Jerry Bridges Proffers Gospel-Driven Bondage
“….they’re going to show pastors how to *see justification only* throughout the whole Bible. If they were forthright, that’s how they would state it.”
“’Jesus / gospel‘ replaces ‘justification,’ and masks the real intent: to make every verse in the Bible about justification and thereby eradicating the use of the Law in sanctification.”
Let me begin with some groundwork. As John MacArthur said in his book “Truth War,” to fight error in our day takes determination, perseverance, and tenacity. This is because today’s propagators of false doctrine are masters of nuance. In regard to those who propagate the antinomian doctrine of Gospel Sanctification, the goal is to eliminate application of biblical imperatives by referring to such a use of God’s word as “living by lists,” “reducing the Bible to a book of rules,” etc. Of course, they don’t mention that the Bible has “rules” that are often stated in list form. Therefore, they carefully word their presentation so you will assume they are talking about people who use the Bible in a legalistic way. Meanwhile, they ignore practical application of the Scriptures while heavily emphasizing grace. Soon our particular efforts in sanctification will be buried and forgotten (out of sight, out of mind) while subtle / negative references to the application of biblical imperatives slowly throws one more shovel-full of dirt on the hole that obedience is buried in.
This method is also accompanied by synthesizing justification and sanctification. Obviously, if we are sanctified by the same monergistic gospel that saved us, we can’t do anymore with the Law in sanctification than we did with it in justification. After all, one of the Gospel Sanctification mantras is “the same gospel that saved you also sanctifies you.” D.A. Carson, in an interview with Tim Keller concerning the T4G 2011 conference, shared that the main thrust of that conference will be to teach pastors how to “drive toward Christ and the gospel” and to show what “Biblical Theology [ie., Geerhardus Vos hermeneutics] looks like” in order to “read the Bible in such a way that you [always] get to Jesus.” Let me rephrase that. What D.A. Carson really means is they’re going to show pastors how to *see justification only* throughout the whole Bible. If they were forthright, that’s how they would state it. If the “same” gospel that saved us also sanctifies us, then sanctification is monergistic. If it’s not monergistic, then it’s not the same gospel that saved us. They can only have it both ways until people start asking questions. Later in the interview, D.A. Carson disingenuously notes that several perspectives on preaching will be presented at the same conference; supposedly, unlike other conferences (who only present the Grammatical Historical perspective). In saying this, he assumes the listeners will not associate the term “Biblical Theology” with hermeneutics. Let me also add that it’s not really about always getting to Jesus; it’s about always getting to “what Jesus has done, not what we have done” (another GS mantra often used by Micheal Horton). “Jesus / gospel” replaces “justification,” and masks the real intent: to make every verse in the Bible about justification and thereby eradicating the use of the Law in sanctification.
This now brings me to the significance of an excerpt from the Jerry Bridges book, “Transformed by Grace.” Jerry Bridges (who coined the phrase, “we must preach the gospel to ourselves everyday”) is not any different from most GS advocates; it’s difficult to find definitive grounds for argument in their nuanced approach. Most of the time you will have to read several pages in order to find clear statements that reflect what they really believe. In this case, another blogger supplied the following excerpt from the above mentioned book. My comments are in brackets:
“Paul’s call to stand firm in our freedom in Christ and not let ourselves be burdened by a yoke of slavery is just as valid today with our rules as it was in the Galatians’ day with the Mosaic law… God gave us our spiritual Magna Charta.
[Paul’s call to freedom in Christ regards freedom from being justified by the Law. Here, Bridges extrapolates that idea into the realm of sanctification. As I mentioned above in my introduction, we see Bridges slight the idea of applying biblical rules to life, but doing so subtly by calling them “our” rules. But since the Mosaic Law is part of scripture, and he makes that comparison, he is really talking about the application of the Mosaic Law (where applicable, ie., Ephesians 6:1) to life. Also, though Jesus’ yoke is light, we, in fact, are His slaves and were “bought with a price.” ]
Through Paul, He called us to be free: ‘You, my brothers, were called to be free.’ In fact, God doesn’t just call us to freedom, he actually exhorts us to stand firm in our freedom – to resist all efforts to abridge or destroy it.
[Yes, in regard to justification, BUT as Christians, we actually find our freedom in aligning our lives with God’s law:
James 1:25
“But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.”
James 2:12
“Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom….”
Furthermore, Jesus said that the “truth will set you free,” and “thy word is truth.” Freedom comes from applying God’s word to life. We are set free by being slaves to Christ’ lordship, that isn’t the same as being in bondage to the Law in an attempt to be justified by it.]
