God Loves… Himself

In the last newsletter in this series A.A. Hodge was quoted in setting out the distinctive beliefs of Pelagianism. It is vital to understand this insidious worm that eats into and distorts the Christian faith and deceives those who hold to it. When we realize that Scripture teaches us that “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it” (Jer 17:9), we should realize with an increasing sense that our hearts may be deceiving us about the very heart of the Christian faith as well. B.B. Warfield said that Finney was an example of what happens when a Reformed view of salvation is joined to a Pelagian view of the will. Once a Pelagian view of the will is joined to other Reformed thinking, it takes the heart out of it. Hodge puts it this way:

Pelagian.—(a.) Moral character can be predicated only of volitions. (b.) Ability is always the measure of responsibility. (c). Hence every man has always the plenary power to do all that it is his duty to do. (d). Hence the human will alone, to the exclusion of the interference of an internal influence from God, must decide human character and destiny. The only divine influence needed by man or consistent with his character as a self-determined agent is an external, providential, and educational one.

As stated in the last newsletter in this series, not many people think that they are Pelagians and prefer to think of themselves as orthodox. However, this is where the statement of A.W. Tozer comes in. Let me quote it again:

Compared with our actual thoughts about Him, our creedal statements are of little consequence. Our real idea of God may lie buried under the rubbish of conventional religious notions and may require an intelligent and vigorous search before it is finally unearthed and exposed for what it is. Only after an ordeal of painful self-probing are we likely to discover what we actually believe about God…It is my opinion that the Christian conception of God currently…is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity.

If we put the statement of Hodge beside that of Tozer, we begin to see that despite what our creeds are and what we profess to believe, our real idea of God and our actual thoughts about Him may have to be searched out with a vigorous search. Tozer thinks that it will take an ordeal of painful self-probing to discover our actual beliefs about God. If Tozer’s words are really an application of Jeremiah 17:9, then they are even more sobering. Pelagianism is thought to be something out there or perhaps something that is historical, but it could be that we are indeed in a Pelagian Captivity of the Church (R.C. Sproul). What if those who identify themselves as Arminian are actually Pelagian? What if many of those who are Reformed have Pelagian thinking to some degree hidden deep in their hearts? Could it be that Pelagian thinking has crept into the churches as a wolf in sheep’s clothing? If so, we need to recognize this and with great concern begin to search our own hearts.

Hodge’s First Point: “Moral character can be predicated only of volitions.”
This is taught in various ways in many places. We hear this when people say that it does not matter what one believes, but what matters is how a person lives. Another way this can be hidden is when people say that we are not to worry about our feelings but instead just what we do. This can be hidden in biblical language such as “faith without works is dead,” which is true, but not in the way it is used by Pelagian thinking. It can be used to examine a person’s salvation by examining the external behavior from I John or even if a person has said the words of a prayer or has walked an aisle. We have to be careful of our own hearts and the hearts of others in these methods and ways. We have to look at our own hearts very carefully and with much prayer be sure that we have not been caught in the quicksand of Pelagianism. It can lurk and hide very well in Reformed circles as well as any other.

Pelagianism can be hidden in many methods of evangelism. It is there when we ask a person to pray a prayer or to walk an aisle because those are external acts that we take to be indicative of what a person must do to become a Christian. But anyone can do those things without a change of heart. They are external acts only. Jesus told us that a person must be born again to enter the kingdom, but we think that a person must have something to do with this. We can even reach the point of excusing our ways of Pelagian evangelism by simply saying that God is sovereign and that we don’t have to tell people everything. Indeed people to not need to be told everything, but they do need to know something about God and the Gospel that has to do with what God must do to them if they are going to be saved. Hyper-evangelism is really a product of Pelagianism and the desire of men for large numbers. It is also used to give people who practice a lot of evangelism assurance of salvation because they think that because they do something called evangelism they must be saved.

