The Potter’s House: Our Justification Crisis, Perseverance, and Assurance: Part 1
Tonight we will be looking at the present justification crisis, perseverance, and assurance. The relationship between these three is causing much confusion in our day. This is another topical subject related to our Romans study as we have been fluctuating between specific verses in Romans and topics related to Romans. We will look at the crisis tonight, introduce perseverance, and address the remainder of perseverance and assurance next week. Then the following week is our annual conference.
First, the crisis.
Those who love God simply want to know the truth; they want wisdom; they want to know the way; they want to be at peace with God; they want to please God, and they want to be able to share God with others according to the truth. They want hope; they want to know for certain that they will live with God for eternity. I recently watched a disturbing video that was a Q and A excerpt from the 2010 “Shepherds” Conference hosted by Dr. John MacArthur’s church. In light of the supposed Calvinistic view of election, an attendee asked what should be said to people when we evangelize. MacArthur’s answer was somewhat snarky; in essence, “Tell them what the Bible says, duh!” MacArthur then went on to explain that the Bible was full of paradoxes and tensions that couldn’t be understood. Therefore, just obey Scripture and leave all of the logic to God. In essence, understanding is none of our business. Dr. Michael Horton seems to parrot the same idea by stating that the law “gives us something to do.” It would seem that the totally depraved Christian masses need something to keep them focused while God does whatever He is going to do despite ourselves.
Let me just pause here a moment and clarify “supposed” in regard to Calvinists believing in election. Election should give Christians complete confidence that they are going to heaven which is the headquarters for His Tabernacle Project. Chew on that awhile; heaven is not our eternal dwelling place, that’s a Protestant fairytale, to name just one among many others. More would be done for God in the here and now if we understood that it is preparation for much bigger tasks that we will be doing for God in the future. The apostle Paul said that whether here in our present bodies, or present with the lord, we make it our “goal” to please Him. What! In heaven we will have a “goal” to please God? Woe! Perhaps we are not getting the whole story about our future with God. Perhaps our future with God is a lot more definitive than we have been taught. And does this affect our present service for God. Absolutely. Lack of information never facilitates action. Never.
Granted, election is a mystery. But what is important is that election and justification go hand in hand. Romans 8:29,30 makes that clear. Our justification was sealed before the foundation of the world. Our justification was before time, as in, space of time. That’s why in those verses we were also considered glorified. Now look, there are a lot of theories on election, and I don’t care which one who hold to just so you agree with me that our salvation was settled before time, and if we were justified before we were born, we can’t do anything to mess that up.
Unless you’re a Calvinist. If you’re a Calvinist, you can mess that up by unwittingly doing something in sanctification that is a “work” and thereby making sanctification the “ground of your justification.” Reformed elders are the experts in regard to what is a work in sanctification and what isn’t a work in sanctification. Be sure of this: the crux of Calvinism is the following: “We can’t know anything for certain so your best shot at heaven is listening to God’s anointed who save us from ignorance as much as that can be done. Though they don’t claim to know anything for certain either, they have been given the keys to the kingdom and have the authority to declare us unbelieving. They can’t give us assurance of our salvation, because living by faith alone in sanctification is very tricky business, but they can declare the contrary. Be a good Calvinist, keep your mouth shut, obey the elders, and hope for the best. That’s Calvinism, and I will debate anyone who tries to say otherwise. Words mean things, and I have the black and white of their words in abundance.
Unfortunately, Calvinism must be harped on in our day because this ideology has been ruling the American church since 1995. Its contemporary form was launched in 1970 and grew at a very fast pace, but circa 1995 marked a beginning of dominance culminating in the fact that this movement crosses all denominational lines and is the only option available in many US cities. And its view of justification has profound implications for the Christian—utterly profound. If revival is possible in America, Calvinism must be used as an example to highlight the way to real sanctified life; it must be stripped of its deceptive costume because the case has been well presented—evil and brilliance are not mutually exclusive. The leaven that blinds must be rooted out as learning progresses.
I find my discussions with Susan regarding her material for this year’s conference disturbing. On the one hand, Calvinists, including John MacArthur, proudly claim St. Augustine as the father of Reformation doctrine. On the other hand, Augustine flaunted his Platonism in broad daylight and stated in no uncertain terms that the Bible has no credibility without Plato. Pardon me if I am extremely uncomfortable with a justification formed by a committee of which Plato was a contributor. Moreover, the results speak for themselves.
