Reformed Texan

The Neoliberal Globalist Technocracy as a Religion

A world ruled by “experts” with personal righteousness and tribal membership on the line (by S.M. White)

Understanding the foundations of why things are the way they are:

In order to understand the world, we live in today we have to understand some things about human nature. Particularly because the way the world is arranged now is based partly on the coercing of human nature.

There are some altruisms about humans:

1. We’re tribalistic: We like to be on a team that we think is going to win. We like to fit in, to be liked, to be safe, to be successful. We like for our team, the group, or ideas, or where we live to win against some benchmark. This is why for example people root for local sports teams even if they have nothing else in common with them than the location they happen to be living.
2. We like to be righteous: This is a big one. There is a part of human nature that wants to be told the “well done good and faithful servant” from God or another proximate authority. There is a sort of desire for approval from God for what we do and don’t do that is in all of humanity. We can see this transactional nature every religion ever made by man has the element of a heaven or reward based on our deeds, what we have to offer. So, it’s a works-based salvation, and a works-based justification. You see this at a smaller level based on children just wanting the approval of parents even after they grow up. This is a common reflection in human nature. Righteousness (our good-enough-ness), and validation of our own personal righteousness is a common desire of all humanity.

Shaped by the past 100 years:

We also need to consider the huge impact that the United States of America has had on the world in the past 100 years. The fact that it was things like our blue-jeans and factory-farming filled grocery stores that brought an end to the world shaping cold war with the Soviet Union has helped shape the world we live in today. Namely the idea that the blessings of the “good life”, of humanity thriving, is to be found through human ascendency through capitalistic means and wealth creation. That’s what won out from the more purely collectivist worldview that the former Soviet Union was. Today there is a mix of capitalistic-communism in China that appears to be a third path, but I would seek to convince you in this essay that the worldwide zeitgeist driving much of what is going on is based on a goal of personal prosperity through technological and wealth advancement. In regards to a type of religion, this can be seen as the proximate “heaven” that is the goal and helps explain why things are the way they are in the world today.

Understanding the different models and why a technocracy ruled by elites is the model today:

Just as with the soviet vs American model of governance, mankind has been trying different forms of government in the modern age with varying forms of success and or misery. Mostly the battle lines of how a nation should be governed has been defined by things like freedom or collectivism, or Right-wing or Left-wing. There have been governments that have partnered with religion, some that have been atheistic, others that have mixed collectivism style socialism with capitalism, and others that have sought to maximize a libertarian model.

A policy that was determined in a libertarian US think tank in the 1990s was that free-trade and globalism is the path forward, and it seems that particularly with the advent of the World Wide Web everyone has bought into it and that this is the model. The internet has helped open up the world to everyone (particularly big corporations) and so experts have determined that places like the US shouldn’t really make many things, but that things should be made in poor nations (or in the case of China places where the government subsidizes cheap labor to make it impossible for anyone to compete with them). Rather than making or building things, young people in the US were supposed to go to college, get degrees in sociology, and STEM and never really get their hands dirty with making anything, including things like masks or pharmaceuticals, or computers, or smart phones. That could be and should be made elsewhere. That’s the “free market” after all, which is a good thing, or so we’re told.

Understanding some of the effects on US culture:

As it turns out not everyone was cut out for this predetermined national/global human categorization model policy, and so this created a divide of societal underperformers. One example would be white Millennial males lacking the desire for a white-collar knowledge-work skill-set became involuntary celibates because they couldn’t compete with and win the affections of a young lady who had a degree and required more a more socially and economically competitive partner. This manipulated cultural environment in-turn created even more competition and an even more conditional (arguably less human) nature to relationships in the US where less marriages occurred, and with men of potential better character being replaced by those who are just more ambitious, successful in the system and more prone to the more simplistic utilitarian view of the harsh reality of winning and losing. I would argue that it helped foster less human compassion and a more cold and narrow people focused on others as a resource to be used.

Understanding the idea of “expertism”, a world ruled by technocratic elites and think tanks:

It’s ironic that the one most prominent outlet we have for extreme individuality, the ability to choose our own gender is itself a sort of mandate from the top. A social pressure pushed down on us that must be accepted and approved. Who applies this pressure, and why? How do they do it?

Today’s globalism is a world where things are made in the cheap places, and computer screens are occupied in the “rich” nations, where we produce little, but mainly deal in knowledge work and our economy moves forward based on consumption of things made in the cheap places, but also, we consume the information itself, the media, the entertainment, the games, the factory food, the “good life” (or so we’re led to believe) things. It’s more of a hedonistic consumerist pseudo-utopia that even the poor can enjoy.

People are mostly convinced of the “good life” what they should do or not do by these experts, by scientists, doctors, social-experts, and know-better-than-yous. They’ve replaced looking at government as purely left or right, or religious, or libertarian. This is a layer above that. It’s a view that the best decisions for everything are made by these elites. Experts in healthcare, and solving global warming, and solving wars, and poverty, by experts. There is a sort of faith that this is the way to go, the next evolution of governance is a sort of worldwide economy ruled by elite experts.

 Understanding how to herd cats, through tribalism and righteousness:  

How do you get everyone on board for a global agenda? Aren’t’ all politics local? How do we herd cats? How does one nation or one group of people that may be on the right or left or center, or atheistic, or religious, or whatever someone might think all get on the same page for think-tank inspired globally calculated agendas?

The answer is through a sort of technocratic information-driven religious experience. Remember the two points about human nature, we’re tribalistic, and we want to be righteous. So, what better way than endless secular sermons through institutions that are on board with the technocratic globalist plan? So, from education, to music, to movies, to books, to institutions, to corporations and their commercials, to the news media online, in print, or streaming news things like “global warming” , “social injustice” and other cultural imperatives are preached. We’re shown endless evidence of what’s wrong, and then the (unbiased) “experts” tell us what needs to happen to make it right.

We need economic policies. We need to make different kinds of cars. We need to pump the market. We need to recognize and elevate the right people and their plight. We need to power our houses differently, and we need to live in certain new ways.  For people who are already religious, or for people who have abandoned traditional religions, this becomes their new religion, or at least a supplemental religion. It’s a secular religion with righteousness on the line.

This can carry over into other things like no-mask to mask wearing to double-mask wearing, or certainly people don’t want to be an unrighteous racist by having the wrong border policy. This is all controlled by whoever controls the information. They control the narrative, so they get define who is culturally-orthodox or who is a cultural-heretic, and they control the information evidence to back up either thing.

What follows cultural heresy is cultural damnation, cancel culture. Cultural-heretics get shut out of middle-culture for being unrighteous and disagreeing with the experts. The alternative to cultural-heresy is cultural-orthodoxy. Agree with the media-priest sermons and what is righteous and you’ll be righteous, you’ll be safe on the righteous path. You’ll be blessed with the comfort and safety of full membership into the “good people tribe”. You’ll have nothing to fear, on the contrary, you’re vindicated. You’re a good person with full tribal benefits to live in peace and safety because you do and think the right things. For you, you’re justified. So, it’s a works-based secular religion based on fear of condemnation and hope of reward.

Conclusions:

Parts of this are a world-wide phenomenon, but it’s most intense in the Anglosphere, particularly the United States. At this point there is almost no part of any policy or information that makes its way to you that is not a part of a certain tribe that ultimately agrees about the big picture of rule by a technocratic global elite. They only disagree about things like priorities, emphasis, focus, and other details. They all agree that experts need to control all our decisions, and they all agree that they get to control what experts control our decisions. Really, they are more qualified, because there’s not a lot of good independent thought going on in the world that they’ve already been controlling the information, what gets rewarded and punished, and what people should pursue and think.

This, I think,  was not as much a planned takeover of things, but more natural. With a sort of policy agreement that experts are good things (who could disagree with that?) those over our institutions naturally sort of set the table for themselves to be the elite rulers because they have the money and the power, and a majority of those they are ruling over generally ignorant, naïve and ultimately malleable masses of people who can’t think for themselves. People that have been indoctrinated by the systems in place that helped make them that way. For the masses to be herdable is a problem the elites have nearly solved.

If anyone starts to think for themselves, and comes up with any alternative or populist movement, the information priest-craft goes to work labeling, demonizing, and showing the worst elements of that movement. If that doesn’t work, it seems like they even plant information or people in these movements that cause them to self-destruct as bad movements eventually.

