Strange Fire Conference: Exalting Human Suffering is a Reformed Family Tradition
“Here is what people don’t understand: the Reformation didn’t just herald a new gospel, it called for a whole new way in interpreting reality.”
“This is clear: He who does not know Christ does not know God hidden in suffering. Therefore he prefers ,works to suffering, glory to the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly, and, in general, good to evil. These are the people whom the apostle calls »enemies of the cross of Christ« (Phil. 3:18), for they hate the cross and suffering and love works and the glory of works. Thus they call the good of the cross evil and the evil of a deed good. God can be found only in suffering and the cross, as has already been said Therefore the friends of the cross say that the cross is good and works are evil, for through the cross works are dethroned and the »old Adam«, who is especially edified by works, is crucified. It is impossible for a person not to be puffed up by his »good works« unless he has first been deflated and destroyed by suffering and evil until he knows that he is worthless and that his works are not his but God’s.”
~Martin Luther: Heidelberg Disputation; Theses 21
Martin Luther was a Platonist who despised human existence. The 95 Theses indeed launched the Reformation, but Luther’s Disputation to the Augustinian Order in Heidelberg six months later laid the foundation of Reformed doctrine. The Heidelberg Disputation argued for the interpretation of all reality through mediation on man’s evil, and God’s holiness. In other words, all reality is to be interpreted by a deeper and deeper understanding of our sin as set against God’s holiness. Like many Eastern epistemologies, anti-types give deeper meaning to each other; light defines darkness, and we wouldn’t know what light is without darkness etc.
This became known as Luther’s Theology of the Cross. Here is what people don’t understand: the Reformation didn’t just herald a new gospel, it called for a whole new way in interpreting reality. It called for reality to be interpreted through a new take on Eastern dualism; in essence, the serpent’s knowledge of good and evil. This is the foundation of the Calvin Institutes stated in 1.1.1.:
Our wisdom, insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.
Remember that Calvin believed mankind was the essence of all evil (totally depraved), so the math on this is not difficult. In the very next sentence Calvin posits the Eastern concept of anti-types in this dualist construct:
But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other.
Incredibly, all of the Calvin Institutes are founded on, and flow from the first sentence. The second sentence is the very first building block in Calvin’s massive metaphysical application. The Calvin Institutes are NOT primarily about the gospel, it is a metaphysical treatise on reality. Again, people don’t get this. We ignorantly wallow in the election debate while functioning in a church world reinterpreted by murdering mystic despots. This must amuse Calvin and Luther, if indeed they are in a place where amusement can be found.
I have come to believe that the kingdom of darkness has not swayed from what first worked best. Adam and Eve only knew good. But Lucifer had brought evil into reality. It was true, as the serpent said, God was keeping half of reality from them; specifically, the knowledge of good and evil both. While the apple may be a befuddling concept, the goal of the serpent to deceive the first couple into disobedience is not. They sinned and therefore became privy to both good and evil. Every false religion following has made that construct their epistemology. Instead of using that wisdom for change in the here and now, it is a method for birthing the spiritual into a horizontal experience. Part and parcel with this dualism is the idea that matter is evil and only spirit is good. The here and now is a waste. Man is utterly incompetent, totally depraved, and lives in a world that is utterly evil. Suffering weakens his evil physical body, and better defines the spiritual which enables him to experience it. What he/she understands is imputed through manifestations that are experienced.
This is the crux of the Heidelberg disputation. It is a treatise that exalts suffering. And this fact can be seen today in John MacArthur’s Strange Fire conference. It is apparent that MacArthur’s primary beef with Charismatic theology is its assertion of promised blessings, “Your Best Life Now.” In the Heidelberg Disputation, that is the “glory story.” Joel Osteen et al are the antithesis of the “cross story” that embraces human suffering and rejoices in it. Luther considered any self-consideration at all to be subjective and the “glory story.” On the other hand, to the point that we empty ourselves, despise ourselves, and rejoice in the suffering that God pours out on us, we experience the “cross story” and its glory, not ours. In theses 17 of the Heidelberg Disputation, Luther argues that this incessant self-depravation is not cause for despair, but results in a “grace” experience known in contemporary Reformed theology as “vivification.”
Hence, the new poster child for the contemporary Reformed movement is the storied Joni Eareckson Tada. The purpose for inviting her to the conference is made evident via an article written by Tim Challies:
She went on to speak of the chronic pain that lasted for many years and the stage three cancer that followed it and expressed how she has learned to be grateful for the suffering because of the way it keeps her longing for Christ. The suffering that results from sin in the world, God now uses to get rid of sin. There is nothing sweeter than knowing the joy of the Lord Jesus in the midst of suffering and all the while she holds on to the hope and the confidence, that in heaven, the big deal won’t be getting a new body that works, but a glorified heart that no longer twists truth, becomes anxious, manipulates others, and all these other manifestations of sin.
