A Review of Dr. Jay Adams’ Message to the Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary Student Body
On February 24, Dr. Jay Adams was the presenter for the student chapel service at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. The message was about 25 minutes long and can be observed here: https://vimeo.com/120670699. The get to the point, make the point, and get out of town approach has become sort of a calling card for Adams in recent years, perhaps due to his age (86). On the other hand, he has written articles on the importance of only using the amount of words necessary to make a point.
The practice of reviewing books and sermons is something I gave up about a year ago because this ministry is past evaluating symptoms, and is focused on resolving the problem. For all practical purposes, it can be assumed that all Protestant sermons are going to be driven by progressive justification, Luther and Calvin’s false gospel. The Reformed deny this; apparently, in 3.14 of his Institutes, Calvin didn’t really mean to say that justification is progressive when he said it is progressive.
If we would only read every literary drone Calvin ever wrote we would understand that “progressive” really doesn’t mean “progressive” in the progressive sense. Justification and progressive sanctification are “never separate, but distinct.” Distinct? How? Well, sanctification is “justification in motion,” or as the brilliant Dr. Lou Priolo states it, “justification is always running in the background” like your Windows program is always running in the background. Thanks Lou. As one Reformed pastor told me, “Any idiot should know that the basis of something isn’t necessarily a progression.” And like Voddie Baucham told me personally, “That road out there is done, but we still use it.” In the exchange, something became very apparent to me: Voddie is a very large man, and not well acclimated to being challenged, so I left it there.
In other words, thou ignorant lay person, thou grasper of material shadows, something “running” isn’t really progressing when you see it in Luther’s “gospel context.” It takes a real metaphysical idiot to think a cat that is running is progressing. Just shut up and put your money in the plate, thou artisan.
So, why write a review on Dr. J’s message at Mid-America? Because he is one of the few pastors, if not the only one left in the institutional church, that is different. Apparently, Mid-America is friendly to Dr. J’s counseling construct and respects him enough to invite him to speak to those who are charged with indoctrinating. This means I must see Mid-America as different from all other seminaries: they are at least road kill that is still moving.
Furthermore, I believe Adams fathered the only real revival that the institutional church has ever seen since the Reformation. And excuse me, but a civil war isn’t a revival, and people executed for treason are not martyrs even if executed by a church state. A heretic executed by a heretic doesn’t make a martyr. What about the “Great Awakening”? That was spawned by the ideology of the American Revolution, not European political refugees. Sorry.
Even though Adams’ groundbreaking biblical counseling construct didn’t go far enough, it was predicated on the idea that Christians can actually do something along the lines of learn and do. Even flirting with the idea that Christians are empowered by obedience unleashed life and light in this Protestant Dark Age. In one of the most profound historical ironies of all time, the movement that returned the institutional church to authentic Protestantism began in the same year that Adams’ groundbreaking book Competent to Counsel was published. As both movements grew at breakneck speed, a contention between the two camps was inevitable.
The contention led to the unmerciful disparaging of Adams who has unfortunately given his entire life to the institutional church. All of his accomplishments are prefaced with the “but…second generation counseling’” from narcissistic, Platonist, psychopathic liars dressed up in Bible verses. And that’s not enough words, or the best words to describe them, but are the most tempered ones. Remember, his crime was to suggest that Christians can do something beyond gospel contemplationism.
I witnessed firsthand the results of the rise and fall of “first generation biblical counseling.” I saw the before and after at a NANC counseling center where I was an elder. The difference between first generation biblical counseling and second generation biblical counseling is the difference between a counselee handing the counselor a razor blade that was going to be used for suicide and a counselor drawing a map of the counselee’s life and then saying, “Here is where you are located in the gospel narrative” lest imperatives be used in counseling. I hope the Mid-America kiddies knew what they had sitting in front of them on Tuesday, but I doubt it. I am sure they would think that my description of second generation biblical counseling is the overuse of exaggerated words. That’s unfortunate. If people think there is something they can do about their situation, and even better yet, that God will help them, we call that “hope.”
And that brings me to the actual content of the message. Adams expounded on Ezra 7:6 and 10: “this Ezra went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses…For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.” The message was pretty straightforward; as elders, they are to be diligent to learn God’s word through independent study, live the word out in their own lives, and teach others the same. This is no different on any wise in comparison to what Jesus said in His introduction to the Sermon on the Mount.