My thoughts are that this is just the way things are, and we have to deal with it. Ultimately against the backdrop of left vs right, collectivist vs individualist, socialist vs capitalist, theist vs atheist it seems that enough people from each of those sub-triable categories think that a neoliberal globalist technocracy where experts are given control of most things is a happy meeting in the middle. The fact that many things are coerced by control of information and the manipulation of people thought carrots and sticks applied to human nature doesn’t seem to be seen as a macro level problem. Instead endless news cycles define the relevant issues for all those who think they are thinkers. Stories on national politics, social ills, election, ecological, financial and other issues relating to the pandemic to fill most of that mainstream intellectual space, and the solutions are always political. Political, where the ruling experts that determine which experts tell us how to live, and move, and have our being… 

As for me, I don’t like it, and I don’t think it will end well, but I am going to continue to try and think through it as to what is best for me and my family with the limited resources and abilities that we have. I’m going to live where I think its better, and that there is less trouble, and to do business as best I can. Perhaps this is like what the elites themselves do at one level. Insulate themselves from the worst effects of world they help create. Yet I hate the system that I’m a part of. I never would have created it, because I don’t see people, even experts as basically good, or unassailably honest and for me,  I don’t see the prospect of a perfectible utopia, or that this is meeting in the middle. For one thing they’re way too optimistic about human nature, and also, they don’t seem to factor in bias. We’re just supposed to trust the honesty and goodness of the nameless-faceless globalist think-tank created policy that those who govern, and the information priesthood prepares for our thought consumption as if it’s given by basically good people and will be basically for our good. Because they care. Really? In the words of Joe Biden “come on man!”

PostScript: 

This little Saturday morning essay was a little outside my normal topic and writing style, and I would be remis if I did not mention that while I like things like safety, comfort and the good things in this world, this is not my ultimate home. This is why I don’t seek to overturn anything per say except generally the household of the god of this world, Satan, whom Christ has bound and his house is being pillaged even now by the proclaiming of the gospel as the Holy Spirit uses that in the lives of the elect. There is simply no form of worldly governance that will not ultimately represent itself in various forms and to varying degrees of severity against Christ, and His people.

Christ told us that the world will hate us because it hated Him.  That is true. I am not the enemy of people, but of Satan. Our battles are spiritual, which is why sharing the gospel with whoever the Lord puts in our path is the way to go. This short life we have in this present evil age is best spent planting churches and helping churches, and seeking to love and disciple people in Churches. Our churches need to be Christ centered, and particularly centered on the gospel, which is His person and work to save sinners like me and you.  There’s the good news. That’s the ultimate good news, because it’s about an eternal life where true justice and goodness does reign. I’m so thankful for the active obedience of Christ! That’s my true hope! That’s my good news. That’s good news to all who rest their hope on the righteousness of Christ. 

Other resources on the phenomenon of informal secular religion: 

Michael Chrichton, Environmentalism as a Religion: http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/Articles-Main/ID/2818/Crichton-Environmentalism-is-a-religion

Davis Zahl, Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion and What to Do about It

 

The Reformed churches used to whitewash the inside of former Roman Catholic cathedrals, making them more ordinary interiors not because they despised art or beauty, but because they were drawing a line in the sand and essentially saying: The ordinary means of word and sacrament were to be the focus and means of teaching maturing and preserving those in Christ. Because formerly things like reading and the bible itself were held in the hands of the Roman Catholic priesthood, things like religious paintings, sculptures and carvings were ways of depicting biblical scenes and events in cathedrals, and therefore means of continual teaching to the uneducated citizens of the middle ages, although some of these particular things were probably used as a sort of idol or icon in prayer.

As far as paintings, or etchings however, think of it like teaching a child through a picture book. Also, the way one’s eyes were taken upward in most cathedrals had some intent to make one think up above towards God or whatever mediators the adherent was taught to speak to. Later opulence and artistic flourishes became more about the majesty and authority of the Roman Catholic Church itself. Baroque architecture where beautification, majesty and power of the structure itself was more the point. This was part of Rome’s answer in their Counter Reformation.

So, whitewashing was taking one’s attention off of the building, the images, the eye-candy. The Reformers took the position that the building or what is in it is not what is sacred, or holy, or to draw one’s eye and attention. The ordinary preaching of the word of God, and particularly the good news of salvation, eternal life and an inheritance in Christ alone where moth and rust don’t destroy is what the Reformation church was all about. Therefore, that is what was elevated in Calvinistic churches. Except for less than thoroughly Reformed circles. You can find imagery in Lutheran churches today which itself is a tradition that is less thorough in Reformation than Calvinistic tradition. In the Calvinistic tradition through the Church of England there is Anglicanism, which unlike Calvin’s Geneva did seek to hold on more of the old ways in a sort of hybrid manor, and so Roman Catholic things like Lent, and Advent were kept going. Stained glass windows with biblical stories, and even images of Jesus (2^nd commandment issue?) are found today in many Anglican (or Episcopalian) cathedrals and churches.

Advent is celebrated with different colored candles lit up in the area of worship (how well do flames before the Lord go in the bible?) to teach, and inspire spiritual nourishment just as Rome had done. For Lent, fasting and 40 symbolic days of sacrifice where spiritual disciplines and times of reflection independent of the normal means offered in the Church are propped up.

These are the hybrid ways, and less thorough of a Reformation. This imagery and ritual takes on an almost mystical type of reflection that seems to me most similar to the kind of reflections we do with the elements associated with the sacraments. Yet, we find the command to do these things nowhere in the scriptures. Therefore, absorbing these things into worship violates the Reformation principle that Sola Scriptura regulates worship and practice. This is of course known as the Regulative Principle of Worship.

Regulative Principle is part of Presbyterianism since John Knox. However, it seems that in the past 100 years or so, Presbyterians have started to absorb this practice from other traditions. It would seem that Presbyterians in a push to reach the world have looked at the culturally superior Anglican/Episcopal traditions and determined to be more of a traditional Swiss Army Knife absorbing that aesthetic into a tradition that had formerly rejected it.  

I can think of no other reason why Presbyterians have forgotten that they are Presbyterians and started doing things like Advent. Unless it is done simply because of a simplistic understanding of where they actually stand. If they draw outside the lines in where they stand then where will their children go in the next church? I think we are already seeing that in the woke churches.

Come back Presbyterians. Come back to the Regulative Principle of Worship. Keep the Christmas trees and candles out in the hallway if you must have them, but not in worship, not part of worship. Certainly, we can observe days like Christmas and Easter in homes and even in the Church, yet there is no need to follow a liturgical calendar, no need for Lent or Advent.

Have you lost the “Rule of Worship”? There is no need to add ritual and spectacle that are not called means of grace in your doctrinal standards. No need to add these things to worship, no need to bind consciences to observe extra biblical rituals in a Christian worship service. By doing so you have made yourself something more than a Presbyterian, or less than one, however you want to look at it.  

I can think of no bigger name in American Presbyterianism in regards to culture and cultural engagement than the Dutch Reformed theologian Abraham Kuyper. New Calvinism, Missionalism, and Neo-Calvinism found in Presbyterianism today are all offshoots of his sphere sovereignty and other ideas of how Christianity engages culture, yet even he had a hand-break called Antithesis. He realized that the world always ultimately manifests itself against Christ and His church, and so Christianity was always going to be ultimate hated by the world, and that Christianity is Antithetical to the world and its ultimate agenda. We should see that the world and pop-culture were always therefore going to have a corrosive and deconstructive effect on the Church. Perhaps the ultra-confident Baby-Boomer generation liberalized these things in line with American Presbyterianism, but there is no need to continue their mistakes.