Although the New Calvinists have dominated the American church for eighteen years now, things are not better, they are worse. John Piper, while announcing his future post-retirement plans from Geneva, stated that wherever the Reformation doctrine has sprung forth, that same geography is saturated with the blessed light of God. Well then, where’s the beef? Socially, there were over 333,000 abortions in America last year. Divorce in the church has surpassed secular statistics and is approaching an astounding 60%. Spiritual abuse blogs, mostly focused on New Calvinist leaders, have exploded in number over the past two years. In the past ten years, at least two organizations have been formed to keep New Calvinist churches out of civil and criminal court. This is all unprecedented. Where’s the beef? And where are the NEW converts associated with real revival? Polls have clearly indicated that new sheep are not coming in; they are merely being relocated and rearranged at the cost of split churches.
Yet, New Calvinists constantly talk as if they have arrived on the scene recently and their “revival” is just now getting into second gear. This is nonsense! They have been in solid control of the American church for at least eighteen years. And please, please, do not miss this: they continue to blame the mess they have created on “evangelical subjectivism.” This is the religious equivalent to the political, “Blame it on Bush.” Don’t miss this either: the problems with evangelicalism to begin with are due to the fact that the Reformers gave birth to them resulting in an overemphasis on salvation to the detriment of sanctification.
I say all of that to say this: when the Australian Forum launched Neo-Calvinism in 1970, they highlighted the idea that the church was in a “justification crisis.” That isn’t true, the church was actually in a sanctification crisis, not a justification crisis. But the reason for its crisis was the root that it came from: the belief that justification and sanctification are the same thing. Hence, getting people saved continued to be the obsession along with a woeful devaluing of discipleship. Basically, New Calvinism offered the full dose of the cancer as a cure.
But this is a very good thing. It is especially good because the theological dream team of the Australian Forum systematized this doctrine in a way that gives it staying power. These guys were right in a wrong way (they absolutely did rediscovery the authentic Reformation gospel), but nevertheless, they had brilliant theological minds coupled with personalities capable of strong persuasion. What this will do, finally, is force the church into revisiting the subject of justification in an in-depth way. It will force the American church to come to grips with their long held mentality regarding justification. And here is the crisis of confusion in our present day: what is the relationship between the two?
Here at the Potter’s House we have looked at that deeply. For instance, how could Christ have come stating that he didn’t come to abolish the law while the apostle Paul stated the exact opposite? We conclude that Christ was speaking of sanctification and Paul was referring to justification. Here is a statement for you: “The law is for those under it and those being sanctified, but not the justified.” Or how about this statement: “The law has a relationship to unregeneration and progressive sanctification, but has no relationship to definitive sanctification and justification.” The first one may incite the following conversation:
But I thought anyone who is justified is sanctified. “That’s absolutely true.” So how can you say the law has no relationship to your justification? “Because I didn’t need the law for my justification, but I need it for my sanctification. In fact, I couldn’t be justified with the law.” Then why do you need it for your sanctification? “Because being justified without the law resulted in being enslaved to the law.” So then, what was your relationship to the law before justification? “It was my enemy.” How so? “Because the desires of the flesh are contrary to the law, and the law provoked sinful desires within me. That doesn’t mean the law is bad, the law is holy, and unfortunately while provoking sinful desires within me, a judgment awaited me by that same law in the future. But now the law is my friend, and instead of provoking me to sin, it provokes me to righteousness. I am not sanctified apart from the law (John 17:17), but I am justified apart from the law (Romans 3:21).” But that verse states that the righteousness of God was MANEFESTED apart from the law. That righteousness is Jesus, not you in regard to justification. “Well, if that righteousness manifested was Jesus, that would teach that His righteousness was manifested apart from the law as well, so what’s your point? My point is that justification is apart from the law. If you look at verse 19 prior, and verse 22 after, the point is a righteousness manifested by faith in Christ alone. That’s my point.”
