I believe we have confused Calvinism with true reformed theology. I believe you have a reformed theology if you believe in the five solasof the reformation – that’s it.

To those who make a distinction between offered and given, my question is: How can a person be saved?

blessings to you all.

BY HIS GRACE,
JESSE

-peace

http://currentdayreformation.blogspot.com/

Please read it, and leave comments telling me what you think, or if I missed something.

I saw the video and almost barfed. Jesus is not our girlfriend, he is NOT on one knee begging us to “marry him”. This is not the Sovereign God of the universe, I am sorry. There is a picture God used in the Bible to relate to us, so we can get a picture of what Love is, but it is not the same at all. God is not trying to marry us. We see that we are the Bride of Christ, but it is not anything like Chan puts it.

The Bible Commands men REPENT. Then God awakens the dead human heart by his Holy Spirit, the person is regenerated or made “born again”. Upon the command to repent, and then God regenerating and giving the gift of faith and repentance, a person responds to the Gospel. However it is nothing how we see it in Chan’s Video. If anything, I was just upset.

Is Jesus our girlfriend, or the Sovereign I AM?

Mitch

Thanks. You say you went far afield with you last comment, but it does add some real life perspective to the topics we’ve been discussing. I’m glad we had our conversation, and I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around here on the Monk’s Web site.

God bless,
–Jeff

Jeff,

NOT AT ALL, I too have greatly GREATLY enjoyed our conversation, hope you’ve not detected that of me either and hope and know you feel the same.

It’s a real conversation about the real Gospel and working it out among brothers in the faith for the purpose of strengthening each other. Not a “my law is better than your law” (I’m right and your wrong and vice versa) kind of appraoch. That’s a phrase a close close brother and friend (whose also a minister/elder) in the baptist church and I sort of come up with regarding the way too many “ministers” approach ministry.

I’ve seen far too many ministers who think they are “reformed” come in and start “hammering away” by that approach to “clean up” a particular SB church to only get thrown out on their ears. The sad thing is they think they are being persecuted, but they never gave Gospel, so it’s a dream they are having about themselves. It was just a sad case of “my law is better than your law” and since we (the congregation) was here first you gotta go. If you are going to get thrown, at least get thrown out for the Gospel and not “my way or the highway”.

It takes teaching and patience and a gentle yet firm hand. E.g., When my friend and two others were trying to reform a congregation they ran into what to do about “elders”. It was a typical SB church and if you approach that as a “my law is better than your law” (elders in this case), you just establish nothing more than a new legal system. The approach, and successful I might add, was to teach the fundamental reason for such. Not as Lord’s for issuing discipline, but protectors, shepherds, like a father figure, to guard the Gospel, THE GOSPEL not the generic word used. Once the congregation saw that, they wanted them to do this. Of course this presupposes that the elders KNOW THE GOSPEL they are protecting. I’ve seen this approach taken twice and worked, because it then becomes protection, not lording over with “my law is better than your law”. Unfortunately a lot of newly founded “reformed” coming out of Southern today are more Law driven and have lost the Gospel component, and I would argue the true Law.

Oh well, I’ve gotten far a field. I really appreciate our discussion and thank you for your kindness in it!

Yours IN Christ alone,

Larry

My last note, as you can see above, was written before your last one. I just want to reiterate again that when I talk about works, I’m not talking about getting or keeping salvation, nor about proving or improving salvation. Same with sanctification. I’m also not talking about “doing better.” I’m talking about living in the freedom we’re granted, and I’m talking about our freedom being intentional, done by faith.

I guess what I think I’m getting at is whether I, as a Christian, can tell myself or anyone else who is a Christian: Yes, seek Christ, do what is right, walk in the Spirit; and, no, do not walk in the flesh, do not sin, don’t follow your lusts. I’m not talking about law of any sort. I’m talking about living with intention in the freedom of the gospel. I think that the New Testament tells me that I can try to do what is right and I can recommend to others to do the same. I am warned, however, against attempting to put myself or others back under law or to deny the grace which has made us free in the first place.

What I’m also challenging is the idea of faith as purely passive rather than as trust and belief that opens the way to action. As I said earlier, I always see faith in the Bible as connected to action, not contrasted with it, and it’s always the action of decision. Not that faith is action, but faith motivates action in the Spirit. This is why the Church has been the most active organism in history. There is dead action, and there is action done by faith.