The old adage that if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything rings true. The Semper Reformanda (always Reforming) does not mean that we’re always adding to the Reformation, or modifying it to fit the worlds trends, but it means the exact opposite, a return to Reformed confessional standards. Churches don’t need to change to whatever Spirit-of-the-Age is here in each moment in order to reach the world. There is plenty to suggest that though there are seasons when the church is called archaic and behind the times, that at least it is a cultural mooring that just by being there gives a standard to call the world back to. This might mean that you don’t grow as big of a church for a season, but what price is growth gained with? Wouldn’t it be better to be the place where firm principles are found? Or even better where an emphasis on the good news of salvation in Christ alone is found? It has been my observation in much American Presbyterianism in 2020 there is more of a platitudinal and truncated gospel that is preached, and much less of the underlying doctrinal basis of that proclamation. Perhaps less emphasis on imagery and bumper sticker sized gospel proclamations and a more completely laid out scope of what redemption in Christ entails would be a good goal.  In other words, a bigger better articulated and taught good news. This is a suggestion to be even more distinct, not less. That would be antithetical would it not? 

There is plenty of doctrinal meat and tradition on the bones of Reformed Presbyterianism without adding mystical pomp and circumstance and little fires before the Lord in a worship service. Even if it does feel good and make for a good holiday card.

The gospel is bigger than a one-time message about the forgiveness for sins. It has to be. When the gospel only includes the atoning element, the forgiveness of sins, and when a one-time “born-again” conversion experience is so elevated it swallows up everything else, then you’ve got a truncated gospel.

Now, I’m not talking about Christians needing to be re-justified, or maintaining-justification, and I do think that people who believe that Jesus died for their sins, placing hope in the sufficiency of that, that’s a justifying faith. However, I think if that is as good as the good news is to someone, it’s a recipe for them being a baby Christian. Particularly in the affluent and seductive world we live in.

There is of course a tendency in the Reformed world in America, particularly to those who only know the Westminster Confession of Faith, (or some teacher influenced by it) to build only two main mental categories. Categories built on the theological categories of Justification and Sanctification. It goes something like this: “Justification is attained when I believed, and before that I was a baddie, and now I’m involved in Sanctification and for the most part done with being a baddie.”

This is a super-simplified take on the fact that justification is a one-time event, and since we’ve been removed from the law as a covenant-of-works, it becomes to us a guide to a God-glorifying life. The fact that even the power of sin in our lives is like a snake that has had its head cut off, and we have all the power in Christ to overcome whatever temptation we face each day. Even though, because of the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in us, we have been much improved, have different desires and have changed many habits.  Yet by that same Spirit, we see (or we should see), how far off we are from the perfect standard, which is Jesus Christ, the one truly obedient Israelite, the promised seed of Adam and of Abraham who loved God and neighbor perfectly, fulfilling all righteousness under the law.

Somewhere in that we should see that we are no where near what God requires. Yet it seems that most American Christians think that a personal renovation from the state of being in gross-sin and having no desire for the things of God, to less-sin along with a sometime desire for the things of God means they’re somehow far above the same level of reproach as the great unwashed masses, the real sinners out there, or perhaps that guy in the church who doesn’t seem to visibly obey King Jesus as well as I do.

This simplified view often turns into a simple message, particularly among the more broadly evangelical camp of “Take-Jesus-as-Savior-and-then-you’d-better-work-on-making-Him-Lord-or-else-you’re-goin’-to-hell.”  Trying to teach these people that works only follow justification as a consequence of prior regenerating union with Christ doesn’t often go very far, and they might peg anyone who does so as a liberal who is unwilling to say with un-minced words that Jesus better be King of your life or else. The Reformed Presbyterian version of this is: “But Sanctification is important too” …reminding them that “I didn’t’ say it wasn’t” is going to be the next step to probably getting nowhere.

It seems these people have setup this dichotomy where either one or the other is elevated and that when you elevate one, you’d better balance it out, because the two main categories governing their thought are that one is either a legalist or an antinomian. Too much law, and you’re a legalist, and too much gospel and you’re an antinomian.

Again, this is an over-simplification that is not helpful, because the gospel believed is what was able to make people who were formerly very moral Jews and or grossly sinful pagans do some pretty amazing things. They were now willing to not only accept persecution, rejection from society and imprisonment, but they also bore the antithetical fruit of actually rejoicing when all their worldly possessions and property were taken away from them.

“For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property” (Heb 10:34a)

Now I’m a Texan who’s been on this earth for over 50 years and I don’t personally know anyone who would do that. It’s really shocking behavior. In fact, I will be honest about myself, I would have a serious problem if someone came and told me that all my stuff is being taken away because I am Christian.

My first thought is: “from my cold dead fingers.” Yet there that verse sits, right there in the bible. Who were these people, and why were they so over the top crazy rejoicing while their stuff being take away? This must be some sort of socialist plot to take more of my money.

Speaking of socialist plots… The first time I was shown that verse was by a well-off church Administrator/elder who was on the wealthy church’s payroll (partly with my money), and who himself had just come back from a vacation in Europe, a place I had never been.

This was the first years of the Obama administration, and I had not realized how many people in the allegedly conservative church I was in had voted for him. This elder was my elder and I was complaining about barely being able to make it financially, and about how a corrupt Federal law had made it impossible for our family owned mortgage brokerage to continue to compete with the larger companies and we had to close it down, and how bad off we were, and how much we were struggling. Based on me taking all that to him he hit me with that verse and suggested my wife (who had been the educated and certified primary operator of that family business) get a job.

Since then I have given a little thought to it now and again, and over time I realized that the answer was in the second half of the verse itself. “since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.” (Heb 10:34b) . I present it to you in this little essay not because I’m an out of touch self-important socialist trying to get my hands on your stuff, (which yes, they most probably are), but to ask you a question. Do you think those crazy Christians only heard (and believed) a good report of Justification in Christ and then move on into sermons emphasizing Sanctification and personal holiness in their lives lived? Did that kind of sermon inspire such joy at having their earthly possessions plundered?

The fact is that Christ, by His obedience secured not only the promised eternal life in the first covenant with Adam, but we find out even more about the future secured by the obedient seed where there is an eternal and imperishable inheritance promised to Abraham and His seed (Christ) and to us who are seeds in Christ (Gal 3:26-28).

This is also not the only place we see Christians rejoicing, not over thoughts relating simply to being born again, with sins forgiven, but further into eternal things we Justified have attained in Christ:  1 Pet 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶ In this you rejoice…

In Ephesians 1:3-14, Paul paints a much bigger picture of what God has done for us in Christ, all based on Christ’s work, starting from electing us in eternity past all the way to our guaranteed eternal inheritance, with the mere mention or thought of all of this wonderful news eliciting praise of God by Paul as he goes through it all, he writes of praise to God over and over again.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”

This is all part of the good news is it not? 

Speaking of the ultimate hope is about the eternal life and eternal inheritance. Jesus teaches us not lay up treasures here on earth, but in heaven (Mat 6:19-20), and Paul even tells us where to set our minds, on the things above, where Christ is (Col 3:1). This is not an abstract call to mindless piety, but there is a specific hope He is calling us to, because that is where Christ is, and that is where our life is hidden and where our future secured hope is.

This sort of expanded view of the gospel helps make more sense of those crazy Christians in Hebrews 10:34.

The gospel for them had to have been expanded beyond a singular justifying event and message of atonement to a larger understanding of what all Christ secures and where our true hope lies. They had a bigger picture of things preached to them, and so to have a biblical understanding of the message of the gospel we must say that the good news therefore cannot be collapsed down to simply a pre-conversion message for unbelievers, but is at the heart of the Christian life. It’s the great hope of our very existence in a world where we all eventually grow old and die.  It’s not so much about a balancing act, but an all-consuming belief about the ultimate nature of reality that very naturally bears the fruit of holiness as a consequence.

Holiness of a life set apart by God. With what is important to speak about, to think about, to meditate on, and to do, being ever more controlled and governed by the doctrinal foundation of the Christian theology concerning the promises of God to those who rest their faith upon Christ alone.

The Gospel is for Christians, because the gospel includes the description and reality of what is promised and secured for all who rest their faith on Christ alone. Only with the centrality of that hope regularly proclaimed and therefore pressed into the heart every structure of the believer’s worldview would we expect to see a Christian like the Hebrews 10:34 Christians were. 

This is of course the whole reason that God instituted the church and called ministers into them. That we are not only matured, but as Peter teaches, it is part of the ordinary means of God’s guarding us to the inheritance: “… to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for…salvation.” (1Pet 1:3-5) It is through faith we are guarded by the power of God. This faith is in the gospel, of what we have in and through faith in Christ. This is why the gospel is for Christians, and why a church that clearly teaches and proclaims the whole gospel is a necessity.

