God Loves… Himself

The article that I have been dealing with is saying that Calvinists are guilty of pride if they think of other theologies as inferior and perhaps non-Christian. However, I have been saying that the Reformers themselves saw Arminianism as a false Gospel, though indeed they referred to it as Semi-Pelagianism. In the Historical Introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will the writers say this: “These things need to be pondered by Protestants today. With what right may we call ourselves children of the Reformation? Much modern Protestantism would be neither owned nor even recognized by the pioneer Reformers. The Bondage of the Will fairly sets before us what they believed about the salvation of lost mankind. In the light of it, we are forced to ask whether Protestant Christendom has not tragically sold its birthright between Luther’s day and our own. Has not Protestantism to-day become more Erasmian than Lutheran? Do we not too often try to minimize and gloss over doctrinal differences for the sake of inter-party peace? Are we innocent of the doctrinal indifferentism with which Luther charged Erasmus? Do we still believe that doctrine matters? Or do we now, with Erasmus, prefer a deceptive appearance of unity as of more importance than truth?”

We need to consider where the Church is at in these things and we need to ransack our own hearts on this. We have no right to betray the biblical Gospel of Jesus Christ in an effort to appear humble rather than proud. It is true humility before God that will stand up for the Gospel when even conservative people or Reformed people attack the Gospel by making it too broad. Indeed we must take stock of where we are today. What does it mean to be Reformed or has that term lost its significance too? What right do we have call ourselves “Reformed” today if we cast aside the Gospel as was taught during the Reformation? Again, if the Reformers were wrong let us denounce them as having a false Gospel. But if they were and are right, let us be willing to die for the same Gospel they preached and were willing to die for. The Gospel has been and always will be the same.

We must always be concerned when the Church begins to be more like the world than Jesus. The Church today has swallowed large portions of worldly attitudes in its drive for tolerance. True humility has been lost and has been replaced by versions of tolerance and graciousness. True boldness and humility is thought of as pride by many. Are we more like the world or the Reformers and Scripture when it comes to standing for the Gospel as the one and only way of salvation? Are we more like the world or the Reformers and Scripture in being willing to proclaim to men that they are dead in sin and their wills are in bondage to sin? Are we more like the world or like the Reformers and Scripture in being willing to stand up to friends and those who say they are on our side to tell them that they have deviated from the Gospel? Are we more like the world or the Reformers and Scripture when it comes to what we will tolerate and what we think of as true humility?

Taking this to another question of the modern mentality, are we more like the world or the Reformers and Scripture in our fear of offending others? We are to tell people something of the Gospel and discuss differences with other religions or denomination and do all of that knowing that the cardinal sin is to offend the other person. Should we take care not to unnecessarily offend others? Of course we should. But we must never forget that our message is centered on the cross and the cross and the Gospel itself are offensive. We should be concerned when all people like us and no one hates us. Jesus told His disciples that they would be hated because He was hated and “woe to you when all men speak well of you” (Luke 6:26). Are we any different? Has the Gospel changed in the modern day where it is no longer offensive? If we have taken the offensiveness out of the message of the cross and of the Gospel we no longer preach the cross and the Gospel. This issue is that serious and that vital.

We must set our inner selves to examine our hearts and churches. If people thought in 1957 that we had lost sight of what the Reformers taught, what are things like now? We are living in a day when the most important thing appears to be for people to be tolerant, gracious, inoffensive, and accepting of others. Frankly, as the world defines and uses those words, if the Church or any person adopts them, that person has betrayed the Gospel of Jesus Christ and its necessary offense. In that case we have offended God and grieved the Spirit in order not to offend man.

In the last BLOG I gave a quote from Solano Portela: “Also even though we perceive inconsistencies in their theological structure; even though they may be proclaiming that salvation is the result of the supposed ‘free-will’ of man; in spite of all that, when they are on their knees to pray, when they are truly troubled and seeking for God, they forget their theology and pray to a sovereign Almighty God, who accomplishes his will; they pray to a God who is everything, acknowledging that they themselves are nothing.”

I gave another quote with my own comment before and then after that quote. It will be reproduced here: “We are at a huge divide here in terms of theology and of history. Let me give you a quote from the Historical Introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will. “Arminianism [semi-Pelagianism] was, indeed, in Reformed eyes a renunciation of New Testament Christianity in favour of New Testament Judaism; for to rely on oneself for faith is no different in principle from relying on oneself for works, and the one is as un-Christian and anti-Christian as the other” (p. 59). Do we see this point at all? In the eyes of the Reformers semi-Pelagianism (we call it Arminianism) was not even Christian. It was simply a return to a form of works for salvation that came from self even if it was less works than the Pelagians called for. This was Luther’s view and we should not apply the whitewash to it.”

