View which rejects laws or legalism
POPULARITY
9 episodes with antinomian
5 episodes with antinomian
3 episodes with antinomian
3 episodes with antinomian
2 episodes with antinomian
2 episodes with antinomian
2 episodes with antinomian
2 episodes with antinomian
2 episodes with antinomian
Listen Herehttp://www.fbcclintonla.com/2024%20Sermons/20241103-Jude-7-Passions.mp3
If anything, the religious rulers of Jesus' day were Antinomians, not Legalists. They did not “stretch” the Law of God, they “shrunk” it.
THE ANTINOMIAN LIEROMANS 6:1-4
THE ANTINOMIAN LIE-ROMANS 6-1-4
The Book of Romans Series: Nikki and Colleen talk through Romans 3:5–8. They answer the often given charge that because we believe that we are under the new covenant law of Christ and specifically not ruled by the Ten Commandments we are "antinomians". (Music: Falling Awake © 2010 Nathanael Tinker. Used by permission.)Support the showWebsite, donation link: http://proclamationmagazine.com/Facebook—Former Adventist: https://www.facebook.com/FormerAdventist/Facebook—Life Assurance Ministries: https://www.facebook.com/ProclamationMagazine/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FormerAdventist
Englishwoman Anne Hutchinson's (1591-1643) strong religious convictions were at odds with the established Puritan clergy in the Boston area and her popularity and charisma helped create a theological schism—known as the Antinomian Controversy—that shook and threatened the Puritan religious community in New England. Check out the YouTube version of this episode at https://youtu.be/a9vtjqF1RPc which has accompanying visuals including maps, charts, timelines, photos, illustrations, and diagrams. Anne Hutchinson books available at https://amzn.to/4eEM3lD Roger Williams books available at https://amzn.to/3ULVojD Providence Plantations books at https://amzn.to/4bEHANn Massachusetts Bay Colony books at https://amzn.to/4bHPlTQ John Winthrop books available at https://amzn.to/4bt8uZw Puritans books at https://amzn.to/3SorIa5 THANKS for the many wonderful comments, messages, ratings and reviews. All of them are regularly posted for your reading pleasure on https://patreon.com/markvinet where you can also get exclusive access to Bonus episodes, Ad-Free content, Extra materials, and an eBook Welcome Gift when joining our growing community on Patreon or Donate on PayPal at https://bit.ly/3cx9OOL and receive an eBook GIFT. SUPPORT this series by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at no extra charge to you). It costs you nothing to shop using this FREE store entry link and by doing so encourages & helps us create more quality content. Thanks! Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast is available at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel at https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 YouTube Podcast Playlist: https://www.bit.ly/34tBizu Podcast: https://parthenonpodcast.com/history-of-north-america TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@historyofnorthamerica Books: https://amzn.to/3j0dAFH Linktree: https://linktr.ee/WadeOrganization Audio Credit: The Other States of America History podcast with Eric Yanis (episode S3E13, Roger Williams and Providence (1636-1644), July 18, 2023).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
At the Faith of Our Fathers Conference, Ramirez presented on The Antinomian Distaste for Old Testament Particularity. In this discussion, we focus on some of those particularities and how to combat them. Resources mentioned: God's Hand in Our Lives (Sunday School Curriculum) Lutheran Treasures of Old Missouri — Bible Study Resources CFW Walther, “Slavery, Humanism, and the Bible." ----more---- Host: Fr. Jason Braaten Regular Guest: Fr. David Ramirez ----more---- Become a Patron! You can subscribe to the Journal here: https://www.gottesdienst.org/subscribe/ You can read the Gottesblog here: https://www.gottesdienst.org/gottesblog/ You can support Gottesdienst here: https://www.gottesdienst.org/make-a-donation/ As always, we, at The Gottesdienst Crowd, would be honored if you would Subscribe, Rate, and Review. Thanks for listening and thanks for your support.
Since 2008, a debate has raged within the LCMS about antinomianism. This is not the same kind of antinomianism addressed in the Formula of Concord, but it is like it. In this episode, Mark Surburg distinguishes between the “soft antinomianism” we see today, and that of the first and second antinomian controversies in the 16th Century. ----more---- Host: Fr. Jason Braaten Special Guest: Fr. Mark Surburg----more---- Become a Patron! You can subscribe to the Journal here: https://www.gottesdienst.org/subscribe/ You can read the Gottesblog here: https://www.gottesdienst.org/gottesblog/ You can support Gottesdienst here: https://www.gottesdienst.org/make-a-donation/ As always, we, at The Gottesdienst Crowd, would be honored if you would Subscribe, Rate, and Review. Thanks for listening and thanks for your support.
The Antinomian crisis in the Massachusetts Bay Colony is escalating, threatening to tear it apart just as its leaders perceive a military threat from the Pequots. Anne Hutchinson has been teaching an extreme version of the "covenant of grace" in her after-church discussion group, which has swelled to eighty people or more, including some of the leading men of Boston. Her ideas attack the authority of the conventional Puritan clergy of the Bay. She accuses all but two of them, John Cotton and her brother-in-law, John Wheelwright, of preaching a "covenant of works," fighting words in those days. Needing to end the division, John Winthrop tries diplomacy and reconciliation, but neither Hutchinson nor her opponents show any inclination to compromise. After more than a year of theological debate, the General Court of Massachusetts banishes Wheelwright and brings Hutchinson to trial. She runs rings around them. Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast Selected references for this episode Francis J. Bremer, John Winthrop: America's Forgotten Founding Father Eve LaPlante, American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop Edmund S. Morgan, "The Case Against Anne Hutchinson," The New England Quarterly, December 1937.
Download This month, Mike and Roger do an end-of-the-season review of one of Rogerâs masterpieces and let their inner Grumpy Old Men out to have a rant or two.
Today's broad Messianic movement is of the conviction that the Torah or Law of Moses is relevant instruction for God's people in the post-resurrection era. This is a conviction firmly rooted within the teaching of Yeshua the Messiah, who explicitly said that He did not come to abolish or eliminate the Torah (Matthew 5:17-19). Yet throughout much of Christian history, and even more so today, many theologians and examiners have argued that Moses' Teaching has been rendered inoperative, and/or that it was only to be followed by those in the pre-resurrection era. Many of today's Messianic people, while having a witness of the Spirit that God's commandments are to be written on their hearts and minds via the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 36:25-27), are not equipped well enough to answer common arguments delivered by evangelical Protestant family members, friends, acquaintances, or even various pastors or teachers that they know—when they quote verses to them from the Apostolic Scriptures (New Testament), in support of the premise that the Torah of Moses has been abolished.
At the most recent Shepherds Conference held at Grace Community Church, GCC pastor/elder Phil Johnson responded, at some length, to some criticisms of The Gospel According to Jesus, published here in 2019. In this episode Dr Clark replies to some of these criticisms and interacts with some audio from that talk. For more on these issues please see the resources included below in the show notes. All the Episodes of the Heidelcast Resources On Romans Subscribe To the Heidelcast On Twitter @Heidelcast How To Support Heidelmedia: use the donate button below Subscribe in Apple Podcast Subscribe directly via RSS New Way To Call The Heidelphone: Voice Memo On Your Phone Text the Heidelcast any time at (760) 618–1563. The Heidelcast is available everywhere podcasts are found including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Call the Heidelphone anytime at (760) 618–1563. Leave a message or email us us a voice memo from your phone and we may use it in a future podcast. Record it and email it to Heidelcast at heidelcast dot net. If you benefit from the Heidelcast please leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts so that others can find it. Please do not forget to make the coffer clink (see the donate button below). Show Notes Heidelblog Resources The HB Media Archive The Ecumenical Creeds The Reformed Confessions Heidelberg Catechism (1563) Recovering the Reformed Confession (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2008). What Must A Christian Believe? Why I Am A Christian Heidelblog Contributors Resource Page On The Reformation Solas Office Hours: The Lordship Controversy Is Back R. Scott Clark, Lordship Salvation, The Federal Vision, And The Covenant Theology That The Reformation Rejected Mike Abendroth, My Pilgrimage From “Lordship” to Law/Gospel (part 1) Mike Abendroth, My Pilgrimage From “Lordship” to Law/Gospel (part 2): Test Case—The Rich Young Ruler Mike Abendroth, My Pilgrimage From “Lordship” to Law/Gospel (part 3): Assurance Heidelcast 181: As It Was In The Days Of Noah (24)—We Are Pilgrims Under Christ's Lordship With No Compromise Radio On The Lordship Controversy, QIRE, And The Reformation The Gospel According To Jesus, Grace, Salvation, And Sanctification Embracing The Reformation Doctrine Of Salvation Is Not “Wearying From The Battle” A Faithful Elder Stands Up For The Sheep The Dispensational Playbook Again? There Is A More Biblical, Historic Way Resources On Dispensationalism Resources On the Doctrine of Sanctification And The Third Use Of The Law Resources On The Marrow Controversy Heidelminicast: Heidelberg Catechism 64—Does Justification Sola Fide Lead To Antinomianism? Heidelcast Series: Nomism And Antinomianism Antinomianism Is A Serious Error And So Is Nomism Ursinus Against The Antinomians, Libertines, And Similar Fanatics Who Deny That The Decalogue Is For Teaching In The Christian Church (Objection 1) Resources on the Law/Gospel Distinction Calvin On Justification Without The Aid Of Love Or Works Heidelcast 95: Reformation Happens Support Heidelmedia: use the donate button or send a check to: Heidelberg Reformation Association 1637 E. Valley Parkway #391 Escondido CA 92027 USA The HRA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization
Psalm 15 Worksheet This Psalm gives the humble, God fearing man or woman a way to ___________________ their hearts as they came near to the Tabernacle, and later the Temple, and for us, our times of gathering as believers. Being people of grace does not allow us to be antinomian in our approach. Antinomian means anti - ________________. Now we know that the law is good, provided one uses it legitimately. -1 Timothy 1:8 Essentially the two questions of verse 1 address what is ________________ where God lives. The rest of the Psalm gives 11 answers to those two questions. Psalm 15 may have actually been used in the Tabernacle ______________ as a means of getting people ready to worship. The first three statements have to do with ______________________ in general. In God's house people say and do the right thing – ALWAYS! The next three things have to do with friends and neighbors. In God's house people use their speech to ___________ ________, not tear down – ALWAYS! In God's house sin is not tolerated – EVER! In God's house people are promise keepers – ALWAYS! In God's house taking ________________________ of people is not tolerated – EVER! Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 Questions for the godly person to ask the Lord, and listen for His response: O Lord, do I live honestly in Your eyes? What area of dishonesty do you want me to address in my life? O Lord, do I practice righteousness in your eyes? What area of unrighteousness needs to be rooted out of my life? O Lord, have I slandered and discredited another with my tongue? Who do I need to stop slandering and discrediting with my lips? O Lord, do I hate the things you hate? What worthless things do I often talk about at church? O Lord, do I celebrate people who are true Christian examples? Who should I contact and express appreciation to? O Lord, am I a promise keeper? What promise have I failed to keep that I need to make right? O Lord, have I truly helped “the least of these” that I come across? Who do I need to help that I have neglected to help?