Is it also why the Westminster Confession of Faith states that “there is no ordinary possibility of salvation outside the visible Church” (WCF 25:2) Its why excommunication is serious business, and why a clear and consistent grounding in the whole gospel is not only the highest honor a pastor is given, but is his most solemn responsibility to protect it. A pastor protects the gospel by proclaiming it. You help guard the Christian by proclaiming the gospel to them. This is the one chief duty of the shepherd over the flock, with the normative law proclamations always included as a guide for a life of gratitude, needing to be pressed in more or less for how grossly pagan, or perhaps unloving and needing of instruction in godliness the converts are. It is my observation that most Christians in a moral culture need less repetitive guidance in that regard and gladly seek to obey the moral law as a guide to a life of gratitude.

I would even say that in a culture where moral imperatives are valued, an important measure is not how much a Christian claims to love the law of God, but do they have an appetite for and hope in the gospel? You can fill large churches with “Promise Keeper” Christians, and “City Builder” Christians just aching to do something, but what is their ultimate hope? Would they rejoice at their stuff being taken away from them because they are Christians? Perhaps some would, but what about being looked upon as the scum of the earth, as evil and ridiculed as a fool added to that?

If someone would rejoice in that, in my mind right now, I’d have to say they are a much better Christian than me. I like my stuff, and I don’t want to be ridiculed and oppressed, to those who do, I say “you first.” It’s not as if my pastor hasn’t done a good job of grounding us in the eternal inheritance that is ours. I would say that he is the best pastor in my city who has consistently taught and emphasized the centrality of the gospel better that most anyone I’ve ever heard. But ultimately, I’m still struggling with my comfortable life and my blessings here.  I hope to have a long life with my wife, and see even great grandchildren that belong to the Lord.

But I also hope and am struggling to let go. I want to be able to let go of everything, especially as I get closer to glory. I want to do that, I want to rejoice at my eternal inherence as everything is slowly taken away from me in regards to my health, and abilities.

So, from that perspective, if we do that, we really are like those crazy Hebrews 10:34 Christians. For them it was sped-up into a quicker set of events, but ultimately, we do have all our possessions taken away. Do any of us really want to be on a death bed clinging to our land, our house, our retirement account? Surely a Christian would not do that, so why live our lives as if those things are our hope now?

It’s because we’re immature. It’s because we’re still baby Christians.

Sunday is a day of rest for Christians. It’s a sign of our eternal rest. It’s like a foretaste of the eternal rest, like a little piece of heaven we rest in once per week, secured by the labors of Christ on our behalf. It is therefore not at the end of the week as a covenant of works sign, but moved to be beginning of the week, given to us with the required consummation meriting obedience already fulfilled by Christ for us. What a beautiful day each Sunday is for the believer.

Like Paul, we hear the good news of all the spiritual blessings we have in Christ and we praise God. Like Peter said we who are born again to a living hope are guarded through faith to our imperishable inheritance. When hear about and we believe what we have in Christ and what Sunday is when we will start to see that it’s not really a day to skip Church for Cowboys football games, or skiing at the lake. That is for the babies, the this-world clingers who sadly are given only the milk of truncated gospel proclamations, and large doses of watered-down moral imperatives to balance it out (as if they could). As the writer of Hebrews 6:1 says however “let us leave the elementary teaching about the Christ and press on to maturity not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith” A more mature faith starts with a more robust and complete gospel pressed in. Regularly pressed in to the heart by the Holy Spirit so that when the crazy-let-go time comes (Heb 10:34) and it will come, we can let go and rejoice. Lord help us to love the good news, which includes our eternal inheritance secured by the obedience of Christ on our behalf.

Missionalism is not the answer, it’s the Theological basis of the Distraction

These days in the Reformed world, there is no way of escaping Neo-Calvinism, or Postmillennial views. The voices within this particular framework are particularly susceptible to the news, and therefore particularly vocal during election cycles. There is what could be termed “election cycle Christianity”, where Christians become especially active based on what they’re seeing and hearing in the world.

There is however a dark side of the Neo-Calvinistic movement known as Missionalism, which is the

syncretizing of the Great Commandment with the Great Commission. One result is that that the gospel and the Kingdom of Heaven gets harnessed into being an engine and mechanism for the transformation of the Common (non-redemptive) Kingdom of Man. Categories become erased, and both the language used and the assumptions brought into the Christian worldview is that they are all part of the same thing.  We are to be “living out the gospel”.

So, naturally as the cultural strings are pulled in an election cycle the Missional church must not only be weeping on command with whatever suffering they have elevated into our sight this week, we must be swept up into the same sense of frustration at our own inability to change what desperately needs changing for the better. Cynicism at this is considered as a certain wrong-headed aloofness, and being non-political is not an option afforded to the Christian, because it’s all in the mix.

It is true that the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of Man are connected, they meet in the life of the Christian. Christians are members of both kingdoms, and Missionalism has syncretized the Great Commission (preach the gospel, baptize, make disciples) and the Great Commandment (Love God and neighbor) together.

Evangelism is the intersection where all the category mixing begins. In order to reach the world Missionalism teaches that we must come alongside the world, feel their plight, be for the justice that the world is for as the media pulls the string, take the right position, vote the right way, and use the right language. Only it appears that it must be left leaning, because that’s what direction pop-culture leans. One effect of this is the Church gives moral credence and cover to secular political movements.

There is a certain and attractive immediacy of this flavor of Christianity that does sound a lot like Paul becoming as a Jew among Jews and a Greek among Greeks, but there is a sort of compromising that can occur, more than that, it does occur, and it’s going to take wisdom, discernment and a realization that there is going to be a struggle not to compromise truth, but the issue that already exists and is prolific  right now is the mixing of theological categories that they have done.

I would argue that because of that, Neo-Calvinistic Missionalism is not something that God is blessing. Because it’s not a healthy or right view of Christianity or the Christian life. Right doctrine and good theology is used by the Missional movement, but it ultimately serves a different master. It’s ultimately a corruption of biblical Christianity, and it needs to be corrected, or better yet, abandoned.

That need for doctrinal correction is an important issue that I believe needs to be elevated in the Reformed world. The big blind spot that the missional movement has, its mixing of theological categories and mixing of the idea that we are both living-out and proclaiming the gospel.

The spirituality of the church needs to be reasserted, and a proper understanding taught of how Christians should live in God’s Two Kingdoms. The theological categories of law and gospel need to be kept distinct, and an understanding that the gospel is good news, not good works, and that we are not in any way living-out the gospel. We are simply proclaiming the gospel of what God has done in Christ two thousand years ago to save sinners like us and anyone who would believe. Good works are the Christian ethic, fruit every individual Christian is to bear, but they are not the good news. We are not the good news. We’re here to bear witness to the good news. It’s a message, a proclamation of something God did to save us and all who believe.

Instead of the Neo-Calvinistic emphasis on transformation, we should assert the historic Reformed understanding that there are two distinct kingdoms that God rules over. There is a Kingdom of Heaven (the redemptive kingdom of God) and a Common Kingdom of man (a non-redemptive kingdom God also rules over). Believers (God’s elect) are members of both kingdoms, but unbelievers (those who are not elect) are only a part of the Common Kingdom. The Common Kingdom is not eternal. It has a terminus. There is an end to it all on the great day of judgement, it and all those who are not elect have no eschatological future, they have no eternal life, and no future in the new heavens and the new earth.

The Common Kingdom is inaugurated covenantally in the promise God made with Noah and all of creation. That promise from God that He would never again destroy all life with a cataclysmic flood, but that things would continue, the rain falling on the just and unjust, until the last day, until all God’s purposes are complete and all His elect have been united to Christ through faith alone.

Christians are not given a mission to redeem the earth, or the culture or all things. That is not the mission God gave the church. The church is given the Great Commission to proclaim the gospel, baptize and make disciples. We individual Christians should love our neighbors. That is the Great Commandment given to all mankind, and it is a rule for the Christian life that we seek to love God and neighbor.  As individuals we can and should certainly love our neighbors as the Holy Spirit calls us to and enables us to particularly in our own personal circles. Christians can certainly get involved in politics, and in various ways seek to limit some of the worst suffering in this fallen world. But that is not the mission of the church. It is not redemptive work, although it might (or it might not) gain an ear for the preaching of the gospel to some. Remembering that the common culture, God’s Common Kingdom has no eschatological future should help us to moderate our expectations of just how far those labors can go.

