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Do Keswick Critics Routinely Misrepresent Keswick Theology? Part 1 of 3
unintelligibility of the Higher Life position[1]
explains why defenders of Keswick can complain that its critics employ
“inaccuracy” and “major misrepresentation” when discussing the movement.[2] Unlike Scripture, which is the non-contradictory
and clear revelation from God about how to live a holy life for His glory, the
contradictions, shallow understanding of theology, and ecumenical confusion
evident at Keswick produced the following self-assessment by Keswick leaders:
simple exercise, for there has never been in its history an agreed system of
the particular truths it has purported to proclaim. A supposed Keswick view on something may depend on who is speaking at the
time. When it is stated fairly
emphatically that “Keswick teaches such and such,” as has often been done, it
is usually possible to find teaching from the Keswick platform that has given a
different slant, an alternative interpretation, or a completely contradictory
one altogether. . . . Critiquing “Keswick teaching” is a little like trying to
hit a moving target, or getting hold of a piece of soap in the bath. . . . It
is important to keep in mind the . . . sharply different views of different
speakers. . . . [M]any phases of the doctrine of holiness have been presented
by a wide variety of speakers, some of them contradictory. . . . Baptists,
Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Brethren, Reformed, charismatics, and
those of other persuasions can stand shoulder to shoulder [at Keswick.] . . .
Any attempt, therefore, to survey the preaching at Keswick and create a
systematic picture . . . is bound to be unsatisfactory.[3]
other doctrine than the truth (1 Timothy 1:3), separating from all error
(Romans 16:17), and earnestly contending for all of the faith (Jude 3), Keswick
will allow speakers to contradict each other and mislead their hearers with
false teaching. Keswick critics are then
accused of misrepresentation when they point out heresies and errors in Keswick
writers and speakers. In a similar
manner, separatists who point out that goddess worship goes on at the World
Council of Churches can be accused of misrepresentation by ecumenists, since
only some, but not all, those at the World Council worship goddesses. Thus, certain Keswick critics may represent
Keswick inconsistently because Keswick is not itself consistent—inconsistency
in representations of Keswick may, ironically, be the only consistent representation
of the movement. Of course, a critic of
Keswick certainly may fail to present its position fairly, just as critics of
any position are not universally fair and accurate. However, a statement by a critic of the
Higher Life such as Bruce Waltke that “the Keswick teaching [affirms] that from
the inner passivity of looking to Christ to do everything will issue a
perfection of performance”[4] is
an accurate statement of the dominant classical formulations of Keswick
theology as taught by its founding leaders, not a misrepresentation. There is
no evidence that critics of Keswick are more liable to engage in
misrepresentation than others engaged in theological critique.
Robertson McQuilkin, arguing for the Keswick doctrine of sanctification in Five Views of Sanctification, wrote: “Two authors who attack the [Keswick]
movement and are universally held by Keswick speakers to have misunderstood the
teaching [are] Packer [in his] Keep in
Step With the Spirit [and] Warfield [in his] Studies in Perfectionism.”[5] The only evidence McQuilkin advances that
Warfield misunderstood the Keswick theology is an anecdote. McQuilkin recounts:
movement known as the Victorious Life Testimony, told me that when [Warfield’s Studies in Perfectionsim] was published,
he went to Warfield and discussed the matter of Keswick teaching and
perfectionism at length. Afterward
Warfield admitted, “If I had known these things, I would not have included the
last chapter [“The Victorious Life”] in my work.”[6]
misunderstanding of the Keswick theology, misquotations of Keswick writers, or
any other kind of hard evidence of misrepresentation by Warfield. Such hard evidence is very difficult to come
by since more objective historiography describes Warfield’s Studies in Perfectionism as “meticulous
and precise . . . extensive and detailed analysis . . . [of] the higher life, victorious life, and
Keswick movements. Warfield’s treatment of
these teachings . . . serves as a vivid sample of his thoroughness as a
historical theologian.”[7] Recording in 1987 in his Five Views chapter what McQuilkin claims his father told him
Warfield had said in the early 1930s, long after the parties who allegedly
engaged in the conversation were dead, is hardly actual evidence of
misrepresentation, especially since both McQuilkins have a clear and strong
interest in undermining the credibility of Warfield. Furthermore, J. R. McQuilkin has overlooked
the overwhelming historical problems that make it certain that his anecdote is
inaccurate. David Turner notes: “Something is amiss here, since Warfield’s .
. . will provided for the publication of his critical reviews in book form,
which occurred in 1932. Thus Warfield . . . could not have referred to
retracting this last chapter of his book—he had been dead eleven years when it
was published.”[8] Similarly, Warfield scholar Fred G. Zaspel
indicates:
quote cannot be accurate. First,
Warfield never saw the publication of his book Studies in Perfectionism.
This two-volume work is a collection of essays that were originally
published in various theological journals from 1918 to 1921, the last of which
was published posthumously (1921); the
two-volume work to which McQuilkin refers was not published until 1931-1932,
some ten or eleven years after Warfield’s death. Second, the “last chapter” of the book to
which this McQuilkin quote refers is the chapter on the higher life, which was
in fact not the last but the very first article of the series published
(1918). As to the accuracy of the
substance of the remark . . . [w]e only know that while Warfield continued to
write on the broader subject of holiness-perfectionism, he made no retractions.[9]
dead so that he could recant of his critique of the Higher Life, McQuilkin’s
quote concerning Warfield is historically impossible mythmaking. McQuilkin does not even provide hearsay to
support his statement about Packer’s alleged misrepresentation. Perhaps
these severe problems with McQuilkin’s affirmation explain why he affirms that
Packer and Warfield are “universally held by Keswick speakers to have misunderstood the
teaching”—Keswick writers might have
to provide actual evidence, while speakers
can simply make undocumented and inaccurate statements. Then again, McQuilkin does not just speak his
attempt to discredit Warfield and Packer—he does register his charge in
writing. While McQuilkin did actually
write down the alleged but mythological recantation by Warfield, the Keswick
apologist did not put his quotation in the main body of his chapter in the Five Views book, but in a concluding
section, with the result that the other non-Keswick contributors were unable to
point out the problems with and the vacuity of his affirmation. If one wishes to prove that Keswick has been
misunderstood and misrepresented, mythmaking about Warfield and a passive voice
verb, that Warfield and Packer “are universally held” to have misunderstood the
system, fall abysmally short of the standard of real evidence.
example, Jacob Abbott, reviewing the foundational The Higher Christian Life by William Boardman, notes:
clearly as fairly as we can, the results of our investigation [of Boardman’s
book]. . . . [T]he book is a difficult one to analyze satisfactorily[.] . . .