It is so easy to look at the external morals of a person and just assume that the person is a Christian. But many people are outwardly moral and nice, but those are not the same things as holiness and love. We can assume that because a person is against abortion, homosexuality, and divorce that a person is a Christian. But Jesus and His apostles did not teach that. The standard of salvation is not external morality, it is a new heart. A person that is truly saved will have a moral change, but that change will come from a new heart and not just changed morals. The biblical idea of faith is not simply a person having an intellectual belief about Jesus, it is that faith comes from a heart that is born into the kingdom of God and that faith is a gift of God. Faith is not just an intellectual idea in the brain; it is that which receives grace and Christ Himself in the soul. Faith is also the spiritual sight of the soul. Faith does not just believe certain facts to be true, but it has to do with living by received grace moment by moment. Pelagianism is so deceptive in that it takes things that are centered on God and changes them to be centered on man. It is so deadly.

Hodge’s Second Point: “Ability is always the measure of responsibility.”
This sounds rather innocuous in some ways, but then we start to hear the modern Arminian speaking of human responsibility as if there is ability involved. Even more, we hear the chant of modern Calvinists that speak much of human responsibility as well. If a person means (when speaking of human responsibility) that human beings have an obligation to God, then “responsibility” and “obligation” are used as synonyms at that point. But when the idea that ability is the measure of responsibility sneaks in, we are back to Pelagianism. It sounds so right to stress human responsibility, but it is also so easy to slip into some form of Pelagianism when we do. Human responsibility must never have the idea that human beings have the ability to do spiritual acts apart from Christ (John 15:4-6). Paul put it like this: “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me” (1 Cor 15:10). The battle is over grace from beginning to end and to the degree we have grace His glory manifested.

What happens when we approach a fallen man who is born as a Pelagian dead in sins and trespasses and by nature is a child of wrath? We will either approach this man as one that has the ability to respond to the Gospel or we will approach this man as one that only God has the ability to open his heart so that he can respond. We will approach him with one idea or the other in our minds and our evangelistic efforts will be based on one of those ideas as well. Even if we have a different theology in our brains, we can have a different idea deep in our hearts. We will also approach that person in our evangelism and speak to him or her in a way that will either point to his or her great need to have God do the work in the soul or to the person’s own choice and ability. We may assume that if the person makes a choice of some kind that God has done the work, but that is nothing more than an assumption at best. As a Pelagian the person we are evangelizing may just believe that s/he has the ability and so hear what we say through the Pelagian lenses. That person will think that s/he has the ability to respond and so our evangelism will be Pelagian evangelism. Despite the best efforts of many people to diminish these differences, they still stand. A Pelagian by birth will always think that he has the ability to respond. Even if he is taught and understands this intellectually, he will always think of his response as coming from himself. He may say the words that God enabled Him to respond, but it will still be the response of the man rather than God working that in him.

Pelagianism sets itself against the reality of the Gospel which is grace alone from beginning to end. It may use and defend something called grace alone, but it is not grace alone. This is one reason why it is so deceitful. Pelagianism wants grace to help man save himself or perhaps provide a way of salvation, but it does not want grace to do all the saving. It uses the same terminology but means something different by the words. The Gospel of grace alone is under attack today and that by those who use the same words but mean something different by it. Perhaps they are deceived themselves and don’t realize what they are doing, but the result is the same. Pelagianism is at war with the Gospel of grace alone even as it uses the same words as orthodoxy does. The evil one is so sneaky and deceptive that he is able to bring Pelagian thinking into orthodoxy simply by using what we think of as common sense and the same terms with different meanings. With the chilling words of Galatians 1:8 in mind, let us be careful as to our own theology and Gospel. The devil is not sleeping but the “adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (I Peter 5:8). He hates the Gospel of grace alone and knows that one little work in a heart will fell it in that heart.

Galatians 1:8 still stands and though the edge may have worn off of our sensibilities, we must never let the eyes of our souls forget this somber but glorious passage: “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!” It matters not what denomination we belong to or don’t belong to and what theological camp we hold to, if we preach a gospel contrary to what Paul preached we will be accursed. Even if we think we preach the gospel Paul preached, if we don’t actually preach the gospel that Paul preached we will be accursed. It does not matter if we preach a gospel with many of the same theological words that Paul preached; if we do not preach the actual gospel that Paul preached we will be accursed.