Here is a helpful example of the teaching that Paul gave to the church in Thessalonica. That the church there should “aspire to live quietly, and to mind [their] own affairs, and to work with [their] hands, as instructed,  so that [they] may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.” (1 Thes 4:11-12)

This is contrary to many views of the Christian life in America that have followed Abraham Kuyper (a), who was a politically and culturally minded conservative Christian theologian whose theology was in part a reaction to the ending of state-funding churches the Netherlands and the entrenched liberalization that had occurred within the Dutch church. A believer in the separation of Church and state, he developed a system involving Christians interacting in their own different spheres of influence in life which he termed “sphere sovereignty” and went on to further develop this thought into what he termed “Calvinism as a life system”. Among conservative Reformed Christians in America these “sphere” categories helped define how to understand and engage the world and eventually to seek influence in the culture.  The impact of his popular theology has shaped Christian thought immensely in the past 120 plus years, particularly in the Neo-Calvinist movement.

Neo-Calvinism holds a specific view of the “cultural mandate” (sometimes called dominion mandate) given to Adam to subdue and fill the earth. They hold that even though the cultural mandate was originally a part of the covenant of works that Adam was to fulfill, that instead of Christ fulfilling that mandate in the new heavens and the new earth in the age-to-come that Christ is calling on us in at least a partial fulfillment of that mandate in Christian lives in this current-age.

That since as Kuyper notes, there is no square inch of the universe that is not God’s, that God is calling us to be involved and somehow injecting the Christian worldview into every part of the domain of human existence. Some take that as requiring a more direct Christian civil governance, while others (Neo-Calvinistic Missionalism) argue we should seek to influence culture.

Either way this somehow makes us responsible not only for something that is part of the Covenant of Works, but that it also makes us involved in God’s temporary Common Kingdom, harnessing God’s eternal Kingdom of Heaven for this new mission.

This is at the heart of “Missionalism”, which is the theology of a missionary named Lesslie Newbigin (b), which has been popularized by Tim Keller.  Pastor Keller has found a way to weave Reformed theology into this narrative of mission, which includes the idea that an authentic gospel (a gospel that reaches unbelievers) must include deeds. Which blurs the lines between the gospel as message and good deeds that we do.

One example of this theological commitment can be Pastor Keller’s 2018 New York Times article (c)  where he clearly argues that Christian must vote (and it seems he prefers we vote Democrat), that being apolitical is not an option, but that we must weave what we do with the good news or else.

This is what has recently shaped a lot of the theological commitments in the PCA in issues involving social-justice such as racial inequalities, economic inequalities, and gender issues. Rather than being a Reformed Presbyterian denomination, there has been a particularly Neo-Calvinistic shift, which confidently assumes Missionalism is not only the proper form of Reformed Christianity, but it’s the only form to reach the world in this present evil age.

This redirecting of the mission of the Kingdom of Heaven to include positions and issues that are more in the realm of the Common Kingdom have had the effect of a change of emphasis on doctrinal issues to issues of ethics, where instead of doctrine informing ethic, ethics are beginning to shape doctrine. In many ways this seems like a replay of what happened in the mainline Churches earlier in the 20th century.  It is my position that Missionalism as it is currently taught, needs to be rejected, and that even the Neo-Calvinistic view of Calvinism as a Life System needs to be rethought so that a proper Two-Kingdom perspective is in place in it. So that there is moderation as to how much influence, or how far influence goes, and to what end in the Common Kingdom. We should have more moderate expectations of those cultural efforts.  We must not loose sight of the fact that we are not called to transform this world in this present evil age, and that is not the mission of the church. The gospel is not a tool or engine to bring about earthly utopias (right or left wing), or the city of God. That city comes down from heaven at the Eschaton (Rev 21:2), and that is the day we should all be looking forward to.

 

• (a) https://www.monergism.com/lectures-calvinism-ebook
• (b) https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevin-wax/heres-keep-returning-lesslie-newbigin/
• (c) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/opinion/sunday/christians-politics-belief.html

Note: Redeemer Presbyterian Church New York, Vision Statement: 

The Redeemer family of churches and ministries exist to help build a great city for all people through a movement of the gospel that brings personal conversion, community formation, social justice, and cultural renewal to New York City and, through it, the world.

What does Old and New Testament mean?

This is not really very well understood in Big Eva (Broad-Evangelicalism). People normally think it means the old covenant of law and the new covenant of grace, but that’s not where OT / NT titles come from.

The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF 7.4) explains that the terms Old and New Testament has to do with last things, that is the consummation of all things. It has to do with a “Testator”, that is Jesus Christ as the one whose death involves the bequeathing of an everlasting inheritance.

The Old Testament is where we first find out about this inheritance, particularly with Abraham, where he and his Seed (That is Christ) and all his seeds (that is all who believe and are saved in Christ) inherit the land (Gen 13:14-16). Now it was a bit difficult for Abraham, because he was also told that he was going to die, being gathered up to his fathers (Gen 15:15), but that he was also going to still inherit the land (Gen 15:7). We’re told in Hebrews that Abraham had already considered that God could raise the dead. (Heb 11:19) 

We find out from Paul in Romans 4:13, that this inheritance is actually not just Canaan, but that was just a type, or symbolic placeholder for the whole world. We find out also by Paul in Galatians 3 that we New Testament believers in Christ are also in on this inheritance, because we’re Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. (v3:29)

So, what about all the Mosaic Covenant and all the rigid laws, and having to obey to be able to stay in the land and the requirement to be perfect to live and all of that?

Well in addition to the law being God’s perfect standard for righteousness, all that was part of the typology to. The mixed Mosaic covenant was more of a subservient covenant to the prior Abrahamic promissory grant form of covenant. Israel is the type of the new creation people of God. The land was a type of Eden for Christ as the second Adam to fulfill the terms of the first merit based covenant, and by fulfilling the law to earn the inheritance. By doing so Christ saved us as our federal head.  Our salvation and part in Christ’s inheritance is not works (merit) based, but it is grace alone through faith alone in the gracious / promise / grant type of covenant that God had first made with Abraham (really begun in Gen 3:15), and administered through types and promises.

The law also served as a teacher or tutor to lead them to Christ. Paul says in Gal 3:22 that “the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.”.  Those not in Christ and therefore in the covenant of grace (promise) are still in Adam and under a works (merit and performance) based covenant with God and are therefore cursed under the law.  

The administration of the types of the covenant of grace in the OT were in addition to things like the promises made of an inheritance. So we see types of a sacrificial substitute in the animal skins that God clothed Adam and Eve with (Gen 3:21), and the Passover lamb that covers those who have faith to put it over their doorposts so that God’s judgement passes them over (Exo 12:1-28), in circumcision, which is a sign of a cutting off or death sign removing of sin (Gen 17:9-14), and in various other ways in the OT.

In the NT it’s administered more simply through word and sacrament, where we see Baptism as a bloodless washing away sin death sign where the floodwaters of judgement went over Christ’s head, as if being drowned in a judgement flood (Luk 12:50) , and us with him(Rom 6:3), and yet he was raised for our justification (Rom 4:25) , and us with him, to eternal life. (Rom 6:9)

So, we see two principles, administration and substance across both testaments. That the administration changes between testaments, but the substance (which is Christ) remains the same. In other words, it’s all about Christ who by His works, His perfect righteousness under the covenant of works secures everything for the people of God, and how God grants everything to us in Christ in the covenant of grace through the instrument of faith alone.  So the good news across the whole bible is about a grant, or inheritance for those who are righteous in God’s eyes by faith, that is just by believing in Christ as he is presented administratively, and through promises in the Word.

We find out more as the narrative progresses in the bible into the New Testament that we Gentiles are also invited in and able to enjoy this inheritance because as we rest in Christ, we’re granted eternal life, and we’re Abraham’s offspring who are adopted into the household of God, a royal family, and we’re to live in the New Jerusalem, which fills the New Heavens and the New Earth forever. So, Old and New Testament is about an eternal inheritance, in and because of Christ and what He has secured for us. Really the whole bible has this focus and trajectory of the consummation of all things, it’s all about Christ’s testament, based on His death in this present evil age which results in an eternal inheritance in the glorious age to come.