The particular point the conference wants to make was also made by Tada according to Challies:
Even today she often has well-meaning charismatics who come up to her and pray for her healing. Though she never says no, she does always ask them to pray for specific things and then highlights character issues. Will you pray for my bad attitude? Will you pray for my grumbling? She means to show them that she is far more concerned with indwelling, remaining sin than chronic pain and legs that do not work.
Tada, who has embraced Gospel Sanctification at some point in the past, usually gets a pass from me because of the respect her life demands. She will continue to get that pass for the most part here, but let me point out what is missing in her testimony: the goodness within. Is that true or not? Is that biblical or not? Christians have remaining sin, but is that epistemology, or a fact that calls us to put off that remnant of the old self and put on the new goodness within? Is God’s “seed” in us or not? What’s with everything being about the sin within and not the goodness within born of the new birth? Is Tada’s storied life a free pass for presenting this imbalanced view of reality/sanctifcation?
Also missing is conversation regarding the technology that has vastly improved her quality of life and reduced the degree of suffering she has experienced. Is God also not responsible for that? Why would he want to decrease suffering? Furthermore, the Reformers despised the idea of competent reasoning that led to the technologies that greatly improve quality of life. If not for the Enlightenment Era, Europe would be no different than Eastern and Middle Eastern third world countries that are products of the selfsame Platonist ideology.
Charismania? MacArthur et al are merely the other extreme. Like Calvin and company, they do not want to partake in the rigors of a many faceted sanctification. Everything is either the glory story or the cross story. This enables them to push the easy button on everything—especially “biblical counseling.” They do not want to invest in this life because they are not in control of the results. They posit the idea that trusting God is to check out of this life altogether and deem it worthless.
Not so. Trusting God is to never become weary in well doing. And to believe that we are responsible for the sum and substance of our own life. A responsibility for the life that bears our name, the name that God gave it. The Bible never states that Christ will stand in our stead at any judgment. We will be standing there ourselves….
and Christ’s response to those who only return what was originally given because of fearing works is well stated.
paul
Strange Fire Conference: John MacArthur’s Insufferable Hypocrisy
John MacArthur may go down in church history as one of the most confused pastors ever to step into a pulpit. His steroidal cognitive dissonance constantly results in insufferable hypocrisy.
For certain I thought he could not outdo himself in this regard, but he has. After writing Charismatic Chaos in 1992, he partnered with Charismatic CJ Mahaney for eight years in the Resolved conferences sponsored by his church, Grace Community in Sun Valley, California. One year after the last Resolved conference, MacArthur is hosting the 2013 Strange Fire conference that is fustigating Charismatic doctrine in no uncertain terms. The hypocrisy of it all is staggering.
MacArthur also seems to have a problem with the mysticism promoted by Charismatic theology, but yet is a close confidant of John Piper who not only has Charismatic leanings himself, but led the 2012 Passion conference in the mystic practice of Lectio Divina.
Furthermore, Geneva style Calvinists (also at the conference: Sproul, Lawson, Phil Johnson, et al) criticizing Charismatics is beyond the kettle calling the pot black. Calvin and Luther both attributed their theology to Neo-Platonist St. Augustine. The practical outcome is sanctification by faith alone through gospel contemplationism resulting in realm experience/manifestation. MacArthur himself now claims that he only explains the word of God and the Holy Spirit applies it resulting in his followers obeying God without realizing it (http://wp.me/pmd7S-1In).
Moreover, Calvinism is based on Hindu-like sanctification that posits perpetual mortification followed by vivification. As we dwell on our sin only, we are brought to despair (mortification) leading to the joy of our original rebirth (vivification). Calvinists Paul Washer and Michael Horton have both referred to this as continually “reliving our baptism.”
In MacArthur’s keynote address at this year’s Strange Fire conference, he also criticized Charismatics for their misrepresentation and overemphasis on the Holy Spirit leading to the dishonoring of the other two Trinity members. But likewise, Calvinists do the same thing with their Christocentric approach to the Scriptures. In the forward to Rick Holland’s book, Uneclipsing The Son (an in-your-face Gnostic treatise), MacArthur stated that ANY emphasis on ANYONE or ANYTHING other than Christ hinders the sanctification of God’s people.
All in all, Charismatics are barely any different than Calvinists. They both partake in epistemology that sees the horizontal as purely subjective and the vertical as purely objective. The goal is to experience the spirit realm horizontally through mysticism. For the Calvinist it is gospel contemplationism. For the Charismatic it is speaking in tongues.
What’s the difference?
paul
The Utterly Confused John MacArthur Jr.