In a word, the book has no method at all;
no development, no progress, no “lucidus ordon.” We are not sure it would suffer (with
trifling qualifications) by arranging its eighteen chapters in any order
different from the present, even if that were by chance.
the treatise. What is the subject
treated? What does the writer mean by
the “higher life?” and by “second conversion?” as its equivalent, or the
stepping-stone to it? Precisely what he
does mean, we will not attempt to say;
because it is not said intelligibly
in the book, and cannot be inferred from the book. On the contrary, it can be inferred, most
certainly, from the book, that he had no well-defined idea, in his own mind, on
the subject (see p. 57). . . . Let us now pass on to that which is obtained in
“second conversion.” And here . . . we
have got to the end of the author’s self-consistency, and shall henceforth
wander about, in fogs thicker than those of the Grand Bank. . . . We are aware
that he, or a defender of his system, may take the same book and convict us of
unfairness[,] [f]or we have already given some examples of the contradictions
it contains. There are others.
Boardman’s The Higher Christian Life,
Bibliotheca Sacra, Jacob J. Abbott. Bibliotheca Sacra (July 1860) 508-535)
treatise of its doctrine of sin, and no carefully prepared, weighty discourses of a theological nature . . . for over seventy-five years” (pg. 51, So Great Salvation: The History and Message of the Keswick
Convention). Since the Higher Life
position itself is a murky muddle of confusion it is just about inevitable that
those who criticize specific representative statements and affirmations by
Keswick advocates will be accused of misrepresentation by those who can cite
conflicting and contradictory Higher Life statements.
affirm critics misrepresent; see also,
e. g., the
defense of Keswick and critique of Warfield on pgs. 213-215 of Transforming
Keswick: The Keswick Convention, Past,
Present, and Future, Price & Randall.
34-35, 222-226, Transforming
Keswick: The Keswick Convention, Past,
Present, and Future, Price & Randall.
“Evangelical Spirituality: A Biblical Scholar’s Perspective.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological
Society 31:1.
183, Five Views of Sanctification. Melvin E. Dieter, Anthony A. Hoekema, Stanley
M Horton, J. Robertson McQuilkin & John F. Walvoord, authors; Stanley N. Gundry, series ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1987.
245, Five Views of Sanctification,
Dieter et. al.
465, The Theology of B. B. Warfield: A Systematic Summary, Fred G. Zaspel.
Review by David L. Turner of Five Views on Sanctification, by Melvin E.
Dieter, Anthony A. Hoekema, Stanley M. Horton, J. Robertson McQuilkin, and John
F. Walvoord. Grace Theological Journal
10:1 (1989) 94-98.
473-474, The Theology of B. B.
Warfield: A Systematic Summary, Fred
G. Zaspel.
What Is Conservatism in a Church? Is This Good?
Men associated with Religious Affections Ministries (RAM), led by Scott Aniol, have written and published a book, A Conservative Christian Declaration (at Amazon), which idea was then critiqued by others on SharperIron, an online forum. On top of writing the declaration and book, RAM has afforded church leaders to include their church in a list of likeminded conservative churches. Along with others, I asked myself whether this was a good thing, being a conservative church — shouldn’t it suffice to be a biblical church or an obedient one?
To come to the correct conclusion as to whether one should call his church a conservative church, he needs to understand what it means to be a conservative church, which also means that he should grasp what conservatism itself is and what it means to be a conservative. Does being conservative add anything important to identifying one’s self? Would people outside of the church understand what it means to be a conservative church, so that the designation could be helpful to others?
We have all sorts of designations that we apply to churches in order to help identify who they are: independent, Southern, fundamental, evangelical, Charismatic, etc. There is some history and rich meaning behind the word “conservative,” that is helpful in distinguishing the characteristics of a person or church. Even in evangelicalism today, many are using the term “conservative evangelical” to set apart a particular subset of them that are different than the other evangelicals who are not conservative evangelicals.
When we talk about theology, we do divide between conservative and liberal. If I said a church was conservative theologically, I believe I am saying a good thing about that church, but also hopefully helping someone understand what that church is. If you have a big set or circle of “church,” and you are narrowing it down to what type of church it is, applying the word “conservative” is going to leave out the liberal churches. If I said the church had conservative theology with conservative music and conservative lifestyles, all of that would focus our understanding even more about that church.
Would I want my church called a conservative church? I would. I like the term “conservative” even as applied to a church. Our church is an independent Baptist church. That sets our church apart. I often called us historic Baptists. I would use the word conservative too.
What does “conservative” do as a label? It has a connotative meaning to people for sure, usually to say that we take the Bible literally or strictly. We are preserving the practices of the past. We are not loose in our approach to God. It also says something about the culture of our church. I remember Mark Driscoll saying that his church was conservative theologically and liberal culturally. People get what that means. They should reject the designation, because of its self-contradiction, but they do get what it is.
