Believing Equals Baptizing Yourself into Christ?
Christianity is a laity movement. It doesn’t exclude formal academia and higher learning; it simply recognizes that higher religious education is fraught with collectivist presuppositions and spiritual caste. The apostle Paul described what the assembly of Christ is mostly comprised of:
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.
Bottom line: aristocracy invariably glorifies God with a wink and a nod. Throughout history an emphasis on academia has always led to Gnostic-like movements invading the church, and for this reason, academia was suspect in the first and second-century assemblies. And as a result, those of the academic class were rarely allowed to be elders. The apostles often rebuked the saints for submitting to the intimidation of nobility and academic prowess.
When Christians investigate the Bible for themselves, they find stunning contradictions between the intimidating auras of religious academia and what the Bible plainly states. As a rule of life, discernment should never be in neutral.
This ministry has documented a plethora of teachings coming from one of the most trusted academiacs in all of evangelicalism, John MacArthur Jr. This post just adds another caveat to the heap. However, this isn’t necessarily a targeted criticism of MacArthur per se, but my criticisms concerning MacArthur usually take place in regard to his teachings that reflect the Reformed tradition in general.
And his assessment of John 3:8 falls into that category. The motif using John 3:8 as a proof text usually looks something like this:
Since salvation is strictly the result of God’s choosing, the Spirit travels about the earth giving spiritual birth to whosoever God chooses. No one can assess where the Spirit came from or is going—only the results of His work can be seen, and we take no part in it.
In the third session of the 2008 T4G conference, MacArthur stated the following:
And what Jesus doesn’t say is pray this prayer. What Jesus doesn’t say is here are the four steps, five steps, six steps or whatever. What Jesus says in verse 8 is just absolutely shocking to the free will world. “The wind blows where it wishes. You hear the sound of it. You don’t know where it comes from and where it’s going, so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” What in the world kind of an answer is that? Our Lord is saying it’s not up to you. It’s up to the Holy Spirit, and you have no control over where and when the Spirit moves. No control. This is a divine work. It has to be a divine work. Flesh just produces flesh. Dead people can’t give themselves life. Spirit gives life to whom he will, and you can see when it happens, but you can’t make it happen. It’s the Spirit’s work.
Notice that the premise for MacArthur’s conclusion is threefold: control, what the Spirit does, and the scope of His salvific work. Grammatically, the text is not saying that at all. The word “control” is nowhere in the text, but what is being spoken of is knowledge of the wind, NOT the control of it. Secondly, the wind comparison is not a comparison to the Spirit’s work, but describes the believer:
“So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
The text is clearly not talking about what the Spirit does, but “so it is” with those born of the Spirit. And what of them? They have no knowledge of where the new birth will take them. They are dying with Christ to end the old self and the life of the old self, and where their new life is going as a new creature is not known. In other words, it’s a matter of complete trust and unpredictability. Christ continually called on people to drop everything in their life right where it was, and follow Him. Same kind of idea.
Furthermore, MacArthur, like all of the Reformed, assumes the scope of the Spirit’s salvific work includes believing, but again, the text does not state that anywhere. The text specifically states that the Spirit baptizes the believer into Christ (“born of the Spirit”) which is the death of the old self and resurrection of the new. The new resurrected life of the believer, like the wind, is completely unpredictable and predicated on trust. This would have been particularly relevant to someone like Nicodemus who was a big man on campus in Israel, and would have been putting his aristocratic status in jeopardy by following Christ.
In fact, Christ emphasized belief in the following verses. You don’t need to be born again in order to believe, you need to believe in the new birth and choose it in order to receive it. Faith comes first after hearing the word of God, then choosing the new birth results in the new birth which indeed we have no control over, but that doesn’t mean we are unable to choose it.