People today are willing to give up what Luther and the Reformers taught in order to have unity. But what a price for that unity. If Luther and the Reformers taught the Gospel as set out in Scripture, then were they prideful in teaching it in contrast to the whole world and even the religious leaders of the world? Is it possible that many people that go under the title “Reformed” have actually jettisoned the birthright of the Reformed doctrine and settled for a bowl of doctrinal stew? The heart of the biblical Gospel as taught by the Reformers was the denial of free-will and to recognize that we are in bondage to sin. It is only then that we can repent of any form of self-reliance and works in order to trust in grace with a faith that is given by grace. Can Solano Portela really be Reformed in the Reformation sense of the word and write what he wrote? Mr. Portela wants to set out that it is prideful for people to think that Arminians cannot be saved. Luther would say it is prideful to say that people can be saved when they deny the Gospel. The Reformers said that free-will was a return to Judaism, but Mr. Portela says that these people can be saved. Again, this is not an attack on Mr. Portela but is an effort to show the difference between what the Reformers taught and what people who call themselves Reformed write today.

If faith is a gift of God that comes from a heart that no longer trusts in itself and anything that it can do, then we can see how a faith that self must work up would be contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If I am working up faith from myself and my will that is not completely in bondage to sin, then assuredly I am relying on at least one work that I can do. People can go around saying that they are saved by grace, then, and yet be trusting in an act of their will which is to make them out to be saved by at least one work. If one work contributes to salvation, then salvation is not all of grace. If one work contributes to salvation, then why not go on to two works, three works, or perhaps even more? Is the Gospel all of grace or not? In theory Arminianism is a return to New Testament Judaism and is really reliance upon self for the act of closing with Christ. No truly Reformed person (believing in the Gospel of grace as taught at the Reformation) can go along with that.

I am not disagreeing that the real issue is over what Scripture teaches. That is precisely where the real Gospel is set out. That is also what Luther’s Bondage of the Will is all about. It is a long treatment of what the Bible teaches on the issue. It is not sufficient, then, to simply say that it is pride or that it is not being gracious or tolerant to say that asserting free-will as historically taught by Arminian teachers is a denial of the biblical Gospel. It is, however, standing in line with the Reformers and what was considered to be Christian orthodoxy for a long time after that. The acceptance of free-will in that sense would have been considered by the Reformers as being intolerant of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Anytime we tolerate one belief, we become intolerant of other beliefs. We are either tolerant of the Gospel of Jesus Christ or we refer to it as pride. We are either tolerant of the Reformers or we spit them out of our theological food. But both free-will and the Reformers cannot be tolerated at the same time.

I am responding to an article in the June 07 Banner of Truth magazine. It was written by Solano Portela and is entitled “A Sin That Threatens Calvinists-Spiritual Pride“. In reality, while I am responding to his article, I am also responding to Reformed theology as set out and practiced today and Evangelicalism as a whole.

The author of the article mentioned above has a very telling paragraph in his article. “Why can we have genuine fellowship with those who are not Calvinists? For one thing, if they are truly saved, we are brothers, children of the same sovereign God. Also even though we perceive inconsistencies in their theological structure; even though they may be proclaiming that salvation is the result of the supposed ‘free-will’ of man; in spite of all that, when they are on their knees to pray, when they are truly troubled and seeking for God, they forget their theology and pray to a sovereign Almighty God, who accomplishes his will; they pray to a God who is everything, acknowledging that they themselves are nothing.”

There are many problems with the above paragraph, but we don’t have the space to deal with them at length. We must ask what genuine fellowship is. Indeed fellowship in the biblical sense can only happen with true believers. But again the issue is over what the Gospel is and can one be a true believer apart from the one and true Gospel. There is a narrow gate and a narrow road if we are to believe what Jesus taught. Since I believe what Jesus taught I believe that the Gospel is a narrow gate and it is not love for God or man to make it appear wider than it really is.

I would like to get at one issue here before I go to the main one. The author seems to believe that a person will forget his theology when he goes to his knees to pray. I disagree totally. It is when a person is troubled and praying that the person’s real theology comes out. Perhaps some who wish to assert ‘free-will’ turn aside from their theology when they pray, but prayer is not possible apart from theology. It is not possible to pray apart from the deepest held beliefs of a person. If a person has bad theology, that person is not praying to the true God. We cannot pray to God unless we know who that God is. To pray through Christ is to pray to the revealed God in Christ.