The Westminster Standards are where Reformed Theology finally resolves into a clearer understanding of Covenant Theology. That the Scriptures actually contain a bi-covenantal structure or division, with a distinction being made between law and gospel. The Westminster Standards do more than that however. They ground us in Christ’s work appealing to both His obedience and satisfaction. This doctrine is defined as Christ’s Active and Passive obedience.  Some more recent theologians have erroneously diminished Christ’s Active Obedience down to it simply qualifying Him as the “spotless lamb”. This leads to a view where Christ’s cross was about penalty paying. A turning away of God’s wrath from our sin. They sometimes speak of being reconciled to God by this, or being “fully forgiven” because of this, but they still remain in error, and are proclaiming a truncated gospel.

We need to recapture the understanding that soteriology is eschatological. That our salvation is part of God’s eternal plan which is moving towards the consummation of this present evil age, and resolving all things in the age to come.  Therefore, we need to understand Christ’s work on earth associated with the theology of last things. That Christ is saving His people to bring them into the household of God to dwell with God for eternity.

So, we need to understand the covenant God made with Adam was a requirement, not only that he not transgress, but that He also work and fulfill a positive aspect to the covenant. The Westminster Standards also show us that that there is a negative and positive side to the law.  For example, we can transgress the law and do wrong to our neighbor, but the standards also point us in the scriptures the flip side where we are required to promote the good of our neighbor. So, it is with what Christ came to accomplish. He came to die on the cross for our sins, but also to perfectly love God and neighbor as our representative substitute, or stand-in.

We see this in verses like John 8:29 where Christ says “I always do what pleases the Father”. This doing what is pleasing to the Father is a fulfillment of what Adam should have done in the Covenant of Works he was under.

The law given to Israel is a codification of what it takes to live a life pleasing to God the Father. It is summarized in saying that we must perfectly love God with all our heart and mind and strength and our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus living out the positive aspect of the law perfectly is what is called His Active Obedience. Jesus fulfilled a positive righteousness, and it was this aspect of His saving work (in addition to his penalty paying) that brings us into a state of Justification before God. This is the basis of our adoption into the household of God, eternal life, an eternal inheritance, and the everlasting blessings of God. Christ’s paying for our sin makes us innocent but not righteous, but his positive fulfillment of all righteousness under the law makes us righteous. Both His passive and active obedience are required to justify us. When it is said that we are justified by faith alone (faith as the alone instrument) , this is what is meant: That Christ paid the penalty, and Christ fulfilled the probation. That is the good news that a right understanding of our confession will bring us to embrace and proclaim. 

Yet, where is any explanation of anything like this in the churches in America? Listen to them, sermon after sermon, far too many churches (even Reformed ones) are apparently busy exegeting random biblical texts, and focused on other biblical doctrines, or perhaps either being all woke, or being all conservative to make sure and keep the wokeness at bay that there is no room to ground the body in a gospel that includes any kind of understanding of what Christ’s Active Obedience accomplished.

Historically this good news has been proclaimed as Imputed Righteousness, but a good amount of those proclamations today are from people like John Piper, or Doug Wilson, or others who have abstracted and divorced the imputation of Christ’s righteousness from the idea that His work had fulfilled and completed the probationary requirements that merit and secured title to heaven and eternal life for all those united to Him.  In more strict Reformed confessional circles there has been confusion about and a denial of a works principle fulfilled in the Mosaic covenant has contributed to that. For some reason in answer to Dispensationalism the Mosaic covenant became know as strictly gracious, and any works principle in it that could merit anything, even by a perfectly righteous man was denied.

The end result is that they slip this works principle back into the Christians life, either doctrinally or functionally. To create a sort of climb the ladder up to God mentality in a Christian, you don’t have to actively teach that a Christian is to do that. You just have to not teach truth. You just have not teach and proclaim Christ’s work as completing that works-based-righteousness requirement, and the Christian’s life lived as strictly a consequence of our being a new creation in Christ, and is in no way a ladder climbing up to God. When Reformed pastors and theologians fail to teach the complete good news that the confession points us to, then they lead us to a very natural theology where approval is assumed to be based on what we do and don’t do. 

We need a modern Reformation, and it needs to start by a proper understanding of the covenant theology found in the Westminster Standards. One that includes a Covenant of Works fulfilled by Christ in the Law codified in the Mosaic Covenant.  We need to focus back on what Christ’s accomplished for us, because in the end that is our only hope. That is the hope that is at the center of the Christian life. J. Gresham Machen pointed us in the right direction when he proclaimed at the end of his life “I’m so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it.”

I first heard John MacArthur back in the early 1990s on his Grace to You radio broadcast, and as a young man just learning Reformed theology, I was excited to hear what sounded like a commitment to God’s sovereign grace come across in some of his messages. As the years went by, and his relationship with R.C.Sproul grew, John MacArthur (JMac) began to be elevated in Reformed circles. Although his book on Lordship Salvation created some controversy, mainly because it confused so many people, even theologically Reformed people like myself. Because I was theologically conservative, and certainly believed that Christ is Lord, and obedience is important, but as time went on, I noticed what seemed to be inconsistent comments from JMac.

Fast forward to today, R.C. is gone, JMac is older, and I’ll admit that I haven’t listened to him much in many years. While I respect his commitment to not giving in to theological liberalism, particularly his standing firm with R.C. during the disastrous Catholics and Evangelical’s together compromise, I’ve always considered him someone sort of on the edge of the Reformed world.

I’m a firm believer however, that If you’re for Reformation, then you’ve got to call out the doctrines that are in error. You’ve got to point them out and name them, and sometimes you’ve got to name names, so there’s not confusion. The Church needs to know what the error is and who is pushing the error so we can avoid it, and perhaps even avoid them. Particularly if it’s gross error.

So, John MacArthur has continued to do that, yet recently he pointed out a person in the Reformed community that I know (my very orthodox Anglican friend) and he said among other things that he was an antinomian and a false teacher. But I happen to very familiar with this person’s theology, and I have to say that JMac made a huge mistake.

First off I have to admit that this friend having previously been mentored under the Lordship Salvation view had within the past year spoken out against Lordship Salvation, having pointed out that it’s errors were: “Soul enslaving, freedom killing, conscience afflicting, assurance destroying, and aw/gospel confusing”. I’m not sure if Jmac took personal offense or if he just has one way of looking at these things, but rather than defend Lordship Salvation, he appears to just accept that category of thought and has not been willing to actually pay attention to the person’s responses, and what he is and isn’t saying.

It’s not as if the problems with the term has not already caused some controversy and its main issue in recards to classical Reformed theology pointed out. The term: Lordship Salvation. Dr. Michael Horton already wrote a great book describing some of the problems that we in the Reformed world have against the term, and the way JMac and others who agree with this term define the law and Christian obedience.

The problem with Lordship Salvation is that it’s coming specifically out of an evangelical and Dispensational view, out of Big Eva (big Evangelicalism), where people were used to the template of responding to these altar calls accepting Jesus as savior. Then they assign this separate stage where you needed to also accept his Lordship over your life. As Dr. Horton already pointed out, we in the Reformed world don’t teach that Christ isn’t Lord. We would agree that Christ IS Lord, and Savior, and if you don’t come to Christ as Lord and Savior, then you haven’t come to the Christ of the bible. Or to say it positively, you must come to Christ as Savior and Lord, or you haven’t come to the Christ of the bible. There is no separating of Christ’s nature, or of His Priestly and Kingly offices. We would deny that there are multiple stages of coming to Christ, were you get this little part of Him and then you get a second part. There are no second blessings, or any of that nonsense. Christ is either a complete savior, and Lord, or it’s not Christ.

Either you place your faith in Christ the Lord, and His saving work on your behalf, or you don’t, and if you do, though you might have times where you fail to obey, you’re going to start to want to obey, and start obeying in your life in some ways. So away with these ideas that my friend, or any of us who are committed to Reformed confessional theology would deny that Christ is Lord, or would seek to lead people into disobedience of the Law of God. I would argue that in fact, we are the ones who understand the biblical view of a Christians obedience, and are the ones that uphold the right view of the law of God in the Christian’s life.