Charles Finney preached what he thought was the gospel, and indeed many made professions of faith, yet he was a Pelagian and denied original sin. Many have arisen throughout history and have preached something they called the gospel and yet it was not the true gospel. When a man strays from the true gospel, it is common for him to think that the true gospel has something wrong with it and that those who preach it have something wrong with them. A man that strays from the true gospel will often think he agrees with men in history who preached the true gospel, but there will be differences in words and terms. We live in a day which has traded in the truth of the gospel for things that sell and make for numerical success. But if we do not preach the same gospel that Paul preached, regardless of our so-called successes in the eyes of men and of denominations, we will be accursed.

Pelagianism does not seem to be thought of very much in the modern day, but it is an insidious heresy that has tentacles that reaches to many areas. It has tentacles in liberal denominations, charismatic denominations, self-professed Arminian denominations, and even Reformed in creed denominations. All men are born Pelagians and it is that line of humanistic thinking and self-effort that those who are born of the Spirit have to fight. The human heart is born dead in sin and trespasses which is to say that it is born spiritually blind in its pride and love for self. The human heart is given over to love for self rather than love for God and seeks its own glory and honor rather than God’s. The human heart relies on itself and depends on its own wisdom and strength. The heart that has not been renewed can intellectually believe any set of theological beliefs. The creed of a person does not mean that a person truly believes and preaches the same gospel Paul did from the depths of the soul.

A.A. Hodge sets out the distinctive beliefs of Pelagianism in a very helpful way. He puts it this way:

Pelagian.—(a.) Moral character can be predicated only of volitions. (b.) Ability is always the measure of responsibility. (c). Hence every man has always the plenary power to do all that it is his duty to do. (d). Hence the human will alone, to the exclusion of the interference of an internal influence from God, must decide human character and destiny. The only divine influence needed by man or consistent with his character as a self-determined agent is an external, providential, and educational one.

Now it is true that very few people have a pure Pelagian doctrine in terms of what they profess. It is also very true that many people do not recognize that they hold to those beliefs when in fact they do. But this is a pervasive teaching and it is a very deceitful teaching. A proud person is blinded to his or her pride by pride itself. So Pelagianism hides itself to people as well. They will use the term “grace” and so think they have escaped the grasp of Pelagianism. But the Pelagian teaching is able to use the term “grace” and hide itself under it. The Pelagian teaching on the will blinds people so much that it deceives those who call themselves Reformed into a practical form of Pelagianism. It hides itself in the most orthodox of teaching and leavens even the most orthodox of doctrine. Jesus warned His disciples about the leaven of the Pharisees. They were quite conservative in their theology, were very moral, but they also had the heart of Pelagianism in their belief system. We must beware.

“Hear” the words of A.W. Tozer: “There may be a right opinion about God without either love or one right temper toward Him. Satan is proof of this.” The words of Scripture tell us that the real issue of sin is the heart (Mark 7:20-23). Pelagianism teaches that moral character has to do with the volitions (choices) rather than the nature of the heart, yet that idea has spread throughout Christendom. We also speak of people who have heads better than their hearts and those who sin we say that down deep they have a good heart. The gospel has to do with the grace of God changing hearts and human being becoming new creatures in Christ Jesus (II Cor 5:17). The gospel has to do with hearts being changed by the will of God and not the will of man (John 1:12-13). The gospel has to do with sinners becoming cleansed and so become the temple of the Holy Spirit (I Cor 3:16; 6:19). Moral character is not predicated simply by the choices we make, but whether our hearts have been changed and bear the fruit of the Spirit. Moral character is from the love of God in the soul and not simply right choices.

When we think of how evangelism is done in our day, we think of telling people a basic message and then trying to get them to make a choice or pray a prayer. Yet Jesus told Nicodemus that he had to be born from above (or again) in order to see or enter the kingdom. Jesus did not press him to make a choice or pray a prayer. In biblical evangelism the sinner’s heart must be changed so that the choices the sinner makes comes from a renewed heart that loves God rather than a fallen heart that is trying to do things to please God in the sinner’s own power. Pelagianism has influenced the way evangelism is done and has been doing so in a very clear way since the time of Finney. Asahel Nettleton wept over what was going on and the new measures (of evangelism) that Finney brought in and said that it would change (for bad) Christianity if it continued. He was right.