Pastor Greg Locke recently gave a sermon in which he ranted about how God's command to observe the Sabbath is a "demonic doctrine." Here is my response. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/david-wilber/support
Saint Athanasius ChurchContra Mundum SwaggerVideo Version
Sermon for Trinity 6. The Scripture readings are Exodus 20:1-17; Romans 6:1-11; and Matthew 5:17-26.It is easy to think that legalism and antinomianism are opposite errors because legalism leads to a strict keeping of the Law and antinomianism leads to ignoring or belittling the Law. But these two errors are not opposites. The two share the same basic problem. Both legalism and antinomianism lower the standard of God's Law.Legalism lowers the standard by saying that the Law is doable, followable, attainable, and achievable. Antinomianism lowers the standard by saying that the Law doesn't matter, that the Law doesn't actually demand what it demands. And, again, we fall into both of these errors. Sometimes, it is in our attitude to the whole Law. Or, we might fall into legalism when it comes to certain Commandments and into antinomianism when it comes to other commandments.Dear saints, when it comes to the Law, God doesn't ever lower the standard. God doesn't smile and wink at antinomians. God's grace and mercy does not mean that God doesn't care about sin. Yes, Jesus welcomed sinners, but not because He overlooked their sin. He welcomed them because He forgave their sin.And your Pharisaic, legalistic good works and piety don't impress God. God doesn't watch your good works and respond. “Great job. I owe you for that.” No, His standards are higher than yours. Your righteousness must, it absolutely must, exceed the best of the best, or you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.Where does this righteousness come from? It only comes through Christ. The righteous do not live by the Law; the righteous live by faith (Ro. 1:17). Romans 10:4 says, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”
[audio mp3="https://k4z5z2u8.stackpathcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/KPRZ_Abounding-Grace-Radio_07.19.22-Pauls-answer-to-the-first-antinomian-controversy-Romans-15.14-21-part-1-Tuesday.mp3"][/audio] Continue reading →
In this first of three episodes on God's law, Jon and Justin talk about the distinction between the law and the gospel. The law and the gospel are both contained in the Old and New Testaments, respectively. The law and the gospel are distinct and ought not be mixed--and, yet, they are complementary in God's economy of salvation. The guys introduce the listener to this historically Reformed doctrine and consider why it is so important. Semper Reformanda: Jon and Justin consider how covenant theology and law/gospel distinction complement one another in a Reformed theological framework. The guys talk about how useful these tools are for rightly understanding the Scriptures. Resources:Our episode on "What Must I Do to Be Saved?"Our episode on "Are You a Legalist or an Antinomian?"Our episode on "The Law, the Gospel, and Sanctification"
In this first of three episodes on God's law, Jon and Justin talk about the distinction between the law and the gospel. The law and the gospel are both contained in the Old and New Testaments, respectively. The law and the gospel are distinct and ought not be mixed--and, yet, they are complementary in God's economy of salvation. The guys introduce the listener to this historically Reformed doctrine and consider why it is so important.Semper Reformanda: Jon and Justin consider how covenant theology and law/gospel distinction complement one another in a Reformed theological framework. The guys talk about how useful these tools are for rightly understanding the Scriptures.Resources:Our episode on "What Must I Do to Be Saved?"Our episode on "Are You a Legalist or an Antinomian?"Our episode on "The Law, the Gospel, and Sanctification"https://youtu.be/RDjkKGIu0xQ
Jon and Justin consider how covenant theology and law/gospel distinction complement one another in a Reformed theological framework. The guys talk about how useful these tools are for rightly understanding the Scriptures.Resources:Our episode on "What Must I Do to Be Saved?"Our episode on "Are You a Legalist or an Antinomian?"Our episode on "The Law, the Gospel, and Sanctification"https://youtu.be/3qKeMrcC_xM
Topics: Mark 3, 1 John 5, Sin That Leads to Death, Every Idle Word, Blaspheme, Suicide, Take the Lord's Name in Vain, Jewish Scapegoat, License to Sin, Antinomian, Mark 3:29, 1 John 5:17 - Walk Talks Episode 88 (3-27-22)If you want a deeper look at this topic here's a free chapter from one of my books!https://mattmcmillenministries.com/what-is-the-unforgivable-sin/
What is Antinomianism? Unlike Legalism, which we looked at in episode 93, this may be a newer term to you, so let's begin by breaking down the word. Anti- means to be against or without and nomian comes from the word “nomos” which means law. Unlike the Legalist, the Antinomian does everything he can to eradicate the law of God as coming to bear upon a person's life. It has a weak view of grace that believes in grace that saves but not grace that sanctifies. At the heart of both of these systems of thought is the misconception of God's grace. Legalism says that grace is not enough for salvation or sanctification. Meanwhile, Antinomianism has a limited view of God's grace in saying that obedience to God's Word is antithetical to grace. Both systems miss what God's grace truly is. We take a glance at this system in this episode.
A new MP3 sermon from Let the Bible Speak Radio is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Nailing the Antinomian Lie 5 Subtitle: Romans Speaker: Dr. Alan Cairns Broadcaster: Let the Bible Speak Radio Event: Radio Broadcast Date: 12/21/2021 Bible: Romans 6:1-2 Length: 28 min.
A new MP3 sermon from Let the Bible Speak Radio is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Nailing the Antinomian Lie 4 Subtitle: Romans Speaker: Dr. Alan Cairns Broadcaster: Let the Bible Speak Radio Event: Radio Broadcast Date: 12/20/2021 Bible: Romans 6:1-2 Length: 27 min.
Starting chapter 2 of First Peter, covering verses 1-12. Ken and Rocky discuss Antinomianism, the heresy that because Jesus paid the ransom for our sins, Christians are not bound by moral rules. They also discuss the "stone" scriptures. Peter tells the Christians in Turkey that Jesus was rejected for his beliefs, so it shouldn't surprise them if they are being rejected for the same things.Peter also tells the Christians they are now God's peopleThe sermon for this episode is called "Antinomian" and can be found at: https://ponderumc.org/ministries/sermons. This sermon was delivered on Sept. 19, 2021.Find us at www.ponderumc.org.Feedback is welcome: PonderMethodist@gmail.comMusic performed by the Ponder UMC worship team.Cover Art: Joe WagnerRecorded, edited and mixed by SnikrockNEW!: Rate us at Podchaser Find us at www.pondergmc.org. Feedback is welcome: PonderMethodist@gmail.com Music performed by the Ponder GMC worship team. Cover Art: Joe Wagner Recorded, edited and mixed by Snikrock
This ain't your parent's Sunday School class. We have got nothing personally against Sunday School. Our main host, Dr. Bill Senyard was a Lead Pastor for over 25 years. It's just that churches serve a declining number people—each loved by God. Did you know that 2/3rds of young adults have left churches. One researcher has predicted that 20% of churches shutter their doors in the next 18 months. In 1990, only 7% of Americans reported having no religion. Thirty years later, in 2020, the percentage claiming to be nonreligious had quadrupled, with almost 3 in 10 Americans having no religion. There are now more nonreligious Americans than affiliates of any one single religious tradition, including the two largest: Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism. We are a single generation from becoming a post-Christian nation. Why? You may not like these reasons or you may get defensive but here they are.1) Churches are seen as largely irrelevant2) Churches are considered unsafe places 3) Churches are just irrelevant, as uncivil as every other institution. Time to change. Whether you agree or not, the Gospel Rant is meant to be a unique mind-clearing elixir—not everybody's cup of tea for sure. Our main goal is to educate, challenge the status quo, admit our many errors and ultimately to wake Christians up. We may even pick a fight or two along the way, just to get people's attention. Honestly, wouldn't you admit that you've been bored with the standard talking-head fare for a while? Us too. Welcome to the Gospel Rant.
This ain't your parent's Sunday School class. We have got nothing personally against Sunday School. Our main host, Dr. Bill Senyard was a Lead Pastor for over 25 years. It's just that churches serve a declining number people—each loved by God. Did you know that 2/3rds of young adults have left churches. One researcher has predicted that 20% of churches shutter their doors in the next 18 months. In 1990, only 7% of Americans reported having no religion. Thirty years later, in 2020, the percentage claiming to be nonreligious had quadrupled, with almost 3 in 10 Americans having no religion. There are now more nonreligious Americans than affiliates of any one single religious tradition, including the two largest: Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism. We are a single generation from becoming a post-Christian nation. Why? You may not like these reasons or you may get defensive but here they are.1) Churches are seen as largely irrelevant2) Churches are considered unsafe places 3) Churches are just irrelevant, as uncivil as every other institution. Time to change. Whether you agree or not, the Gospel Rant is meant to be a unique mind-clearing elixir—not everybody's cup of tea for sure. Our main goal is to educate, challenge the status quo, admit our many errors and ultimately to wake Christians up. We may even pick a fight or two along the way, just to get people's attention. Honestly, wouldn't you admit that you've been bored with the standard talking-head fare for a while? Us too. Welcome to the Gospel Rant.