Despite God’s call to be free and His earnest admonition to resist all efforts to curtail it, there is very little emphasis in Christian circles today on the importance of Christian freedom. Just the opposite seems to be true.
[But we are called to freedom on two fronts: freedom from the Law for justification, and freedom from the bondage of sin by obeying the perfect Law of liberty. Bridges only refers to the one. Why? Because in his mind, they are both the same, that’s why. However, in our day, the freedom that is not being emphasized is freedom for the believer by PROPERLY aligning his or hers life with the word of God.]
Instead of promoting freedom, we stress our rules of conformity.
[They’re not OUR rules, they are the Lord’s rules. Please note that a “lord” usually has rules he wants you to follow.]
Instead of preaching living by grace, we preach living by performance. Instead of encouraging new believers to be conformed to Christ, we subtly insist that they be conformed to our particular style of Christian culture. Yet, that’s the bottom line effect of most of our emphases in Christian circles today.
[ Living to love Christ by keeping His Law and striving to please Him accordingly is not “living by performance,” that is a typical GS red herring. Paul said whether in the body or apart, “we make it our goal to please Him,” and obviously, the word of God is the standard for that. Also, notice the *us against them* mentality in the suggestion that supposed graceless living is a “Christian culture” in most “Christian circles today.” This is indicative of the GS mentality that believes they are on a mission from God to save the church from the Dark Ages of synergistic sanctification.]
For example, many people would react negatively to my quoting only part of Galatians 5:12, ‘You, my brothers, were called to be free.’ Despite the fact that this statement is a complete sentence, they would say, ‘But that’s not all of the verse. Go on to quote the remainder: ‘But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.’…
[Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, the Galatians were being tempted to go back to a system that taught you had to keep the Law to maintain your salvation, NOT the idea that you keep the Law to love Christ and to please Him. We believe that we are kept by the power of God, but that does not negate our call to uphold the Law of God!]
The person who reacts this way has made my point. We are much more concerned about someone abusing his freedom than we are about his guarding it. We are more afraid of indulging the sinful nature than we are of falling into legalism.
[Here, Bridges makes the shocking suggestion that being concerned with keeping the Law is not “guarding” our freedom, and that being more afraid of indulging in the sinful nature than guarding our “freedom” is legalism. This troubling assertion should speak for itself.]
Yet legalism does indulge the sinful nature because it fosters self-righteousness and religious pride. It also diverts us from the real issues of the Christian life by focusing on external and sometimes trivial rules.” – Jerry Bridges, Transforming Grace, pp. 121-122
[ In this last statement, Bridges notes another GS staple often propagated by Paul Tripp and David Powlison; namely, our efforts as Christians to uphold the Law leads to self-righteousness and religious pride, and to make such an effort is “focusing on external and sometimes trivial rules.” Instead, we should supposedly only focus on “what Jesus has DONE rather than our OWN efforts,” which supposedly leads to an automatic kind of obedience earmarked by a willing and joyful spirit / attitude.]
How can bridges talk so strongly about one freedom without at least mentioning the other? Because that’s the freedom (through the Law in sanctification) he doesn’t want to emphasize even though his audience is Christian. Therefore, what Bridges is actually teaching is a gospel-driven bondage that averts Christians away from an effort to apply God’s word to life. Not only that, we now have conferences that are teaching leaders to propagate this approach wholesale throughout the church; true freedom as bondage. Buyer beware.
paul
Ted Black: “Covenantal Historical” is a Much Better Argument Than Redemptive Historical
As previously discussed on this blog, New Covenant Theology, Heart Theology, Redemptive Historical Hermeneutics, and Christian Hedonism are the four pillars of the antinomian doctrine sometimes referred to as Gospel Sanctification. This doctrine is gaining rapid, widespread acceptance among evangelicals, and is so subtle that many teachers propagate its elements unawares.
New Covenant Theology argues that the new covenant replaced the Law with a new “higher Law of love” (or other such references like “higher law of Christ”). Heart Theology is the practical application of Gospel Sanctification’s narrow role in regard to our participation in the sanctification process. Christian Hedonism attempts to explain how Gospel Sanctification is experienced. But Redemptive Historical Hermeneutics is an interpretive prism that makes Gospel Sanctification plausible.