“The doctrine of justification by faith—a biblical truth, and a blessed relief from sterile legalism and unavailing self-effort—has in our time fallen into evil company and been interpreted by many in such a manner as actually to bar men from the knowledge of God. The whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless. Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the Adamic ego. Christ may be “received” without creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver. The man is “saved,” but he is not hungry or thirsty after God” (A.W. Pink).

In the quote from Pink above we can see how the tentacles of Pelagianism have grabbed at the heart of Christianity both literally and figuratively. The glorious doctrine of the gospel has been made into something that depends on a choice made by man rather than the act of God in the soul. In the spirit of a hyper-evangelism the glory of God in the gospel has been watered down at best and we have been given over to mechanical methods in an effort to get men to make a choice or pray a prayer. We must remember that the demons prayed to Jesus in an effort to get what their wicked hearts desired. The demons prayed to Jesus and did not want to go to the pit of hell just then. Men will pray prayers in an effort to flee hell, but that prayer does not save a soul from hell. It may be only the words of frightened men who make a “fox-hole conversion” but were never truly converted.

When evangelism is practiced in a way where it is nothing more than a transaction in which men are talked into making a choice that will keep them from hell, it is not the same gospel as Paul preached. A true conversion happens when souls are jarred about their morality to the depths of their soul. True conversion happens when souls are awakened to the depths of their sin and their sinful nature. A person does not see a need for a new heart if s/he is only pushed to make a choice about heaven or hell. The older evangelism from centuries ago stressed the need for people to see the depths of their sin and of their sinful nature. The reason for this was so that they could see their desperate need for God to give them a new heart by grace and that they would not think that all they needed to do was to make a choice. But the evangelism that has grown out of Pelagianism has all things resting in the hands and choices of sinful human beings. It is good news about what people can do for themselves.

In the modern day where Pelagianism in some form has taken over, people are thought to be hyper-Calvinists if they teach that God must change the heart and that salvation is in His hands rather than the choices of unregenerate hearts. This teaches us something very important. We must get a clear idea of what Pelagianism is and we must get a clear idea of what hyper-Calvinism really is. It is my view that Pelagianism is far more dangerous than hyper-Calvinism and has spread itself throughout virtually all of professing Christianity in our day. Pelagianism is really nothing more than what the bible teaches on how men trust in themselves rather than God. That is a teaching that has corrupted the modern Church. It is in all denominations and in all theological circles. Let this article close with a quote from A.W. Tozer and a few comments on it.

“Compared with our actual thoughts about Him, our creedal statements are of little consequence. Our real idea of God may lie buried under the rubbish of conventional religious notions and may require an intelligent and vigorous search before it is finally unearthed and exposed for what it is. Only after an ordeal of painful self-probing are we likely to discover what we actually believe about God…It is my opinion that the Christian conception of God currently…is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity.”

This quote should strike at our self-confident hearts and move us to search our own hearts for Pelagianism. While it may not be comfortable, that is what happens when the search light of God shines. Could it be that in your own heart the real idea of God lies buried under the rubbish of many religious notions that are quite popular today? Could it be that in your own heart that your creedal statements are hiding your real idea of God and of your own heart from you? Could it be that Pelagian thinking has corrupted your concept of God and of the gospel you hold? Perhaps you are zealous for evangelism, but if you don’t have the same gospel Paul preached then you are not evangelizing in truth. If we believe that Galatians 1:8 is true, then we need to bow before God and ask Him to start with the painful probing. If we don’t think it is necessary, then that shows just how necessary it really is. Let us remember the words of Jesus to the churches in Revelation. These were people who were taught by the apostles themselves. We are not immune from Pelagianism and all the things it brings despite our technology and increasing knowledge of nature. Technology does not and cannot change our hearts.

