jesus out with the muddy water thing. He sees the problem, but clearly doesn’t understand that the ideology of church orthodoxy (the norm) will not, and cannot permit something that is “truly in the hands of all the people.” We call that a “revolution.” It’s a complete rebuild, not a renovation.
He is biblically correct on this, but fails to understand the difference between a true biblical model of “church” and Protestant orthodoxy. He is correct: God’s family is a holy nation of priests. What does that imply? It implies that there is no spiritual caste in the family of God.
The Bible states that we are a body, and with all bodies, the individual parts play very important roles and determine what the body is able to achieve. The body parts don’t wait around for permission from men to practice their function; they are guided by the one head, Christ. The body parts work together according to truth for the unity of one mind and one voice that strives to learn the mind of Christ more and more. The body parts are organized according to gifts.
But it doesn’t stop there. We are not just any run of the mill priests. The type of priest that the Bible is speaking of is the priest who entered the Holy of Holies once a year to offer an atonement for the sins of Israel. But now the veil has been torn asunder and all have free access to the Holy of Holies. We are able to enter in because we are washed—not muddy. Muddy people have never been allowed to enter the Holy of Holies and never will be.
JP recommends a revolution that will put Christianity back in the “hands of all the people,” and then prescribes a mere reformation; that won’t work. We are not muddy priests of a muddy church in charge of making sure we don’t become too muddy.
Is this perfectionism? Yes and no depending on how you define perfectionism in regard to the new birth. The church spawned by the Reformation defined perfectionism as a denial that Christians sin. It basically redefined sin in stark contrast to the biblical definition. The Bible makes a distinction between sin that condemns and sin by those who are God’s literal offspring. The Reformers made no such distinction in brazen defiance of holy writ.
As a result of this single perspective on sin, they made the law THE standard and measure of righteousness, and not the new birth. Instead of the new birth putting those under the law of condemnation to death with Christ and freeing them to obey the law for the sole purpose of love after their resurrection to new life, the Reformers kept believers in the mud and not washed by the baptism of the Spirit.
In other words, Jesus came to cover the mud, not wash it away. According to Calvin and Luther both, “saved” people must become official members of the Church of Mud through the initiation of water baptism to keep their mud covered by perpetual rewashings every time that we return to the “same gospel that saved us.” This is why we must, “preach the gospel to ourselves every day” and “live by the gospel” according to everything in our lives being “gospel driven.”
Consequently, according to Luther, and Calvin, the believer should care less how much mud gets flung around as it is really none of our business. We are not in control of the mud, only getting it covered by behaving at church. If we are in control of the mud depth, well, we have a “righteousness of our own.” And trust me, the mud doesn’t fling far from the pigsty.
Hate to tell you JP, but the church folk that fear you are right; according to Protestantism, you really should keep your mouth shut. The muddiness is what it is; if you think there is too much mud you are self-righteous. Sound familiar?
If you go to “The Table” tab/page on JP’s blog, it is fraught with Church of Mud orthodoxy mixed in with anti-total depravity emergent-like ideology. Like so many in our day, JP needs to totally forget everything he has learned and do the job he is called to: High Priest. That is his job, not the collecting of other people’s thoughts for perhaps a well-meaning search for answers.
On the same page, you will notice that we “reflect” rather than actually do things, and our lives are a “story” like the redemptive-historical metaphysics of the Church of Mud. And then there is this:
We realize that no one has all the answers, and that faith and doubt live side by side. No one has the market cornered on Truth and we’re OK with that.
What about the one mind of Christ that we are called to be unified by? If no one can really know anything “except Christ and Him crucified,” or stated another way, Luther and Calvin’s “objective gospel experienced subjectively,” what unity does JP propose will take place? This confirms that he is out of touch with the biblical concept of body.
The page also states that everyone and their views are welcome, but I am not sure they want to hear what I have to say because I think little of a physician who wants to save cancer patients by first saving the cancer, or those trying to save the Church of Mud from too much mud.