The real problem with the recent doctrine called Lordship Salvation is that it comes out of an entirely unbiblical set of assumptions. We who come out of historic confessional Reformed theology know nothing of this two-step view.

So, they who hold to Lordship Salvation as defined by JMac are the ones who come in error. The term itself is a misnomer. The reason they make this mistake is because of a commitment to the doctrine of Dispensationalism. Dispensationalism is a commitment to divide redemptive history into stages, denying the covenant theology structure found in Reformed Theology. There is the real crux of the problem between my theologically Reformed friend and Jmac.

Historical Reformed theology would see the law of God as having been completely fulfilled by Christ. We see the moral law as a codified natural law, a law that is written on man’s conscience. Christ having fulfilled that; the moral law still stands as a standard for living a life of gratitude. JMac, does not see the moral law (the 10 commandments) as still binding on the Christian, but would say the law of love (which they say is consistent with the moral law) is now the standard. So, it’s simply a raised bar that we’re to strive to fulfill with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. Can you see the terrible flaw in Lordship Salvation?

We who are Reformed first understand Christ’s sermon on the mount as raising the bar beyond human ability to fulfill it, driving us to despair of our faith in our own ability to be good enough. JMac sees it differently though. In an article written and posted on Ligoneer.org in 2007 titled Above Reproach he writes of “our obedience to the moral and ethical principles of God’s law.” How “The moral standard God’s people are supposed to live by far surpasses even the highest principles of normal human ethics.”, and the biblical example he points to is Matthew 5:20, about which he says: “This was one of the main points of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: ‘I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven’”.

Now he admits as a sort of aside in the article that the standard is ultimately unattainable, but his primary of view of that is that it’s for us to do more, and try harder to fulfill it. So he sees Jesus teaching here, and Jesus command in 5:48 that we should “be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect”  to be teaching us that we should be relentlessly pursuing “perfect ethical consistency”. It’s hard to believe how someone could walk away from that, and not think that though Jesus does His part, that we are expected with our lives to somehow be doing our part. To us who understand covenant theology, It sounds like and feels like being put back under a covenant of works.

This view he has expressed is inconsistent with the understanding of law and gospel, the first use of the law and the covenant theology found in Reformed scholasticism, and in Reformed confessions.

His theology is an internally inconsistent mix of Dispensational theology with Reformed theology and is one reason that JMac has continually mixed law and gospel categories, because he doesn’t come from the Reformed view that Christ by his active obedience fulfilled the probation of the covenant of works, and has therefore already merited eternal life and the blessings of God. Dr. Sproul, (though he considered JMac a friend) raised the red flag on this problem coming from Dispensationalism and its failure to recognize a completed covenant of works before his death.

In an article about The Covenant of Works [b], Dr. Sproul wrote about what he called a crisis in our day:  “Beyond the ongoing discussion between traditional dispensationalists and Reformed theology with respect to the basic structure of biblical revelation, there has arisen in our day an even greater crisis with respect to our understanding of redemption.

This crisis focuses on the place of imputation in our understanding of the doctrine of justification.”  He goes on to point out that “At the heart of this question of justification and imputation is the rejection of what is called the covenant of works.”

Dr. Sproul goes on to speak of the Reformed understanding of the active obedience of Christ and how it is essential to our salvation. “In this work of fulfilling the covenant for us in our stead, theology speaks of the “active obedience” of Christ. That is, Christ’s redeeming work includes not only His death, but His life. His life of perfect obedience becomes the sole ground of our justification. It is His perfect righteousness, gained via His perfect obedience, that is imputed to all who put their trust in Him.

Therefore, Christ’s work of active obedience is absolutely essential to the justification of anyone. Without Christ’s active obedience to the covenant of works, there is no reason for imputation, there is no ground for justification. If we take away the covenant of works, we take away the active obedience of Jesus. If we take away the active obedience of Jesus, we take away the imputation of His righteousness to us. If we take away the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us, we take away justification by faith alone. If we take away justification by faith alone, we take away the Gospel, and we are left in our sins. We are left as the miserable sons of Adam, who can only look forward to feeling the full measure of God’s curse upon us for our own disobedience. It is the obedience of Christ that is the ground of our salvation, both in His passive obedience on the cross and His active obedience in His life.

All of this is inseparably related to the biblical understanding of Jesus as the new Adam (Rom. 5:12–20), who succeeded where the original Adam failed, who prevailed where the original Adam lost. There is nothing less than our salvation at stake in this issue.

The Active Obedience of Christ is a doctrine not found in Dispensational theology, so JMac has to borrow the language and concept of it from  Covenant Theology. It does not even fit in a Dispensational construct, so he has to shoehorn it in. 

Yet there remains a defective view of what Christ as secured, and therefore what Christ is teaching in the sermon on the mount. JMac has a defective view of the moral law and how it is still binding as a standard on the Christian life, in its 3^rd use, as a guide to a life of gratitude. So, he uses language speaking about Lordship Salvation, and speaks of taking obedience seriously, and many conservative Reformed people think his doctrine is okay, because perhaps it’s that simplistic result that they’re looking for themselves.

For those of us who know our confessional Reformed Theology and proper law/gospel categories, we don’t buy it. We know that fear of condemnation, or hope of reward is no proper Christian motivation, and that nothing but doubt and lack of assurance that spring from this internally inconsistent mixture of Reformed theology and Dispensationalism.

It’s the heart of gratitude that’s been assured of a sure salvation based on the obedient work of Christ that we argue for, and the confessions are on our side on this. R.C. Sproul would certainly be on our side on this, and would perhaps say “Johnny Mac, do I need to tell you again what you believe?” R.C. Was good for Jmac, but unfortunately, he didn’t completely finish the work of bringing him all the way into Reformed theology. So we’re all stuck with this celebrity preacher who’s accepted in the Reformed world as if his views were Reformed. If God didn’t win JMac over through R.C. who JMac respected immensely, I doubt that any of us can. I think we just need to love JMac where he is, pray for Him, but not fall into his bad views, and help people who’ve been oppressed under those views out and into a healthy understanding of law and gospel, and into good covenant theology found in historic confessional Reformed Theology. That’s what JMac has a problem with, not with my friend. That these confessions of what we profess with the historic Reformed church is a right understanding of the scriptures.

If we’re for a modern Reformation, then we have to make distinctions between those who simply borrow from some Reformed doctrines while rejecting or even attacking the covenant theology at the heart of Reformed theology. There’s enough confusion and problems already in the confessional Reformed world. We we don’t need to add the errors of Dispensationalism and Lordship Salvation to them.

a : https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/above-reproach/

b: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/covenant-works/

Other Resources: Brushed Red offers some commentary on the slanderous attack John MacArthur made, and showed some of JMacs own circular reasoning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4-PQo-62AU

 

 

Is final salvation based on a combination of faith and fruit, or is eternal life secured at our justification? The way some people answer is typically based on how they see the Mosaic covenant. If they see the Mosaic covenant as strictly a covenant of grace, then they tend to see the covenant of grace as God’s gracious salvation based on a probationary life where He works to complete the fulfillment of the covenant in the believer’s life. This is what would be called an antecedent view vs a consequential view. That our obedience is antecedent to “final salvation” rather than consequential of already having eternal life where works necessary flow out of the new creation life that Christians are in Christ.

So, whether or not God’s grace is probationary comes down to how someone sees the covenant of works. If you look back at Reformed scholasticism the covenant of works is sometimes referred to as the covenant of life, or covenant of nature. This is because it is the law written on the heart of man that we should love God and neighbor, with the promise of life and the sanction of death in the balance for either obeying or disobeying.

Sometimes people get confused about calling the Mosaic covenant a covenant of works.  Reformed people agree that covenant was made with Adam, and that it was a probation that He failed.  So, as a result of mankind having Adam’s sin imputed to him, is no longer capable of a probation, but because of sin is under a state of condemnation and unable to fulfill the covenant of works. Therefore, when some people come to the “do this and you will live” seen in the story of the rich young ruler (Matt 19:16-26) they fail to understand what it means. How can Jesus promise life when, not only is Adam’s sin imputed, but Jesus also sets the bar of fulfillment to perfection (Mt 5:48)?

