Are Believers Ever NOT Right with God?
Here is another meme I saw floating around Facebook this morning:
I patently reject the implication of this meme that it is ever possible for a Christian to NOT be right with God.
First of all, the message of the gospel to UNBELIEVERS is “be ye reconciled to God”. Therefore, believers by definition are already reconciled to God.
Secondly, the believer is ALWAYS right with God because he is the born again righteous offspring of the Father. He may fail to show love by not being obedient, but it in no way affects his righteousness!
Andy
Authentic Protestantism (aka “New Calvinism”) is Totally Debunked by 2Peter 1:1-15
This is a revised version of an article originally published on January 16, 2012
2 Peter 1:1-14 contradicts almost all of the major tenets of authentic Protestantism: Christocentric salvation; Christocentric interpretation; double imputation; Christocentric sanctification; the total depravity of the saints; sanctification by faith alone; the imperative command is grounded in the indicative event; assurance based on gospel contemplationism; sanctification is not “in our OWN efforts”; the apostolic gospel.
Christocentric Salvation
“Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ” (v1).
Salvation is not Christocentric. Peter states that we obtained our faith by God the Father AND Jesus Christ.
Christocentric Interpretation
“May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord” (v2).
The benefits of salvation are multiplied by the knowledge of both the Father and the Son. Of course, this knowledge can only come from the Scriptures. Obviously, knowledge of both is required for the multiplication of grace and peace. One may also note that when Peter restates this truth in verse 3, he only mentions the one “who called us” which of course is God the Father.
Double Imputation
“The imputed righteousness of Christ” is an often heard slogan among reformed. But it is the righteousness of God that was imputed to us by the New Birth when we believed in Christ (see v1). The believer is righteous because he is God’s literal offspring. Christ lived a perfect life as a man because of who He is (the Son of God), not for the purpose of imputing obedience to us as part of the atonement in sanctification.
Christocentric Sanctification
“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence” (v3).
Again, God the Father is the member of the Trinity who called us. Knowledge pertaining to the Father is efficacious in sanctification.
The Total Depravity of the Saints
“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” (v3,4).
“Partakers” is: koinōnos from koinos; a sharer, that is, associate: – companion, fellowship, partaker, partner. Koinos means: common, that is, (literally) shared by all or several and is derived from a primary preposition denoting union; with or together, that is, by association, companionship, process, resemblance, possession, instrumentality, addition, etc.: – beside, with. In compounds it has similar applications, including completeness.
Sanctification by Faith Alone
“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love” (v 5,6,7).
Obviously, if sanctification is by faith alone, Peter wouldn’t tell us to ADD anything to it.
The Imperative Command is Grounded in the Indicative Event
“For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins. 10 Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (v8,9,10,11).
Glorification (and one could argue assurance as well) is an indicative act, but in these verses, it is contingent and preceded by imperatives. Peter uses the conjunction “if” three times to conjoin imperatives preceding the indicative.
Assurance Based on Gospel Contemplationism
One of the more hideous teachings of the Reformation is that guilt is indicative of not understanding grace. Therefore, saints will not be told to take biblically prescribed action to relieve guilt, but will be told to further contemplate the gospel. There is barely anything more powerful in the Christian life than full assurance of salvation, and Peter tells us in no uncertain terms how to obtain it: aggressively adding certain things to our faith.
Sanctification is not “in our OWN efforts.”
Authentic Protestantism, by default, disavows our effort in sanctification by continually utilizing the either/or hermeneutic: it’s either all our effort, or all of Christ. Though we can do nothing without Christ, Peter makes it clear that peace and assurance will not take place if we do not “make every effort” (ESV).
The Apostolic Gospel
“So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. 13 I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, 14 because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. 15 And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things” (v12,13,14,15).
Think about it. It had been revealed to Peter that his departure was near, so his ministry was focused on what he thought was the most important thing that they needed to be continually reminded of. Where is, “The same gospel that saves us sanctifies us”? Where is, “We must preach the gospel to ourselves every day”? Where is, “Beholding the face of Christ as a way of becoming”?
paul
Andy Young: Challenging Presuppositions of the Believer’s Identity- 2015 TANC Conference: Session 3
The following is an excerpt of the transcript from Andy Young’s 3rd session at the 2015 TANC Conference on Gospel Discernment and Spiritual Tyranny.