The fact that an 86-year-old man of God is still actively preaching is in and of itself very powerful, and the need for complete follow-through with the word of God powerful as well, but in our day and age, the message, especially in that venue, lacked additional words.
HOW should one in our day study the word of God? Is every verse about justification? And if sanctification is not the “running” part of justification, how then should our Bibles be read and studied? Sure, seminary students should study the word of God for the right motive, viz, life application, but what do we mean by “life application”? According to the leading evangelicals in our day, we are to only expound on the word of God, and…don’t miss this, “the Holy Spirit applies it” which implies that we don’t actually do the word, it’s done for us. “It’s NOT about what you do, it’s about what Jesus has done.” Do we apply the word ourselves with the help of the Spirit, or are we sanctified by contemplative justification?
In addition, these are clarifications that determine how we will teach others to apply the first two.
My conclusion. Anytime Adams is allowed to come out and play in the institutional church, road kill is closer to not being completely dead, and there is a chance that they will learn to look both ways before they cross the road, but more words are needed.
paul
What Your Sanctification Says About Your Justification: Is Your Gospel True or False?
“The law is the standard for love, not justification. In all of the aforementioned systems of sanctified justification by works, faith doesn’t work because it can’t lest salvation be lost. In the Christian life faith works because it can for the sake of love without condemnation.”
“Knowing that justification is a settled issue that has nothing to do with the law anyway, the true Christian only sees law-keeping as an opportunity to love. Christians not only have the anthropologic law of conscience written on the heart, the new birth writes the Bible there as well. In other words, we love the law.”
“Obviously, those who must focus on faith alone works in order to remain justified cannot focus on aggressive obedience to the law that defines love.”
What do you believe about salvation? Your Christian life will tell you. Therefore, the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30 should not confuse us. The “wicked” servant was not cast into outer darkness because he didn’t put his talents to work, but rather what he thought it meant to be a servant. In other words, in order to be saved, you need to know what a Christian is. That should be fairly evident.
Do you live your Christian life by “faith alone”? That is a statement in regard to what you believe about salvation, or what happened to justify you; viz, justification.
This is not complicated. Don’t complain that I am making your touchy-feely “simple” gospel a theological treatise. I am sure you concur that some Bible words have to be understood in order to be saved. The Bible splits humanity into two categories: saved and unsaved; i.e., “under law” or “under grace” (Romans 6:14).
“Under law” is the biblical nomenclature for the unregenerate lost. Under law means that sin rules you. Not in a plenary sense, because man’s conscience and fear of punishment from civilian law restrains people. Yet, they are under the condemnation of God’s law and every violation is documented. Unless they are saved, they will be judged according to their works in the final judgment. Though some who followed their conscience more than others will receive a lesser condemnation, it is still eternal separation from God. They are under law, and enslaved to sin. The last judgment DOES NOT determine justification; it ONLY determines the degree of eternal condemnation. It doesn’t determine justification; it only determines the wages of sin.
Moreover, sin uses the condemnation of the law to provoke people to sin. Primarily, sin uses desires to tempt people, but sin’s incentive is the law because it condemns. Sin lives for the purpose of condemning people, and uses desire to get people to sin against God’s law. This leads to present and eternal death. Sin’s desire is to bring death. When the Bible speaks of “the desires of the flesh” it is referring to instances when the flesh is serving the desires of sin.
The flesh can also be used to serve the desires of the Spirit (Romans 12:1). The flesh has NO desires; it is used by the dweller for good or evil purposes. We will either use our bodies to serve the desires of sin or the desires of the Spirit. Of course, people have their own desires, but unfortunately, the unregenerate are guided by the desires of sin. They assume sinful desires are their own desire which is true. In contrast, sinful desires are not part and parcel with the regenerate soul.
Said another way: among the lost, the desires of sin are very much the same desires possessed by the individual who are indifferent to the law of God. A desire for God’s law is absent while their life is continually building a death and condemnation dividend. Some of that dividend is paid in this life until the full wages of death are paid at the final judgment.