Gospel Sanctification, in a nutshell, synthesizes justification with sanctification and extrapolates the same means of monergistic justification into sanctification, reducing the role of the believer in sanctification to almost nothing, except for the same role we would have in justification. Heart Theology then attempts to answer the question: “So what are believers supposed to do in the sanctification process?” But all in all, the four pillars work together to eliminate an upholding of the Law *by believers* in the sanctification process.
Redemptive Historical Hermeneutics was developed by Geerhardus Vos and coined “Biblical Theology” sometime between 1894 and 1932 while he was a professor at Princeton. Most of what I have learned about this hermeneutic is from Ted Black’s “The Biblical Hermeneutics of Geerhardus Vos: an Analysis, Critique, and Reconstruction.” Black wrote the paper as a requirement for a project while at Covenant College located in Georgia. Two things should bring Vos’s approach into immediate suspicion: First, the complexity of it. Blacks Critique, though a masterpiece, is 150 pages of mind-numbing theology. Certainly, especially when one considers the Sermon on the Mount, the expectation of such a complex prerequisite to understanding God’s word does not seem likely. Secondly, it’s new, with similar theories nowhere to be found before the eighteenth century.
As I said, this theory of interpretation is extremely complex, but it primarily teaches that the Bible is a historical account of redemption. Hence, the name: “Redemptive Historical.” It goes without saying that not many Christians would argue with that, but what they don’t understand is that this theory of interpretation teaches that the Bible is exclusively a redemptive narrative concerning the works of Christ and nothing else. Therefore, as one example, what seems to be commands directed towards us in the Bible can now become commands that God knows we cannot obey with the intention of driving us to the one who fulfilled the Law on our behalf: Christ. In other words, when you look at Scripture through a Christocentric prism, the purpose of commands are to drive us to the knowledge that we are unable to uphold the Law, as apposed to the idea that obedience is our part in a covenant between us and God (but as a way of loving God and submitting to the Lordship of Christ, not as works for salvation) So then, when Paul the apostle referred to the Law as a schoolmaster that leads us to Christ, this can also apply to sanctification as well (supposedly).
This now sets the table for Black’s contention. He proposes on pages 53-62 of the above cited paper that covenants are a much more pronounced theme in the Scriptures than the works of Christ. He does this in a string of brilliant arguments, but I will only enunciate the ones I can best get my mind around. On page 59, he says the following: “As I argued above, the particular purpose of Gen. 1-2 is not redemptive, but covenantal—its purpose is the presentation of the covenant.” This brings to my mind (and I will use it to make my first point) the assertion by John Piper in his message at the the 2010 T4G conference that the theme of the gospels is redemptive because of how each gospel ends. This is also a continuing mantra heard among proponents of GS, that the end determines the theme. No wonder, because at the beginning of the Bible you have God as creator, and the God who makes a covenant with man, not redemption. Also, let me add that in a grand display of weak discernment in our time, nobody at the T4G blinked at what Piper said, regardless of the fact that the gospels do not even end with redemption as well, but rather Christ announcing that He had been given all authority by the Father and His mandate for the church. In fact, the Bible as a whole doesn’t even end with redemption, but rather the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth and the apparent restoration of God’s covenant with man.
Secondly, Black makes the point that the Old and New Testaments are structured / organized around the covenants. Each phase of Biblical history begins or encompasses a covenant. Also, he mentions the progressive nature of the Abrahamic covenant from Genesis 12 to the end of the Bible. When you follow Blacks reasoning as he unfolds his thesis in detail, you begin to see the dominant theme of God’s covenants with man throughout Scripture.
Thirdly, Black makes the point on page 57 that viewing covenants as a major theme in the Bible presents the Trinity in a more balanced, and biblical light: “Further, it appears that Scripture is not centered around Christ but rather around the Triune God, including Christ.” The propensity to present unbalanced views of the Trinity by GS proponents is an ongoing concern of great import. Obviously, if the Bible is primarily about the redemptive works of Christ, rather than His part in effecting the covenants between God and man, this is bound to happen, and for the worse. Black says the following on page 60: “The clear implication of this is that redemption, although a key theme of Scripture, and the distinguishing characteristic of any and all covenants of grace, is not the primary element of our present covenant in either its historical or inscripturated presentation, and neither was it primary in the past.”
But more importantly, Black, unlike proponents of GS, is suggesting covenants as a primary theme, not a single prism in which to interpret all of Scripture. I think he says the following on page 61 in sarcasm: “As such, and in different terms, we should understand that Scripture is not first and foremost based on the ‘history of redemption,’ but on the ‘history of the covenant’ I propose therefore, that we do not refer to our method of interpreting Scripture as ‘Redemptive Historical,’ but rather ‘Covenantal Historical.’”