Conservative also has a specific, definitive meaning. Some who claim the name conservative are not really conservative. They might possess some of the tenets of conservatism, perhaps the parts that they think will bring them benefit, but that alone makes them, in my view, not conservative. You shouldn’t be able to pick and choose what is conservative with you and what isn’t, because conservatism is a consistent position that applies everywhere. It has a denotative meaning that starts with a transcendent order, which must be God and, therefore, Christian.
Since the transcendent order proceeds from God, it also must be permanent. The conservative concerns himself with permanent things, because God is eternal and unchanging. The map of the world in His mind reflects upon God. The categories of permanent things have been labeled the transcendentals, because they transcend space and time unto the being and nature of God. They represent the perfections of God for which men strive, made in the image of God, which are truth, goodness, and beauty. The conservative strives to preserve these and shape his society, whether government, church, and family, upon their grand design.
Since God is one, no transcendental can be separated from another. You can’t give up one without the giving up the others. You don’t get to be conservative about truth and not about goodness and beauty, or about truth and goodness, but not about beauty.
Some ask, “Who cares? What difference do they make?” First, each of the transendentals are Bible. God ordains them. If we would obey God, submit to Him, like Jesus submitted to the Father, we will live them.
However, all three — truth, goodness, and beauty — are up for grabs not only in the culture and in the country, but also in the churches. We live in a relativistic society where none of these three are absolute, like neither is God absolute. To adapt to the world for utilitarian purposes, men abandon the absolutes.
Biblical Christianity is truth concerning total reality. It is the story. It is in this sense that all truth is God’s truth, because everything is God’s story. He originated the world, the world fell because of rebellion against Him, and it will be redeemed only through Him. It starts, continues, and ends with God. Your Christianity affects every area of your life, because your life is a component of the whole.
THE OPPOSITION
The most noticeable opposition to the above conservative declaration comes from those who reject absolute beauty. Their primary basis for their resistance is that no one can be sure about objective beauty, that beauty is merely in the eye of the beholder. This is well represented by a few comments in the SharperIron forum:
Does beauty objectively exist? and How do we know what beauty is? are two separate questions. Not that this group would deny that, but while most of us would agree on the first, agreement on the second would not be so easily reached. And we have to respect that.
This is typical. He argues from uncertainty. There is objective beauty, but we don’t know (can’t know) what it is. Beauty is inaccessible, lost to this generation.
Again, in typical fashion, someone else agrees with subjective beauty, and again because of unattainability:
I think that I could be persuaded to agree with goodness – as in the works of the Spirit – but beauty, as discussed, is going to need to defined and Scripturally defended, not just made as an assertion to be proclaimed. When I hear an instrumental piece with no lyrics, it’s can be considered “christian” because it’s “beautiful”? By what standard?
I do sympathize to a certain extent with the plight of these two comments. I read a lot at Religious Affections and they stay too ambiguous. The explanations often are enigmatic and vague. I can’t say that I know why. I have my opinion. They want to keep a seat at the table, and if they talk with more clarity, they will be excluded. It is a communications strategy, is what I think. If I’m right, they are not fully depending on God for the persuasion to their position.
If God has a standard of beauty, if He wants us to judge it, then we can. I don’t think it is that difficult. I don’t believe it is an intellectual problem. Men can understand. The problem is either lust or pride. They have a lust they cannot abandon or they don’t want to be rejected, which is the pride. Success is numbers and numbers require pleasing men. Men want what they want. They want their music, even for worship.
Judging music for beauty is as easy as judging foul or profane speech. Ugliness has become acceptable. A lot of immorality and false doctrine has too. However, we can judge beauty. It is objective, but we have to apply principles like is the case in so much application of scripture.
WHY
I understand the attraction to a “conservative church.” Even if that church were separatist, perhaps even historically fundamental, it might not be and probably won’t be truly conservative. I see this as the appeal of a conservative church. It distinguishes from vacuousness of fundamentalism, especially related to beauty. They see much of fundamentalism as not getting it, and being part of the problem. They see this, I believe, as helping churches and Christians who are looking for the total truth.
The conservative declaration focuses on aesthetics. They are important. One cannot love God rightly without objective beauty, The ugliness also distorts the imagination necessary for true worship of God. However, I see these same men as having capitulated on a biblical or transcendent view of truth and goodness. I love their work on beauty, but they are wanting on truth and goodness. I’m not going to explain in this post, but they are more dogmatic about beauty than the other two. It amazes me. As I said, you can’t have one with the others.
On top of my concern for their shortfall on truth and goodness is their lack of conviction. Conservation requires separation. They won’t take the stand against ugliness necessary to preserve loveliness.
I cannot sign off on the declaration or join the list of churches. I don’t even believe that these men are conservative. They are more conservative than most others, but they are not consistent in their conservatism. However, I like the idea of being known as a conservative church. If you are a conservative and your church conservative, then you are biblical. You have to be. His Word is Truth.
Games Calvinists Play to Keep the System Breathing, Part Two
The five points of Calvinism do not present a different gospel per se, because those five points don’t deal with the crux of the gospel, which is, one, whether you believe in a biblical Jesus, and, two, whether your faith is a biblical faith in Christ. I could leave Calvinism alone, except that Calvinism itself gets your attention by either stating or implying that you don’t preach a true gospel unless you present Calvinism. If you really do believe what they say you do, then you are in real trouble, attention-grabbing kind of trouble. It sounds like, as coming from Calvinists, that if you don’t believe and teach Calvinism, you could preach that salvation is by grace alone through a biblical faith alone and in a biblical Jesus, but still not be preaching a true gospel. The following is case in point.
Bill Combs, professor at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, writes concerning the absolute binary necessity of being either a Calvinist or an Arminian:
The real issue comes down to the question of who saves us. Does God save us, or do we, with some help from God, save ourselves?
He continues in explanation:
One answer is that God chose Joe (unconditional election) and gave him grace (efficacious) that caused him to believe. He owes his salvation completely to God (monergism). Joe cannot boast in his salvation (1 Cor 1:28–29; Eph 2:8–9). This is Calvinism.