This brings us to Perseverance. Granted, there are verses in the Bible that seem to say that our salvation is contingent on persevering till the end. I have done a lot of reading on this from the Reformed perspective, and clearly, the belief is that the promise of salvation is “conditional.” Sanctification is a race from which we can be disqualified, but if we aren’t, the prize spoken of in Scripture is salvation. Salvation is the prize for finishing the race. The Reformed refer to this as “already-but-not-yet.” This would eliminate any rewards for obedience and service in sanctification. The reward is salvation itself. So, election (already) qualifies us for the race, but we have to finish in a way that doesn’t disqualify us (not yet). The obvious problem here is, if the focus is staying saved by faith alone, or persevering in our salvation, this keeps us focused on staying saved and not serving! No wonder sanctification is so weak in Protestantism, if salvation is not a done deal, that’s where our focus is going to be if we are smart. In fact, we are warned not to “obey in our own efforts” or “live by do’s and don’ts.” This is all very confusing to say the least.
I want to address one particular passage they cite regarding this:
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.
Here is what I want to point out: in this passage, “saved” doesn’t mean “salvation.” This is where I keep saying that eschatology is not “secondary.” Eschatology is gospel. Remembering what we have learned in the past makes it obvious that Christ is giving directions for staying alive during the tribulation period. Verse 23 is the point; if you flee from town to town, you options are not going to run out before my return. The obvious implication is that they will remain alive. This is so very important. If you do not understand eschatology, this passage means our salvation is not a finished work; it means we have to persevere to finish our salvation. This passage also adds much weight to the argument for the millennial kingdom following the tribulation period which begins with the judgment of the nations.
Let’s look at what this all boils down to in the following visual illustrations:
As we have discussed before, sanctification is missing from Romans 8:29,30, but what follows is Paul’s point to what he stated in verses 29 and 30:
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This cannot be deviated from. Paul is stating here that trials cannot separate us from the love of God. Something else is being communicated in passages that seem to say that we are required to persevere in life for some kind of “final justification.” Lord willing, we will take a much closer look at this next week
Let’s Pretend: Cedarville University Cares About the Gospel
“Did you know Christians still need to be saved? Well, bless your heart, it may be too late for you, but quickly enroll your children at Cedarville where they can be saved by Dr. White’s gospel.”
Nobody wants to discuss the gospel that has been running the show in the American church for several years. Launched by a Reformed think tank in 1970, it seized control of evangelicalism in the mid-1990s. Propagators continually put forth the idea that they are the new sheriffs in town and they need time to straighten things out, but the fact is that their gospel has been running the show for almost twenty years now. Are we better off? Hardly.
We aren’t talking about mere semantics here. We are talking about the heart of the gospel. We are talking about the law’s relationship to grace. We are talking about the very definition of justification. New Calvinism keeps the believer under law, but supposedly that’s ok because Jesus keeps it for us. No, under law is under law no matter who keeps it. God will not honor a false gospel. The New Calvinists aren’t fixing anything—they are creating the mess with their backdoor antinomianism.
The new President of Cedarville College is just what the trustees were looking for: handsome; educated; an adventurist; sports enthusiast; the appearance of pure orthodoxy; the Mayberry RFD family—all the things that bring in admissions from suburbia Christianity. Hope has returned to Cedarville; the alumni can once again look at themselves in the mirror. Yes, he’s good, even being a student of New Calvinism for six years now, it took me forty minutes to positively identify him as a New Calvinist heretic. I consider him one of the best at masking his false gospel.
Dr. Thomas White and his wife were both educated at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, a bastion of Christian mysticism and New Calvinism. But a statement on his blog says it all:
When the Gospel drives everything we do, we see all of us need grace every day. We all have deceitfully wicked hearts and preaching a moralistic set of rules will never save but will only add a burden that mankind cannot bear. We should teach about theological realities such as adoption, redemption, forgiveness, and grace. We should become protectors of widows and orphans and fathers to the fatherless.
We need to proclaim loudly the biblical message that children are a blessing from the Lord, that life begins at the moment of conception, that we must fear God more than any opinion of man, and that the Gospel brings grace if one repents and believes. No matter any judge’s verdict, we must defend life now, not wait until the morning after.
For the most part this reads well, but the devil is in the details. The greatest errors are always closest to the truth. Does the gospel drive EVERYTHING we do? Does the same gospel that saved us continue to completely drive our Christian life? You know, the “gospel-driven life.” The “gospel-centered life.” Do Christians continue to need grace every day? What does he mean by “grace”? The common grace we expect from God every day, or the same grace that saved us? Do Christians need daily salvific grace? Is that what he means? Sure it is, for he goes on to write,
We all have deceitfully wicked hearts….