The author then goes on to state something very amazing in light of historical theology. While I do not wish to appear bombastic, though I realize that this will sound like it, it appears that the author is willing to set aside what the Reformers thought was essential to the Gospel in order to be gracious and tolerant. While Luther thought that the denial of ‘free-will’ was essential to the Gospel, Mr. Portela does not. We are again back to the issue of what it means to be Reformed and what the heart of the Gospel really is. Again, I am not accusing Mr. Portela of being non-Reformed and non-Christian. I am simply going by what he has written. I am saying that Luther thought that one had to deny his own ‘free-will’ in order to be saved. It has been written several times that the Reformers were in step on this issue. The denial of free-will was at the heart of the Reformation and is at the heart of the Gospel.

We are at a huge divide here in terms of theology and of history. Let me give you a quote from the Historical Introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will. “Arminianism [semi-Pelagianism] was, indeed, in Reformed eyes a renunciation of New Testament Christianity in favour of New Testament Judaism; for to rely on oneself for faith is no different in principle from relying on oneself for works, and the one is as un-Christian and anti-Christian as the other” (p. 59). Do we see this point at all? In the eyes of the Reformers semi-Pelagianism (we call it Arminianism) was not even Christian. It was simply a return to a form of works for salvation that came from self even if it was less works than the Pelagians called for. This was Luther’s view and we should not apply the whitewash to it.

The writers then go on to say this: “These things need to be pondered by Protestants to-day. With what right may we call ourselves children of the Reformation? Much modern Protestantism would be neither owned nor even recognized by the pioneer Reformers. The Bondage of the Will fairly sets before us what they believed about the salvation of lost mankind. In the light of it, we are forced to ask whether Protestant Christendom has not tragically sold its birthright between Luther’s day and our own. Has not Protestantism to-day become more Erasmusian than Lutheran? Do we not too often try to minimize and gloss over doctrinal differences for the sake of inter-party peace? Are we innocent of the doctrinal indifferentism with which Luther charged Erasmus? Do we still believe that doctrine matters? Or do we now, with Erasmus, rater a deceptive appearance of unity as of more importance than truth?” We need to consider where the Church is at in these things. We need to ransack our hearts on this.

We keep dealing with the issue of being gracious in the modern world. Perhaps the real issue is that a worldly defined graciousness and tolerance has replaced biblical humility and love. If we look at the externals of Christianity, then we see that when people are outwardly nice they think it is love. So the reality of it means that being nice has replaced true biblical love within Christianity. This means that a person who is full of self and pride can do externally nice things and still think of himself or herself as practicing love. Earlier we discussed the issue of graciousness not being the same thing as love, but in this BLOG we want to look at graciousness as being a form of pseudo-humility. It seems so humble to say that I may be wrong about this and that the other person may have the truth or some of the truth, but biblical humility operates differently.

Jesus Christ was the most humble person ever to set foot on this planet. Yet He was also bold in what He said and did. He poked the Pharisees in their legalistic and proud eyes on a constant basis. Not one time did Jesus ever “humbly” say something that would give us the idea that another false view might have something to it. Of course no person now is Jesus, but true believers have the life of Christ in them. In fact, humility is not seen in thinking that a person may not know something and going around hanging the head pretending to be a nobody. Humility is the emptiness of the creature before its Creator. That means that the life of humility is the life of Christ in a person. After all, the life of the believer is Christ. Matthew 18:1-4 shows us what true greatness is by telling us that for a person to be converted that person must be turned to become like a child. It then tells us that the greatest is the most humble. In other words, humility is the emptying of the creature of its self-love and self-centeredness. It is to be crucified with Christ and to have its life to be Christ instead of self (Gal 2:20).

It is also true that it is the humble person to whom God reveals Himself and true knowledge (Matthew 11:25-27). If God has not revealed truth to a person, then humility is to say that it might be wrong on various issues. But if God has revealed something as true, then true humility will not admit that what is revealed is wrong. True humility will take its stand for the truth and will boldly declare it. Rather than it being humility to say that what God has revealed might have some allowances, it is actually pride. In reality, then, worldly graciousness and tolerance is nothing more than pride rather than humility. Please read that carefully because it reflects on our theological climate.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is clear from Scripture. There should be no argument as to what the basics of the Gospel really are. What happens is that our pride fuels our desire to be accepted by others we assume a false humility that is displayed in what is called graciousness and tolerance. But the reality of it is that we have compromised the Gospel. Am I saying that Solano Portela has done that? I am not saying that, but I am saying that he seems to have drunk deeply at the wells of modern thinking on what humility is rather than search the Scriptures for what it is. I am saying that based on one article that he wrote and not a personal knowledge of him. But again, I am trying to use his article to respond to modern Reformed thinking and Evangelicalism as a whole.