By any measure, GS has a weak argument in regard to redemption being the *only* major theme of Scripture, and a far lesser argument for it being a single prism in which to interpret all of Scripture. Not only that, its unreasonably complex, and like its illegitimate child, NCT, which is thought by some to be only thirty years old, its way too new, implying that God’s children have been without a sufficient hermeneutic for 1900 years.
paul
John Piper’s Antinomian Message at the 2010 T4G Conference
“Notice also, and this is absolutely key, that we are not to meditate on what Jesus ‘says’ (ie., imperatives), but rather ‘pictures’ of Jesus. And of course, if these ‘pictures’ are central to our narrow role in sanctification, they must also be ‘inexhaustible.’”
I haven’t done much research on the T4G coalition (“Together for the Gospel”), but it is fairly apparent that it is another conduit piping in more neo-Reformed garbage into the SBC. This steady flow of poison is already causing Southern Baptist leaders to act even more goofy than we already are, bringing people up on unbiblical church discipline for nonattendance and creepy midweek Bible studies that are confined to members and closed to outsiders. My guess is that this is in regard to not wanting outsiders to raise red flags in regard to the covert, hideous, antinomian doctrine called Gospel Sanctification.
My suspicions are raised by the T4G’s infatuation with the antinomian, but lovable, John Piper, who is a proponent of the GS doctrine. As I read his message to the 2010 T4G, I couldn’t help but to wonder if anybody at all had puzzled looks on their faces. His message started with his usual display of confusion and nebulism. The message was entitled “Did Jesus Preach the Gospel of Evangelicalism?”
But then he didn’t even answer the question in his message. Not only that, here is what he said in his introduction: “If I had it to do over again, I would use the title ‘Did Jesus Preach Paul’s Gospel?'” But even though he said “if”, he in fact did focus on the latter topic, admitting that the title never did fit the topic in two-fold fashion. More than likely, this was an awkward, failed attempt to accuse Evangelicalism at large of preaching a false gospel without saying it directly.
And no John Piper message would be complete without brazen doublespeak, even as his listeners fawn with admiration. In the first part of the message he advocates the Historical Grammatical method of interpretation: “ If, by means of historical and grammatical effort, accompanied with the Spirit’s illumination of what is really there, you understand the accounts of the four Gospels as they stand, you will know the Jesus who really was and what he taught.” But in a following statement (same message), he says the following:
“Every verse of all four Gospels is meant by the authors to be read in the shadow of the cross. When we start reading one of the Gospels, we already know how it ends—the death and resurrection of Jesus as a substitute for our sins (Mark 10:45; Matthew 26:28)—and we should have that ending in mind with every verse that we read. And this is exactly what each of the Gospels intends.”
This statement can only be born-out by a Historical Redemptive interpretation, and in direct contradiction to his earlier statement. But notice the slick twisting of words in his second statement:
“Every verse of all four Gospels is meant by the authors to be read in the shadow of the cross.”
Really, who can argue with that? In essence, these books do stand in the “shadow” of the cross; again, who would argue with that? But after he feeds you that little bite, he closes the deal in your brain with the belief that every verse in these books are about redemption only:
“When we start reading one of the Gospels, we already know how it ends—the death and resurrection of Jesus as a substitute for our sins (Mark 10:45; Matthew 26:28)—and we should have that ending in mind with every verse that we read. And this is exactly what each of the Gospels intends.”
And by the way, since when does the ending of a book determine the meaning of every verse in the same book? Where did he find that hermeneutic?
I say all of the above to make the following point: The Redemptive Historical hermeneutic necessarily goes hand in hand with Gospel Sanctification, which vanquishes any distinction between justification and sanctification; the same monergistic gospel that saved you, also sanctifies you (hence, “Gospel Sanctification”). The gospel-centered hermeneutic (RHH) makes that assessment possible. Therefore, the Bible can have no imperative purpose in sanctification because there was not any imperative possibility in justification either. The natural result of this is antinomianism because the Law cannot be upheld in sanctification any more than it can be in justification. In fact, Piper, like Micheal Horton and many others, consider the belief that Christians are able to participate in upholding God’s law a false gospel.
So, what does Piper propose that Christians do? Well, it’s right in the message from the T4G:
“First, a word about method. One of my goals in this message is to fire you up for serious lifelong meditation on the four Gospels as they stand. I am so jealous that you not get sidetracked into peeling away the so-called layers of tradition to find the so-called historical Jesus. I want you to feel the truth and depth and wonder that awaits your lifelong labor of love in pondering the inexhaustible portraits of Jesus given us by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.”