We need a revolution, not a reformation. The problem with the Church of Mud is the mud.
paul
Get Over It: Calvin and Luther Propagated a Blatant False View of Justification
FACT is, Luther and Calvin propagated a false view of justification and the theological math is very simple. It’s a religious empire built on a big fat lie. Luther and Calvin belong in the infamous Hall of False Gospels, not Christian folklore.
Why is this? Justification is not a legal covering that God “sees.” It is not a legal declaration of covering, it is a legal declaration of fact concerning the true being of the individual who is now a family member. He now deals with us as sons. When God looks at the new family member, He sees a righteousness that is like Christ’s because Christ is the brother, but it is also the righteousness of the individual. When God “sees” one of His children, He sees the righteousness of one born of Him. “A righteousness of our own” argument is intellectually dishonest; it attempts to make us the originators of righteousness because we received it as a gift.
“But Christians still sin.”
This very contention is a false gospel smoking gun. This simple four-word contention (one of Calvin and Luther’s primary arguments for progressive justification) is all one needs to completely discredit the Reformation from the plain sense of Scripture. This perspective obviously sees Christians as still under the law and needing a COVERING to satisfy the law.
But here is the good news of the true gospel: sin is not merely covered, it is ended, and where there is no law, there is no sin.
But that doesn’t mean “under grace” equals not being under any law. It’s just a different use of the law: for love, NOT condemnation. Authentic Protestantism clearly keeps Christians under the law of condemnation, and therefore needing a covering of righteousness not their own. Supposedly, Christ came to not only die for our sins, but to obey the law perfectly so that His perfect obedience can be imputed to our Christian life by faith alone.
There are many problems with this view of justification known as “double imputation.”
First, it makes the law of condemnation a co-life-giver. That’s Paul’s whole point in Galatians chapter 3. Also, the law now sits on a third throne with God the Father and Christ. In fact, Reformed tradition often pontificates about “An offering given to satisfy the law from the empty hands of faith which only bring the righteousness of Christ as an offering.”
Whoa! Really?
Secondly, it denies that the old person died with Christ via the baptism of the Spirit. Why in the world would believers need a covering to protect them from a law that they are no longer under? A dead person cannot be found guilty under the law—they are dead. This is Paul’s whole point in Romans chapter 7.
Thirdly, because of the Reformation’s single use of the law, that of condemnation only, the ability of the Christian to love is circumvented. The Christian is not free to “serve another.” The law of sin and death, the ministry of death, is made the same as the law of liberty, the law of Christ, and the law of the Spirit of life that He uses to sanctify us (John 17:17).
Fourthly, because the believer is still under the law of sin and death confirmed by the fact that he/she still needs a covering of righteousness that is not their own imputed by the new birth, he/she is still enslaved to sin.
Fifthly, the principles of GIFT and REWARD in the Bible now have to be the same. Therefore, salvation is the reward for living by faith alone in the same gospel that saved us. This, according to Calvin, “keeps us in the family of God.”
Hence, salvation is a reward for living by faith alone rather than a gift. This problem speaks for itself and is the crux of “already not yet.”
Is it any wonder that the Protestant church is a train wreck? It’s that way because of its false gospel.
paul
Why the Five Solas are an Anti-Love Abomination: Romans 12:1
Originally published October 4, 2014
The biblical way of living life is pretty straightforward in the Scriptures. The sacrifice of Christ on the cross saved us, and then we move on to the “living sacrifice.” Calvinism propagates a perpetual return to the onetime sacrifice of Christ for all sin and insists that this onetime act must be continually reapplied to our lives by “faith alone” in order to keep ourselves saved. This is what “preaching the gospel to ourselves every day” is all about. It’s a contemporary term, but it is grounded in the doctrinal foundations of the Protestant Reformation.