And finally, he writes:
One may not like the labels Calvinism and Arminianism and can rail against them all day long. But they historically represent the two evangelical options for the salvation of sinners. Either God is the ultimate decider: He gets all glory. Or the sinner is the ultimate decider: he deserves to share in that glory.
In support of Combs and to supply his own explanation, Dan Phillips writes:
Over at the indispensable DBTS blog, professor Bill Combs asks whether a person really has to be either Calvinist or Arminian, with no middle-ground. He answers, correctly, Yes.
Here’s one way I’d put it: either God’s choice of me is the result of my choice of Him, or my choice of Him is the result of His choice of me. There’s no middle-ground that isn’t exclusively populated by weasels.
I point out these particular quotes of Combs, because they look and read like they are saying that, unless you believe in unconditional election, you believe in salvation by works. This is where a Calvinist gets my attention. I could leave it alone, if it weren’t for that. You’ve got to step in at this point and say, “Uh-uh, that’s not true.” And it isn’t how the Bible reads.
The Bible doesn’t present with these two options, that it is either/or, period. This is an invented dichotomy. It reminds me of something my younger brother would do when I was in school. He would point out two unfavorable females and ask which one I was going to marry. Those two and only those two were the only options for me, when they really, of course, were not.
It is true that there is only one truth. However, the Bible doesn’t present two options like this relative to choosing or deciding. It isn’t even true according to history. It is what we call in logic, a false dilemma, and in that sense is just a propaganda technique. Phillips just makes it a little bit more biting, by calling those who won’t accept the false dilemma, weasels. You accept this viewpoint or you’re a weasel. Perhaps we could call this one of the ‘new measures’ of Calvinists to persuade others of Calvinism. I have to ask, can someone persuade someone to be a Calvinist, using this technique, or isn’t that just predetermined?
CHOOSING
In his above linked article, Bill Combs quotes Wayne Grudem:
The reason for election is simply God’s sovereign choice…. It was not because of any foreseen faith or foreseen merit in us.
In the same paragraph, Combs summarizes from this:
“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world” (Eph 1:4). God’s choosing or election of the individual to salvation is not conditioned on anything within the individual himself—thus unconditional.
What matters about election is what God says about it. Knowing what God says, I question the quotation of Grudem — the reason for election is God’s sovereign choice? The reason? I love God’s choosing, His election, but the reason for it is God’s sovereign choice? Where does scripture say that? And isn’t “election” itself simply “God’s choice”? Election is His choice, not the reason for His choice.
Choosing ahead of time does not follow that the choosing is unconditional. Not with God. God is not bound by time. He is Omniscient. I guess we’re supposed to believe that choosing beforehand means the choice is unconditional. Doesn’t God’s timelessness and omniscience allow for God to elect only those who believe?
Grudem also twists foreseen faith into foreseen merit. Calvinists do this by making foreseen faith a work by categorizing faith as someone’s individual choice or election. I agree that election or choosing is separated in the Bible as a unique aspect of God in salvation. However, man does believe and believing isn’t technically, that is, scripturally, a choice. Men choose, but salvation doesn’t come by choice, but by faith. I’m saying that faith isn’t a choice, because the Bible doesn’t say it is. Faith and choice are different. Even in real time, after the foundation of the world, among men, faith is not choice.
Grudem and Combs are saying that faith, if it is foreseen, is a choice and, therefore, merit, because man is making that choice, because man believing equals man choosing. However, let’s say that faith isn’t a choice and yet man is still believing. Because man is believing, that doesn’t make it or mean it is a work, just because it is a man believing. Is God believing for a man? Is a man actually not doing the believing either? Because if he believes, a man, then it is a work? Either way, biblical faith isn’t a work, and Grudem and Combs are wrong on this, no matter how they promote this false dilemma.
I have a theory or opinion about Calvinists. Even if it were true, I can’t see one of them admitting it, but I think that Calvinists feel ashamed of their view of God, which is why they keep barking about these points that don’t plainly follow from the text of scripture. Their emotion, often anger, comes out of that shame. I expect Calvinists to mock this. But they know why people don’t believe it. People who reject the points of Calvin can’t wrap their brain around the idea that God has predetermined people to heaven and to hell. Scripture doesn’t come out and say that. Calvinists get that idea from a kind of deduction that I don’t think we should call logical. All teaching in scripture included, the Calvinist idea isn’t supported. It isn’t logical because the premises of Calvinism aren’t all true.
DECIDING
Combs writes about deciding:
What I mean, and what I’m trying to get at, is who is the ultimate decider in the matter of our salvation? Is God the one who ultimately decides if I end up in heaven or hell, or am I the one who ultimately decides if I end up in heaven or hell? Quickly, someone will say that both God and I decide. There is truth there, but there can be only one ultimate decider, one person who makes the final determination.
The language, “ultimate decider,” is a definition of “choice” or “election” that Calvinists choose for God. The Bible doesn’t say, “ultimate decider.” God doesn’t choose to call Himself the ultimate decider or even use that kind of language. It doesn’t square with scripture.
I don’t care if someone believes God is the ultimate decider. If I was asked if God was the ultimate decider, I would say, “Yes.” And yet I don’t believe in unconditional election. God decided there was a condition: faith. He decided to provide the only way of that salvation. He decided to reveal Himself to all men. He decided to make His Word accessible to man. He decided to make His Word powerful. He decided to send His Son. He decided to start the church. He decided to choose apostles. Men can be saved, not because they decided, but because God did. We don’t get saved when we want to get saved, but when God decides to allow us.
God will sit on the Great White Throne. Only God could choose before the foundation of the world. He is the ultimate decider, but I still don’t believe election is unconditional. He chose us “in him.” He chose us “according to foreknowledge.” He chose us “through belief in the truth.” His choosing is not unconditional.