A new MP3 sermon from Covenanted Reformed Presbyterian Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: The Antinomian Streak in the Christian Reconstructionist Movement by Kevin Reed Speaker: Brian Schwertley Broadcaster: Covenanted Reformed Presbyterian Church Event: Sunday Service Date: 9/6/2020 Bible: Deuteronomy 4:2 Length: 36 min.
Our listeners have been asking for a podcast about leaving dispensationalism. We try to give the people what they want! Jon and Justin talk about why we are not dispensational. We talk personally and theologically, covering topics such as: the redemptive-historical framework of Scripture, covenant theology, law/gospel distinction, sanctification, and the ordinary means of grace. Semper Reformanda Podcast: In our first ever Semper Reformanda podcast, we talk more in-depth about the differences between a confessional, reformed perspective and a dispensational perspective. We tell a story or two and share some of the things that we most want our listeners to know. Resources: FREE EBOOK Theocast.org/primer Our podcast: Law/Gospel https://youtu.be/EMSfwPUuuVk Our podcast: Demands of the Gospel? https://youtu.be/VHUmO4eD8Lk Our podcast: Are You a Legalist or an Antinomian? https://youtu.be/xvGhu9Pc2LA Our teaching series: Covenant Theology https://youtu.be/iCfzmujnlHo SUPPORT Theocast: https://theocast.org/give/ FACEBOOK: Theocast: https://www.facebook.com/Theocast.org TWITTER: Theocast: https://twitter.com/theocast_org INSTAGRAM: Theocast: https://www.instagram.com/theocast_org/
Our listeners have been asking for a podcast about leaving dispensationalism. We try to give the people what they want! Jon and Justin talk about why we are not dispensational. We talk personally and theologically, covering topics such as: the redemptive-historical framework of Scripture, covenant theology, law/gospel distinction, sanctification, and the ordinary means of grace.Semper Reformanda Podcast: In our first ever Semper Reformanda podcast, we talk more in-depth about the differences between a confessional, reformed perspective and a dispensational perspective. We tell a story or two and share some of the things that we most want our listeners to know.Resources:FREE EBOOK Theocast.org/primerOur podcast: Law/Gospel https://youtu.be/EMSfwPUuuVk Our podcast: Demands of the Gospel? https://youtu.be/VHUmO4eD8Lk Our podcast: Are You a Legalist or an Antinomian? https://youtu.be/xvGhu9Pc2LA Our teaching series: Covenant Theology https://youtu.be/iCfzmujnlHo SUPPORT Theocast: https://theocast.org/give/ FACEBOOK: Theocast: https://www.facebook.com/Theocast.org TWITTER: Theocast: https://twitter.com/theocast_org INSTAGRAM: Theocast: https://www.instagram.com/theocast_org/SEMPER REFORMANDA Podcast Podcast TranscriptJustin Perdue: Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, we are going to do our best to give the people what they want. By popular demand, we are going to try to answer the question why it is that we have left dispensationalism. Perhaps you’re out there and you have spent some time in a dispensationalist context, or maybe you’re just seeing aspects of dispensational teaching in your current environment. We’re going to have a conversation today about the distinctions between our perspective that is Reformed and confessional over and against the perspective that is dispensational. Jon and I are going to talk a little bit personally, we’re going to talk theologically. We hope that this is a clarifying conversation for you, and as always, we hope it encourages you in the Lord Jesus Christ. Stay tuned.We’re going to talk today because of popular demand. We’re going to talk today about leaving dispensationalism. We’re just trying to give the people what they want, and we had a number of people on the Facebook group post about this. When the first post went up, there were lots of other people that chimed in and said, “Yes, please talk about this.” So we’re gonna talk about it a little bit today.The episode is entitled, as already said, Leaving Dispensationalism. Just to clarify a little bit of what we’re going to try to do today, we’re not going to give a bunch of technical, deep, heady definitions of dispensational theology or anything like that. What we’re going to do is hopefully aim to have an approachable conversation where we talk about the high level distinctions between our Reformed confessional perspective and a dispensational perspective.Before we even get into it, I’ll just go ahead and give a little bit of my background that is relevant right now, and then Jon, you can talk a little bit about you as well. My exposure to dispensational theology was more general in that I was a part of a church that was self-consciously liberal theologically, but had a very mixed bag in terms of the membership of the church. Many of the members of the church were conservative—at least theologically—and certainly conservative morally. They had been heavily influenced by the default dispensational evangelical-ish theology that was out there in the 20th century in America. I absorbed some of that and was never taught anything contrary to it. And so basically, by default, I would have had notions of, for example, the pre-tribulation rapture understanding of the end of the world. I definitely was aware of Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series. Whenever the judgment house thing would happen, there was definitely the rapture that occurred and the piles of clothes everywhere, and you don’t want to be left because then you’re gonna have to go through tribulation and all kinds of things. That was my exposure to it all.Then I began to read and encounter different theology in my early to mid-twenties. And as I began to read, study, and investigate Scripture more on my own from a more Reformed covenantal perspective, I started to see the distinctions between what I had absorbed and what I was now learning.That’s enough about me. Jon, why don’t you let the people know a little bit about your background? Because you, even more than I was, were steeped in dispensationalism, and even went to a postgraduate institution that would champion this kind of understanding of Scripture.Jon Moffitt: I’ve been in different kinds of dispensationalism. I grew up in the independent, fundamental Baptist world. My dad was a preacher for 20 years before he passed away in that world. And progressively coming out of it, for those of you that know anything about that world, my dad used to work for Jack Hyles, and then he slowly started to read men like John MacArthur and he started leaving it. The two colleges that I went to were both dispensational. Most of the churches I worked in in my early twenties were all dispensational. So I was very familiar with the branding and the style, I would even say, the hermeneutic and the theology. And then I ended up going to probably one of the most prominent dispensational schools that are conservative, and I would say Calvinistic, in today’s world. I went to the Master’s Seminary. And it was there that I really began to dive deep into the dispensational perspective, and understand the nuances and the different kinds of dispensationalism. So it’s not just dispensational theology—there’s actually different kinds. And this is not an overview of what this is because there’s plenty of information out there of what dispensationalism is. MacArthur and the school are probably more of a progressive dispensationalism.Justin Perdue: Versus a classic historical dispensational view.Jon Moffitt: Yeah. And there are definitely some differences. I think progressive is by far better hermeneutically than a traditional classical. There’s a lot of concerns that come from there.What we’re going to really talk about is why I left it and why we don’t hold to that perspective.Justin Perdue: Or at least why we’re not there today; why we believe something else.Jon Moffitt: We’re going to talk about the major differences, and I would say these are differences that the majority—now, you I’m sure you can find a dispensationalist that’s going to counteract this; this is the thing about it is that theology just can get so broad. But I would say mainline dispensational, and I would even say mainline progressive dispensationalism, for the sake of this argument—my seminary, my alma mater, and John MacArthur would disagree with us. That’s really what this podcast is about; it is what we embrace to be what we think is biblical and historically accurate in our perspective. To be clear, Justin, I think it’s safe to say this; we need to say this: we love our dispensational brothers, we do not think they’re heretical. Again, I’m sure there’s some weirdo out there that holds to some weird doctrine and calls himself dispensationalist; I am not going to be the straw man who torches that. That is just not fair.Justin Perdue: The only things that we would condemn from a dispensational perspective are things that most dispensationalists have already condemned themselves. Like the idea that there are two different covenants of salvation: one with Israel and one with the church. That has been rejected by the vast majority of people that would call themselves dispensationalists, and we too would look at that and say that is not at all faithful to Scripture, but is a false doctrine.Jon Moffitt: That’s correct. Israel was not saved by the law and those underneath it are saved by Christ. That’s just not correct. Now that was taught by some, but it is not the prominent view today. And so we aren’t going to bring that up as one of the oppositions because that’s not what they’re saying, and we do not want to misrepresent them.So I would say the easiest place to begin when we’re thinking about the differences and what my journey out of dispensational theology was… When I was actually in seminary, steeped in it, studying all the different books that I was reading. They had a lot. They were talking about continuity and discontinuity between the New Testament and the Old Testament, understanding that the different dispensations, and then of course I had classes on covenant theology and the way in which it was being presented.As I began to read Scripture in really new eyes, when I stopped trying to read into the text—the moral application of being like David and or like Daniel—one of the things that I am very thankful for that my seminary taught me is to understand the authorial intent. What is the author’s intentions in writing the book? One of the things that I took from that, and sometimes our dispensational friends only go to the actual author, like Moses, the Psalms, Paul, etc. But the book is authored by one God, which is our sovereign Being, and we have to ask, what was His authorial intent? What can we look at from Scripture to determine what His intentions for writing these books? Then you can lower down into the individual authors, and then you can lower down even more into the individual applications of that text. For instance, what were they trying to communicate in this particular section or this paragraph?So what I began to discover is that the Bible had one story. It was really describing one pushing narrative. Now the dispensationalist will say it’s the glory of God—it is the overarching purpose of God’s word and why He wrote it, which we’re not going to disagree with that because everything is for the glory of God. But you can’t just say this book is about God’s glory when it has in the very opening scene in Genesis 3 the major theme, which is the fall of man and God’s promise to restore men. So it’s redemption.So I began to see Scripture unfold from a redemption or redemptive understanding, and, I would say, that it’s not only just redemptive but it’s redemption through history. So the technical term for it is a redemptive-historical understanding. When this was introduced to me and I was reading through the counter-arguments to covenant theology, I was taken aback by how can this not be right when it seems like all you have is the further progression of God’s promises to His people through covenants and prophecies to bring us the Messiah. I quickly began to see a redemptive-historical understanding of Scripture to be an accurate way of understanding how to explain the Bible.Justin Perdue: We do not disagree with the dispensationalist that says that the Bible is about the glory of God, but we want to be more specific because we think the text is more specific and it’s more clear in terms of how it is that God gets glory for Himself. And certainly He is glorified in having His righteousness vindicated through judgment. And