Under grace is not void of law. The law (same as “Scripture” or same as “Bible”) has a different relationship to the saved, or those under grace. A literal baptism of the Holy Spirit takes place, as symbolized in water baptism, which puts to death the old person under law and resurrects the new person under grace. The saved person is now a new creature created by the Spirit of God. The person under grace is literally born of God—he/she is God’s literal offspring.
Therefore, the old person is no longer under the condemnation of the law in the same way a dead person cannot be brought under indictment for a crime. Consequently, the motivation for sin is gone. The power of sin is the law’s condemnation that leads to death (1Corintians 15:56, 57). In addition, the person under grace has been given a new heart that loves God’s law and its way of life. The book that could only bring death is now a book that brings life. Either way, it is the Spirit’s law; He uses it to condemn those that are under it, or uses it to sanctify those who are under grace (John 17:17).
THEREFORE, how you see the law determines what you believe about salvation. If you believe that you can somehow obey the law in a way that unwittingly seeks to be justified by law-keeping, you are still under law. If you believe justification is defined by perfect law-keeping, you are still under law. Those who believe this also believe they need a salvation system that filters all their works into a category of faith alone. The Christian life is categorized or departmentalized into works that attempt to be counted for justification and faith alone works that qualify as “living by faith alone.” Do not miss the point that this also includes abstaining from certain things that aren’t necessarily sin as defined by the Bible.
Yes, hypothetically, a person would need to keep the law perfectly to be justified by the law, but that doesn’t make perfect law-keeping the standard for righteousness. If that were the case, the law is a co-life-giver with the Holy Spirit, and a death would not be necessary. We are justified APART from the law—law has NO part in justification. The Bible defines justification, but it’s not a standard of justification (Rom 3:21, Gal 2:19, 4:21). Law-keeping by anyone does not justify.
If one is trusting in a system that fulfills the law for justification, particularly if it calls for not doing something in order that the law is fulfilled in our place, that is works salvation through some kind of intentionality whether passive or active. These kinds of systems are always indicative of being under law rather than under grace. One such system that has several variances calls for doing certain things or not doing certain things on the Sabbath which can be Saturday or Sunday depending on the stripe of system. If you follow the system on the Sabbath, all works done by you during the week are considered to be by faith alone.
In Reformed theology, particularly authentic Calvinism, contemplation on your sin leading to a return to the same gospel that saved you imputes the perfect law-keeping of Christ to your life. Notice that a fulfillment of the law is required to keep you saved, but we do faith alone works in order that Christ’s perfect law-keeping is imputed to our account. The problem here is that a fulfillment of the so-called “righteous demands of the law” is the standard for justification. Hence, clearly, this keeps so-called “Christians” UNDER LAW. In addition, a so-called faith alone work is still a work.
Not so with under grace. We are now free to follow our new desire to obey the law out of love without fear of condemnation. The law is the standard for love, not justification. In all of the aforementioned systems of sanctified justification by works, faith doesn’t work (or love) because it can’t lest salvation be lost. In the Christian life (sanctification) faith works because it can for the sake of love without condemnation (Galatians 5:6).
Knowing that justification is a settled issue that has nothing to do with the law anyway, the true Christian only sees law-keeping as an opportunity to love. Christians not only have the anthropologic law of conscience written on the heart, the new birth writes the Bible there as well. In other words, they love the law. Obviously, those who must focus on faith alone works in order to remain justified cannot focus on aggressive obedience to the law that defines love.
This is exactly what the books of James and 1John are about. Faith is not afraid to work because there is no condemnation. Faith without works is dead, “being alone” (James 2:17 KJV).
Are you in a religious system that propagates faith “alone” in the Christian life? Your faith is not only dead, it speaks to what you believe about justification. You believe justification has a progressive aspect and is not completely finished. Secondly, you believe the law has a stake in justification. Thirdly, your system categorizes works as faith alone works (an oxymoron of sorts) or works that are unfiltered in some way and therefore are efforts to “self-justify.”
If you believe the right gospel, you know that it is impossible to unwittingly partake in an endeavor to justify yourself. It’s a metaphysical impossibility—it’s not in the realm of reality. No false religion teaches that you earn your justification by perfect law-keeping—there is always a system that prescribes sanctified do’s and don’ts that in turn fulfill the law for you, otherwise known as “the traditions of men.”