God gets all the glory through salvation by grace through faith. If you don’t add unconditional election to that, Combs is saying that God doesn’t get all the glory, but man does. He doesn’t have a verse to back that up. He’s making it up.
In this way, Calvinism is lazy. Rather than thinking through all the ramifications of God’s election and man’s faith, Calvinists just resort to predetermination. God chose to send this person to heaven and He chose to send this person to hell, regardless of the person’s faith. Someone will believe. Why? The fourth point of Calvinism says that grace is irresistible to the one God elects without condition. Every person God elects must believe. Each will believe. He makes each of them do that with the irresistible grace at His disposal. He doesn’t dispense of that grace to everyone, just those He elects. Everyone else is doomed in advance, created or formed for destruction. Calvinists say these people have no choice and yet they are responsible for making a bad choice — both. That is not how the Bible reads.
More to Come.
Studies in Perfectionism by Benjamin B. Warfield Available for Free Dowlonad
2. Albrecht Ritschl and His Doctrine of Christian Perfection (art. 2)
3. “Miserable-Sinner Christianity” in the Hands of the Rationalists (pt. 1)
4. “Miserable-Sinner Christianity” in the Hands of the Rationalists (pt. 2)
5. “Miserable-Sinner Christianity” in the Hands of the Rationalists (pt. 3)
6. “Die Heiligungsbewugung” – “The Fellowship Movement”
7. The German “Higher Life Movement” in Its Chief Exponent
I. The Men and the Beginnings
II. Mahan’s Type of Teaching
III. The Development of the Oberlin Teaching
IV. The Theology of Charles G. Finney
2. John Humphrey Noyes and His “Bible Communists”
I. The Environment
II. The Beginnings
III. The Structure
IV. The Doctrine
3. The Mystical Perfectionism of Thomas Cogswell Upham
I. Upham and His Second Conversion
II. Upham and the Quietists
III. Upham’s Doctrinal Teaching
4. The “Higher Life” Movement
5. “The Victorious Life”
Games Calvinists Play to Keep the System Breathing: Exhibit A – Foreknowledge
The Bible is plain. If the five points of Calvin are taught by the Bible, that will be obvious. If these are so important, which you can see they are to Calvinists, this should be easy. And then you read what they write, looking for that smooth flow of biblical argument, the points fleshing right out from the text. You don’t get that. You won’t get that. It’s not there.
Calvinist: “You’ve got to understand. Um. “Know” is intimacy, like Isaac knew Rebekkah, soooo, keep that in mind, foreknowledge, is to fore commit an intimate act with someone. You just got to know that. And now you do, so just replace that old definition in your head every time you get to this word. So there we go.”
There was not, and is not, nor ever will be, a point where we become the decisive cause of our salvation.
I knew that Calvinists would say that I didn’t understand their position or I was misrepresenting it, and so I could refer them to what version of Calvinism I was arguing against, I chose the contemporary figure most associated with it. While you are deciding, do you need to know that you are not deciding? When we are encouraging someone to believe, do we need to inform them that they aren’t doing what they think they’re doing — it just appears so?
12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. 13 But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:
Ebola: Government Failure Stems from a Shift in Worldview
Many of you can list the crisis or scandals now of the present presidential administration. Let’s start with a focus on the recent Liberian man who brought ebola to Texas. The defense of supporters relates to the minimal number who could die, so we shouldn’t be afraid. Unless you are the one dying or exposed, that’s not the issue. The issue is what is being called incompetence, but could incompetence trickle down so far that it arrives at a hospital in Texas?
Thomas Eric Duncan traveled to Dallas from Liberia more than a week ago after catching ebola in Liberia. About 50 people now are being monitored who may have come into contact with him after he started showing symptoms. Duncan visited the emergency room of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on September 25 with a low-grade fever and complained of abdominal pain. Although he disclosed to a nurse he had traveled from Liberia, he was still released with antibiotics rather than being placed into an isolation ward.
Ebola was maybe as big as it could get in the news with talk about the spread to the U. S. happening all the time. How does a known recent arrival from West Africa and with a fever get released back to the general public? We’ve reached a worldview tipping point. Awash in moral relativism, an instinct of toleration prevails, indecision and inability to decide right or wrong. It is bound to look incompetent, but it is a derangement proceeding from the elimination of absolute truth and goodness.
We bail corrupt big banks and business. We open our borders to illegal immigrants. Barely a reaction for the genocidal abortion doctor, Kermit Gosnell — abortion isn’t a necessary evil; it’s great. The end justifies the means. The IRS targets conservatives and eliminates the evidence by destroying government computers and smart phones. An American ambassador is left hanging out to dry in Benghazi.
You should expect more crisis and scandal. Man is either a material-chemical machine or risen from a common ancestor with all the other animals. Right and wrong don’t exist. Churches reduce truth to a lowest common denominator for the sake of unity. More false doctrine and practice becomes accepted. Good is evil and evil is good.
Is it incompetence? It might look that way to some. Immorality yields the incompetence of third world countries. We’re headed that way and in some ways, we’re already there.
Reverence and Solemnity: Essential Aspects of Biblical Worship, part 8 of 8
some further musical styles and sounds are not appropriate because they are not
reverent and solemn. The worship of the
sanctuary is specified constantly as solemn and reverent praise of God, and
never once designated as entertainment of men, children, or any other group.
that the bread on the table with the frankincense was the only thing placed
upon the table [in the Tabernacle] as the food of the priests. . . . [A]ll that
is necessary for faith and life . . . [t]he sustaining food of the believer . .