I didn’t understand all of this when I became a Christian, but here is what happened. Through the preaching of the word by a guy named Mark Cline, I came to a belief in the facts about the gospel. But, I didn’t make a decision right away. Why? I didn’t want to give up the decadent life I was living. Intuitively, I knew a decision for Christ meant a new life. I didn’t want a new life, I liked the one I had although I was completely miserable. I was willing to risk an eternity in hell in order to hang on to the lusts I had at the time. When I finally prayed that God would save me, I knew it meant a new life—I just didn’t understand all of the theology. Prior to that, a guy begged me to “Just say the prayer” because believing alone saves. I declined because I knew salvation meant a new life, a life I did not want at the time.
Why would God give eternal life and then call on people to choose it? Why not give the new birth and then inform people that they have been born again? If people have no choice in the matter, why would God call on them to be persuaded? MacArthur, like all of the Reformed, makes belief synonymous with the ability to baptize one’s self into Christ. Supposedly, if you can choose, you also have the power to baptize into Christ. This is a huge leap in logic.
paul
What is the Gospel?
Is the gospel a declaration about the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ? Are people saved because they believe those facts?
Granted, they have to believe those facts to be saved, but they must not only believe that Christ died for our sins and was resurrected three days later, they must also believe something else about those facts:
Salvation is a choice to follow Christ in that same death, burial, and resurrection. He accomplished such so that we can follow Him in it.
Salvation is an intellectual ascent AND a choice. The choice is also referred to as “repentance.” You are not only turning from an indifference to God’s truth, you are turning from who you are to whatever God wants to make you.
This is called the new birth, or the baptism of the Holy Spirit. You can do absolutely nothing to effect this new birth, you can only ask for it. It is the desire to turn from who you are to whatever God makes you. If you understand that, and want that, God has promised it to you if you ask for it.
Being saved encompasses the belief that you have passed from death to life. The Bible then commands us to proceed with life based on certain assumptions. First, we must know that we cannot be condemned for any sin. Secondly, we make it our goal to please God by putting off the former ways and learning the new ways of the Spirit. Spiritual growth is a true colaboring between ourselves and the Spirit. Our focus is putting off the old ways and putting on the new ways of the Spirit. This is the laser focus of discipleship.
A contrary focus on our supposed continued need for the same gospel that saved us, and a focus on how “sinful” we are is a denial that we have passed from death to life. Instead of our goal being love, our goal becomes a deeper and deeper appreciation of why Christ had to die for us. This is functioning on a completely different assumption:
It denies that we have passed from death to life, and makes our greatest sin that of not understanding how sinful we are resulting in a supposed lack of gratitude for Christ’s sacrifice. It assumes that the old us is still alive, and able to supply ample fodder for showing us why Christ had to die for us. Instead of the Bible showing us the new way of the Spirit, it supposedly shows us the old way of sin leading to a greater appreciation of the cross.
This is the theme we hear constantly in the institutional church, on Christian radio, and in contemporary praise music. And unfortunately, it tells us what we really believe about the gospel.
The new birth is redefined as a mere ability to see how sinful we are, and not an ability to be a transformed person—a true kingdom citizen—a true child of God. Transformation is redefined as an increased ability to see how sinful we are and plunge the depths of our total depravity. The idea that we can actually change and better learn Christ is declared to be arrogant, prideful, and… “having a righteousness of your own.”
This is a slick, deliberate play on words that subtly denies the new birth. It takes the reality that righteousness did not originate with us, and makes it tantamount to having NO righteousness that is a part of our true being. We remain unchanged except for an ability to SEE only, and the righteousness of God that comes part and parcel with being born of Him remains apart from us. We are merely vessels that “reflect” God’s righteousness, but it remains separate from our new identity.
In other words, we really don’t perform any love that pleases God, our only goal is to plunge the depths of our own sinfulness that results in God “reflecting” His love on us and others. This coincides with rhetoric we hear in the church constantly such as, “It wasn’t I who did it—it was the Spirit working through me.”
Passages like Galatians 2:20 are then twisted to make the case.