It’s the fallacy of faith alone works for justification. But any work for justification is justification by works whether doing nothing (abstinence is still doing something), something passive (contemplationism or prayer is also a work) or anything active.
Law and justification are mutually exclusive, and true faith is “faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6). Faith works because there is no fear in love (1John 4:18). Don’t be like the servant who was afraid and hid his talents in the ground. Christ said it best:
“If you love me, keep my commandments.”
paul
What is the Race of Faith? Justification or Sanctification? Or Both? A Biblical Evaluation, Part 1: First Letter of John 1:7-10
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
1John 1:7-9 are the go-to verses for most Protestant denominations, particularly verse 9. The rendering promotes the idea that we must continue to confess known sin after salvation in order to keep our salvation. This isn’t considered to be works salvation because repentance is a faith-alone work that originally saved us. So, since we are going back to the same gospel that saved us, and that salvation is by faith alone, and repentance is by faith alone, doing this act in order to keep ourselves saved is by faith alone and not works.
Hence, the Christian life is a “race of faith” in which the prize, or reward is salvation. As long as we live our Christian life by “faith alone” we are not disqualified from the race. In verses like 1Corinthians 9:24, the prize for winning the race is taken to mean salvation.
The key to how this works is the confession of sin that is brought to our attention by conscience or the Holy Spirit. If we confess that, we are then cleansed of all unknown sin and sin beneath the sin. As long as we are returning to the same faith-alone gospel that originally saved us, it doesn’t count as works. As plainly stated by many Protestants, Christians still need ongoing salvation from sin. And verse 7 is the icing on the cake; if we “fellowship” with each other, viz, if we are a member of the church in good standing, this in and of itself also continues to cleanse us. John Calvin et al taught that ongoing repentance for re-cleansing (re-salvation) was only valid if one is a member of the institutional church. For several citations on this, read the booklet “It’s Not About Election.”
This is the prime example of traditions of men (orthodoxy) fulfilling the law of God on behalf of the “believer.” The so-called believer partakes in some kind of activity in order for a substitution of some sort to be perpetually imputed to the subject for the maintaining of salvation. Of course, the fundamental error is law being a standard for justification. Law either condemns or sanctifies, but it has no part in justification. Second to that, when justification is not a finished work, ambiguous classifications for what is a work and what isn’t a work is needed to keep justification moving forward by “faith alone.” See the problem? A faith-alone work is an oxymoron.
Even more icing is heaped on the cake when you approach these verses with the Redemptive Historical hermeneutic. This interprets every verse in the Bible as a salvation verse, or justification verse in a supposed context of progression.
So what’s really going on with these verses and others like them? It’s simple when you approach the same with the Grammatical Historical hermeneutic. Historically, John was addressing the rampant Gnosticism of the day that saturated the 1st century church and culture. There were and are many, many veins of Gnostic thought, but John was addressing the one that believed man was spirit and therefore pure; only the material realm is evil. Therefore, no person sins because they are spirit—it’s the material world that’s evil. Moreover, it doesn’t matter what one does in the body because it is of the sinful material realm.
While many recognize this historical fact, they proceed to see these verses as sanctification verses. While rightly dividing the difference between sin unto condemnation and sin against God’s family relationship, they errantly concede a continued need for “cleansing.” It goes something like this: because we also fail to recognize family sin that we commit, it is necessarily for that sin to be cleansed as well when we confess sin against family. While this is far closer to the truth than the former, and perhaps harmless, it is best to see 1John 7-10 as verses pertaining to justification as a onetime finished work.
An idea that man is sinless because he is spirit denies the need for the gospel altogether; it makes God a liar. In that context, 1John 7-10 makes perfect sense. But the question becomes that of Greek tenses, moods, and voices. Is this forgiveness an ongoing need, or did it just happen once? And if it only happened once, is the effect still ongoing? When this is considered grammatically, the arguments can fly in every direction. The English translation seems to imply an ongoing need for forgiveness.
First of all, the New Testament does not emphasize repentance in sanctification to the degree that repentance for justification is emphasized. The emphasis is a onetime turning away from who you presently are to save yourself from a perverse generation (Acts 2:40). Don’t get me wrong, repentance is a part of sanctification, but the emphasis is a positive one regarding what we are free to do, not what we have been set free from. The past bondage to sin is not emphasized in the Bible, the freedom we have to love is what is emphasized.