The word “meditation” is not used by accident. Piper believes that we are transformed (sanctification) by a meditation on the gospel (the same gospel that saved us), or what he calls “becoming by beholding.” Also, Christ is absolutely synonymous with the gospel narrative its self, or as he puts it “God is the Gospel.” So, “Christ” and “gospel” are used interchangeably. Notice also, and this is absolutely key, that we are not to meditate on what Jesus “says” (ie., imperatives), but rather “pictures” of Jesus. And of course, if these “pictures” are central to our narrow role in sanctification, they must also be “ inexhaustible.”
Piper continues to build on this same point by saying:
“If you interpret faithfully the deeds and the words of Jesus as he is portrayed in the four Gospels, your portrait of Jesus will be historically and theologically more in accord with who he really was and what he really did than all the varied portraits of all the critical scholars who attempt to reconstruct a Jesus of history behind the Gospels.”
Notice again that our supposed goal is to achieve a “portrait ” of Jesus rather than an attempt to ascertain what he wants us to do as a church. We are also to faithfully interpret His deeds and “words.” Here, His (Christ) “commands” are replaced with His “words” where commands could have been referred to. Also, Piper continued to avoid any reference to the Lordship of Christ or imperatives spoken by Him in the following statement as well:
“If you believe that, what a lifelong challenge and treasure lies before you! To meditate day and night on the four Gospels with a view to knowing your Lord Jesus with ever-deepening understanding, and ever-deepening love, and ever-deepening fellowship. I really believe that the ultimate reason God gave us four portraits of Jesus in the four Gospels is so that we would more fully and accurately see and savor the glories of the Savior that we meet personally in the gospel, and that we would enjoy fellowship with him in this life, as we know him personally from what he did and said in his days on earth.”
Again, Piper propagates the idea that our understanding of Jesus, our love of Jesus, and our fellowship with Jesus, comes through meditation alone. In addition, as in the above quote and throughout his message, Christ is only referred to as Savior, and any references to kingly commands are avoided like the Bubonic Plague. An example of this is also in the above quote were he refers to what Jesus “did and said” while on earth. Throughout this message delivered at the T4G conference, he states that meditation upon portraits of Christ (the gospel) is the crux of spiritual growth. Now with that in mind, consider Christ’s mandate to the church in Matthew 28:18-20;
“Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
First of all, let’s back-up a little. Piper argues in his message that every verse in the Gospels is about the cross because all four end with the death, burial, and resurrection. This is clearly not so. Matthew and Mark end with Christ proclaiming His lordship ( “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”) and the mandate to make disciples by teaching them to observe all that he had “commanded.” Christ never instructed the church to obtain “deep fellowship” with Him by meditating on “pictures” of Him from the Gospels. In effect, Piper clearly preached a half-gospel at the T4G conference, presenting Christ as Savior only, and I would be willing to bet that no one even blinked.
Lastly, per the usual, Piper is difficult to expose concerning his belief in monergistic sanctification. While his message was supposedly focused justification, he makes the following statement in the same message:
“All the good that God requires of the justified is the fruit of justification by faith alone, never the ground of justification. Let the battle of your life be there. The battle to believe. Not the battle to perform.”
Is that true? Should Christians focus solely on belief only? Isn’t there ever a “battle to perform”? According to Piper, and what can be clearly gleaned from this statement, no. Notice how sanctification is not mentioned in regard to what we should be doing now, or a “battle” to please God with our lives. Regardless of the fact that he is speaking in the present tense, he only qualifies the “battle to perform” in regard to justification. He says that everything God requires flows from the fruits of justification, and then we should only “battle to believe,” not battle to perform. Read the statement very carefully as you must with this master word-crafter; if you make a battle to perform one of your battles as a Christian, you are also making that the grounds of your justification!
The bottom line is this: Piper’s message to the T4G conference was nothing more than the half-gospel of Jesus as savior only and not lord; for where the Law cannot function, there can be no Lord, for what is He to be loved with? It was the gospel that presents the Father and Holy Spirit as inferior to Jesus Christ, for it claims that every verse in the Bible is about Him only. It was an antinomian gospel. It was a monergistic sanctification gospel. It was the gospel of Christian meditation. It was the gospel of what Jesus looks like rather than what he SAYS.
And at a conference supposedly standing for the gospel. And no one blinks. Hail to the almighty John Piper.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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