Paul's Passing Thoughts

Originally published March 13, 2013

“But our ongoing Potter’s House studies in the book of Romans reveals something else even more incredulous: the song is a self-described depiction, according to the apostle Paul, of the unregenerate response to the law.”

One of the more popular songs in our New Calvinist nation is “More Like Falling in Love” by antinomian heartthrob Jason Gray. Like all anti-law proponents of our day, he has been allowed to own the dialogue which usually results in winning the argument. In his own bio about the song, he states the following:

Is it weird to anyone else that we’ve made salvation a matter of who has the best information?

Notice how Gray trades the word “truth” for “information.” Switch the words in his sentence, reread, and he is exposed for the wretch that he is. When heretics are allowed to own the dialogue, they can write their own metaphysics. Here are the lyrics to the song:

“More Like Falling In Love”

Give me rules

I will break them

Show me lines

I will cross them

I need more than

A truth to believe

I need a truth that lives

Moves and breathes

To sweep me off my feet, it’s gotta be

More like falling in love

Than something to believe in

More like losing my heart

Than giving my allegiance

Caught up, called out

Come take a look at me now

It’s like I’m falling, oh

It’s like I’m falling in love

Give me words

I’ll misuse them

Obligations

I’ll misplace them

‘Cause all religion

Ever made of me

Was just a sinner

With a stone tied to my feet

It never set me free, it’s gotta be

More like falling in love

Than something to believe in

More like losing my heart

Than giving my allegiance

Caught up, called out

Come take a look at me now

It’s like I’m falling, oh

It’s like I’m falling in

Love, love, love

Deeper and deeper, it was

Love that made me a believer

In more than a name

A faith, a creed

Falling in love with Jesus brought

The change in me

More like falling in love

Than something to believe in

More like losing my heart

Than giving my allegiance

Caught up, called out

Come take a look at me now

It’s like I’m falling, oh

It’s like I’m falling

More like falling in love

Than something to believe in

More like losing my heart

Than giving my allegiance

Caught up, called out

Come take a look at me now

It’s like I’m falling, oh

It’s like I’m falling in love

It’s like I’m falling

(Falling in love)

It’s like I’m falling

Much could be contested here once you get past the initial shock of the song’s brazen anti-truth stance, especially the idea that love-feelings verify authentic truth. But our ongoing Potter’s House studies in the book of Romans reveals something else even more incredulous: the song is a self-described depiction, according to the apostle Paul, of the unregenerate response to the law. In the song, Gray posits the idea that the law merely provokes sin. For the lost person that’s true:

Romans 4:15 – For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

Romans 7:7 – What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

Notice Paul is speaking in the past tense. Before he was saved, the sin that he was enslaved to utilized the law to provoke sinful reactions. And like Jason Gray states in his song,

Give me rules

I will break them

Show me lines

I will cross them….

Give me words

I’ll misuse them [right, like switching “truth” with “information”]

Obligations

I’ll misplace them

Throughout Romans, Paul describes this state as being “under the law” as opposed to being “under grace”:

Romans 6:14 – For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

You are either “under law” or “under grace.” When you are under law, sin has “dominion over you,” κυριευω (kyrieuo) has both the idea of lordship and control. Paul further explains in Romans 8:7-9:

7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

Again, exactly as Gray proudly boasts:

Give me rules

I will break them

Show me lines

I will cross them….

Give me words

I’ll misuse them

Obligations

I’ll misplace them

However, when one is “under grace,” their minds are enslaved to the law:

Romans 7:25 – Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

The word for “serve” is “δουλευω (douleuo),  a verb form of doulos which is a bond slave. Hence, as believers, our minds are enslaved to the law though we don’t keep it perfectly. Nevertheless, the law is now inclined to incite us to obedience rather than disobedience. Paul states it this way in Romans 8:3-4:

3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

Furthermore, when we don’t seek to love God by learning and doing, we become ignorant in regard to the law and the likes of Jason Gray can propagate this New Calvinist antinomianism unfettered. And again, the dialogue is not challenged as well. Paul stated,

Romans 6:17 – But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

But Jason Gray states:

More like falling in love

Than something to believe in

More like losing my heart

Than giving my allegiance

“Allegiance”? Paul called it a commitment to a “standard of teaching.” We are now slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification (ROM 6:18-19).