One understanding that all sides have of this is that, the perfect fulfillment of the law being impossible for the Israelite to fulfill is a tutor, or schoolmaster that drives the Israelite to seek Messiah. It was to drive them to Christ who, as the second Adam, perfectly fulfills the law and imputes the consequences of His obedience to all who believe. This is what Paul is getting at in Romans when he contrasts the righteousness by works (to condemnation) and the righteousness which comes by faith (to salvation).  

Because Christ, never having sinned, and by being born out of ordinary generation did not have Adam’s sin imputed to Him.   Therefore, He was able to fulfill all the conditions of the Mosaic covenant, which is to say He fulfilled the whole law. Christ fulfilled the law written on the heart of mankind. So, what do we say Christ fulfilled? The covenant of life, the covenant of nature? Or do we call it the covenant of works?

If we say that Christ fulfilled any sort of conditional works principle in the Mosaic covenant, then how is it that we call the Mosaic covenant strictly a covenant of grace? It certainly wasn’t a covenant of grace to Christ. It was also not gracious at the national level, because Canaan, being a type of garden of Eden where man was to dwell at peace with God, required Israel’s obedience or the land would spit them out (Lev 18:28).  

So, what should we call the Mosaic covenant? Some people like John Piper (who collapse the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants) say that it was a gracious covenant to the Israelite, but it was also conditional. In other words, God provided everything, but in order to receive “final salvation”, they had to bear enough fruit of obedience, with God’s help of course. (Piper, Future Grace p248, 1995 ed.) That doesn’t sound like good news to me. That sounds like Rome’s position where we cooperate with grace for a final verdict. Piper extends this view to the new covenant as well (p249).

Calling all covenants gracious, and adding probationary element to them is often called monocovenantalism, and it’s at the heart of the Federal Vision error. If we don’t have some sort of view of Christ fulfilling the conditions of the covenant that’s a problem. If we don’t see Christ fulfilling the works of perfectly loving God and neighbor and thereby securing eternal life, then we’re going to at least functionally couch the Christian life as a sort of probation to attain life. Our works will be seen as antecedent to the concept of a “final salvation” rather than consequential to a salvation already secured by Christ’s obedience and sacrifice.  

Either Christ has secured eternal life for us, and His resurrection is our resurrection, or we await a  performance conditioned resurrection to life in the future. That is, either our resurrection is a vindication that we are in Christ, or our resurrection includes a set of scales where God weighs our good works and sees if there are enough there to match up with the justification which He had initially given to us.

That last view is really a collapsing of justification and sanctification, because it is a collapsing of the covenants. So, if you have a problem stating the Mosaic covenant was a republication of the covenant of works, then you’d better call it something else that has room for a probationary works principle fulfilled and not just gloss over it.

We who are Reformed have to have a works principle that merits life completely fulfilled by Christ looming large in our systematic theologies, or else we’ll either doctrinally or functionally collapse the covenants, and start to mix law and gospel, and see grace as probationary.

The right answer here is that there is no probation. Adam had a probation and he failed. Christ as the second Adam fulfilled that probation and merited eternal life. He secured it, and we who are united to Christ HAVE eternal life (1Jn 5:13) , and the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (Ro 11:29) . For those united with Christ, our salvation is made final by Christ’s resurrection. 

The Christian life is NOT a probation. As J. Gresham Machen said shortly before his death: “He [Christ] has not merely paid the penalty of Adam’s first sin, and the penalty of the sins which we individually have committed, but also He has positively merited for us eternal life. He was, in other words, our representative both in penalty paying and in probation keeping. He paid the penalty of sin for us, and He stood the probation for us…. the probation is over.” (Machen radio broadcast December 1936, The Active Obedience of Christ)

Because the probation has been fulfilled for us, we have nothing more of our relative obedience to fulfill it with. We can not merit or demerit anything from the perfect obedience of Christ on our behalf. We only have the motive of gratitude left to us with the moral law as a rule, not to attain life, but as a guide to the Christian life, a guide of what pleases God.

So, yes God sanctifies us in this life, we are resurrected and glorified, but those are never probationary. Christian growth in sanctification is a consequence of the new creation life we have in Christ. It is not antecedent for attaining it as a “final salvation”. Good works necessarily occur in the life of a justified Christian, and we could even say in that context that they are antecedent to glorification.  But Christ resurrection is God’s pronouncement of the verdict of “righteous” on Him, and on the elect who are united to Him through faith. The new creation life IS eternal life breaking out in us right now. That is why good works are considered evidence. It’s evidence that we are in Christ, never evidence that we have done enough to stay in Christ.

If you are in Christ, you are a new creation, that is, you are definitively sanctified, and are seated with Christ in heaven. The fruit of good works is a necessary consequence of that new creation life (i.e. It exists), not a bar to meet to attain it, or a co-instrument along with faith that God will weigh at the final judgement. For the Christian, the final judgement is vindication that you are in Christ, the revealing of sons. The already pronounced verdict for Christians who are in Christ is not only not-guilty, but righteous first-born sons of God who have eternal life and an eternal inheritance.  Christian, that is good news for sinners like me and you.

 

Romans 2:25 For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. 26 So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? 27 Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. 28 For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. 29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

Look at the words “outwardly” and “inwardly” above. They are very important to understanding why the infant males of believers were circumcised in the old testament, and why that practice continued into the new testament with a new sign where the infant children of believers are baptized in the early church, and continues still to this day.  Both of those “outwardly” applied sacraments were signs of God’s covenant commitment, and in the case of children it is coupled with His command to we who are their believing parents to teach them to know God and His ways.

In the case of the sign being applied to children, it is not the outwardly applied covenant sign of circumcision or baptism that regenerates them inwardly (as Roman Catholicism wrongly teaches), but that God’s model is “family”. We can see that believers do tend to raise children that wind up also believing, and we loving parents should raise our children to have faith in Christ. The outward sign of the covenant has always been applied to children and God’s plan is that we, who know Christ, raise them as members of the Christ confessing community of believers we are a part of, and we their parents are to teach them (we Reformed teach them the word understood through the confessions, and catechisms) the faith that is their birthright, because the promise to we who believe is to us and our children (see Acts 2:39). We do this in the hope and expectation that they will inwardly appropriate the faith.

One example we see later in Romans 9 is where Paul points out Jacob and Esau. Both had received the sign of the covenant outwardly, but later in life, inwardly only Jacob believed, Esau did not. What was the difference? We’re told it’s because one was elect and the other was not.

However, this applying of the outward sign was given to both when they were infants.  This is the way God outwardly administrates the Covenant of Grace in both it’s old and new administrations. The outward sign is put on the parents who believe when they come to faith in Christ, and then also to their children, because this outwardly applied sign is also part of a family commitment by the parents to teach the faith. That is the mandate to us, even though in God’s secret election some of our children might not ever wind up inwardly believing, it is significant that we see Esau is said to have forsaken his birthright. It’s the reason in Acts 2:23 says that the promise is for us and our children, because the covenant model hasn’t changed, just the way it is administered has changed. Males are no longer a federal heads in the same way they were during the time of the old administration, and so both male and female children receive the outward sign which is also no longer a bloody sign of cutting off, because Christ was cut off in His sacrifice on the cross.  

In the new administration God still takes this family of believers model very seriously, because He takes the teaching of our children the faith, among a community of believers hearing the word preached to them every Sunday, very seriously. We their parents should personally teach them the faith. Not just stick them in a school or have some pastor teach them. There is nothing wrong with others teaching them, but it’s especially important that we parents personally teach them as that is God’s model and mandate. 

The model is not to just consider them hellions until they make a decision to answer an altar call someday, but to teach them and raise them expectant and hopeful that God’s promise to us is for our children as well. In this we see that Abraham is the model. Abraham was chosen to teach the faith to his children, and so are we: “For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord …” – Gen 18:19

This is the Reformed model because it’s the biblical model, it’s the way the sacrament of Baptism is to be done. — That this promise of God is also to our children, even though they haven’t believed yet, and it’s later where God causes them to inwardly trust in Christ. Our hope for them is that they don’t forsake their birthright like Esau did. Baptism is a sign of God’s commitment to us, and in the case of our children the expectation is that we would follow biblical model of parental discipleship to them. Because we are chosen to teach the children of our household about Christ and His gospel for them.