Consequently, instead of a proper dichotomy being drawn between GIFT and REWARD, salvation ends up as our reward for living a life of faith alone in… “what Jesus HAS done, not anything I do.”
Again, this not only denies the new birth, but makes “Christians” unwitting participants in a damning endeavor to keep ourselves saved by faith alone which is defined as a mere ability to see our need for a savior more and more. “Jumping directly from the commandment to obedience” is supposedly works salvation.
Jesus said, “You must be born again,” and this is exactly why He said it. Water baptism has nothing to do with a church membership found nowhere in the Bible, and it is not only about what Jesus did, it is a testimony that you have followed Christ in a literal death and resurrection.
Salvation is the abandonment of who you are, and trusting what God will do by recreating you into His own child. It is a matter of trust, because…
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.
paul
The Protestant Twisting of 1John: A Clarification, Part 4; Gospel and Obedience
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Welcome to Blogtalk Radio False Reformation this is your host Paul M. Dohse Sr. Tonight, part 4 of “The Protestant Twisting of 1John: A Clarification.” If you would like to add to our lesson or ask a question, call (347) 855-8317. Remember to turn your PC volume down to prevent feedback. Per the usual, we will check in with Susan towards the end of the show and listen to her perspective.
If you would like to comment on our subject tonight, you can also email me at paul@ttanc.com. That’s Tom, Tony, Alice, Nancy, cat, paul@ttanc.com. I have my email monitor right here and can add your thoughts to the lesson without need for you to call in.
Initially, I wanted to just address 1John 1:9 in a thorough way to debunk this whole Protestant idea that we keep ourselves saved by returning to the same gospel that saved us. And, the way we reutilize the same gospel that saved us is a continued repentance for “present sin.” It’s this whole idea that Jesus died for our past sins, but we must ask forgiveness for known present sin in order to keep ourselves saved. When we do that, it’s a reapplication of Jesus’ death for present sin. Hence, 1John 1:9.
But it doesn’t stop there in Protestant soteriology. They then concern themselves with the question of true righteousness. If our sins are forgiven, that keeps us out of hell, but it doesn’t make us truly righteous. What to do? So here is what they came up with: Jesus came to die for our forgiveness, past and present IF we return to the same gospel that saved us by faith alone, but He also came to keep the law perfectly so that His perfect obedience could be imputed to “Christian” life. The Reformed call this “double imputation.”
And it turns the true biblical gospel completely upside down. First, it makes the law the standard for justification. There is no law in justification, we are justified APART from the law. Why would Christ obey the law for us when justification is apart from the law? Then what is the standard for righteousness? NOT the law, but rather God’s righteousness. What’s that? For one, and primarily, it’s the new birth. For us, the standard of righteousness is being a child of God. Being the offspring of God is what makes us righteous. Kinship, not law.
Secondly, we are not justified by the law, no matter who keeps it—who keeps it is not the point, the law itself is the point, because there is no law that can give life. Only the new birth gives life (Galatians 3:21).
Thirdly, double imputation is obviously a covering for sin with the righteousness of Christ and not an ENDING of sin. Our sins are not “taken away” they are only covered. “Christianity” is about living a life of faith only to maintain a covering for sin. Therefore, we are not the ones really obeying, and therefore, we are not the ones performing love either.
And boy does this notion land us right where we are at in 1John. I have invested so much in the untwisting of 1John 1:9 in this series, that I thought, “I might as well finish the book out and make it our 1John commentary.” And so it is.
This is our theses: the new birth creates us anew into people who love the truth, and therefore practice oblove. That’s a new word that I made up. What is the definition of oblove? It’s the combination of the words “love” and “obedience.” Biblically, you cannot separate these two words, they are synonymous. The law is the Bible, and it is a book of condemnation to the unsaved and a beloved love manual for those born again. This is also why our sins are not covered, they are taken away (1John 3:5). Christ came to take away sin, not cover it.