1Peter 4:8 – Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.
God is love (1Jn 4:16), love matters more than sacraments (Gal 5:6), casts out fear (1Jn 4:18), covers a multitude of sins (1Pet 4:8), is the only gift that will not pass away (1Cor 13:8), and is greater than faith and hope (1Cor 13:13). The idea that Christianity is a “lifestyle of repentance” is egregiously misguided; Christianity is a lifestyle of love. The past bondage is not emphasized in the Bible; the freedom we have to love is what is emphasized.
No wonder then that 1John 1:7-10 is interpreted through the prism of a continued focus on condemnation and sin. In contrast, it is pitting repentance from sin unto salvation against the idea that man is already sinless and has no need to be forgiven through belief in Jesus Christ. This idea is also calling God a liar in regard to man’s true status. Therefore, we see that 1John 7-10 regards justification as set against the historical teachings of Gnosticism that was infiltrating the Christian assemblies at that time. 1John is also peppered with a pushback against the same vein of Gnosticism that posited the idea that Christ didn’t really come in the flesh (I John 1:1).
1 John 1:7-10, though having a grammatical semblance of present continuous, is speaking of the onetime finished work of justification that all people need as opposed to the Gnostic idea that the invisible is good, and the material is evil, and that all sin belongs to the material realm and not relevant to the spiritual. We have looked at the historical, now let’s examine the grammatical.
Verse 7… “the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” The book of Hebrews makes it absolutely clear that this only happened once.
Hebrews 10:11 – And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:
12 But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;
13 From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.
14 For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.
15 Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before,
16 This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;
17 And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
18 Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.
Is the blood of Jesus reapplied to our sins each time we repent? This is the only contextual conclusion that can be drawn from the aforementioned orthodox use of 1John 1:7-10. It is a perpetual application of the blood for each known sin that we commit, plus an additional cleansing for unknown sin.
To the contrary, there is one sacrifice for ALL sins and for ALL time resulting in God not remembering any sin committed by believers. Said interpretation of 1John 1:7-10 states that God will in fact remember our sin if we do not reapply the one sacrifice of Christ. Again, 1John 1:7-10 is a justification verse; that justification is a finished work that only occurs once.
Surrounding verses in context also support this view. “I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake” (1John 2:12). Also, those who walk in the light are representative of those who have been cleansed from “all” sin (v.7), and the washing is always indicative of justification as a onetime finished work (note John 13:9-11).
Repentance for family sin resulting in prevention of Fatherly chastisement is another issue altogether and has nothing to do with 1John 1:7-10.
James 5:13 – Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
A “lifestyle of repentance” keeps our focus on “keeping ourselves in the love of God” or stated more plainly, keeping ourselves saved for a best shot at “standing in the judgment.” There is no condemnation for those who believe Christ and we will not stand in any judgment that determines justification (John 5:28,29, Luke 14:12-14). However, Christians who live out their calling to righteous living will have confidence when we are swept up in the general judgments that come upon the world, or His appearing at the end of the tribulation period (1John 2:28, 4:17). Peter spoke of a “rich entry” into the kingdom (2Peter 1:11).
Focusing on assumed sin that we are supposedly powerless to overcome will keep us from a successful Christian walk that gives us confidence (I Jn 3:18,19, 2Pet 1:9,10, Heb 10;22), a walk that pursues peace and love as a focus and not an endeavor to discover how sinful we are.
This will only lead to fear, and a shrinking back from the thought of seeing God. In contrast, mature love casts out fear.
paul
I Always Do Dr. J’s Homework
Originally published August 8, 2010
In another recent post by Dr. Jay Adams, he seems to once again allude to the doctrine of the evil twins (Dr. Jay’s Hopeful Post and the Evil Twins). The post I am referring to can be viewed here.
Let me begin with this quote from his post:
“Others are confused because of the recent revival of an old error: confounding Justification by faith with Sanctification by the work of the Spirit. The Spirit works His fruit in us by enabling us to understand the Word, by giving us the desire to obey it, and by enabling us to do so.”
Dr. J further explains:
“In the revival of this teaching, passages that speak of justification by faith are related to sanctification.”