This article was originally intended to be the last article on conversion. However, the connection between conversion and the title of this series are so interwoven that I thought that it might be best to start this series and show some connection between the two. A lot of ink and hyperbole has been spilled over the issue of hyper-Calvinism of late, but the even more pervasive danger of Pelagianism and hyper-evangelism has had little to no attention. While the focus of many is on hyper-Calvinism, the opposite (and perhaps greater) dangers of Pelagianism and hyper-evangelism continue to march unabated and unknown into the walls of the city. With hyper-Calvinism the core of the Gospel can be preached, but Pelagianism is a totally different gospel. Hyper-evangelism changes the message of the Gospel to one that can be told rapidly and gain equally rapid “results.”

Hyper-Calvinism has been so feared that a conference was recently held on it. Though R.C. Sproul has said that we are in the Pelagian captivity of the Church, there is hardly any noise about Pelagianism at all. B.B. Warfield wrote of what happens when a Pelagian view of the will is united to Calvinism. It becomes and is heresy. Warfield said that this was what happened with Finney and N.W. Taylor. Yet today the evangelism that is practiced is more like Finney’s than like the Reformed of times past. What would happen if a person had a Pelagian view of the will and yet thought that s/he was a Calvinist? One thing that would be the result is that the person would hate Calvinism and brand it as hyper-Calvinism. Another result would be that irresistible calling and efficacious grace would have to be replaced with a form of evangelism that had Pelagian roots. It would be, as Dr. Kennedy of Scotland from the 1800’s called it, hyper-evangelism. While we fear the absence of Gospel preaching with hyper-Calvinism, with Finney’s hyper-evangelism we are left with “burned out districts.” Perhaps America has not been un-evangelized so much as it has been wrongly evangelized and so has massive parts that are burned out districts.

What is wrong with hyper-evangelism? While it will be dealt with far more in-depth at a later point, what happens is that people become very excited and engaged in what they call soul-winning. But when they get involved at this hyper stage, they drop many of the biblical parts of evangelism and get involved with their programs and forget about the need for a soul to be truly converted. True conversion requires a biblical way of evangelizing souls. Hyper-evangelism just wants to tell people enough of a message to get them to the front or to say a prayer. Of course many Reformed people say that they have a deeper theology, but that is not reflected in their evangelism. So they end up evangelizing much like some version of the Pelagians do. Hyper-evangelism is a compromise of the Gospel because it waters the Gospel down to get results. John Kennedy wrote his book on this issue and said this: “Hyper-Evangelism I call it, because of the loud professions of evangelism made by those who preach it; and neglect of others which are equally important parts of the great system of evangelic doctrine. 2. Because unscriptural practices are resorted to in order to advance the movement.”

In calling things like this “hyper-evangelism” some might think of this as an attack on evangelism. Rather than that, however, it is the call for individuals and churches to study biblical doctrines that inform biblical evangelism. The great stress on evangelism apart from doctrine, holiness, and the life and preaching of the local church is actually a dagger in the heart of the teaching of Scripture on the issue. Teaching and preaching the Gospel of the kingdom of God is far more than just getting a person to admit to a few sins and then to hear a few historical facts about Jesus. It is also the case that many modern day people who call themselves Reformed also practice hyper-evangelism because they have swallowed a Pelagian view of the will to some degree. The real issue, however, has to be what is biblical. Regardless of the terminology and of scare tactics, we must be truly biblical at all costs. There may be and will be some costs to be what is truly biblical.

One thing that inspired this series (so quickly) is a recent visit of mine to a Jehovah Witness meeting. I have had Jehovah Witnesses coming to my door for about eighteen months, so I went to hear a special lecture on their faith in an effort to understand them better for the purposes of getting the Gospel to them. The lecture spoke of the cross of Christ and of the need to repent and believe. What scared me is that I have heard many people who call themselves Reformed say pretty much the same thing with even less explanation. The Gospel is not preached when we state a few facts about Jesus. That message would have been acceptable at many Baptist “churches.” Certainly it would have been fine at many Methodists and Presbyterian “churches,” though there might have been objections to speaking on the blood of Christ so much. The message, though sounding much like what many “evangelicals” would say, was thoroughly Pelagian. We can tell people to repent and believe until we turn blue in the face but until we explain repentance and belief according to the Bible and the character of God we are not telling people anything but what they think they can do in their own power and strength. That is Pelagianism pure and simple.