What happens when we replace love with niceness and then humility with a worldly form of graciousness and tolerance? We compromise the Gospel and the standards of Holy Scripture with a pseudo love and humility. Am I saying that we need to be meaner? No, I am saying that we must practice biblical love and biblical humility. We live in a world that is increasingly liberal and the Church is buying in to liberal thinking on some issues. If we are going to reach the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the glory of God, it is not going to be by compromise in the name of graciousness and tolerance that is really the worldly concept of it though it is thought to be humility and love. It is going to take a real humility and a real love that will stand for the Gospel at all points.

We must realize that true humility before God means that we will not compromise the truth of God for a moment because it is His truth. We must realize that it is never love to compromise the truth of the Gospel for another person even if that person believes that he is a Christian. Love always does what is true to the shining forth of the character of God knowing that is what is best for the other person. Love is willing to make another person angry for the good of that person’s soul. Love is willing to suffer abuse by others that the true Gospel will be heard.

Last time I dealt with the issue of graciousness. It appears that man tries to be gracious in the worldly sense of the word rather than in the biblical sense of the word. The biblical sense has to do with giving grace and the worldly sense is basically being nice to other people. Jesus was perfect in love and yet He was the most hated man that has ever lived on the planet. Was He lacking in graciousness? Those who live godly in Christ Jesus are promised persecution (II Tim 3:12). If we apply this to the Church in modern America, perhaps the reason that the Church is not being persecuted more is because it is not godly enough. In desiring to be so gracious the Church has taken the edge off of its message and so it is easily tolerated. It is more like the world than it is like God.

We must also consider that love is not always what appears as gracious or winsome to fallen humanity. Was Jesus displaying love when He took on the Pharisees time after time? The graciousness of Jesus does not fit the categories of modern people when He told the Pharisees that they were “like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Mat 23:27-28). What Jesus did was a vicious act of intolerance according to the modern world, but with a true definition of love it was not an act contrary to love at all. It was an arrow that went to the heart of the Pharisees dependence on outward acts and showed them that they were indeed dead in their sins.

Jesus makes the point with clarity. The Pharisees believed in God and were orthodox Jews. They were devoted to outward acts of holiness and followed the teaching of the accepted tradition. But Jesus went straight to the heart of the issue and spoke forcefully and with true love. It was not, however, according to the modern concept of graciousness, tolerance, or love. Why was this method an example of true love and the modern concept of tolerance and graciousness are not? I think it is because of how the two Great Commandments are related to each other. There is no keeping of the second apart from the first. There is no loving your neighbor as yourself unless you are striving to love God with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength. No matter what one human does to another, unless it is primarily love for God it is not love for the human.

When a human being is in error toward God, it is love for God and therefore love for the human to point that error out to the person. Jesus used strong words but the Pharisees would not hear soft words. This is very instructive in our day as well. When we use soft words and the modern version of graciousness and tolerance, those things may never pierce the hearts of the people that need to hear. That means that it is not true love. During the Reformation there were other people desiring reform. Erasmus also desired reform with Roman Catholicism. But it took a Luther (though admittedly over the top at times) who was willing to speak out with firmness and even ferocity at times. He did not spare those who were in error. It took strong words and strong actions in order for the message to get out. Erasmus would never have been really heard well enough for anything to have changed.

We must be blunt in order to get at the real issue. It may be the case and certainly is in some situations where graciousness and tolerance are the order of the day because the fear of man is so strong. We want to be liked and we desire to stay in situations where we think that we will have influence. Paul stated very clearly that if he were trying to please men he would not be a bond-servant of Christ (Gal 1:10). He said this in the context of setting out that there is only one Gospel. What we need in our day is not more man-centered and worldly graciousness; we need more God-centered and Christ-like graciousness. We need men who will be more like Luther and less like Erasmus. It is only then that men will stand up and declare the Gospel without fear of offending men. They will have no fear of offending men because they fear offending a holy God. In the modern mind it is pride to call things wrong and it is pride that will call sincere people heretics. The biblical model is that it is pride to fear men rather than God. The biblical model is that it is pride not to call sincere people heretics if they are indeed heretics. It is not true love for God or men if we remain silent on the Gospel. It is not true graciousness and winsomeness to remain silent about the truth of the Gospel while others distort and maim the message of the Gospel. It appears to me that too much of the attitude of the world and its definition of love have flooded into the Church. We need to repent.