Yes, there are many examples of this. He then relates how this can affect counseling:
“As a result, instead of encouraging Christians to obey God’s admonitions in the Bible, they are told that they can’t do so, and that—in one way or another (not everyone agrees how)—God must do it to them, for them, instead of them.”
Then he continues with a suggestion for those counselors who are fortunate enough by the grace of God to get a second crack at those who have been counseled that way, unlike many that I know who have had their faith shipwrecked by this teaching:
“When meeting up with those who have been taught this sort of thing in your counseling, and who are confused because it ‘didn’t work,’ you should ask them to do something like the following:
- List all of the commands in 1 Corinthians (for instance).
- Write down how many times Christ, the Holy Spirit or the Father is the One Who is thus commanded.
- The write down how many times you (or the Corinthians, if you will) are commanded to do them.
Well, when I was in counseling some time ago, I was given a lot of Jay’s homework assignments from his various books by a guy who I hope is not being deceived by the doctrine of the evil twins. But since I did all of the homework assignments, when Jay posted this one, I just couldn’t resist. So, in the following list, I document all commands from 1 Corinthians and answer questions 2 and 3. This should make it much easier for any counselor or counselee who actually wants to follow through with Jay’s suggestion, and share the results with him ( feedback@nouthetic.org ) However, remember, this would not even include instruction or commands that are implied through Paul’s informative teaching.
Also, the list creates huuuuuuge problems for the four pillars of Gospel Sanctification (not necessarily what Jay is speaking of here, but very similar; could just be a doctrinal evil twin); namely, New Covenant Theology, heart theology, Christian hedonism (wouldn’t JC Ryle love that one?), and redemptive historical hermeneutics. I will be posting in the near future on why these verses do extreme violence to the GS doctrine. But, if someone wants to help me out with some examples, I would appreciate it. Post them in the comment boxes.
So, here’s the list, hope it helps: (more…)
Sally Lloyd-Jones: The Wicked Witch of New Calvinism
Originally published July 11, 2013
“Basically, Jones is actively indoctrinating our children to see reality in a contra-normative construct, and teaching them salvation through perseverance in antinomianism. Christ is clear on this: for those who lead children astray, it would be better for them if they were never born. And that also goes for anyone who propagates her materials.”
It isn’t enough for the New Calvinists to lead adults into hell with a false gospel and let them have the blood of their own children on their hands. No, they have to take their false gospel directly to the children for fear that the parents cannot do the job themselves.
But targeting children with a false gospel is where I draw the line. Now that the New Calvinists have emasculated “Christian” fathers who now stand aside and give these tyrants unfettered access to their families, New Calvinist organizations are cashing in on repackaging the false gospel of progressive justification for children.
A reader sent me a post by Sally Lloyd-Jones in which she endorses her new children’s book that propagates the false gospel of progressive justification via Redemptive Historical hermeneutics; ie., the Bible as gospel metanarrative. Here, “meta” doesn’t mean “grand narrative,” but rather the interpretation of reality through narrative, or story. By seeing our wickedness as set against God’s holiness in the narrative, we experience the works of Christ that He imputed to our sanctification by His perfect fulfillment of the law while on earth. Hence, the Bible is not for instruction or rules. Its purpose is to show the works of Christ that we are unable to perform (though Christ plainly stated that we would do more than He did [JN 14:12]). It’s a formula for living by faith alone in sanctification. This is nothing new, it is primarily what James refuted in his epistle. That’s why Luther rejected the canonicity of said epistle—it contradicts the Reformed gospel that interprets ALL reality through Christocentricity. This also defies the metaphysical reality that all rules are not morally based. “Rules” make living life itself possible in many regards. The rules for baking a cake are morally neutral, but necessary if you want an edible cake.
According to this doctrine, the experience of our obedience, or better said, the experience of “obedient faith,” is subjective because we really don’t know what we are doing in our “own efforts” versus what the Spirit is manifesting in our realm. Anything done in our “own efforts” should be repented of as “self-righteous works.” I have heard elders offer up such prayers for the congregation firsthand. If we actually believe that we can learn God’s will and perform the work ourselves as born again believers, that is “mortal sin” of a false gospel that will condemn us to hell. If all of our good works are attended with fear that they could be perceived as our own works, that’s “venial sin” that doesn’t condemn us and can be forgiven by “repenting of good works” as propagated by the likes of Dr. Tim Keller. In fact, Keller, an in-your-face and in-broad-daylight Christian mystic is Jones’ pastor.