. is the Word of God, both the living Wor[d] and the written Word . . . [with]
the frankincense, the Holy Spirit. . . . There were no sauces and spices and
pickles and olives and fancy salads or pie à la mode; just bread. We have
drifted far, far away from this simple formula today. Instead of believers
coming together to fellowship around the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life,
without all the extraneous paraphernalia, and just to feed on His Word, we have
too often turned our services into a carnival. The Word has been pushed aside
into a secondary place. Instead, we have an hour and a half of preliminaries, with
singing of silly choruses and empty spirituals, and joking and laughing and
horseplay. Entertainment has taken the place of worship . . . [and]
preaching[.] . . . [Finally we have] a fifteen-minute sermonette, highly spiced
and sensational, in order to keep people awake after all of the wearying
entertainment. And then we wonder at the worldliness and the shallowness of
Christians today. We have added pickles, olives, radishes, and highly seasoned
extras, and have relegated the Word of Life to a side dish, which few will
touch. . . . The assembly of the saints should be first of all a time of
worship and devotion and feeding and feasting upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and
not a matter of shallow entertainment. (pg. 94, The Tabernacle, M. R. DeHaan.
Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,
1955)
playing a kazoo may be entertaining, but it is not solemn or reverent. Nor are the many songs written to entertain
the young or the spiritually immature, rather than to offer God holy worship,
solemn or reverent. Scripture never
specifies a special category of “children’s music” which, allegedly exempt from
the qualities of reverence and solemnity that accurately represent Jehovah, can
simply be fun and frothy. Nor can
honesty conclude that the solemn and majestic heavenly praise of Revelation 4-5
sounds like a country-western, Southern Gospel, or bluegrass hoedown. The overwhelmingly rural, simple, and country
people that filled the land of Israel offered God in worship the profound,
deep, and rich words of the Psalter with the “solemn sound” (Ps 92:3) that He
commanded. Both the lyrics and style of
music must accurately represent God—whether or not the holy worship of the
sanctuary fits in with popular culture, or is attractive to the majority of the
population, is an indication of whether a land is ripe for judgment or
blessing, but not an indication of what God’s people should bring before the
Holy One who rules in heaven. Is the
music you offer to the Lord solemn and reverent?
the worship of the house of God is formal, not informal, in keeping with the
holiness of He whose house it is. The
garments worn were modest, for the exposure of nakedness in the dwelling of the
King could lead to immediate death (Ex 20:26; 28:42). Furthermore, the garments
worn by the priests when they entered Jehovah’s presence were costly and
formal, designed “for glory and for beauty”—they were the best that Israel had
(Ex 28). Their apparel properly represented
the reverend and holy One into whose presence they were coming. They did not wear the apparel appropriate for
toiling in the fields (cf. Zech 3:5) when they appeared in the house of God. In the like manner the royal priesthood of
the Lord’s blood-bought people should wear garments that are clean, modest, and
formal in the sanctuary. Unkempt, dirty,
or casual garments may be appropriate when repairing one’s car or cleaning a
pigpen, but the reverence and solemnity appropriate for appearing in the presence
of the dread King of heaven requires otherwise.
The members of the Lord’s church make a statement of what they think
about God when men come into His presence in neat suits and ties and women come
in formal and modest dresses. When they
do not fear to come into His presence dressed like hippies or hillbillies they
likewise make a statement—one of lightness and irreverence. Do your clothes represent the reverence God
requires of you both inwardly and outwardly?
in the Lord (Is 58:14) will consider the principles in Isaiah 58:13 on the
Lord’s Day. The Master commands His
people, “turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a
delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and . . . honour him, not doing
thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words.” Those who revere their holy Redeemer will set
apart the entire Lord’s Day for His glory, not only one hour every Sunday
morning. As they will honor the entire
Lord’s Day, they will be especially careful to guard themselves when they enter
the house of God, recognizing that they are entering a holy place (Ecc 5:1).[1] They will get to church on time—indeed, they
will arrive early. Because they long to
come into the presence of God, they will do whatever is in their power to never
miss services (Ps 42:1-2), that they might see His power and glory in His
sanctuary (Ps 63:1-2). They will be very
quick to hear and obey the preached Word (Jam 1:19-24), knowing that Jehovah
looks to the believer who has a poor and contrite spirit and who trembles at
His Word (Is 66:2). They will sing with
reverence and grace in their hearts to the Lord. They will approach the Lord in corporate
prayer with the solemn gravity due to His exalted majesty and with a deep
awareness of and humble repentance for their own sinfulness—a practice that
they will maintain also in private and in family prayer. They will not say Amen flippantly, but say it solemnly and reverently, considering
its signification as an address to God.[2] They will speak words of godly edification
one to another instead of discussing the vanities of the world, as people who
know that the Lord hearkens and hears them, and records their words in His book
of remembrance (Heb 10:24-25; Mal 3:16).
They will take with extreme seriousness their identification in baptism
with the name or character of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (Mt 28:19) and be
scrupulous and careful to participate in the communion ordinance worthily,
recognizing it for what it is—the holy memorial and remembrance of their Lord,
Jesus Christ (1 Cor 11:29). They will
honor Him by treating His Person, Word, and worship with weightiness instead of
flippancy and lightness.[3] Those who delight in the Lord in this manner
show Him solemn reverence. Do you do so?
This entire study can be accessed here.
The
idea behind the command, “Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God”
(Ecc 5:1), is “[i]n going to worship, go with considerate, circumspect,
reverent feeling. The allusion is to the taking off the shoes, or sandals, in
entering a temple” (JFB) as a place that is holy ground (Ex 3:5; Josh 5:15).
Brakel
explains:
means truth. Sometimes it is used singularly, and sometimes it is
repeated: Amen and Amen. At times it is used singularly and at
times with an addition: Amen, Hallelujah; Amen, Oh Lord; Amen, the Lord do
thus.
it is approbation and a subscribing to what has been said. . . . Deut 27:15 . .