You know, many go to church and sing the hymns, and many listen to Christian radio and raise their hands in praise while stopped at red lights, but a lot of that good Protestant music is just really bad theology that imperils the soul and stops far short of inciting the curiosity of the unsaved. One example is a beautiful song by Steve Camp titled, “He Covers Me.” But again, the premise of the song is that our sins are covered and not ended.
You know, there is a quiet revolution going on in Christianity. Christian husbands are beginning to stand up and assume their rightful role as spiritual leaders. This necessarily means leaving the institutional church which deliberately seeks to emasculate the men among us. One thing that I hear back is that fathers are beginning to stand silent and not sing traditional songs that are deviations from the truth. Good for them. I even hear back that their children ask, “Daddy, why aren’t you singing?” And they tell them why. Undoubtedly, children and wives will get way more out of these types of examples rather than 365 different versions of the same gospel that saved us.
“Why is it that all we ever hear about in the church is the gospel?” Because we have to keep returning to the same gospel that saved us to keep ourselves saved, and by the way, the only place that this continued atonement is valid is in the institutional church. Sure, Protestants will deny salvation by church membership; they will rather become indignant and state that salvation is only found in the gospel. However, the fact remains that they also believe that authority to preach the gospel is vested in the institutional church.
If our sins are only covered, the focus of the Christian life is to keep ourselves covered, not obedience because now obedience is defined by law-keeping. We have been trained mentally to think of obedience as something demanded by the law. This makes the law a co-life-giver with God. At least in one regard, the idea of one God connects with this idea. There is only one life-giver (Galatians 3:10-21).
I strongly suspect that when the Bible talks about God being one, it in no way includes the context of the Trinity. It’s interesting to note that in context of Galatians 3:10-21, the point is that the law is not a coequal with God—there is only one God.
1John 3:1 – See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
4 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. 10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12 We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
19 By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; 20 for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.
The law is not the standard for justification; it is the standard for our love, obedience, and submission. If there is a standard for justification at all, it would simply be defined by the new birth. We are justified by virtue of being in God’s family. The first man was a created being. God did not decide to save man by restoring a covenant of works, or restoring man’s image created in the likeness of God, or to restore paradise lost. He decided to save man by making him His literal family. The gospel isn’t about restoring things; it’s about making all things new. This defines you as pure, albeit in mortality. Nevertheless, being born of God in mortality results in the inevitable morphing into more and more purity:
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
Let’s ask an interpretive question here. What did Jesus mean when He told John the Baptist that His baptism by John would fulfill all righteousness? I think it fulfilled all righteousness by representing the literal new birth, or Spirit baptism. Though we still reside in mortal bodies, the decision to be saved is a decision to follow Christ in baptism, or a decision to be born again. That’s the gospel. That’s what the gospel is.
Romans 6:1 – What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
The more you study the apostle John, the more you will see the apostle Paul. Romans 6 is key here. The perfection of the law is not the standard for righteousness, passing from life to death is the standard. Though we still sin, we are dead to sin. Being deemed righteous in our present state is defined by a reversal of slavery leading to a new direction in life. Romans 6 explains, as we shall see, 1John 3. The literal new birth, in essence reverses slavery (Romans 6:20). This also debunks the whole Reformed total depravity song and dance. Before the baptism of the Spirit that comes by believing on Christ, the unregenerate are free to do good, but enslaved to the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2).
Being under the curse of the law is both a forensic statement and a state of being. It is true, while under law, a perfect keeping of the law is demanded. But this is key: when it gets right down to it, unbelievers are indifferent to the Bible or the law of God. And remember, the law and the Bible are the same thing. Man is capable of doing good, and in fact does do good, but because he/she has no love for God’s truth, and in fact are indifferent to it, life decisions lead to many-faceted forms of death, and ultimately, eternal death. Unbelievers that live according to conscience will suffer a lesser punishment in this life and the life to come.