This is also what is behind the sacred sola fide (faith alone) of the five solas of the Protestant Reformation. But, “faith alone” means literally faith alone in both salvation and sanctification (Christian living). James railed against sanctification by faith alone in no uncertain terms, and thus, his epistle wasn’t exactly Luther’s favorite. In the same way that we assume total depravity of the five points of Calvinism only applies to the unregenerate, ignorant Protestants assume much and think little. When they read or listen to orthodoxy, their minds are programmed to receive only. In Protestant churches everywhere, the five solas are proudly displayed at the front of the church while in reality this clarion cry of Protestantism is a biblical abomination. Hence, from heaven’s viewpoint, this worldwide collective mockery on Sunday morning must be a beholding of unimaginable proportions.
Why is this? Well, because “Christians” “still sin.” And hey, if we still sin, we must need forgiveness every day. And hey, if we still need forgiveness, we can only get it from the original source—the cross. So, the Christian life becomes an endeavor to keep our new sins covered by a continual return to the same gospel that saved us.
This is a result of an egregiously flawed view of the law that has eternal consequences. Christ died on the cross to end the law, and the law NEVER had any connection to justification. Christ died on the cross to reveal the righteousness of God APART from the law. Calvinism makes the law to be justification’s standard, and it NEVER was. Calvinism makes the law something that must be fulfilled in order to maintain and define righteousness (justification). Therefore, Christians remain under law which is the very biblical definition of a lost person. One is either under law, or under grace. Lost, or saved. Calvin and Luther defined “Christians” as under law.
According to their doctrine, Christ ended the law by fulfilling it while he lived on earth and obeying the law perfectly. This is an “ending” defined by an ending to us keeping it, not Christ. This makes the law the definition and standard of God’s righteousness. That’s a huge problem. Christians are then still under law, and must return to the cross so that the law continues to be satisfied by reapplying the death and life of Christ by faith alone (sola fide).
This is nothing new, and is the same Galatian error that Paul stood against. What was his argument? He argued that if a perfect fulfillment of the law defined righteousness (justification), there is life in the law, and the promise was by two seeds, and not just one…that is, Christ. However, Paul made the point that there is only one seed, and therefore NO life in the law…for righteousness. That’s the key, “for righteousness.”
Christ ended the law for righteousness, and our sins are not merely COVERED by a supposed need to return to the cross—our sins are ENDED.
Calvinism’s anti-gospel view of the law is not only a false gospel, but sucks all of the life out of sanctification. Why? It places sanctification under the precarious auspices of the law for justification making justification a process rather than a finished work. Protestants do not know what it means to be under grace. “Under grace” means that Christ fulfills the demands of the law in our stead—that’s a false gospel.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul begins 12:1 with, “I appeal to you therefore….” This appeal was based on everything he had written in the first eleven chapters. The Reformed assert that this is Paul’s call to fulfill the imperatives that follow by returning to the first eleven chapters daily; in essence, a return to the sacrifice of Christ and the cross. Not so, this is an appeal by Paul to move from Christ’s sacrifice to our sacrifice…
…to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Paul then proceeds with instruction on how to do that. Key to understanding this is knowing that the body, or members, are NOT inherently evil. We sin because the body is “weak,” and mortal, not inherently evil. Notice from the citation above that the body can be used for holy purposes. Also note that we are the presenters to God, and this presentation is “spiritual worship.” Worship is using our minds and bodies to love God and others according to Scripture 24/7:
Romans 13:8 – Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Galatians 5:6 – For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
Notice in Galatians 5:6 that faith works. This speaks against the anti-gospel lie of sola fide of which all of the five solas stand in the same way that all five points of Calvinism stand or fall on total depravity. Faith is not alone in sanctification in the same way that faith is alone in justification. When that view is proffered, it is telling that such also proffers a gospel that keeps people under law and thus makes justification progressive instead of a finished work. This was James’ very contention against a faith without works in sanctification; in essence, it reveals what you believe about justification.