Is that true? Do born-again Christians have “wicked hearts”? Yes, according to New Calvinists. That’s why we need the gospel every day.
Like with all New Calvinists, we receive the same ambiguous rhetoric from White that masks his false gospel:
….preaching a moralistic set of rules will never save but will only add a burden that mankind cannot bear.
“Mankind” is thrown in to knock you off the scent. This kind of New Calvinist deception is protocol. The “preaching” refers back to “we” and “us” in the previous sentence including “all.” That would be us, as in CHRISTIANS, the fact that New Calvinists see us as no different than the unregenerate (and therefore still under the law) notwithstanding.
Furthermore, try not to close your eyes because a shocking scene is coming:
1. Rules in the Bible are called “moralistic.”
2. And, preaching rules will never “save” Christians.
Did you know Christians still need to be saved? Well, bless your heart, it may be too late for you, but quickly enroll your children at Cedarville where they can be saved by Dr. White’s gospel.
Somehow, they will become moral and serving as well. Dr. White will teach them two different things that supposedly yield godly results:
A. They are still totally depraved.
B. They should value life and help the poor.
Really? Dr. White also states that we should….”teach about theological realities such as adoption, redemption, forgiveness, and grace.” “Obedience” and “sanctification” and “discipleship” are conspicuously missing. And there is a reason for that.
Like all New Calvinists, Dr. White will propagate a gospel contemplationism that supposedly results in the imputation of Christ’s obedience to the believer in sanctification. That’s because we are still under the law and Christ’s obedience must be imputed to our sanctification so that we can live our Christian life in the same way we were saved: by faith alone. Synergistic sanctification is believed to be works salvation. It’s antinomian let go and let God theology.
Again, these guys have been running the show for twenty years and the results speak for themselves. One result is the GARB response to the ABWE scandal. It’s sad but true: Christians continue to pay good money in the name of a gospel that will not sanctify, or save.
paul
What Christ Would Say About, “Preaching the Gospel to Ourselves”
The more I learn about Jesus Christ the more I stand in awe of Him. He was/is for the little guy. He wants to be glorified in little people doing great things in His name. Hence, if one pays close attention, he taught His truth in a way that it could be understood by the least gifted. I am not saying that the Word is not deep at times, but I am saying that depth does not stand in the way of the knowledge we need for individual “life and godliness.”
Plato was different. He wasn’t like Jesus. Knowledge was the only way to understanding reality, so vast giftedness in regard to intellect was critical for the wellbeing of society. That gift was only found in a few who should rule the masses for the betterment of “the group” or “the whole.” Knowledge is it.
And that’s the American church. Obviously, in our mindset, a Ph.D. equals intellectual giftedness that must rule over others for the sake of “the group.” We have lots of them telling us that we need to “preach the gospel to ourselves every day.” John Piper and Al Mohler et al continually warn us not to think we can be saved by the gospel and then, “move on to something else.” The brilliant Dr. Horton tells us that we must continually visit the gospel “afresh” in order to live the Christian life. Supposedly, the spiritual peasantry should listen to them because they are the gifted ones appointed by God to, as Al Mohler put it, “save God’s people from ignorance.” Ahmen.
But what did Jesus say thou spiritual ditch digger? Well, He told us a story about a woman He met at a well:
John 4:7 – A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
Obviously, Christ was talking about the gospel, salvation, or whatever idiom you want to use. The one drink results in a continuous spring of living water with no need to drink of it again. Then why would we need to continually drink of the gospel “afresh” for our Christian life? Christ is clearly saying that one drink is enough and that particular thirst/need will never reoccur. “But Paul, He wasn’t speaking of the gospel per se.” Then what was He speaking of?
Bottom line: Jesus’ illustration completely refutes the idea that sanctification, or the Christian life, has a realized or unrealized thirst that needs to be satisfied by the gospel. We drink of the gospel once for salvation and have no need to drink again.
paul
Calvinists Say the Darndest Things
“Calvin didn’t write that….I have read Calvin.”
Paul,
It seems you have finally stated our position accurately. I would go to the stake to defend the doctrine of “perpetual” justification. Perpetual means ” Neverceasing; continuing forever or for an unlimited time; unfailing; everlasting; continuous.” Once God has declared believers to be righteous in his sight, we cannot and need not do anything to perpetuate that standing. “Through whom [Christ] we have an access into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” This bears no resemblance to “progressive justification.”