Believers can in fact make life and death decisions, but are inclined towards obeying the law because of the new birth. Clearly, the Bible states that there is a reversal of slavery. The believer is enslaved to righteousness, but unfortunately free to sin. But according to Paul, a believer can stupidly enslave themselves to certain sins by obeying the desire that the sin produces. The believer is no longer enslaved to sin, but can be ignorant of this fact. And keep in mind, Protestantism is predicated on the idea that we are still enslaved to sin as believers which goes part and parcel with still being under the law and law continuing to be the standard for justification.
Listen, here is why the home fellowship movement is going to eventually take off: the alternative is Protestantism which defines the believer according to how the Bible defines an unbeliever. Eventually, people are going to figure out that they have been proudly proclaiming themselves as unregenerate in the name of Christ.
Lastly, this is defined by the fact that believers have the freedom to present their bodies as living sacrifices, or in other words, present their members for holy purposes that please God. The body is not inherently evil because it is part of the material world. Whether saved or unsaved, the body can be used for good purposes. However, in the case of an unbeliever, good behavior doesn’t lead to life more abundantly, it just leads to lesser punishment and a more bearable eternal state. For the unbeliever, good behavior merely leads to less death. For the believer, obedient love leads to more life.
Now with all of this in mind, let’s read further in 1John Chapter 3:
4 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. 10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
John wrote what he wrote in 1John 3 because of what Paul wrote in Romans 6—it’s saying the same thing. Obeying the law isn’t the issue, a “commitment” to obey the law isn’t the issue, the reality of the new birth is the issue.
1Corinthians 15:1- Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
This is, as Paul called it, the gospel of “first importance” or literally “the gospel of first order of importance.” There is way more behind this than a mental ascent to the facts of the gospel. You have to believe that this first happened to Christ in order to believe that it really happened to you spiritually. Repentance is a change of mind in regard to many things concerning your life and the life of Christ.
By the way, there was an evangelical movement for a while that emphasized the new birth. It peaked in the 70’s and was considered to be the most egregious of all false gospels. The Australian Forum, the think tank that gave birth to the present-day return to authentic Reformed soteriology, actually published an article titled, “The False Gospel of the New Birth.”
John continues in chapter 3 to explain one of the characteristics of being born again, love. But let me insert this, and this is VERY important: the characteristics of the new birth are framed in what the Bible refers to as “abiding.” If God’s seed “abides in” us (1John 3:9), other things also abide in us: the fact that we abide in Him also; the truth abides in us; we know the truth; we love the truth; we love fellow Christians; we do not practice sin, but rather practice righteousness as a life direction and pattern; we love God’s law; we submit to need; we obey; we seek to please God; we have a hunger for learning more of God’s word, and many more can be listed.
Let’s read more of John 3 with this in mind:
11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12 We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
See, the order in which John discusses these things is in no wise disconnected. We need to start thinking about “obedience” in reference to love and the new birth. Really, the Christian life is about love. But listen, any love that flows from you starts with a love for truth. Also, please take note of a more biblical definition of love: love is a submission to need—that’s love. When the Scriptures tell women to submit to their husbands, that’s just another way of telling wives to love their husbands. When the Bible tells men to love their wives, it’s simply telling men to submit to their needs. Look at 1John 3:17 again. How does benevolence get parachuted into that body of text out of nowhere? John goes from discussing murder to meeting financial need; it seems like he is all over the map, but not really.
Lastly, working out the new birth with love leads to assurance.
19 By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; 20 for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.
Assurance of salvation comes through working out our new birth in fear and trembling. Assurance of salvation is grounded in the ending of the law because the old us died with Christ resulting in no condemnation, while our new relationship to the law leads us in love and life. Now listen, even a casual student of the Bible can begin to hang Bible verses all over this framework.
Next week, we will build on this as we go into chapter 4—let’s go to the phones.
Thanks to the Institutional Church the Discussion Continues: “What Does It Mean to be Saved?”