As you say, the old man remains in us (don’t I know it!) and the flesh continues to war against the Spirit. As you said, it’s for this reason that we cling desperately to the cross for the rest of our life and that we continue to see our sin looming ever larger before us. It is also for this reason that we have the moment-by-moment choice of whether we will walk in the flesh or walk in the Spirit. It is a lucid decision that we continually make in our freedom. The desire to do something right is not necessarily the desire of the old man to do for himself what God has already done for him. Rather, it can be the desire of one made free by God, one who is already saved and already made holy, yet in whom sin exists. It can be the desire to gratefully serve one’s master. I can also have a mixture of motives. But we should not assume that because someone wants to do right that this person is taking up the old law. Maybe he or she just wants to do what is right in accordance with the Spirit within himself or herself. Everything comes down to the Holy Spirit within us. We can walk in the Spirit or we can walk in our flesh.

I write as a man in sin. I depend on God’s grace and mercy for my salvation, not my works. Yet I want to do good and I continue to try to do good when I think I know what good is. This is not law I’m describing. This is a desire to live according to the Spirit. I don’t trust in my works to sanctify me, rather I trust the Spirit, but nevertheless I want to work in accordance with that Spirit. I want to consciously choose, as Paul writes in Romans 6, to consider myself as dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. I think I’m advised to be intentional when Paul says: “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of you body to sin as instruments of unrighteouseness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” I want to follow Paul’s advice in verse 19, where he says “present your members as slaves to righteousness.” As he says in Romans 7:19, “we have been released from the law, having died to that which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.”

So what you wrote most recently, I concur with wholeheartedly. I second your statements about law vs. gospel.

I forgot to mention in my last message that I, too, am enjoying our discussion. I hope you never interpret my cantankerousness as hostility. God be with you, and may he shower you with the riches of his grace and mercy.

–Jeff

I just thought of a couple of things last night that was very helpful to me once that may be helpful, at least I hope so. It kind of goes to the issues of “talking about” a doctrine versus “having it”.

First, it is one thing to ‘think of the idea of Law and Gospel’ versus living under “Law versus Gospel”. This affects how we “read and grasp” scripture greatly. Law and Gospel is more than just merely going in and picking out command Vs. promise structures, but even more to the point is ‘how one is living’. Thus, in some passages one may affirm a Law/Gospel division but does one “read” as if living under the Law versus living under the Gospel? That’s a huge light into the Scriptures. That’s why some can still read law into a thing rather than Gospel. That’s why, for example, the old man in us is terrified by Romans 9, “what can I do”, we cry, “I’m doomed”. But the new man rejoices, “I’m glad its not up to me but God”. You see the new man trusts and it is comfort to him while the old man is still trying to do and sees his doom. And rightly so, the old man must die, that’s the death/life language, and the new man arises. So that the old man “reads”, living under the law, Romans 9 and is terror stricken. If the Gospel doesn’t then come he will deny God and at length be a rank atheist (Nitches own tail spin into atheism was driven by this very verse) because the old man cannot believe this. But the new man trusts God so that Romans 9 becomes the support and strength to that same belief/trusting. KEY: Contra to the neo-Calvinist of our day, especially the so called ‘reformed’ like rising out of the SB court, THE GOSPEL must already be thoroughly there and always there, else you drive a man to despair having been a dupe for the devil using “election” and “predestination” wrongly at the instigation of Satan.

Second, keep in mind we ALL have the old man in us. It’s not a shame to know and admit this. We ALL STILL struggle daily with old man wanting to DO. And thus we ALL tend to gravitate as he pulls us back to a false version of sanctification of doing. This is why the necessity of the Gospel constantly being preached and given in Word and Sacrament to the ALREADY Christians. A category deplorably wanting among many “preachers” of our day. You need to hear constantly, “YOU ARE FORGIVEN FOR CHRIST’S SAKE AND HE HAS DONE IT ALL.” This is true growth in grace. Literally the phrase “growth in grace” is literally growing in THAT reality, not some injection to “do better”. Fruits will come and you may never “see” them yourself, which is a blessing if you grasp why you must more and more be clinging to the cross, but if they are real fruits they will come out of the Gospel. The paradox is, you yourself will most likely NOT see them and see yourself worse and worse – this blessing of worse and worse keeps you clinging to the cross, else you’d turn from God and back to self by way of improvement. This is in fact the very progressive confession of Paul who said, “I’m the least of the Apostles, the greatest sinner” and etc…

Anyway, blessings again to you and yours. I really have enjoyed our discussion and appreciate your kindness. This is how I think sinner/saints help sinner/saints grow in the faith!

Larry – KY