Jones, in the promo post for her children’s book entitled, “Teaching Children the Bible,” begins with this question:
Do you read the Bible like a rulebook? Do you look at the biblical characters as heroes to emulate? Or do you read Scripture as a Story with one great Hero?
This statement is indicative of the Redemptive Historical worldview; there isn’t more than one way to look at the Bible. But most importantly, the Bible is used as a tool for a worldview that is contra-normative to interpreting reality. In this construct, there are only two ways to look at reality: the cross story or the glory story. If it is about us (the glory story), rules and heroes are applicable. But if it’s about the cross story, only Christ and His works are to be seen, “not anything we do.” “It’s not about anything we do, but what Jesus has done.”
So, supposedly, there are two ways to look at reality, and in the correct way, the cross story, realty is only perceived in the difference between the following duality: our sinfulness as set against God’s holiness. Moreover, Jesus as hero is often presented by New Calvinists as Christ saving us from a wrathful God who still holds the law over our heads. That’s why rules are bad: we are still under the jurisdiction of the law and therefore unless we can keep the law perfectly, all bets are off—Jesus to the perpetual rescue. We are still under the law, so if we don’t keep it perfectly, we are guilty of violating all of it. To think we can keep the law in a way that pleases God is a mortal sin because when we break the law at any point, our basis for justification collapses. The basis of justification is a continued maintaining of the law. So obviously, a perpetual maintaining of the law is required to keep us saved; ie., the progressive imputation of Christ’s perfect works to our sanctification which is supposedly the road to “final justification.”
And this is clearly the problem with the Reformed gospel; the law is the standard for our justification and not the death of Christ alone. The one act of obedience is not the ground of our justification, but the perpetual and progressive imputation of Christ’s fulfillment of the law to our life by faith alone without works. This is a gospel that keeps Christians under law and redefines under grace as Christ keeping the law in our stead. But this is still, “under law.” Those under grace are justified “apart from the law.” Therefore, in the same way that we violated the law at every point when we were under it, we fulfill all of it when we love our neighbors because we are under grace and not under law.
The reader who sent me the link protested to a Facebook friend who endorsed the book on her page. Her response was that he was clueless because they were not advocating the unimportance of rules. Exactly, rules are extremely important to them because it is still the basis of our justification. The key is that Jesus keeps the law for us. But of course, this is a metaphysical sleight of hand that comes from Calvin himself and is an under law gospel. Basically, Jones is actively indoctrinating our children to see reality in a contra-normative construct, and teaching them salvation through perseverance in antinomianism. Christ is clear on this: for those who lead children astray, it would be better for them if they were never born. And that also goes for anyone who propagates her materials.
Unbelievably, Jones is given full access to our children by brain-dead shepherds. In the promotion, she brags about how she undermines what the parents in local churches teach their children:
When I go to churches and speak to children, I often start by asking them two questions:
First, How many people here sometimes think you have to be good for God to love you? They tentatively raise their hands. I raise my hand along with them.
And second, how many people here sometimes think that if you aren’t good, God will stop loving you? Almost without fail they raise their hands. These children think they have to keep the rules or God won’t love them. They think if they mess up God will stop loving them.
These children are in Sunday schools. They know all their Bible stories. And they have missed what the Bible is all about.
They are children like I once was.
On display here is the arrogant metaphysical sleight of hand that is indicative of mystic despots that believe they understand the high mysteries of God that the masses are unable to understand. If she is confronted about undermining the parents of the church, she will insist that she was referring to the children only when she said “people” and not the parents of the church. If she is confronted about law and love being mutually exclusive, she will assert that she was only talking about justification. Here we have the diabolical communication of the New Calvinist on full display. Law and love are mutually exclusive in justification, but NOT sanctification. However, that distinction is never made as these wicked false teachers talk about sanctification in a justification way because we are still under the law according to their gospel. They incessantly teach the fusion of justification and sanctification (which equals being yet under law), and only make the distinction when they are called on it. But even then, their “progressive sanctification” is really progressive justification as they play on the assumptions of those being deceived. This is deceptive communication that comes directly from the pit of hell.