In the last BLOG I touched a bit on what it means to be gracious. What does that word mean in today’s world? The American Heritage Dictionary gives the following definitions:

1. Characterized by kindness and warm courtesy.
2. Characterized by tact and propriety.
3. Of a merciful or compassionate nature.
4. Condescendingly courteous.
5. Characterized by warm charm or beauty.
6. Characterized by elegance and good taste.

As we look at these definitions, we must face the fact that these things can be expressed in politically or socially correct terms or in biblical terms. We certainly must be kind and express warm courtesy. However, that does not mean that we are to compromise the biblical Gospel for the sake of appearing that way. When we are approaching people that hate God, we will not appear kind or to have warm courtesy. We will appear even less to have tact and propriety. Paul told us that “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (II Tim 3:12). Jesus told us that we should expect to be hated if we are going to be like Him. 16 But you will be betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death, 17 and you will be hated by all because of My name” (Luke 21:16-17). “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:14). Notice in John 15:17 Jesus commands His disciples to love. But then see what happens after that in verse 18. 17 “This I command you, that you love one another. 18 If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.”

Why does the world hate the believer? Before that is answered from Scripture, we need to remind ourselves that churches and denominations are full of unbelievers and worldly people. 19 “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me” (John 15:19-21). People hate believers and not just because they are not gracious enough, but because they are like Christ. Jesus Christ was perfect in love and yet He was hated by the world. He was especially hated by the religious elite of the world at that time as well. Why was He hated? He preached the standards of a holy God and the Gospel to them.

We must ask those basic questions about Jesus. Was Jesus not gracious enough? Was He not tolerant enough? He had virtually all of Jerusalem against Him and He was hated enough that the religious leaders had Him crucified. The problem was not that He did not love enough, but that He lived and told the truth. We must be brutally honest about these things. It matters not the religion of a person in this day as long as the person does not speak against sin. If the person is willing to be nice enough in the worldly way, then that person will be tolerated. If a person is willing to be open enough or winsome enough in his or her religion, then that person will be tolerated. What brings forth the ire and the hatred of others is when the life of Christ shines through a person enough that the person is willing to stand against the sins of the world and of the Church and proclaim repentance and the Gospel of total grace to it.

We must remember the rest of the passage in John 15: “He who hates Me hates My Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well. 25 But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘THEY HATED ME WITHOUT A CAUSE'” (vv 23-25). They hated Christ without a real cause. He had done nothing to deserve hatred. He was perfect in every way and perfect in love. Yet they hated Him anyway and perhaps because of His perfect love. His strongest words were reserved for the religious elite of the day and that is what brought their ire. If Jesus lived in our day He would not be gracious enough, tolerant enough, and certainly not winsome enough. Why is that? For Jesus is perfect love and holiness. He is too holy to be gracious to sin and false gospels.

I am responding to an article in the June 07 Banner of Truth magazine. It was written by Solano Portela and is entitled “A Sin That Threatens Calvinists-Spiritual Pride”. In reality, while I am responding to his article, I am also responding to Reformed theology as set out and practiced today and Evangelicalism as a whole.

The author of the above article says that he does not place experience above scriptural revelation. He says that he is making a distinction between “knowing a doctrine and being able to give a logical, systematic, and detailed exposition of a doctrine.” I am not sure that anyone really believes that one must be able to do that in order to demonstrate conversion. Yet, the author goes on to say that we must never demean faith of a believer that has been redeemed by Christ. “He knows what justification is, even if he has never heard of Luther and Calvin, even if he cannot recite the five points of Calvinism, even if he may not be able to explain what justification is all about.” Certainly we can agree with most of that. However, how does one know if a person that professes faith in Christ is in fact a believer in Christ? How can we call another person a believer when that person is ignorant of the Gospel?