Note the above Tweet I posted today. So true. As Christians, we all need help and a hand up, but because we are indwelled by the Holy Spirit and completely capable as new creatures, our attitude must be, “Gee thanks, now I will take it from here.” If all of your knowledge comes from others, you had better do an emergency evaluation of your present standing.
There are only two individuals that are part of the institutional academia of the church that I have any respect for: Dr. Jay Adams and his associate Donn Arms who I think might have his doctorate by now. Apart from those two, to the best of my remembrance at this time, the whole of Protestant academia makes me sick. For the most part, they are mindless cowardly tyrants ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of truth. Seminaries continually pump men into the institutional church who have no gift for teaching, but have spent money to certify themselves as faithful regurgitators of Protestant orthodoxy.
Mindless followers of orthodoxy (the traditions of medieval tyrants) who do so for some sort of personal gain embody the worst of what humanity has to offer. I do not believe in the saying that evil can only prevail when good men do nothing—there is no such thing as a good man who does nothing—that’s an oxymoron. There is only one thing worse than pure evil: those who watch it and do nothing. Voyeurism is not commendable for any reason.
So here we are, more than 500 years after Calvin’s post tenebras lux, Dr. Jay Adams sees the need to write a recent article on what it means to be saved. And this is by no means unusual; googling “What is the gospel?” will produce a myriad of recent articles that take on the subject. And since Calvin et al propagated a false gospel that has been driven into the psyche of Western culture for more than 500 years, we might suspect that Biblicists must continue to work on using biblically accurate ideas, terminology, and words accordingly, and Dr. J’s article, with all due respect, is no exception.
A little past the introduction, Adams states:
The biblical usage of the word translated “saved” is precisely the same as ours. A newspaper headline that reads “Child Saved From Drowning,” means he was rescued. To be saved is to be rescued—rescued from sin and its consequences. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (that’s what Romans 3:23 has to say about everyone, including you). When God saves someone He rescues him from the penalty of sin, which is eternal punishment in hell. He also gradually rescues him from the power of sin in this life. And, ultimately, He rescues him from the very presence of sin by taking him to heaven. That is what it means to be saved.
My only protest to this definition is the wording in reference to the days we are in. Salvation must be spoken of in hard past-tense terms. Does God “gradually” “save” us from the power of sin? No, there is NO gradual rescue from sin. We are NOT rescued from sin on the installment plan; we are COMPLETELY rescued from sin when we are saved. There is now “no condemnation” for those who are in Christ—condemnation does not gradually decrease, it’s completely gone.
Sin still has the power to bring about death in our lives, but it is our choice to be lazy disciples or diligent ones, but either way, the final culmination is not condemnation nor is condemnation present in the interim. The word “sin” must be defined in reference to both justification and sanctification when presenting the gospel.
The Bible is clearly saying that you must depend upon Jesus Christ. But, what does that mean? It means that you must entrust your entire life, here and hereafter, to Him. It means that you must depend wholly upon what He has done, to be saved.
I must also object to this kind of wording in our day. We live in days that require much more clarification. Familiar terms will not suffice. There is no, I repeat, no future commitment and future dependence on Christ for purposes of salvation. The only requirement is to believe in Christ and what the present consequences are. If a cow wants to become a duck, he need not be concerned with depending on water in the future—being a duck comes with desiring water by virtue of being a duck. Better stated, committing to being Christ’s brother in the future doesn’t save us.
Being a brother isn’t a commitment any more than a future commitment to being born again. The new birth is a one-time event that we have no control over in the future. You cannot make a future commitment to prevent unbirth or debirth via a commitment. The new birth is beyond the realm of any commitment we make. Therefore, future commitment is assumed in the same way we assume that ducks can always be found in a pond. No future commitment to water is necessary for becoming a duck, the former is part of being a duck. You are either a duck or you aren’t.