That’s New Calvinism: singing praises to Jesus as they draw nearer and nearer to a day of reckoning where they will give an account for their false gospel.

paul

“But our ongoing Potter’s House studies in the book of Romans reveals something else even more incredulous: the song is a self-described depiction, according to the apostle Paul, of the unregenerate response to the law.”

One of the more popular songs in our New Calvinist nation is “More Like Falling in Love” by antinomian heartthrob Jason Gray. Like all anti-law proponents of our day, he has been allowed to own the dialogue which usually results in winning the argument. In his own bio about the song, he states the following:

Is it weird to anyone else that we’ve made salvation a matter of who has the best information?

Notice how Gray trades the word “truth” for “information.” Switch the words in his sentence, reread, and he is exposed for the wretch that he is. When heretics are allowed to own the dialogue, they can write their own metaphysics. Here are the lyrics to the song:

“More Like Falling In Love”

Give me rules

I will break them

Show me lines

I will cross them

I need more than

A truth to believe

I need a truth that lives

Moves and breathes

To sweep me off my feet, it’s gotta be

More like falling in love

Than something to believe in

More like losing my heart

Than giving my allegiance

Caught up, called out

Come take a look at me now

It’s like I’m falling, oh

It’s like I’m falling in love

Give me words

I’ll misuse them

Obligations

I’ll misplace them

‘Cause all religion

Ever made of me

Was just a sinner

With a stone tied to my feet

It never set me free, it’s gotta be

More like falling in love

Than something to believe in

More like losing my heart

Than giving my allegiance

Caught up, called out

Come take a look at me now

It’s like I’m falling, oh

It’s like I’m falling in

Love, love, love

Deeper and deeper, it was

Love that made me a believer

In more than a name

A faith, a creed

Falling in love with Jesus brought

The change in me

More like falling in love

Than something to believe in

More like losing my heart

Than giving my allegiance

Caught up, called out

Come take a look at me now

It’s like I’m falling, oh

It’s like I’m falling

More like falling in love

Than something to believe in

More like losing my heart

Than giving my allegiance

Caught up, called out

Come take a look at me now

It’s like I’m falling, oh

It’s like I’m falling in love

It’s like I’m falling

(Falling in love)

It’s like I’m falling

Much could be contested here once you get past the initial shock of the song’s brazen anti-truth stance, especially the idea that love-feelings verify authentic truth. But our ongoing Potter’s House studies in the book of Romans reveals something else even more incredulous: the song is a self-described depiction, according to the apostle Paul, of the unregenerate response to the law. In the song, Gray posits the idea that the law merely provokes sin. For the lost person that’s true:

Romans 4:15 – For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

Romans 7:7 – What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

Notice Paul is speaking in the past tense. Before he was saved, the sin that he was enslaved to utilized the law to provoke sinful reactions. And like Jason Gray states in his song,

Give me rules

I will break them

Show me lines

I will cross them….

Give me words

I’ll misuse them [right, like switching “truth” with “information”]

Obligations

I’ll misplace them

Throughout Romans, Paul describes this state as being “under the law” as opposed to being “under grace”:

Romans 6:14 – For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

You are either “under law” or “under grace.” When you are under law, sin has “dominion over you,” κυριευω (kyrieuo) has both the idea of lordship and control. Paul further explains in Romans 8:7-9:

7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

Again, exactly as Gray proudly boasts:

Give me rules

I will break them

Show me lines

I will cross them….

Give me words

I’ll misuse them

Obligations

I’ll misplace them

However, when one is “under grace,” their minds are enslaved to the law:

Romans 7:25 – Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

The word for “serve” is “δουλευω (douleuo),  a verb form of doulos which is a bond slave. Hence, as believers, our minds are enslaved to the law though we don’t keep it perfectly. Nevertheless, the law is now inclined to incite us to obedience rather than disobedience. Paul states it this way in Romans 8:3-4:

3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

Furthermore, when we don’t seek to love God by learning and doing, we become ignorant in regard to the law and the likes of Jason Gray can propagate this New Calvinist antinomianism unfettered. And again, the dialogue is not challenged as well. Paul stated,

Romans 6:17 – But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

But Jason Gray states:

More like falling in love

Than something to believe in

More like losing my heart

Than giving my allegiance

“Allegiance”? Paul called it a commitment to a “standard of teaching.” We are now slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification (ROM 6:18-19).

That’s New Calvinism: singing praises to Jesus as they draw nearer and nearer to a day of reckoning where they will give an account for their false gospel.

paul