While proudly calling himself a Calvinist, John MacArthur teaches in the following video clip that the believer’s baptism in the Spirit only occurs once. Yet, John Calvin and the Reformers in general believed that the believer’s baptism needed to occur daily through the death of deep repentance and the resurrection of new obedience. In other words, self-depravation brings about perpetual death with Christ, followed by the fruits of resurrection expressed in joy or some kind of manifestation of Christ’s obedience. That’s “revisiting the gospel afresh” through deep repentance and new obedience. As a result, the believer supposedly receives a perpetual forgiveness for sins that maintains our justification. It’s heresy of the first order.
Astonishingly, MacArthur also states that the baptism of the Spirit should not be sought or repeated. This completely contradicts what his associates teach in regard to “preaching the gospel to ourselves every day.” The very purpose of this mantra is to advocate a continual return to the gospel in order to “experience” death and rebirth. MacArthur cohort and Reformed hack Dr. Michael Horton stated it this way in his book on systematic theology:
Progressive sanctification has two parts: mortification and vivification, “both of which happen to us by participation in Christ,” as Calvin notes….Subjectively experiencing this definitive reality signified and sealed to us in our baptism requires a daily dying and rising. That is what the Reformers meant by sanctification as a living out of our baptism….and this conversion yields lifelong mortification and vivification “again and again.” Yet it is critical to remind ourselves that in this daily human act of turning, we are always turning not only from sin but toward Christ rather than toward our own experience or piety (pp. 661-663 [Calvin Inst. 3.3.2-9]).
Luther advocated the same in Thesis 16 and 17 of his Heidelberg Confession. There, he posits the Reformed mainstay that Christians need the same grace that saved them continually, and this saving grace should be continually sought. So, baptism does not signify a onetime event, but signifies the need to continually repent in order to receive the perpetual baptism that saved us.
American Clergy Brilliance: “The Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Evangelical Celebration”
“Look, think about this: even an adolescent Sunday school student can see it; if the righteousness of God is revealed apart from the law (Romans 3:21), why would Christ need to keep it for our justification? For crying out loud, what does ‘apart’ mean?”
My theses for this year’s TANC conference highlights the fact that the Reformers taught from a totally different reality than a normative reality that draws logical conclusions from the arrangement of verbs, nouns, prepositions, adjectives, conjunctions, etc. taken at face value. The Reformers created their own metaphysical premise for interpreting reality. The authentic Reformed gospel is predicated on a contra reality.
This is one of four reasons that the authentic Reformed gospel experiences a social death periodically throughout church history, and then periodic resurgence movements like the one we are presently in via New Calvinism. There have been five of these resurgence movements sense Calvin’s theocracy in Geneva. They will be documented in volume two of The Truth About New Calvinism. As Christians read their Bibles, they are naturally drawn away from the authentic Reformed gospel because the human tendency is to interpret reality from the normative perspective. They become uncomfortable with the contradictions.
However, as each resurgence dies a social death, Protestant traditions of men continue to be a significant part of what emerges from the ashes. A Reformed hybrid emerges that apes the anemic sanctification spawned by Reformed thought. This lays the ground work for the resurgences that follow. Protestantism, historically, oscillates between the weak sanctification of the hybrid and the despotic resurgence movements that temporarily replace the hybrid. Basically, the vicious cycle must be stopped if revival is going to be possible. God sanctifies with truth, not the traditions of men.
Part and parcel is a dumbed-down Christianity saturated with the traditions of Reformed men—primarily dead ones. Men of old that are deemed geniuses are often mindless Kool-Aid drinking followers of John Calvin and his ugly stepchildren, the murdering despotic Puritans. Part of the Protestant tradition that carries on is the big “O,” ORTHODOXY. A synonym for “truth” in American churchianity, it is really the repackaging of truth interpreted by the Protestant elite for consumption by the unenlightened masses. The American church follows the tradition of Protestantism when the arrogant, elitist who’s who of evangelicalism come together and publish declarations, i.e., the confessions and creeds of traditional Reformed thought.
A recent example of this is the third edition of The Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Evangelical Celebration (1994, 1997, 1999) signed and/or endorsed by, for example, the following:
John Ankerberg, Kay Arthur, Tony Evans, Jerry Falwell, Bill Hybels, David Jeremiah, D. James Kennedy, Max Lucado, Woodrow Kroll, Tim & Beverly LaHaye, Erwin Lutzer, Bill McCartney, Luis Palau, Pat Robertson, Ronald Sider, Charles Stanley, John Stott, Joseph Stowell, Chuck Swindoll, Bruce Wilkinson, Ravi Zacharias, Jack Hayford, Steven Strang, John MacArthur Jr., RC Sproul, Charles Colson, Bill Bright, and JI Packer.