at the same time, it is quite clear that God is glorified, I’m going to go in and say is most glorified, in the work of redemption accomplished by His Son, Jesus. That is a big point of difference which dovetails with another piece.Not only is our understanding of covenant theology at odds with a dispensational hermeneutic—with respect to the Bible and how it hangs together, how redemptive history unfolds, and the like—we also are going to be explicitly Christocentric; we’re going to be Jesus-centered in how we understand the Bible and its main point, that it is God’s plan of redemption accomplished through Christ that brings God glory. And our dispensational friends will disagree with us on that because for them, at the center of God’s plan to glorify Himself—of course, they’re not going to deny that Jesus is a part of this—but at the center of God’s plan to bring Himself glory is Israel and how God works through Israel. It’s a very Israel-centric hermeneutic where ours is unapologetically Jesus-centric in terms of how God goes about saving His people, what the point all along was. We’re basically taking our cue from Christ himself and certainly the apostles as they understand the entire Old Testament to be ultimately about Jesus, the Christ, and what he would come to do in order to accomplish redemption—all to the praise of God’s glorious grace.Jon Moffitt: To maybe bring some clarity, what’s so hard is the nuance here. We don’t want to misrepresent. Hear our hearts and hear how we’re trying to express some technical differences.Every dispensationalist I talked to would say, of course, Jesus is the point of the Bible. They wouldn’t reject that because to reject that would be weird.Justin Perdue: How do you even reject such a statement?Jon Moffitt: Right. So we don’t want to throw that straw man out there either. Their rejection is this: “Jon, you guys find Jesus under every rock. When you say it’s Christocentric, you’re saying that you need to find Jesus in every single verse.” I would say if you’re projecting upon the text, just like I would say people do when we think about projecting moral applications—be like Daniel, be like David—you shouldn’t do that either. That’s not what we’re saying. What we’re saying is the narrative and the purpose behind what was written is to further explain, clarify, and reveal the shadow of Christ as we get closer to the substance of Christ. So we think everything in the Old Testament is a greater shadow, a revealing of what’s going on when it comes to the actual substance of Christ. All of the Bible is Christocentric.Justin Perdue: Like you’re saying, I think the big difference of where this comes out most pointedly is how we read and understand the Old Testament, because we read and understand the Old Testament with Christ at the center of it as well. We do not read anything going on about the nation of Israel, with the nation of Israel, and read that without Christ in view as the backdrop. I would even say a better way to phrase it is the lens through which we view Israel is Jesus. And so that, I think, is a difference between our perspective and a dispensational view. It is a hermeneutic and a hermeneutic is a means or a method of interpretation. We, again, are not forcing anything down on the text; we are taking our cue from Christ and the apostles and understanding that the point of the Bible is to reveal God’s plan of redemption through history as it has unfolded, and all of His plan to save His people has centered upon Christ. We would understand, like you said at the beginning, Jon, that yes, we’re concerned with authorial intent at the human level—Moses, Paul, David, whoever it may be—and we are primarily concerned with authorial intent at the divine level, because there is one Author of Scripture, namely the Holy Spirit who inspired men to write exactly what God would have written down. And so we want to get underneath any kind of human authorial intent and see exactly what God intends to reveal- and God has not left us in the dark on that. Because as we look at the entire canon and how it hangs together, we are able to better interpret the Old Testament in light of the New. And as we’ve said many times on here, the best interpreter of the Old Testament is the Holy Spirit speaking to us in the New Testament.That’s where we’re going to come at odds, I think, with some of our dispensational friends. If we were to go to an Old Testament text, it’s going to come very obvious that the way that we’re coming at it is different.Jon Moffitt: That’s really helpful. I think it’s encouraging to see where we do agree with our dispensational brothers. This is why we can call them our brothers. There’s a lot I’ve learned from them. They’ve been super helpful in their interpretation of Scripture. But I will say that it does impact your use of the Old Testament completely. My Alma mater did an entire lecture series on why they would reject a Christocentric understanding of the Old Testament. John MacArthur has openly stated that the primary reason he teaches from the New Testament is that we’re in the New Testament era.Justin Perdue: We’re in the era of the gospel of the Messiah, and so the Old Testament is really not all that applicable other than to moralize it and apply it in those kinds of ways. Is that fair?Jon Moffitt: Yeah. And if you go to his book on preaching, it’s been around for years, which he still holds to that. Basically you can use the Old Testament for great illustrations, and then there are sections about the prophecy of Christ. But as it relates to preaching Christ from the Old Testament, it’s just not something that they promoteJustin Perdue: Whereas for us, again, as Reformed guys who are covenantal in our theology, we hold to the three historic covenants: the first one being the covenant of redemption that was made in eternity past between the members of the Godhead, most pointedly between the Father and the Son, where the Father and Son agreed together about redemption and how it would be accomplished, then the Son is going to be the one to do it. Then we would understand the covenant of works that God made with Adam in the garden, and dispensationalists would disagree with us on that language. They would just say that’s just not in the Scripture. And then we also would understand the covenant of grace that is promised in Genesis 3:15, when God promises that there would be one who would be the seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head. We understand that to be the first promise of the covenant of grace that then is going to be revealed through further steps, and ultimately established through Christ in the new covenant. Dispensationalists would disagree with us completely with respect to that framework. They would say, “Well, that’s not in the Bible. You guys are imposing that down upon the text.” And we would just say, no, actually we are aiming to responsibly read the entire Bible and see how it hangs together as a whole, and therefore what we’re saying about these covenants actually comes up out of the text and then helps us understand the whole thing.I’ll go ahead and throw these two words out there and briefly define them. When a dispensationalist would argue with us about covenant theology and say that those three covenants respectively are not in the Bible, I think two things are going on. One is a little bit of word-concept fallacy, where the words that you’re using are not in the Bible, and so we shouldn’t talk that way. And of course the greatest thing to bring up there is the word “trinity” is not in the Bible, yet it’s the best way we know to express the threeness and the oneness of God, so three-in-one. Trinity. The other thing that I think goes on with dispensationalist is because of their high view of the Bible and their high view of inerrancy, they do tend toward biblicism, where there’s just this, “Well, we need to see a chapter and verse in a text, and then we can talk this way. And what you’re saying is not there, chapter and verse, in that sense, and so we disagree with your theological framework.” To which again, our response is this stuff is very clearly revealed over the course of the whole canon from Genesis to Revelation, and it makes sense of the entire thing, and there’s this unified thread that runs through—and covenant theology in a redemptive-historical understanding, with Jesus at the center, all of that hangs together.Jon Moffitt: We are thankful to our dispensational brothers. They do fight against the logical conclusion of biblicism, which ends up being open theism. Because if you have to have the actual text to say something, or you take every text literal and you won’t allow Scripture to interpret Scripture, and you do not allow the explanation of all of Scripture to apply, you could come to the conclusion that God doesn’t know the future, that God isn’t in the future, and that God isn’t eternal- and that’s what open theism has done. It’s the ultimate conclusion of biblicism.Justin Perdue: And we will do a podcast on biblicism, I trust, in the next few months, because it’s something that Jon and I have talked about. Biblicism, basically, what you get there is people take words in the biblical text and they pit one text against another. They introduce a tension and a mystery that is actually not there, that can be harmonized and explained quite easily with appropriate hermeneutical tools. But biblicism actually unsettles us because it’s like this is saying this, and this is saying that, and apparently there’s a contradiction here, and there’s a mystery and a tension here—and that actually does not exist if we understand the Scripture rightly, we would argue. For example, from a covenantal, redemptive-historical, Christ-centered perspective.Jon Moffitt: A dispensationalist would openly agree that they are not covenantal. As a matter of fact, it literally is A and B.Justin Perdue: It’s oil and water.Jon Moffitt: It is. There is a distinct difference that both covenantalists and historic dispensationalist are not going to agree on these frameworks of interpretation. And I will say that dispensationalism is a framework of interpretation. It’s how you interpret God’s word. They would say the way in which they understand the word of God to unfold and explain itself is through these seven dispensations, which we’re not going to get into, but they are going to interpret all of their Bible through those lenses. The application of it is going to come from that lens of a seven dispensation lens. Now, people are going to differ on what those dispensations are, it is broken up and there’s no continuity between the two.Justin Perdue: But those seven dispensations in and of themselves or a theological system and framework. I think what’s interesting is that the dispensationalist argument against Reformed covenantal types like us is that we are using and relying too much upon a theological framework or a theological system, and implication is they are not. Those seven dispensations—that’s a system and a framework of its own.The other thing that can sometimes happen is, at least I’ve heard this before, a dispensationalist will say, “We’re just using the Bible, whereas you guys are using confessions and creeds and things like this alongside the Scripture.” Humbly, I would say this: what do you think that Scofield Study Bible is? That thing has some stuff that’s not in the biblical text too that very much sounds like a confessional or a creed of sorts. It certainly contains some kind of a theological system in it, and you’re claiming that you’re not doing that.Jon Moffitt: I very rarely meet somebody who can fully explain dispensationalism and they came up with it on their own. It’s been handed down to them. I just have never really met someone who fully explained dispensationalism and then a dispensationalist goes, “You know that’s dispensational theology.” Again, is it out there? Sure. Broadly speaking, that is not the case.We have to be careful that just because it’s not a specific verse or word in the Bible doesn’t mean the concept doesn’t stand. The Trinity, or even the eternality of God, or the sovereignty of God—these big concepts, a lot of time, it takes a lot of Scripture to help explain what’s going on with this theological understanding, or we could say system, or we could say systematic of understanding it. So when I began to understand covenant theology and the hermeneutic of it, I very much embraced the idea of it because it was consistent with the flow of Scripture, and it was consistent with the explanation