So the Bible says the believer is born again, he is a new creature, he is part of the New Man, the Body of Christ. What else is he?
A Saint
How is that for a title? Did you know you’re a saint? Now here is a word that couldn’t be any farther opposite from sinner! Do you know how many times believers are referred to as sinners? I could probably point to no more than maybe 5 at most. And even in those instances it is always in the past tense. Do you realize the frequency that believers are referred to as saints? 62 times in the NT, believers are referred to as saints. 62 times! I’m not going to show you all of them, but here are a few select. You’ll see that in just about every epistle the believers are addressed as saints in the salutation.
Romans 1:7 “To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
1Corinthians 1:2 “Unto the assembly of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:”
Ephesians 1:1 “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:”
Romans 15:25-26 “But now I go unto Jerusalem to minister unto the saints. 26 For it hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which are at Jerusalem.”
Ephesians 4:12 “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:”
And we could go on and on and on. Believers are saints. Now, as if that wasn’t exciting enough, take a look at this word in the Greek. Do you know what the word saint is in the Greek?
αγιος (hag-ee-oss) – “Holy”
Look at that. Holy. In each of the 62 instances it is this word for holy. That means you could go through each instance, 62 times in the NT, and replace the word saint with holy, or holy ones. The Bible calls believers “holy ones”. You are holy. Did you know that? You are not a sinner, you are holy! You are a holy one.
Now if any of you watching online now or maybe later on when this is archived, if you tuned in last year for the conference you will remember I talked about Sanctification. And in my first session last year I walked us through scripture and we were able to derive a truly biblical, meaningful definition of this word holy? Does anyone remember what we came up with? If you don’t remember or if you didn’t tune in for that session, here is the definition we came up with for holy.
Holy – a place or thing which is distinct from that which is common, ordinary, or just like everything else. (profane)
And as we worked through our understanding of this word we discovered that the opposite of holiness was not sinfulness, but profane. And profane in the Biblical sense has to do with this idea of being common, or ordinary, or just like everything else. So, while it is true that believers are not sinners – we’ve already established that through the new birth – we have a special status. We are holy. We are distinct from that which is profane. We are not common, we are not just like everybody else. Some people like to use the term “set apart” as a means of understanding our sanctification, and that’s a good way to look at it because it encompasses this notion of being distinct. Setting something apart makes it distinct.
So this takes us back to the sanctification issue that I talked about last year. And I think it begs the question, if we are saints, if we are holy, if we are distinct, ought we to not act like it? And I don’t mean we go around casting judgment on others and act like we are better than everyone else. But if we are in fact holy, don’t you think our behavior should reflect that holiness? See, we don’t let our behavior define who we are, but rather I think it’s the other way around, who we are should manifest itself in our behavior. And you can think back to our last session on the New Man, were we had this contrast between behaviors that characterized the old man, like lying and arguing and licentiousness, and behaviors that characterize the New Man, loving each other, caring for each other, and so on. And you see the motivation for this is love. This has to do with love for the law and keeping the law. Not for justification, but because we love our Father and we love others, so we use the law in this way, we keep the law out of a motivation of love. And this is the reality of what it means to be a saint; to be a holy one.
So believer’s are saints. What else are we? How does the Bible refer to believers?
Watch all of Andy’s 3rd session below.
Second Epistle of Andy to “Trevor”
Some time ago I relayed the account of a Facebook interaction I had with an individual I called “Trevor”. Trevor is a young man in his early twenties. I’ve had the privilege of having long conversations with him regarding theology and Biblical matters in general. Trevor goes to a local church and has made a profession of faith, so giving him the benefit of the doubt (since it is not my place to make a judgment otherwise) I regard him as a brother in Christ.
Last Friday, Trevor and I got into another discussion, this time about the Law and how it pertains to believers. Since he was pressed for time and our conversation was growing increasingly in depth, Trevor asked if he could pose some specific questions via a Facebook message to which I could then compose a more in-depth reply. What follows is my response to Trevor. His questions are included in the body of the response in bold italics. I hope that you find it edifying!
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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