The author goes on to say that God saves and “does so sovereignly; he does not depend on the cleverness, logic, or intelligence of his people.” I am again astounded at this statement. While God does save in a sovereign way, He does save through the preached or heralded message of the Gospel. While it may not take a terminal degree in logic or an extreme amount of intelligence to hear the Gospel, the message was given to us by Jesus and Paul in an intelligent and a logical way. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not a message that is unintelligible and simply a jumbled group of statements. It is a message that people must hear and understand in order to be saved. If it is not understood, then how do they believe it? God in His sovereignty opens the minds of the unbelieving and gives them light so that they believe the Gospel. If a person cannot give some account of the Gospel, then again how can we know that the person believes the Gospel? If the person cannot give some account of the deity of Christ, then how can we know that the person believes in the deity of Christ? That is still something different than explaining all of what justification is all about. However, not being able to explain it at all is far different than explaining the message of justification which is the Gospel.

It appears that the author is running from the importance of doctrine in the preaching of the Gospel. It also appears clear that the author is stepping back from the importance of Reformed theology in this article. It appears that being gracious by some definition is more important these days than standing firm on the truths of the Gospel. While a person may not need to know the five points of Calvinism to be saved, let us never forget how vital those points are to the Gospel. The “T” stands for total depravity. It is precisely here that modern theologians depart from the older. For the older theologians total depravity was vital to understanding the Gospel. It was far more than an intellectual acquaintance with the facts, but the experiential knowledge of this in the person’s heart. While Scripture does not set out justification by belief in total depravity alone, we know that the Spirit came to convict of sin. We also know that our minds, hearts, and wills are depraved. If a person never understands that he is a sinner by nature, will that person know that he needs a new nature and the new birth? If a person never comes to know that he falls short of the glory of God by sin, will he ever really know what he is saved from and saved for?

Linked with the above paragraph we must look at the need to be saved by grace alone. If a person does not understand the depths of his of her sin, will that person ever understand the need to be justified by grace alone? If a person does not understand the need to be justified by grace alone, will that person ever trust in grace alone to be saved? If a person does not trust in grace alone, that person does not trust in Christ alone. Until we have been taught to come to the end of our own abilities and wills, we will never come to an end of our own strength in order to trust in Christ alone by grace alone through faith alone.

Does a person need to understand the five points of Calvinism to be saved? Perhaps not, but if s/he doesn’t understand his or her sin, then that person does not understand the Gospel. It does sound hard to teach that people must understand certain doctrines to be saved, but we must listen to Christ more than we do to those who have a different “graciousness” than the Bible. If we are to have gracious words it means to have words that bring grace (Eph 4:29). If we are to be truly gracious it means that we must have the doctrines of grace to speak words of grace. People may not have a perfect understanding of grace, but they do need to understand the real grace.

The author wrote about a Christian brother of his that had studied the doctrine of justification and then heard a brilliant lecture on it. The friend remarked how few understood “what is actually the doctrine of justification. And he kept on, saying, ‘These people don’t have the slightest idea what it means to be justified.”‘ The comment of the author was that this is a “latent germ of destruction which can blossom, without much effort, into spiritual pride.” The author said that he commented to the brother on that occasion: “‘They know, brother, they know! If someone has been truly rescued by the precious blood of Christ he knows experientially what justification is.'”

The above statement is rather astonishing to my understanding. We don’t have to say that people have to know what the doctrine of justification means with perfection in order to be saved, but that does not seem to be the real issue here at all. I guess I tend toward agreement with the man who (perhaps with sorrow) stated over and over that people don’t have the slightest idea of what it means to be justified. I am just not sure how a person can be rescued by the blood of Christ in an experiential manner without knowing to some degree what justification really is. Experiences do not determine what is true, but truth is what interprets our experiences. Anyone can have an experience and interpret that experience in many different ways. But something is being experienced. What is it that can interpret the experience of Christ? It must be Scripture that interprets that experience or the experience could be a deceitful act of the devil or perhaps a person deceiving him or herself.

There is a reason that we are to teach the Gospel and to teach it in truth. There is a reason that Paul said that there is only one Gospel and that if anyone teaches another that person is to be eternally cursed (Gal 1:6-10). The Gospel is not simply just any message about any Savior that can happen in any way that a person wants, it is the message of the glory of God shining through Christ that is used by the Holy Spirit to regenerate sinners and give them an eternal life that is defined by knowing God (John 17:3). There is a reason that Paul teaches us that it is the Gospel that must be preached in order for people to be converted. It is a Gospel that must be understood and not just thrown out as a message into the wind. It is through a faith in Christ that comes through the Gospel that a person is converted. We have no biblical reason to believe that people are converted unless they understand the Gospel to some degree. Can people believe that which they don’t have some understanding of?