It has been stated that Christianity has been in a theological decline since 1680 or so with some exceptions. If that is true, then perhaps we need to think through what we think of as orthodox. Perhaps we are so far off the path that what we are truly afraid of is really orthodox Christianity. In looking back at the history of the Church, there was a Reformed way of doing evangelism that has been virtually lost in our day. Not only that, it has been virtually lost for a long time. The battle in the mid to late 1700’s that carried on into the 1800’s over hyper-Calvinism may have been a problem with both sides turning from the way earlier Reformed way of evangelism rather than just one side. But again, while things have changed, the real issue is how the Bible teaches that conversion happens. To simply declare that a person is to repent and believe without biblical instruction on what that means is to do no more than a Pelagian or a Jehovah’s Witness would do. That may sound awful, but the speech I heard was utterly frightening in that it was so bland that it would fit in without any real offense in about any religious setting. The Mormons do the same thing. In my discussions with Mormons they say that they are simply another branch of Christianity and that they are trying to get people to believe in Jesus. When Reformed and non-Reformed (not all) have little difference in their presentations with the Jehovah Witnesses and the Mormons, we know that there is a problem.

As we work through this series we will be looking at Ian Murray’s work on Spurgeon and Hyper-Calvinism and other works as well. This is a deadly serious issue and it will not be resolved by any one book or a series of articles in a newsletter of from an internet site. True hyper-Calvinism can be a very serious issue, but if one falls off the other side of the cliff by buying into a Pelagian view of the will or hyper-evangelism one may be even further off. There is a great danger on both sides of the issue and yet in our day there is only a focus on the one. But remember Warfield’s warning that a Pelagian view of the will (even if one does not know or recognize it) when united with Calvinism leads to and is heresy. How many people are out there who call themselves Calvinists and yet have Pelagian views of the will and evangelism? My guess is that there is a lot more than those who tend to hyper-Calvinism. Perhaps Spurgeon was correct in his day in his fight with hyper-Calvinism, but that does not mean that the same thing he fought is alive today. Pelagianism is what the real battle should be against today.

Some of the related issues have to do with the nature of faith. If faith is nothing more than an intellectual exercise, then a Pelagian way of evangelism will work and all we need to do is tell people the facts. But if faith only comes from the soul that is converted in all of its aspects, then the Pelagian way of evangelism (even if joined to a Calvinistic soteriology of some sort) is not proclaiming the true way of salvation to sinners. Pelagianism is thoroughly pagan and human-centered in all ways though it gives lip-service to God. True Reformation teaching of a God-centered God is thoroughly God-centered in all ways. There is no way to join the two in anything but an uneasy and inconsistent way that thoroughly waters down the Reformation teaching. How devious and tricky is the devil if he would bring Pelagianism into the “Church” in the guise of Reformed theology. How much destruction could he cause if he got a Pelagian view of the will carried into the walls while hidden in the belly of Reformed theology? How much destruction could he cause if he tricked those who thought themselves to be thoroughly Reformed to mock and fight the truth of God? This is not a small issue at all. It is a battle for the Gospel.

It has been said that there is no logical stopping point between true Calvinism and atheism. That is true. But there is also no logical stopping point between true Calvinism and a full Pelagianism. A fear of hyper-Calvinism, if we are not careful, can actually blind us to the inroads of Pelagianism. The Gospel must be held to tightly because there is only one Gospel. Listen to the truth of Paul’s words: “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!” (Gal 1:8). Pelagianism has been declared to be heresy in Church Council after Church Council. It is the great danger of our day. It is like the chameleon that has many forms and colors to disguise itself to fit in with its surrounding. It is like its master who disguises himself as an angel of light. As our nation spirals at a frightening rate downward, let us not suppose it has no relation to the stand of the Church and its preaching of the Gospel. As the Church has weakened its theology, that has weakened its Gospel. It is no longer salt and light. The role of Pelagianism in this is perhaps far larger than we suppose. The Gospel, in all theological circles, is under attack by Pelagianism in its many disguises as it is one way the devil works to bring error into the Gospel. Let us pray for eyes to see this attack which has already had much success. The true Gospel of grace alone to His glory alone is the only antidote for such an insidious virus.