. Neh 8:6. This approbation indicates that we comprehend the matter, as well as
that we wish and desire it. . . . 1 Cor 14:16. (2) Sometimes it is expressive
of a strong desire for a matter, and a desire that it be thus and come about as
such . . . Jer 11:5. (3) Sometimes it signifies veracity, certainty, and
steadfastness—upon which one can rely and trust in . . . 2 Cor 1:20.
supplicant who has prayed everything with both his understanding and his heart,
acknowledges the veracity and certainty of God’s promises, that He will hear
prayer[.] . . . The supplicant has prayed with his heart, knows that the
matters he has prayed for are according to God’s will, believes the goodness,
omnipotence, and veracity of God, expects the fulfillment of his desire
(subjecting himself to its time, manner, and measure), and longingly adds to
this: ―Amen, so be it; it shall most certainly be true [Rev 22:20]. (pgs.
588-589, The Christian’s Reasonable
Service, vol. 3, Wilhelmus á Brakel. trans. Bartel Elshout, ed. Joel R.
Beeke. [Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation
Heritage Books, 2007])
For,
after all, the word group for honor
in the Old Testament (dEb;Dk) is that of weightiness
or heaviness, while to treat someone lightly (llq/hlq) is to dishonor
him (cf. 1 Sam 2:30; Ex 20:12; Deut 27:16; Pr 12:9).
Mark These Words: Capitulation on the Diversity of Truth and Beauty Yields Apostasy, Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism
God knows. If Christianity is about God, biblical Christianity, like Noah was about God, then it should in fact be about God. I believe they already know. They just won’t say. But the people of fundamentalism and evangelicalism will know in the end, either by finding out or having their hand caught in the jelly jar. Together,they are the biggest reason for the slide toward Gomorrah.
This is God’s world. And yet out of His longsuffering, He endures all this around us. To Him, a thousand years are as a day, so this is nothing. But evangelicalism will get the word about how bad its rock music was. About how bad its marketing was. About how bad its lack of separation, ecclesiastical and personal, was. Evangelicalism, and now fundamentalism, has encouraged these things. They close their eyes to it. And they use modified forms of what they criticize in the extreme. They go silent on their favorites, their D. A. Carsons and John Pipers. Others. And Christianity has gone down, down, down with it.
You listen to the introduction to Carl Trueman’s Mortification of Spin, joking on Owen’s Mortification of Sin, starting with hard rock music, ugly and profane, utterly clashing with God. They pose like they are opposing evil, meanwhile promoting it. Two men and a woman, not their wife, bantering casually and jesting back and forth. It is unbecoming. They use the rock music to lead into their conversations and discussions about God, associating God with the profanity of the music. The medium does come with a message and then drags God into it. You can’t compromise and undermine God’s beauty without doing the same to His truth. You give up one and you give up all. It’s a matter of time before the undoing of one becomes the nullification of the other.
I’m saying mark these words about truth and beauty. I’m saying this because I expect that this warning won’t be heeded. It will either be marginalized or mocked. A game is being played with God that He doesn’t accept. Not long ago, every Christian would be against this perversion. It’s a form of idolatry, to conform the eternal to the temporal, to straddle man’s desires with God’s. There is one truth, one God, and one beauty. Dissolving beauty will disintegrate truth, and it already has and is. They proceed from the same God.
Men walk after their own lusts. But they still want the benefits of the God of this world, so they borrow half or less of a Christian worldview, the portion that they want, that will yield them the solution to sin they need, while forfeiting the pleasure of God, His worship. A new god will form out of the concession of beauty to the eye of the beholder. You can’t understand God while or when forfeiting this revelation or expression of Himself. It reorders values and loves. It forms a god captive to depraved imagination. It already distorts an orthodox view of God by robbing Him of true affection.
The separation of beauty from truth shapes a god that is a lie. He carries some of the same labels and evokes the same descriptives, but this isn’t God anymore, and it is only a matter of time until the practice and then doctrine too reaches the reduction of loveliness. The decline has already begun. And this love of God isn’t love, but sentimentalism. He won’t accept this passion arising from man’s lust.
I also wrote “diversity of truth” in the title, because more than one truth is already acceptable in evangelicalism and fundamentalism. It’s only becoming worse and in a steep deterioration trajectory. The abatement of truth and beauty are interrelated, because the acceptance of several truths and the concession of many or any beauties relate to the love of self and the world. They seem advantageous in this age and in the short term, they are.
Men want what they like and they want to be accepted. They still want to be included, even if they don’t believe the same. If men can have what they want and acceptance, but also have the degree of true doctrine that they have eternal life too, that will take that. And they do. And will last a very short period of time, like we see men in Old Testament Israel and Judah who did not serve the Lord with their whole heart. These are half hearted men, who will yield soon destruction because they capitulated on truth and beauty.
Those capitulating feel justified by their numbers, even if they are conservative, because they will and do get numbers. They have more people. They convince themselves that it is all about the truth, but it is also about capitulation. If someone can have Jesus and his movies and his rock music, he’ll take that edition of Christianity in a heart beat, even if it misrepresents God.
So we see John MacArthur as a truth warrior capitulate to the youth culture of the Resolved Conference and the rock band at his Shepherd’s Conference. He says that music is the entrance to the Charismatic movement, the strange fire, and yet concedes himself to this out of what looks like sheer pragmatism. It is a tiny number who haven’t succumbed to diversity of either truth or beauty or both. Now we have a country that won’t fight back against same sex marriage. The above contributes, because it abdicates to the spirit of the age.
So mark these words. You who capitulate on the diversity of truth and beauty lead the churches, the country, and the world in apostasy. It’s you. Not the government. Not the schools. You.
A Bigger Tent than God: Douglas Wilson, “Doctrinal Works,” and the Salvation of Roman Catholics
A pastor often responds to whether he thinks so and so is saved, sometimes even biblical characters, such as Saul, or in another specific way, if Peter was saved by this certain point in his life. And then a corollary, have such and such historic or modern figure been saved: Luther, Wesley, Billy Graham, Mark Driscoll, etc? In the below video you see Douglas Wilson posed with Tolkien and Chesterton, prolific Roman Catholic, British authors, both faves of his.