It is true that the author does preface his statement with “if someone has been truly rescued.” That might seem to give him an out on the issue, but it does not. What he seems to allow is for people to have an experience of salvation without knowing the Gospel. It is that which I am fighting against with some degree of vehemence. A person must know the Gospel in order to be saved. We must stand on that truth and never let it go. We are to go into the whole world and proclaim the one and only Gospel. If a person claims to have experienced salvation, then that person needs to explain what Gospel he or she believes in. We have no right to go around calling people Christians if they cannot confess with their mouths the truth of the Gospel. If they cannot profess Christ and the Gospel with their mouths, then we have no idea what they have experienced.

What the author is doing, however, is making room for different theologies to be accepted and for Reformed people to acquiesce that those people are believers. This is a major issue of contention. We have to go back to what the Gospel is no matter what brand of theology a person confesses. We must be bold and honest enough to say whether or not we hold to the Gospel that the Reformers set out. If we do not, then we are not Reformed in that way. If we do not hold to the Gospel that they set out, then we need to set out from Scripture what the biblical Gospel is. If it is different from the Reformers, then we need to say that they taught a different Gospel. But if what they taught is biblical, then many in our day teach a different Gospel. We simply cannot have it both ways. We cannot hold to the teachings that the Reformers set out as biblical and yet hold to the opposite teachings of people today. They are mutually exclusive. It is pride to call people Christians that do not believe the biblical Gospel. It is not pride to hold to the biblical Gospel and proclaim it to the glory of God. Luther taught that our own free-will must be denied in order to be saved by grace. That is what was taught in the Reformation. I think Scripture teaches it too.

I am responding to an article in the June 07 Banner of Truth magazine. It was written by Solano Portela and is entitled “A Sin That Threatens Calvinists-Spiritual Pride.” In reality, while I am responding to his article, I am also responding to Reformed theology as set out and practiced today and Evangelicalism as a whole.

In the above listed article the author stated that the following attitude is pride and is something like “Reformed Gnosticism.” This attitude is: “We, Reformed Christians, are illuminated; we are the only ones to understand divine truths which are hidden from the majority of common Christians, unless they receive the logical and unquestionably correct explanation which can only come from our side.” Again we see some assumptions that are tucked away rather neatly in this statement. One assumption is that there are Reformed Christians and then the common Christians. The real issue is again the Gospel and it demands that all are saved by grace and nothing else. It also teaches us that anything we have received is from God and not obtained by ourselves. A second assumption is that it is pride to believe that you have the truth. A third assumption is that Reformed people think that illumination comes from themselves. In fact, it is the Holy Spirit alone that illuminates the text and the mind of the person. If the Holy Spirit gives light and not another person, it is not pride to rest and glory in that truth if all the honor is given to the Spirit.

Let us again plunge into the real issue. What is the content and work of the Gospel? We can go back to Luther and the content of the Gospel that he taught allows for no one but those who are Reformed to be converted. But we must also notice that it is not holding to Reformed theology that saves. In fact, there are more versions of what it means to be Reformed than one can count today. This is again a matter of great confusion in the Christian realm. While there are many that are Reformed in name, that does not mean that they believe in the Gospel that was recovered in the time of the Reformation. It could be that what we have is people under the Reformed banner that are not converted demonstrating pride to those under a different name but are also unconverted. Simply holding to a title and a form of theology does not convert a person. Believing in the doctrine of election does not convert a person and is not a reliable foundation for a person to find assurance for salvation . Believing in some form of total depravity does not convert a person and is also not a reliable foundation for a person to find assurance for salvation. If a person finds assurance because of the doctrine of depravity or because of the doctrine of election, that person has basing assurance on the wrong issue.

I would like to address the assumption that it is pride to believe that you have the truth. In fact, it is pride to deny that one can know the truth. It is pride that denies the Gospel. Yes, it is true that some can have pride in what they believe, but it is not pride if one humbly holds to the truth of Scripture. The truth of Scripture does not come from “the logical and unquestionably correct explanation” that we give, but it comes into the soul by the light and illumination of the Holy Spirit. We are to use logic and explanation, but we are to give the Word of God in a logical way with the explanations from other Scriptures.

Jesus Christ Himself is the Truth and He is the only way to the Father. Unless a person knows some truth, that person cannot possibly know Christ and the Father through Him (John 14:6). We also know that it is Christ who promised that the Spirit would guide His people into the truth. It is very possible that a person that is obstinate like Jesus, Paul, and Luther are not proud but simply holding firmly to that which has been revealed to him or her. It is possible that that those who are like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel are not proud for standing apart from others but simply holding on to the truth that God has revealed to him or her. We must be very careful in charging others with pride when in fact it may be our own pride that is judging others as prideful. The issue is again the attitude of the person (of which we must be very careful in judging) and the truth that the person holds.