Paul: It’s perpetual only as long as one lives by faith alone in sanctification.
C: Your statement makes no sense whatsoever.
Paul: Why is that? What’s so hard about the concept of keeping yourself saved by not obeying the law in “your own efforts” in sanctification because a perfect obedience is needed to maintain justification. What is so hard for you to understand about that concept?
C: There is nothing difficult about it except that no one believes it. You are clearly confusing concepts and statements and putting them together in a statement that is sheer nonsense.
Paul: Calvin clearly taught that any Christian who believed that they can please God by keeping the law in sanctification are condemning themselves (CI 3.14.10). Calvin Also taught that sin in the Christian life “separates” us from the “grace” of God.” Got that? Sin in the Christian life SEPARATES us from God’s GRACE. And moreover, that forgiveness for the grace-separating sin has to be continually sought in the church “daily” in order to “keep us in the family of God” (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol. 45: Catholic Epistles). Give it up dawg, the gigs up. Calvin was a stark raving heretic.
C: Calvin didn’t write that. He did not teach that sin in the believer’s life separates us from the grace of God. Give me the quote. Even if he had taught that, it doesn’t mean Calvinists have followed him in that belief. Calvin believed many things that Calvinists don’t believe. If you want to discuss real quotations, I would be happy to do that. Don’t just try to tell me what Calvin wrote. I have read Calvin.
Paul:
John Calvin: Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles. The Calvin Translation Society 1855. Editor: John Owen, p. 165 ¶4
“Secondly, this passage shows that the gratuitous pardon of sins is given us not only once, but that it is a benefit perpetually residing in the Church, and daily offered to the faithful. For the Apostle here addresses the faithful; as doubtless no man has ever been, nor ever will be, who can otherwise please God, since all are guilty before him; for however strong a desire there may be in us of acting rightly, we always go haltingly to God. Yet what is half done obtains no approval with God. In the meantime, by new sins we continually separate ourselves, as far as we can, from the grace of God. Thus it is, that all the saints have need of the daily forgiveness of sins; for this alone keeps us in the family of God”
C: …. you need to remember that Calvinism did not come from Calvin. His body had long been decayed in the cold ground when the system we know as “Calvinism” was born. The Scriptures, not the Institutes, are our authority. I would not spend a second of my time defending Calvin or his writings. However, he was used of God to revive important truths that had lain buried for centuries. He was not inspired, but he was hardly a heretic.
Calvinism didn’t come from Calvin? Really? And sorry, this, “Calvin didn’t write that….I have read Calvin.” is more than one second.
paul
The Real Meaning Behind “We Must Preach the Gospel to Ourselves Everyday”
In his commentary on the Catholic Epistles, volume 45, Calvin states the following:
“Secondly, this passage shows that the gratuitous pardon of sins is given us not only once, but that it is a benefit perpetually residing in the Church, and daily offered to the faithful. For the Apostle here addresses the faithful; as doubtless no man has ever been, nor ever will be, who can otherwise please God, since all are guilty before him; for however strong a desire there may be in us of acting rightly, we always go haltingly to God. Yet what is half done obtains no approval with God. In the meantime, by new sins we continually separate ourselves, as far as we can, from the grace of God. Thus it is, that all the saints have need of the daily forgiveness of sins; for this alone keeps us in the family of God” (John Calvin: Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles. The Calvin Translation Society 1855. Editor: John Owen, p. 165 ¶4).
Calvin is clearly stating here that sin in sanctification separates us from grace:
by new sins we continually separate ourselves, as far as we can, from the grace of God.
Hence, there is no distinction between sonship and justification. Sin can only separate us from grace, and not intimacy with the Father. Sonship, which should be under the auspices of sanctification, is fused with justification. Then the shocker:
Thus it is, that all the saints have need of the daily forgiveness of sins; for this alone keeps us in the family of God.
Notice also that this “gratuitous pardon” is “offered” daily. So in the same way we are initially offered salvation for forgiveness of sins, we have to continually accept this daily offer of forgiveness. And moreover, that “keeps us” in the family of God. “We must preach the gospel to ourselves every day.” Sound familiar?
Now we know why.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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