Only problem is, the document denies the new birth and describes Christians as being under the law as opposed to being under grace. In other words, the authentic gospel of the Reformation. First, the document speaks from the perspective of the authentic Reformed gospel that only recognizes the possibility of a linear gospel, ie., the “golden chain of salvation.” Because sanctification is the links of a chain that stretches from justification to glorification, the links must stay intact by the same gospel that saved us. Hence, grace cannot be inside of the believer because that makes him/her a participant in the completion of justification. Justification is only a finished work if we live among the sanctification links in the same way we were saved—by faith alone.
The Reformers only recognized this reality, and judged all other gospels from the same reality. Grace is either infused within the believer, making him/her a participant in finishing justification, or grace remains completely outside of the believer. The alternative that sanctification is completely separate, a parallel gospel, is not considered to be a possible reality. Accordingly, note the following statement in said GEC document:
We deny that we are justified by the righteousness of Christ infused into us or by any righteousness that is thought to inhere within us.
The Reformers believed that ALL grace and righteousness must remain OUTSIDE of the believer or it by default made him/her a participant in the completion of justification. They got around the mass of prepositions throughout Scripture that clearly state that grace is within us by utilizing the emphasis hermeneutic (the redemptive historical hermeneutic). This hermeneutic is a Gnostic concept derived from Plato’s theory of forms. I will delve into this in detail during my second session at this year’s TANC conference. Granted, many of the signers probably didn’t, and still don’t understand what the Reformers believed, and I believe other signers such as RC Sproul deliberately play on that confusion.
Secondly, the doctrine propagates the Reformed mainstay of Christ’s perfect obedience to the law being imputed to our sanctification so that “sanctification is not the ‘ground’ of our justification.” See the chain thing going on there? Our enablement in sanctification necessarily makes sanctification the GROUND of our justification because sanctification finishes justification. It’s a “chain.” Here is what the document states:
God’s justification of those who trust in him, according to the Gospel, is a decisive transition, here and now, from a state of condemnation and wrath because of their sins to one of acceptance and favor by virtue of Jesus’ flawless obedience culminating in his voluntary sin-bearing death.
And….
We affirm that Christ’s saving work included both his life and his death on our behalf (Gal. 3:13). We declare that faith in the perfect obedience of Christ by which he fulfilled all the demands of the Law of God on our behalf is essential to the Gospel. We deny that our salvation was achieved merely or exclusively by the death of Christ without reference to his life of perfect righteousness.
Look, think about this; even an adolescent Sunday school student can see it: if the righteousness of God is revealed apart from the law (Romans 3:21), why would Christ need to keep it for our justification? For crying out loud, what does ‘apart’ mean? Worse yet is the idea that this perfect obedience is imputed to our sanctification if we live our Christian lives by faith alone because sanctification is a progressive process that finishes justification. James refuted this idea in no certain terms, which is why the Reformers questioned its rightful place in the New Testament canon.
Moreover, this idea keeps Christians “under the law,” which is the biblical designation for the unregenerate. I don’t know much about the theologian William R. Newell, but with that disclaimer, I will say that I agree with his opinion in regard to this issue:
The fatal result of this terrible error is to leave The Law as claimant over those in Christ: for, “Law has dominion over a man as long as he liveth” (7.1). Unless you are able to believe in your very heart that you died with Christ, that your old man was crucified with Him, and that you were buried, and that your history before God in Adam the first came to an utter end at Calvary, you will never get free from the claims of Law upon your conscience (William R. Newell: Verse by Verse Commentary on Romans).
Hence, the law remains a claimant over the believer at any point where he/she stops living their life by faith alone in the same gospel that saved them rather than belief in the new birth followed by the death of the old us that died with Christ and is no longer under the law. We must now fear that our obedience in sanctification is making the law the “ground” of our justification. Likewise, Calvin stated the following:
Another principal part of our reconciliation with God was that man, who had lost himself by his disobedience, should by way of remedy oppose to it obedience, satisfy the justice of God, and pay the penalty of sin.
Editor’s note: For our redemption, Christ kept the Law for us and died upon the Cross. By this, Christ obtained forgiveness of sins for us (Calvin on the Mediator: Chapel Library press, 2009).
This is also known as “vicarious law-keeping.” A definition of vicarious is:
Adjective
Experienced in the imagination through the feelings or actions of another person: “vicarious pleasure.” Acting or done for another: “a vicarious atonement”.
Christians need to stop following men in general, and Reformed men in particular. God only sanctifies with truth, and Reformed doctrine does not save or sanctify accordingly. It calls for a salvation by law-keeping and who keeps it is not the issue. The law as a standard for justification is the issue. It also denies the different relationship of the law to believers as opposed to unbelievers: the law provokes the former to righteousness, and provokes the latter to sin. It skews the very biblical definition of the regenerate.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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