Moreover, a faith alone that does not work completely circumvents the primary purpose of the living saint: love. In the same way that being under law violates every point of the law when one point is violated (James 2:10), the one under grace fulfills the whole law with one act of love:
for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Is this meant to be literal? Perhaps not, BUT for certain, it demonstrates that the Christian cannot sin against the finished work of justification in anyway because where there is no law, there is no sin (Romans 5:13). Christ’s death on the cross ended the law FOR justification—while we fulfill the law by acts of love and…
Romans 6:12 – Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
It is now our choice to allow sin to reign in our mortal bodies because the ending of the law strips sin of condemnation. Sin’s ability to condemn through the law has been ended, and therefore, sin has no power over us:
1Corithians 15:56 – The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
We have victory over sin because Christ ended the law and stripped sin of its ability to condemn—Christians do not sin in regard to justification and never needed Christ to fulfill the law of sin and death in our stead; in the present, or the past. He died to end the law. We are now free to fulfill the law of the Spirit of life through love which are actions done by us and described by Paul in Romans chapters 12-16. We can only sin against love, not justification, and Christ never came to fulfill the law of sin and death, but to enable us to fulfill the law of the Spirit of life through faith working in love (See Romans 8:1-17).
There can be no confusion here or questioning of motives, when Christians obey the law, it is for love, not justification: “If you love me, keep my commandments.”
The supposed necessity of Christ to fulfill the law for us while we live the Christian life by “faith alone” is the essence of antinomianism ([anti-law]“anomia”). And consequently, someone else obeying the law for us, or more accurately, loving God and others in our place; i.e., Christ, will , and always does lead to cold heartedness:
Matthew 24:12 – And because lawlessness [anomia] will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
Psalm 119:70 – their heart is unfeeling like fat, but I delight in your law.
There is no place where you will hear “I love you” more than a Reformed church, yet, it is a lie and indicative of cultic love-bombing. The often-seen five banners of each sola displayed prominently at the front of many churches are banners of heresy over that “church.”
They are banners representing those still under law while falsely proclaiming that they are under grace. These banners mock the cross over raised hands praising to the sounds of contemporary rock music. Deception and damnation never had a happier face.
paul
All You Need to Debunk Calvinism is the Lord’s Prayer
In what is commonly referred to as the “Lord’s Prayer,” we are instructed by Christ to ask for forgiveness from the Father. Who the prayer is addressed to has profound soteriological implications.
Calvinism, and really Protestantism in general, promotes the idea that sin is sin; there is no other perspective on sin other than it condemns. Clearly, Christ is telling us to seek forgiveness from the Father, but on the other hand, the apostle Paul wrote that where there is no law, there is no sin (Romans 3:19, 4;15, 5;13, 7:8, 10:4), so as children of the Father, what are we asking for?
The prayer addresses the Father from whom there is no condemnation for His children (Romans 8:1,34). For those who are not His children, sin does condemn. For those who are in God’s family and born of Him, there can be chastisement for family sin (Hebrews 12:5ff). But for those not in God’s family, sin condemns and our Father is potentially a God of wrath to them.
You are either God’s child or a child of wrath (Ephesians 2:3-5). Obviously, repentance from the sin that condemns can only be a one-time event that cancels out the law’s ability to condemn. You cannot be in God’s family while under condemnation.
These two perspectives on sin are efficacious to a true gospel. One is wrath and condemnation, and the other is love through obedience and possible chastisement for disobedience.
Calvinism clearly teaches a single perspective on the law; the single perspective of condemnation (The Calvin Institutes 3.14.9-11). Therefore, supposedly, Christ came to obey the law perfectly so that the law is continually satisfied. Christians are still under the condemnation of the law, but Jesus’ perfect obedience fulfills the law every time we seek forgiveness for “present sin.”
So, do we ask the Father to forgive us for failing Him, or do we ask forgiveness in order to keep our salvation? How we answer that question determines the validity of our gospel.
paul




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