of Scripture. Just to be clear, Justin and I are Reformed in our understanding from a covenantal perspective of the London Baptist Confession. If you want to know the technical phrase of that, it would be the 1689 Federalism is our understanding of that. Full explanation of that in the link or in our comments. We did a whole five-part series on our perspective of covenant theology. So we’ll move on from that. We don’t need to spend more time there.Justin Perdue: Last thing I may say before we move on to another item. I’ve referenced this earlier, and I think you have too, Jon. The fact that Israel is such a big deal in terms of a dispensational theological framework, where Israel becomes a big point of emphasis and focus from a dispensational perspective, to the point that I think, at least as I’ve always heard it taught and explained, and even as you and I have talked—and I think this holds water but you can push back on me if you think this is overstating it—but I think that in a dispensational view, Israel, in terms of God’s people and God’s saving His people, Israel is the point and the church is kind of the parenthesis. Whereas from our perspective, we would say it’s actually maybe the opposite: that Israel is the parenthesis and that the church, God’s people, the Jew and the Gentile, the elect from all nations, tribes, and peoples around the throne of God—that’s the point, and that Israel was the parenthesis. That’s a fundamentally different perspective there, too, in terms of how we understand God’s purposes in redemption and what He’s always been out to accomplish.Jon Moffitt: And I will say because of these two theological differences, the dispensationalist has a heavy view on in time theology, the rapture. Now, this may not be true today of all dispensationalists, but of the ones I grew up in, and Tim LaHaye, and you were talking about the Left Behind series. The in time theology was a scare tactic to get you to live straight.Justin Perdue: It was all fear and judgment.Jon Moffitt: Yeah. There was no assurance on Christ and resting in Christ while looking forward to the return of Christ. I was dreading the return of Christ. I did not want him to come.Justin Perdue: It was a frightening reality.Jon Moffitt: We would do the whole “scare people by leaving our clothes all over” for a youth group. I actually watched the original Left Behind series back in the seventies, I think. It was very disturbing.The number one question we get all the time, because a lot of dispensationalists are listening to us, they ask us what our hermeneutic on in time theology is. Because it’s so emphasized and it’s so part of the theological system that what you believe about the return of Christ is of paramount, for whatever reason.We’re not gonna do a podcast on this today, but I’m gonna just throw this out there that dispensationalists, amillennialists, postmillennialists, historic premillennialists—any of those positions that you want to take, they all agree that Christ is coming back, he’s going to rule, and reign and we will live with him forever in our new bodies, in a new heavens and a new earth—in a physical realm, not a spiritual realm. All positions hold that. Our brothers, we do not need to be calling each other heretics in our disagreements on these positions. Justin and I have our perspective. Whatever reason in the dispensational world, the return of Christ and those details, if you don’t get it wrong, you are a heretic in some way.Justin Perdue: If you don’t get it right, and if you don’t have a particular view on it, then you are less than, at best, if not anathema in terms of how you would be viewed.I agree with you, Jon. Whenever I talk about eschatology, even teaching our membership class at our church, our elders are united in our perspective. I don’t tell people what that is. And I also will say to them, “Here’s what you need to agree on: that Jesus is coming back, that it’s going to be personal, it’s going to be visible, it’s going to be bodily, it’s going to be glorious. And that there will be a judgment according to righteousness, and that all those in Christ will be resurrected on to eternal life, and to live with God forever and with each other in a new heavens and a new earth that’s just as physical as this. If we believe those things, we’re good to go.” We’re going to be charitable there.All right. Let’s move on.Jon Moffitt: We got two more we gotta get to. Law-gospel distinction. Justin, real quick, tell us what it is and why it’s different.Justin Perdue: I can talk about what the law-gospel distinction is first.We’ve done some podcasts, and I’m sure we’ll link to this in the show notes. We’ve done several podcasts on law-gospel distinction. And even the podcasts that would have released a few weeks ago at this point called Are You a Legalist or an Antinomian? is a very good law-gospel podcast in itself where we understand that there is a distinction between the law and the gospel where they need to be kept distinct. The law reveals, most pointedly and fundamentally, in God’s moral law what God requires of humanity if we are going to be righteous in His sight. And then the gospel, distinct from the law, reveals what God has done for us through Christ. So the law tells us what we need to do, the gospel tells us what God has done through Jesus for us in our place.And so the law, as we understand it, because of the fall and because we are all born corrupt, we’re born sinful, we all stand condemned by the law. And so the things that the law demands of us, we can’t do. And then the gospel though, on the flip side, is completely about what Jesus has done and actually contains not one single word of anything that we need to do. It is the news of Christ and what he has accomplished for us in our place that we receive simply by faith, by trusting in Christ.That distinction between law and gospel is huge in a confessional Reformed theological framework, and it has everything to do with assurance and peace before God. Because when we blend law and gospel or confuse those two categories, a lot of bad things happen. But perhaps the first thing that often occurs is you end up turning the gospel into a kind of covenant of works, where there are things that you need to do in order to be saved, even by Christ. There are things that the gospel demands of us that we need to be doing, and we would disagree with that notion. There are no demands made in the gospel, but it is a proclamation and a declaration of something that has already been done for us that we receive.And so we would live and die on this hill. We would contend for this. We would stake our ministries on this: the distinction between law and gospel. A dispensationalist is not going to agree with us on this law-gospel distinction perspective.Why don’t you unpack that a little bit in terms of where the disagreement would lie?Jon Moffitt: There are articles by prominent evangelicals that are out there that are dispensationalist, people that I graduated from school with, and even my own school would say, “We don’t see this hermeneutic.” To be clear, again, not every Bible verse in the Bible can be defined as either law or gospel. There’s narrative and all those things. So don’t be thinking that we’re trying to put this on into every verse. But when we’re in a passage, we do have to ask ourselves if we’re being told what we must do to save ourselves or are we being told what was done so that we are saved?Justin Perdue: Are we being told what we need to do in order to be righteous?Jon Moffitt: That’s right. I would even say the three uses of the law is also a great definition of something that’s different probably between dispensationalism and Reformed. What happens when you’re not careful to separate the law from the gospel, and I would say not all dispensationalist would hold to lordship salvation, but because of men like John MacArthur who has made dispensationalism, Calvinism, and lordship salvation so popular over the last 30 or 40 years. 50 years, I think, he’s now been preaching. Bless his heart for that. Faithful man. Anyways, because of that, law-gospel distinction begins to break down lordship salvation because the passages that are used to promote lordship salvation or actually law, not gospel. They would say for instance, books that have been read, Hard to Believe, The Gospel According to Jesus, The Gospel According to the Apostles—all of those are hard passages. Like when the rich young ruler comes and says, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” That’s a law passage we turn into a gospel passage.Justin Perdue: We collapsed the two categories and we ended up confusing both the law and the gospel.Really quick, Jon, to pick up on what you said about the uses of the law—I’m only going to talk about one of them. For us as Reformed guys, and we’ve got Lutheran friends who would agree with us on this as well, the first and greatest use of the law is to show us our sin and to drive us to Christ—and a dispensationalist, to my understanding, would not articulate the point of the law that way. Because again, it has everything to do with our redemptive-historical hermeneutic and a Christ-centered hermeneutic in answering what was the law for. We are ultimately going to understand that, ala Paul in Romans 5 and Galatians 3, that the law came in to increase the trespass, to bankrupt us, and crush us so that we might be driven to Christ who fulfilled the law for us in his active obedience, in his perfect life.That’s the active obedience of Jesus in fulfilling the law is another huge tenant of our theology that is a result of our study of Scripture, but also it dovetails beautifully with how we understand the law in the first place.We can just move forward.Jon Moffitt: I do have some thoughts on that, but we’re going to save that for Semper Reformanda a little bit later.The last one, I would say, is predominantly… again, not in all cases, but historically, why I moved to this direction and away from a dispensational understanding of Scripture is the idea of sanctification being either synergistic—the work that we do—or monergistic—the work that God does. Historically speaking, dispensationalism is a very synergistic movement. There are some who would promote a monergistic perspective, but historically speaking, and the way I was taught in seminary and growing up is that your progress in the Christian life, or how you become more like Christ, is dependent upon your own efforts. It’s not primarily your efforts. It’s like Christ is working in you and you’re working. So they aren’t saying all the sanctification is all your work. That would be unfair.Justin Perdue: Sanctifying yourself in your own strength—of course not. They’re going to acknowledge the grace of God and the work of God, but it is very much an understanding that we need to do our part, and that we need to cooperate with the grace of God in our sanctification. Whereas for us, from a more Reformed perspective, we are unashamed in saying that we understand rather than synergism—two workers—we understand that there’s one worker, monergism, in terms of our understanding of sanctification. And that one worker, of course, is God.Basically, to put it bluntly, the Holy Spirit sanctifies us. We, in no part, in no way do the work of sanctification. Now, we participate in our sanctification because we are alive now. We have been given spiritual life in Christ. We have been raised to walk in newness of life in him and thereby by the virtue of being alive, we participate, but we do not do the work.Jon Moffitt: I think another way of saying that is we observe. Like we can observe the work of sanctification in our lives. Paul gives us ways in which we see that the way in which we are growing in the knowledge and the maturity of Christ, and the trust of Christ, and an increase of grace and mercy towards each other, and love and affection towards each other. Those are all the works of the Holy Spirit in sanctification. A lot of times when I heard… and again, this is not of all dispensations, but the breed I came from, sanctification was you didn’t cuss, you stopped drinking, and you stopped going to movies, and you’re being sanctified. That’s just moral action change and some of it is not even wrong.Justin Perdue: Yeah. And what I mean in using that word “participate”, just like I would say that every human being who is alive participates in life because he or she is alive. And that’s all I’m saying; we participate in our sanctification because we are now alive, and yet God works and God is the only one