Tolkien and Chesterton make it into Wilson’s salvation tent, because he says their entrance does not depend on “doctrinal works.” All the best trying to understand the tortured logic.
Everyone is saved by faith. That is the message of Jesus to Nicodemus in John 3:13-21. Was Nicodemus saved in John 3? No (John 3:11-12). When Tolkien and Chesterton don’t trust in Christ alone for salvation, because they’re working for it, they are not saved. Their doctrine of works condemns them.
You (Y) apply Wilson’s logic to a Jehovah’s Witness (JW).
Y: You believe Jesus is God?
JW: No.
Y: That’s OK, because salvation doesn’t come through having right doctrine. It comes through believing.
JW: But I don’t believe Jesus is God.
Y: That’s OK, because you are not saved through an accurate doctrinal statement, and that’s a good thing, because your statement about Jesus is wrong. Good news, however. You can have your doctrine wrong and still be saved, since the doctrine is a work and we’re not saved by works.
JW: Even the doctrine of salvation?
Y: Yes. You can have the wrong doctrine of salvation and still be saved since doctrine is a work and you can’t be saved by works.
Wha?
I gather that the written works of Tolkien and Chesterton so smack of God’s grace that they were saved by grace even if they didn’t believe. Their doctrine doesn’t smack of God’s grace, but their writing does. More and more join the evangelical fantasy salvation league. Fewer and fewer actually saved.
Reverence and Solemnity: Essential Aspects of Biblical Worship, part 7 of 8
the lyrics of all songs offered to the Lord in His worship must be “the word of
Christ” (Col 3:16). They must either be
the perfect songs of the Psalter—every psalm, and every line of every psalm of
which ought to be sung in the church of God—or hymns that are God’s Word in the
same sense that proper preaching is the preaching of the Word.[1] Every uninspired hymn must accurately
represent the content of Scripture. Singing false doctrine is nothing less than
to lie to God, and to do so in worship that has access into heaven itself. That every word of every hymn offered to God
accurately represents the teachings of Scripture is no little matter. It is the difference between pleasing the
holy and reverend King of glory and misrepresenting His nature, blaspheming His
name, profaning His worship, and thus breaking the first four of the Ten
Commandments. It is the difference
between accurately representing the “honour of his name,” “mak[ing] his praise
glorious,” and so bringing a blessing from heaven (Ps 66:2), and dishonoring
His name or character, turning His praise into sacrilege, and bringing from
heaven Jehovah’s wrath and curse. Do you
offer God psalms and hymns that accurately represent who He is and so make His
praise glorious?
extremely careful to ground the statements of their hymns in Scripture. For example, Benjamin Wallin (1711-1782) in
his Evangelical Songs and Hymns of
1750 annotated every stanza and virtually every line with copious references to
Scripture, believing that “Care should be taken that they [the hymns] be
perfectly agreeable to the Holy Testaments” (pg. 47, Arnold, The English Hymn). He followed, in this method of annotation,
Baptist Joseph Stennett (1663-1713), who had acted similarly in his hymnal,
although not as profusely. The New Baptist Psalmist and Tune Book
edited by the famous Landmark Baptist J. R. Graves stated: “Particular attention has been paid to the doctrinal sentiments of the Hymns[.] . .
. In this collection there will be found no hymns that teach the doctrine of
baptismal remission or ritual efficacy, no praises to be sung to dead relatives
or friends, nor are children taught to pray to the angels, or to desire to be
angels. . . . What we sing in our worship should agree with the doctrine we
preach and profess” (pg. 3).
while hymns with choruses are not wrong, as Psalm 136 has a refrain, the vast
majority of the psalms—like the vast majority of old hymns—have no chorus. The introduction of hymns with consistently
repeated refrains around the second half of the 19th century grew,
not out of a careful study of Scripture on worship, but out of a desire to make
songs that children would easily find attractive. These children’s songs then found their way
into the corporate worship of the whole church body:
songs, sometimes “gospel hymns” . . . grew out of Sunday School music . . . a
new type of song . . . with a catchy, easily remembered melody, simple harmony
and rhythm, and always a refrain. It should not surprise us that when those
Sunday School children reached adulthood, they were ready listeners for more
songs with much the same musical characteristics[.] . . . preacher Dwight Moody
(1837–99) and singer Ira Sankey (1840–1908) popularized [such music for
adults]. (pgs. 111-112, Mr Moody and the
Evangelical Tradition, Timothy George.
New York, NY: T & T Clark,
2004)
effort must be made to be sure that one is closely paying attention to,
wholeheartedly meaning, and offering to the Lord the words every time they are
sung.
glory in the Lord’s salvation (Ps 9:14; 13:5) but also regularly warn of hell
and judgment (Ps 9:17; 11:6; 55:15), and the imprecatory psalms prophesy of the
awful judgments which will fall upon the ungodly (Ps 69:22-28; 137:7-9), so
modern hymnals likewise must sing not only of heaven but also of hell and
judgment. A hymnal such as Asahel
Nettleton’s Village Hymns for Social
Worship does well to have extensive numbers of hymns not on heaven alone,
but also on judgment and the eternal damnation of the wicked. Hymns such as the following ought to be sung:
their reaction was not enjoyment, but “fear” (Ps 40:3d), and only as a result
of such fear do they come to trust in the Lord (Ps 40:3e). Ungodly men are not converted because they
enjoy hearing Christian music—they are converted because of a miraculous Divine
work has been done in their hearts by the Sovereign God through the hearing of
the Word (Rom 10:17). If the
unregenerate are not afraid and convicted of their sin when they attend the
worship of the saints, but instead find a relish for it in their carnal hearts,
something is very wrong.
section of dumbed-down psalms for children, little ones ought to be taught to
sing hymns that have the rich content that the youth in Israel sang in their
inspired songbook.
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