Jones continues:
Even though I came to faith as a small child, I somehow grew up thinking the Bible was filled with rules you had to keep (or God wouldn’t love you) and with heroes setting examples you had to follow (or God wouldn’t love you).
I tried to be good. I really did. I was quite good at being good and keeping the rules. But however hard I tried, I couldn’t keep the rules all the time, so I knew God must not be pleased with me.
And as far as being a hero: I certainly couldn’t ever be as brave as Daniel. I remember being tormented by that Sunday school chorus “Dare to Be a Daniel.”
Notice how our love is completely excluded from the metaphysical construct of the argument. That’s because we cannot have any love, that’s the glory story. And if we have love, that enables a dichotomy between justification and sanctification. Hence, justification is the setting of God’s love on us without merit, and our love for God in sanctification is our fatherly love as His children that is not under law but under grace. Like all Calvinists, she makes the two the same. Any ability to love God points directly back to the standard of justification and is not separated from sanctification. And law is not the standard for justification to begin with; it’s the one act of Christ’s obedience to the cross.
In the second paragraph, the idea that perfection is a requirement to MAINTAIN our justification is clearly evident. I was really, really good at keeping the law, but God requires perfection in order to be pleased with us. Therefore, Christ must keep the law for us in sanctification in order to maintain our justification. This is clearly works salvation by persevering in antinomianism. Other Christians can’t inspire us to love God in sanctification by keeping His commands—that’s the glory story.
This doctrine also denies the new birth and the fundamental difference between being under law and under grace. When we are under law, we are enslaved to sin and free to do good (ROM 6:20). That means the overall direction of our life will be law-breaking and then we will be judged by that very law in the end. Under grace is enslavement to righteousness and the freedom to sin (ROM 6:18). In salvation and the new birth, slavery and freedom are switched resulting in an overall direction of life. But our justification will not be judged by our freedom to sin because we are no longer under it. The overall direction of our sanctified life will be righteousness because we are born of God and have His seed within us. Loving God by keeping His commandments is therefore the direction of our life and not the perfection. Per the Reformed false gospel of progressive justification, perfection is still the standard because we are still under law and not born again by the biblical definition:
At the end of the story there were no other teachers around, and I panicked and went into autopilot and heard myself—to my horror—asking, “And so what can we learn from Daniel about how God wants us to live?”
And as I said those words it was as if I had literally laid a huge load on that little girl. Like I broke some spell. She crumpled right in front of me, physically slumping and bowing her head. I will never forget it.
It is a picture of what happens to a child when we turn a story into a moral lesson.
When we drill a Bible story down into a moral lesson, we make it about us. But the Bible isn’t mainly about us, and what we are supposed to be doing—it’s about God, and what he has done.
Children don’t need to be told to try harder, believe more, or do it better. That just leaves them in despair. The moral code always leaves us in despair. We can never live up to it.
I knew it as a child—I could never be good enough or brave enough.
None of that is the point unless we are still under law. The point of sanctification is not moral law, but loving God and glorifying His name and wisdom through obedience. The Reformed gospel denies our ability to please God through obedience (ROM 8:7,8). The crux is perpetual re-salvation by faith alone apart from works in sanctification. Nothing could be clearer. The new birth is redefined by, “mortification and vivification” which is a perpetual reliving of our baptism to maintain our justification. Note Jones’ statement in the same promotion:
We don’t need a moral code. We need a rescuer. And that’s why I wrote The Jesus Storybook Bible and Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing, So children could know what I didn’t: That the Bible isn’t mainly about me and what I should be doing. It’s about God and what he has done.
That the Bible is most of all a story—the story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.
Obviously, in context, one can only conclude logically that this is a perpetual “rescue” and not a onetime event. The New Calvinist Paul David Tripp calls this an “everyday rescue.” In a sermon at Southeastern Theological Seminary (Spring 2007), referring to Romans 7:24, he made it clear that Christians need to be rescued [saved] every day. That’s the crux.
It grieves my heart that these wicked satanic minions are given free access to our children. This is where Christians should be motivated to standup against these false teachers.
If we are not motivated by the eternal wellbeing of our children, we are a disgrace to the cause of Christ.
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Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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