who can change the heart, and God is the only one who can conform us into the likeness and image of His Son. And He is faithful to do it. And He has promised us that it will happen, and that we will be sanctified in this life and we will be fully sanctified at the point of the resurrection, and we can bank on that. It’s not in jeopardy.Not only that synergism-monergism piece, but also something that we’re going to emphasize heavily from a Reformed perspective is how it is that we ordinarily grow in the Christian life. And that would be, for us, an understanding of the ordinary means of grace. And so those ordinary means, just to be very clear, most prominently are the Word of God, sacrament, and prayer. And then some would maybe even add in song in the midst of the gathered church as well, as we’re built up and edified in that way. But the church gathered, the saints assembled together to sit under Word, to partake of the sacraments of the Lord’s Supper, baptism, to pray, and sing. That’s how we understand that we are ordinarily and primarily grown in the faith. And that emphasis is somewhat unique. Now a dispensationalist is not going to disagree with any of those things. But it’s going to really be about the emphasis and what is put first.Jon Moffitt: Historically, the Reformed have seen our sanctification in Christ. The protection of the believer, the growth of the believer, and the confession of the believer are primarily from the New Testament given to the local church. So we are to not forsake the assembling of ourselves, that we are to function properly so we build ourselves up in love to maturity in Christ, to the full knowledge of Christ, so that no one is tossed about by every wind of doctrine. This is given to us in Hebrews 10 and Ephesians 4. You are given these primary means. “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” So there’s a heavy emphasis on God’s Word, the gathered people, the sacraments—those are not to be done individually. You aren’t to take the Lord’s Table by yourself. You aren’t to be baptizing by yourself.Justin Perdue: 1 Corinthians 10, 1 Corinthians 11, etc.Jon Moffitt: Exactly. Even the concept of prayer. Majority of the Bible speaks of prayer in a corporate reality, there is obviously an individual aspect of it, but if you’re going to weigh it, it is a primary means of a corporate gathering so that we are building each other up, we’re carrying each other’s burdens, James 3, we’re confessing our sins to one another. So the ordinary way in which God grows His people is within the local assembly through the ordinary means. Dispensationalism traditionally has emphasized spiritual disciplines, and I would even say the priesthood of all believers, which is something we absolutely say, amen, our faith is not tied to a priest, but we are tied to Christ, the ultimate priest.Justin Perdue: There is one mediator between God and man.Jon Moffitt: Right. But that doesn’t mean now that your sanctification is primarily in your hands because it’s between you, the Holy Spirit, and the Bible. That’s an individualistic understanding. It’s something that I wouldn’t say all dispensationalists hold to, but predominantly—this is why I walked away from them—because they don’t promote, they do not emphasize the ordinary means. It’s not their primary means of spiritual growth; primary means of spiritual growth for them is individual efforts in pursuit of the Lord.Justin Perdue: One last observation and this is not a huge thing. Even the language that we’ll use about the ordinary means and the terminology, some of that is a little different. I know, at least in my experience, dispensationalists would be very uncomfortable with the word “sacraments”, and to describe the table and baptism. I guess in the minds of many, it’s associated with Roman Catholicism, and it may be for them part and parcel of a sacerdotal theology where we would understand that the sacraments just operate on their own. And that is not at all what we mean, though I do think in our framework, we have a very high view of the sacraments as a means of grace, where God is present and is really there to bless, sustain, and nourish us through the table and through baptism as well. And it’s His testimony to us of what He’s going to do. So that’s a big thing, too, even as just a small subset of that ordinary means conversation.We have bumped up against our time cap here. Hopefully some of the things that we said were of use for you in clarifying things. Hopefully you can see some of the high level differences that would exist between a Reformed confessional understanding and a dispensational view.Jon Moffitt: So this is brand new; our first initial announcement on the podcast. We record multiple weeks out in advance, so sometimes we’re behind on stuff, but we have a new ministry. It’s a new part of Theocast called Semper Reformanda—always reforming. Semper Reformanda is our new way for you to join in on two things. First of all, we have a brand new podcast called the Semper Reformanda podcast. We’re going in that next. This is high level conversations where we take what we introduced to you in this podcast, and we’re going to go a little bit deeper and more technical. Secondly, that podcast is designed to go along with a brand new program called SR groups, Semper Reformanda groups, where you can now sign up. We are developing these groups right now, but you can sign up for a local group in your city that you can go to and now have discussions on this very subject with other people who are having the same question. So we will provide discussion questions and you can download our app, which should be available now. You can go down to the Apple store, look for the Semper Reformanda app, you can download that and then sign up for a local group. In order to do that, you have to be an SR member. If you want to be an SR member, just go to sr.theocast.org and you can learn more about that. That’s it.Justin Perdue: And even in the SR podcast, which is where we’re going, the Semper Reformanda podcasts, even if we don’t get more technical in every aspect of it, we certainly will be a little bit more transparent and it’s a little more of a safe space and family time. We hope that that podcast has that kind of feel. If that sounds interesting to you, then go to our website, theocast.org, and you would learn anything that you need to know about becoming a part of Semper Reformanda and joining the Reformation there.All right, Jon. Here we go. We’re going to see what we can give to people over there in our new SR podcast. We’ll talk to many of you over there. We’ll talk with the rest of you again next week.
Jude 1:1-25. Pastor Brian Goke preaching.
Are you a legalist or an antinomian? Most people would claim they are neither. But many Christians don't know what to do with God's law. Jon and Justin talk about the law and the gospel--and how it is Paul could say he delighted in God's law. Members' Podcast: Jon and Justin talk about why it is that so many people leave legalism and head into antinomianism. They also give counsel to those leaving legalism and are wanting to help others do the same.
Jon and Justin talk about why it is that so many people leave legalism and head into antinomianism. They also give counsel to those leaving legalism and are wanting to help others do the same. This content is for our members only. Visit the site and log in/register to read.
Are you a legalist or an antinomian? Most people would claim they are neither. But many Christians don't know what to do with God's law. Jon and Justin talk about the law and the gospel--and how it is Paul could say he delighted in God's law.
In our last episode, we were introduced to Anne Hutchinson. A strong willed and intelligent Puritan woman who developed a following among not just the women of her day, but men as well. Men of influence. Men of authority. In this episode we'll see what happened to Anne Hutchinson and her supporters. As we follow the storyline we'll realize that the bigger issues of conscience and conviction are situations we can all identify with. This is a story filled with emotional and philosophical drama. Few of us have ever had to take a stand like Anne Hutchinson. Few of us will ever have to take such a stand alongside a friend. In the end, it was not just Anne Hutchinson who was destroyed but everybody around her. Either by forfeiture of their own livelihoods or the denial of their own consciences...What would you have done? What would you do now? Could this type of scenario happen today? Are there parallels to our own generation? Have you ever asked yourself what part you would play? Sometimes, self examination, in the shadow of controversy, reveals a side of ourselves we'd rather not acknowledge, but really should. Audio Production by Podsworth Media.
Matthew 5:21-43 Dr. W. Stephen Goyer
Charlie spoke at the 2020 FGA conference about six selected common objections to Free Grace. The six objections include: 1) Free Grace is Easy Believism (aka Decisionism) - it may be simple to believe, but it's not easy. Why would God make salvation difficult? 2) Free Grace Rejects Jesus as Lord and still be saved - we don't teach this as part of salvation but we certainly teach it regarding discipleship. 3) Free grace does not teach that a sinner must turn from sins (aka Repent from sin). - If Repentance is defined as turning from sin, then yes, we don't teach that. But if repentance is defined as a change of mind, then yes, many do teach that. Repentance isn't defined by outward actions. 4) Free grace believes a saved person does not have to show evidence of good works (James 2:14 - faith without works is dead) - Well who says that? Which works and how often, and how do you define good works? Which ones are legitimate? Good works can be evidence, but not proof. 5) Free Grace leads to false assurance of salvation - John MacArthur publicly admitted he's 99% sure he's saved. Those who object as he does, cannot say they are 100% sure because they are basing it off of subjective assurance, not objective assurance. Our assurance is based on the power and promises of God, not based on works before nor works after salvation. 6) Free Grace leads to license (aka antinomianism) - Antinomian means against the law. We are not against the law, but the law doesn't govern. Paul addresses license in Romans 6. For more detailed information, checkout Charlie's GraceNotes - Answering Common Objections to Free Grace which deals with this very specific topic!
This episode is not about the election, but it is absolutely about the election. Luke asks Gomer about what happens when our Christian Morality is wrenched free of Christ and hardens into an ideology used for smashing our enemies. Gomer, agreeing with the premise, fears this pathway leads to the Antinomian dark side. Antinomianism means anti-law as in the commandment-based morality, rules of right and wrong, good and bad. The opposite of antinomianism is legalism, which views the whole of morality as fully articulated through commands. These are often Protestant terms. In Catholic circles, especially in the moral enquiry of the 15-17 centuries, the dichotomy would be between rigorism and laxism, since the Natural Law tradition and the 10 Commandments are such a central portion of our Catholic moral theology. Rigorism and Laxism are, generally speaking, ways of viewing our moral responsibilities in the face of supposed conflicts between human freedom and divine command and which occupies your default position. Laxism means you default to human freedom, because that is how we image God. Rigorism means you default to the Law, because that is how God is sovereign over us creatures. When these are in conflict, neither side seems a good option, which is why St. Alphonus Liguori is the patron saint of Moral Theologians, because his way of navigating these conflicts was through Aequiprobabilism. Confusing? Go check out the Catholic Encyclopedia article (https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12441a.htm) on this and you'll leave less sure of anything in your moral life.
A new MP3 sermon from Covenanted Reformed Presbyterian Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: The Antinomian Streak in the Christian Reconstructionist Movement by Kevin Reed Speaker: Brian Schwertley Broadcaster: Covenanted Reformed Presbyterian Church Event: Sunday Service Date: 9/6/2020 Bible: Deuteronomy 4:2 Length: 36 min.
Pastor Schwertley reads from Kevin Reed's article entitled, -The Antinomian Streak in the Christian Reconstructionist Movement-.