Perhaps the underlying issue in the statement quoted above is the seeming acceptance of a form of relativism. With relativism all truths are considered relative and so it is pride to think that you and your group have the truth. Christians are a group of people with the truth or they would not be Christians. It is no more prideful to believe in Christ and know that you have the truth in certain things than it is to believe that all believers are Christians and only Christians will enter into heaven. At its root Christianity is the message of the truth of the glory of God in Christ to a fallen humanity that think all things are relative to themselves. The message of the Christian is that there is an ultimate reality that the glory of God shines in this universe and that we suppress that glory. It is Christ alone that can come into the human heart and change it so that the glory of God shines through it. That is not pride in any sense, but is instead humility and reality.

I am in one sense responding to the article by Solano Portela, but in another the whole issue. Let me bring in another quote from the historical introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will. “Arminianism was, indeed, in Reformed eyes a renunciation of New Testament Christianity in favour of New Testament Judaism; for to rely on oneself for faith is no different in principle from relying on oneself for works, and the one is as un-Christian and anti-Christian as the other” (p. 59).

This is a statement about the Reformers as a whole and therefore it gives us a view of how they viewed the Gospel. Without question that is no longer in vogue today. The real issue, though, is what Scripture teaches on the issue. But surely we can see the trouble with an article that tells us that Reformed people who view their theology as better than that of others are guilty of pride. While that may be true in some ways and some instances, at the moment we are talking about the Gospel. Should we just accept the fact that the Arminian system denies the Gospel of grace alone even in its assertion of justification by faith alone? Should we just turn our eyes away from what Luther and the Reformers taught and then reject what they taught on the Gospel? In that case, we are no longer Reformed. Again, it is much more important to be biblical. But to be Reformed is surely to believe that the essentials of what the Reformers taught were and are biblical.

We must always be careful not to look at systems as the determiner of truth and of salvation, yet there are reasons people believe certain things and each system has elements that must be examined also. What we must do is to look at what a system really says and then ask an individual if he or she believes that. Just because a person professes to belong to one system of thought does not mean that the person understand things identically with that system. The Gospel as a belief and as expressed in a life is what must determine if a person is to be considered a believer or not. Quoting from the Banner article again, “Why can we have genuine fellowship with those who are not Calvinists? For one thing, if they are truly saved, we are brothers, children of the same sovereign God. Also even though we perceive inconsistencies in their theological structure; even though they may be proclaiming that salvation is the result of the supposed ‘free-will’ of man; in spite of all that, when they are on their knees to pray, when they are truly troubled and seeking for God, they forget their theology and pray to a sovereign Almighty God.” Frankly, this is a shocking and troubling statement in many ways.

First, it is true that we can have genuine fellowship with all those who are in Christ and even those we disagree with on some issues. But how do we know people are true believers in Christ? If truly they believe that their salvation is according to their free-will, then they do not believe in a Gospel that is all of grace. Certainly they do not believe in the Gospel of Christ alone because they are trusting in their own supposed free-will for something. If a person can trust in Christ and in his or her free-will for some element of the Gospel, then how much can they trust in their free-will and still be saved? Why not just follow the slippery slope and go back to Pelagius? Pelagianism is trusting in free-will also, but the semi-pelagians trust in less free will. Both systems of thought do not trust in grace alone. Again, I find this statement to be absolutely shocking.

Second, what we believe shows what we believe about God. It is also true that our belief system about God in reality shows the God we believe in. If we do not believe in God as He has revealed Himself, then we don’t believe in the one and true God. If we believe that the free-will of man can thwart God at even one point, are we still talking about the same God? If we believe that God cannot save man apart from the sovereign act and permission of the human will, are we talking about the same God? If a person has not been broken from his sinful pride and independence enough to trust in Christ alone for salvation, has that person truly repented from self-rule and bowed to Christ? I hope that the issue is becoming clear because evidently it is not in so many places today. The teaching of free-will is not just a minor issue and a little glitch in a theological system. It is not something that can easily be forgotten when a person bows to pray. Free-will is the core of a heart that is committed to self and what self can do. It is an island in which man will not allow God to be sovereign. It must be repented of in order to believe the Gospel of grace alone.