Believing in Christ is to follow Him in death and resurrection. It is saying goodbye to who you presently are, and becoming whatever Christ chooses to make of you. What we need is biblical language in the gospel that emphasizes the new birth as much as the cross.
Jesus Christ died on the cross, bearing the punishment that was due to all who throughout the ages will believe on Him. He rose from the dead, giving evidence that God accepted His penal, vicarious sacrifice. The wrath of God fell on Him instead of them. All who trust Him as Savior have their sins forgiven. This is the “good news” that the apostles proclaimed around the Mediterranean world and that you are now learning in this blog. If you depend upon the saving work of Christ on the cross you will be saved.
The other words aside with no relevant disagreement, I would like to focus on, “He rose from the dead, giving evidence that God accepted His penal, vicarious sacrifice,” and offer the following comment: “No! No! No! No! No! No! No!”
Christ did not have to be resurrected in order to prove that he was approved of God—that happened at His baptism and has little relevance to the gospel. Again, we see our penchant for overemphasizing the cross at the expense of the new birth. The resurrection by the Holy Spirit was a promise made to Abraham and Christ, not proof of His approval by God.
Christ died so that we can die with Him and escape the law’s condemnation; Christ was resurrected so that the Spirit can resurrect us as well to serving His law in love. Christ died and was resurrected so that our relationship to the law can be transformed from condemnation to love. That’s the gospel.
Notice, the “gospel” is good news to be believed; not good deeds to be done. News has to do with something that has already happened; not with something yet to be done. You cannot be saved by depending upon your good works, on ceremonies like baptism, or church membership. Nothing you have done or ever could do will save you. You must look away from yourself and others and look in faith to Christ alone. It is depending on the Lord Jesus Christ alone that saves. You cannot be saved by some vague invitation to “come forward,” or to “let Jesus come into your heart.” There must be an understanding of the good news that Christ died on the cross for guilty, condemned sinners like you, and a willingness to depend on His death and resurrection to save you from your sin.
All of this is true, but again, in our day, the distinction between justification and sanctification must be made in order to not add to the prevailing progressive justification of our day. We MUST ALWAYS delineate between works salvation and new creature love lest we confound the two…
Notice, the “gospel” is good news to be believed; not good deeds to be done
…is the exact same language used by the progressive justification crowd that is firmly in charge of the American church. With all due respect, the statement separates good deeds (love) from the results of the resurrection (new birth), and that’s an extremely unfortunate result.
Because of prevailing progressive justification in our day, the very things Adams lists are described as the “means of grace” that “impart grace” and “keep us in the love of Jesus.” They are faith alone works that we “depend” on to keep us saved.
“Depend” is a bad word to use in conjunction with the good news of being born again. I was born of my mother and father, but I do not depend on what they did to stay alive. What they did is a finished work. For some time, I depended on them for the necessities of growing up in life, and my birth made that possible, but again, is a finished work, not the progression of growing up which is not yet finished.
Salvation is a finished work and includes regeneration. It is dying with Christ and being quickened by the new birth. It’s two-fold: Christ accomplished the first part and the Holy Spirit accomplishes the second. If you are going to say that a Christian needs to continually “depend” on Christ for salvation, you are wrong, but excluding the Spirit in that dependence is even more wrong and compounds the confusion. It also adds to the Chrsitocentricity of progressive justification. If you are going to be wrong, at least be wrong more accurately and include the Spirit. Salvation is Trinitarian—not Christocentric.
Let’s exclude the “depend” wordage in the gospel and replace it with “believe.” If you would notice, “believe” is the word always used in conjunction with the gospel in the Bible and that is not an accident.
“Depend” implies an ongoing work that should always be qualified as the new Christian life and NOT the finished work of regeneration. And that dependence should always include the Holy Spirit. Be sure of this: neither justification nor sanctification is Christocentric.
The completion of our new life is not salvation, salvation is a finished work—the completion of our new life is redemption. That’s the salvation from the weakness of our mortal bodies—not the salvation of our souls.
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
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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