BODS Mayhem Hour welcomes Kristof vocalist of Dawn of Ashes. I talk to Kristof about Dawn of Ashes new eighth album entitled "The Antinomian" via Artoffact Records. This is the follow up to The Crypt Injection II & plus much more !!!!! #DawnofAshes #BODSMayhemHour Learn More About #DawnofAshes at Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Dawnofashes/ Site: https://dawnofashesofficial.bandcamp.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/dawnofashes666 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dawnofashesofficial/ ________________________________ If you're new, Please Subscribe!: BODS Mayhem Hour YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/c/BODSMayhemHour247 Follow BODS Mayhem Hour: Website: http://bodsmayhemhour.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BODSMayhemHour/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BODSMayhemHour247 Twitter: https://twitter.com/Bod24 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bods.mayhem.hour Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/bodman247 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5dpB4oBaxifyzIj4bF6gSP Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bods-mayhem-hour/id1495876975 Podbean Podcast Site: https://bodsmayhemhour.podbean.com/ Iheart Radio Podcast: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-bods-mayhem-hour-56955566/ ( Intro & Outro Music By Downtrend )
Apostle fight, round one . . . GO! Paul puts the smackdown on Peter in a in a no-holds-barred fight for the gospel, because there's too much at stake. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast and give us a great review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts! Email us: ForYouRadio@1517.org www.1517.org/foryou St. James Lutheran Church www.stjameslcms.church St. Peter's Lutheran Church www.Stpeterslc.org We're proud to be a podcast of 1517.org podcasts.
Today’s broad Messianic movement is of the conviction that the Torah or Law of Moses is relevant instruction for God’s people in the post-resurrection era. This is a conviction firmly rooted within the teaching of Yeshua the Messiah, who explicitly said that He did not come to abolish or eliminate the Torah (Matthew 5:17-19). Yet throughout much of Christian history, and even more so today, many theologians and examiners have argued that Moses’ Teaching has been rendered inoperative, and/or that it was only to be followed by those in the pre-resurrection era. Many of today’s Messianic people, while having a witness of the Spirit that God’s commandments are to be written on their hearts and minds via the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 36:25-27), are not equipped well enough to answer common arguments delivered by evangelical Protestant family members, friends, acquaintances, or even various pastors or teachers that they know—when they quote verses to them from the Apostolic Scriptures (New Testament), in support of the premise that the Torah of Moses has been abolished. The post Christian Misunderstanding or an Antinomian Assault? – The New Testament Validates Torah Study appeared first on Messianic Apologetics.
Audio Transcript: You're listening to audio for Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com.Holy father, you are a good God and you want the best for us so we glorify you, great God and we thank you for your law. We do confess that often as we look at your commandments, it does seem burdensome. It seems difficult. It seems as if life would be simpler without them. I pray today, Lord, forgive us of breaking your commandments. We thank you for the cross of Christ and the work of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ who fulfilled all of the law and extends to us a righteousness, forgiveness, grace and mercy and also Lord we thank you for sending us the Holy Spirit who empowers us to live a life in line with your will, to cry out and pray. Lord, may your will be done in our lives as it is in heaven.Lord I pray today that you show us that when you give us the law, it's not just a dry codex for how to live, but it's actually a manifestation of your grace. It's an extension of your grace. You show us who you are through us, so show us that you are beautiful and therefore your will is also beautiful. It makes the people who love the law and enlarge our hearts so we can run in your ways and we pray all this in Christ's holy name, amen.We are coming to the end of our sermon series in 1 John, we've been calling it meno, which is the word that he uses more often than any other word in the text. He uses it 23 plus times and what he's saying is this word meno encapsulates what it means to be a Christian, that you remain in God, that you are connected to him, that you walk in step with him in following God's ways. Another way of thinking about that is God's law. The title of the sermon is loving the law, which sounds like it's a paradox. It seems like love and law are mutually exclusive, especially when we think of human laws.Many of the human laws that are written are good and they're for the betterment of society, but often they're actually seemingly arbitrary and actually they do not lead to result they're intended to lead to. I'll just give you a few examples. In Mexico City a little time back, they said there's too much pollution in Mexico City so we are going to ban driving cars every day. Depending on what your license plate was, you can drive on some days and you can't drive on other days. What did people do? What do people always do when there's a law that seems arbitrary, they circumnavigate, they get around that law, they find the loopholes so what people did was they actually drove more, a lot more and some people did all the driving in days that were allowed. Other people just took taxis some days that weren't and other people just bought a second car and got another license plate.In the European Union, they set up a fishing quota to penalize people who caught too many fish and the heart behind is good and we want to prevent overfishing. What happened? What did the fishermen do? As they're catching fish, they kept all the good fish and all the bad fish they throw back in the water, often dead lead to more dead fish. Increasing the minimum wage. The heart behind it, we want to increase the wages for low level workers. What often happens is what do business owner do. They just increase the prices on everything. I was in Copenhagen a little while back and I went to Burger King. I was like, oh, cheap place to eat. A Whopper was $14. Starbucks $9 for a cup of coffee. Why? Because minimum wage is $20.We see the beauty, we see the value in the intention of human laws, but often they're flawed. This past week we had an intense national debate over airplane etiquette. Can you recline your seat? Did you weigh in on that? A lot of people did. Here's my position about reclining seats on airplanes. Everybody is allowed to recline their seat except for the person in front of me. That person cannot. I'm six two, don't do that. That's kind of how we view the law. Yeah, I see the point in prosperity and betterment for everybody but could I be the exception? And we look to be the exception because deep down inside we have this aversion to authority. We have this aversion to being told what to do and we're born with it. Children do not need to be taught to be disobedient. Naturally they are.I've got four daughters. My fourth daughter, her first word ever was no, her second word was mine. No and mine. Today we learned that she knows the word move. She went up to my older daughter who was eating breakfast and she pushed her and she said, "Move Sophia" She couldn't even say Sophia. She's calls her like Safa or something. Just says move. That we in ourselves, in our nature, we have an aversion to the law and a lot of times this is how we look at God's law, that it's burdensome. Sometimes it feels like life would be so much easier, less complicated if God did not make demands of us. It feels like his law is a burdensome and what John wants to say is naturally yes, but when God regenerates your heart, his law becomes beautiful from drudgery. It becomes a delight and as he's landing the plane of this letter, his three streams of one cord have been... threads of one chord have been faith, love and obedience. They go together.There's a doctrinal test. Do you believe in Jesus Christ as who he is? There's the moral test. Do you obey him? And there's the relational test. Do you love him? It's faith, love, and obedience and one of the things that he does toward the end as he culminates this argument is he says, I want you to see just how amazing God's love is. God's love isn't seen just in that he forgives you of your sins. It's so much deeper and when you understand his love, when you're rooted and grounded in his love, then you have the energy to walk in his ways. All these three: faith, love, obedience, they belong together. Depend on one another and draw strength from one another.I'm going to give you my three points here in the very beginning, just so you see the string of thought. The three points are love leads to faith; God's love leads to our faith; faith, which is a gift from God, leads to our loving God and that love toward God leads to life and this is obedient life, life to the full. Point one is love leads to faith. Here in the beginning, I'll just read one verse and we'll cover all the verses as we go. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God and everyone who knows the father, loves whoever has been born of him. This is the reading of God's Holy and infallible, authoritative word, may he write these eternal truths upon our hearts.Love leads to faith. Why? Why this phrasing? I get it straight from verse one where he says, everyone who believes, anyone who's a Christian, anyone who is believing currently that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God and for John the tense is really important. It's a perfect passive tense and what this tense shows us is the timing. Did you become a Christian because you believed in Jesus Christ? Were you born again because you believed in Jesus Christ? What comes first? This is really important for John because if our faith causes our regeneration, if our faith causes our salvation, then we still had a part to play and we can still take some credit for our salvation, which in a sense diminishes our understanding of God's love. Yes, Jesus died on the cross for my sins but I'm the one who accepted the gift. I'm the one who chose to believe. I'm the one who chose to follow and John says, that's not how it works.He says, what comes first. Believing or being born again and by using that perfect tense, has been born. Not is born, has been born, shows that being born comes before the belief. Birth proceeds belief in the same sense that your birth preceded your breathing, our second birth, our regeneration precedes our believing and this isn't the only place that... we see this in scripture. In John 3, Nicodemus, a religious teacher comes to Jesus by night because he doesn't want the other religious teachers to know that he is interested in Jesus and his teaching and he comes and he says, "Teacher, we know that you are from God, that the works that you do, no one has ever done. What is the way to get into the kingdom of God? How can I be sure I have eternal life?"Now, if someone comes to me, "Pastor Jan, how do I become a Christian?" You know what my response is? Repent and belief. You have sins. You've transgressed God's law. Just trust in Jesus Christ. Follow him, come to Mosaic, become a member. That's also important, but that doesn't save you. That's a sign of salvation. That's how I would present it. Here's what you do. Why do I present it like that? Because scripture does call us to repent. It does call us to believe that's not what Jesus does. You know what he tells Nicodemus? You must be born again and then Nicodemus is baffled, although he knows all of the Holy scripture and he says, "What does that mean? Do I like physically... does a grown man go back in your mother's womb, that's impossible." They have that conversation, that's in the Bible in John 3 read it, and then Jesus says, "No." And this is his answer. How do you get saved?Verse seven John 3, do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes so it is with everyone who was born of the spirit. You must be born again. That's an imperative. It's a passive imperative. You can't give birth to yourself. You can't give life to yourself and then he says, and the wind blows where it wishes. You're talking about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives life to whomever he gives life. If you are a Christian, he wants you to know this immense depth of God's love for you.If you're a Christian that is miracle of God. God gave birth to you. God gave you new life. 1 Peter 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. Ephesians 2:4 and five. God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we are dead and our trespasses made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved. This is how he shows the immensity of God's... look at God's love. Look at the great love with which he loved us. He gave birth, so it was life. He regenerated us. He chose us before we chose him.Dear Christian, you believe you have faith because God caused you to have faith. It's a gift. God and love begat us. He birthed us. Regeneration is totally a work of God. It's not me 1%, God 99%. That's how my salvation happens. God 100%. Now this is important because many mistakenly think that it's my will. It's my free choice that caused me to be a Christian and I choose when I can become a Christian. Now, Christianity is not this nominal ascent to some doctrines. Christianity is rebirth. You got to have a brand new nature and you can't do it. It's only a work of God's grace and certainly we must choose to trust.You see this in John 1:12, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, but it doesn't stop there. Who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man. You didn't choose to become a child of God, nor the will of man, but of God. It's entirely a work of God according to his sovereign will and the reason you choose to trust in Christ is because God has raised you from spiritual death. Christian faith at the heart of it is a result of new birth, not the cause of it. Then Saint Paul, obviously many times he says, faith is a condition to becoming a Christian. We're saved by grace through faith, but even that faith is a gift. Ephesians 2:8 says, the condition we must meet is the very thing God must create in us.Now you're going to answer the question, well, how can God call me to believe in Christ if I can't do it? How can God demand that I believe if I cannot do it. The most powerful illustration of this reality, of this tension, of our responsibility and God's sovereignty is when Jesus hears that his friend, good friend Lazarus is dead. He was sick and then he died and he was buried for four days and Jesus goes to the tomb. After Jesus wept, Jesus goes to the tomb, and what does Jesus say? He says, "Lazarus, come forth." Lazarus, come out, speaks a word to a corpse to do something that the corpse obviously can't do, but his word is efficacious. His word is an extension of his power and his word gives life. Breathes that life in and Lazarus comes out. That's what happened. That was an incredible miracle and sometimes we read the scripture and we're like, wow, I wish we had miracles like that.Anybody becoming a Christian is a greater miracle than Lazarus coming back from the dead because Lazarus died again. If you become a Christian, you become a child of God. You have eternal life. Life for ever. This is where I start with love. God's love is so great that he gives us this gift of regeneration and the gift of faith, and he says, whoever has been born believes continues to believe. It's not you believe one time and then you live your life any way you want or faith begins to change life. The assurance of my salvation and how do I know I'm saved? How do you know you're saved?The assurance of your salvation isn't based on the fact that you had at some point believe. It's based on are you believing today? Are you trusting in Christ today? And the faith isn't just faith in faith. There's incredible power in motivational thinking or positive thinking. A lot of people's lives have been transformed, but we're not talking about faith in faith. We're not talking about faith in you. We're not talking about a self-confidence. It's faith in Christ. John 20:31 and these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, that by believing you may have life in his name. Do you believe that Jesus Christ, the son of God, do you believe that he's the Christ, the Christos, the Messiah? Yes, he's the word of life. Yes, he's our advocate. Yes, he's our atonement propitiation. He's the Messiah and the Messiah means you're anointed, anointed for what?Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit for the offices of prophet, priest and king. The prophet comes and speaks the word of God. Jesus is the word of God, shows us the message of salvation. Jesus is also the priest, priest brought sacrifices. Jesus brings himself, he says, I am the sacrifice for your sins and Jesus is the king. He doesn't just come to pay for our sins. Give us a get out of hell free card and say live any way you want. No, he's our king and he has dominion over every single square inch of our lives. He says, this is what it means to live a life of a child of God, to be saved. In a Matthew 16 Jesus comes to his disciples and says, what do people say that I am? And they said, well, some people say you're a prophet. Some people say you're a miracle worker. Some people say you're starting a movement.Lots of people said lots of things and then Jesus gives them the most important question that you will hear in all of your life and you need to answer this question, but who do you say that I am? There's no more important question than that and Peter says, you are the Christ, the son of the living God, and true faith isn't just, yeah, I kind of believe that. True faith is, yes, I entrust myself to Christ. We live by faith all the time. Anytime you get in a plane, you're living by faith. In the plane itself, in the pilot crew. Anytime you get an Uber, you got faith in your drive... anytime you go to a restaurant and you eat food prepared by someone else, you got faith. You're living by faith and here he says, do you entrust yourself completely, wholly to Jesus Christ your whole life to him? Do you believe that he paid the debt that you owe to God and there's nothing that you can do to pay that debt or to pay down that debt.Are you trusting in Christ or are you trusting in yourself? And he starts that God's love pours out regeneration, which gives us faith and that faith transforms us, so we're not just nicer people, kinder people or sweeter people. We're brand new people which leads to a lot of love and that's point two, faith that leads to love. Love leads to faith and faith leads to love, love for whom, love for God and love for people. 1 John 5:1, everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God and everyone who loves the father, loves whoever has been born of him. And he says, if you've been truly born of God, reborn, regenerated, then you can't but love God.In the same way that it's natural for a child to love their parents. It's natural for one who has been born of God to love God, the father. My youngest daughter, Milana, she's two and a half, almost three and she wakes up in the middle of the night. She comes to our bedroom. She does this every night. This past week she came with a flashlight. I thought that was pretty, pretty... found a little pink flashlight, walks in the room and every morning and like, it's cute. It sounds cute. Messes up my whole sleep cycle. I'm out of the REM cycle. I have a conversation with her every single morning. Milana, why did you come into my... why do you come into my bed? She gives the same response every time. She says, "Papa, because I love you." That's her response. I'm like, ah, kind of not answer, but also the best answer ever. Like it's natural. She didn't have to be taught to love her parents.In the same way if you're a Christian, you don't have to be taught to love God the father. What we do have to be taught is how to love our brothers and sisters, so he continues and he says, whoever has been born of God loves the father and loves whoever has been born of him, starting with Christ, but then God's other children. A lot of Christians live their lives as only children. They think that you are... you think you are the only child of God and what happens is we isolate ourselves from Christian community, from our brothers and sisters, from covenant membership, from church. And you go to God as an only child. God meet my needs and then you leave after he has. And he says "no". The sign that you are a true child of God is that you love God, you love Christ and you love his other children.Verse two by this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments. We love God, which leads to love for his children. How do we know when we love his children? Because we love God. That's his train of thought and that right there, and I got to set this up. Faith leads to love, this love... love leads to faith. Faith leads to love of God and we need that love because if you truly love God, you want to live for him and this is really, this is the breaking point in a lot of people's lives, this is where they misunderstand Christianity. Incalculable millions of people who consider themselves nominal Christians have missed the point of Christianity. They think Christianity is God came to make you moral or nice or kind and you think God demands only that you come to church on Christmas and Easter and do charitable things every once in... God demands your whole life. That's what it means to truly feel the love of God.By the way, this is hard to live completely for God and Christians have always struggled with this. The Paul century or the Lübeck Cathedral, Lutheran church building was built in Germany. You can actually find it on Google Maps. It's got over 2000 reviews, 4.5 rating. Apparently it's really beautiful. It was started in 1173, completed in 1230. On one of the walls, there's an inscription in the church and this is what it says. You call me master and obey me not. You call me light and see me not. You call me way and walk not. You call me life and desire me not. You call me wise and follow me not. You call me fair and love me not. You call me rich and ask me not. You call me eternal and seek me not. Gracious and trust me not. Noble and serve me not. You call me mighty and honor me not. You call me just and fear me not and if I condemn you, blame me not.That conclusion seems like it came out of nowhere, but this is the words of Christ. He said on that day, many will stand before me and say, "Lord, Lord, did we not do a lot of great things in your name? Did we not do a lot of good things for you? Didn't we do enough to earn our right into heaven? Didn't we do enough?" He said, "I never knew you." Like we didn't have a relationship. You did things for me and actually often to avoid me, to pay me off. Tip me off, get you off my back. We didn't have a relationship and this is essence of God's law. The essence of God's law is, do you love God? Jesus was asked to summarize what is the law, and he says, this is the law. This is the essence of the law. Love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind and love your neighbor as yourself, but if you do, if you love God, then you want to honor him. You want to delight him. You actually begin to love his law.1 Samuel 15:22 the prophet says to Saul, has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord, behold to obey is better than sacrifice and to listen than the fat of rams. He said, okay, you want to do a lot. You want to sacrifice a lot. You want to give a lot, but do you obey? Do you love? Do you have an obedience that's motivated by love and that's point three. God's love leads to our faith. This faith that he's given us is a gift that leads to our love. Now our love for God leads us to life. What do I mean by life? Jesus said that the enemy has come to steal, kill, and destroy but I have come to you may have life and life to the full, and this is fascinating because Jesus here talks about like Christianity as the way to human fullness, to life to the full and that's not how a lot of people think about Christianity.It's not a lot of people think about God's law. A lot of people think about God's law as fence that keeps us from fun and he says, no. The law is given as a guardrail to keep you from falling off a cliff and it's given as a path to show you this is true life, satisfying life, joyful life, meaningful life. God's law and love they're two sides of one coin. I love you, therefore I want the best for you. I'm telling you things to not do and so that you are free to do the things you were designed to do, so this is verse two. By this, we know that we are the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. You see they're intertwined, love and law, complimentary.Verse three for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome. Why aren't they burdensome? Because we have a new nature, new desires. We actually thrive on such obedience, even though it doesn't come naturally. Naturally we're rebellious. Naturally we bristle against God's authority. Naturally our flesh says it feels like heavy handed, but deep down inside, if you're a Christian, you long to obey even in the teeth of the opposition of sin, Satan and the world.Deuteronomy 30:11 says, for this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. I bring in Deuteronomy here because a lot of Christians, and I don't know if it's... we live in a very individualistic society. A lot of Christians today have an antinomian streak. Antinomian means against the law. Nómos Greek for law, and here's how it plays out. A lot of Christians think that in the Old Testament people believed, those who believed God believed because they had to, because of duty alone. There was no love for God and now Jesus doesn't care about how we live. It's not about duty. It's not about obligation at all. It's not about fulfilling commandments, it's all about love, all about grace, all about mercy, but I want to show you that in the Old Testament when God talks about the law, he says, look, I've saved you from captivity therefore walk in my ways because I want the best for you and these ways are not too hard for you because I'm going to strengthen you in these ways.Many Christians today think that the law back then was burdensome, was a yoke. It was heavy chains and Jesus came and abolished the law and he says, no, it's all about affection. It's all about love and the point of verses like Matthew 23:4, and I say this because this is bifurcation in many of our minds between love and obedience, love and duty. Matthew 23:4, Jesus talking about the Pharisees, they tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. Fascinating. The word burden here that the religious leaders are putting on the people, on their shoulders is the same word in our texts where it says God's law is not burdensome, so seems like a contradiction in terms. Is the law a burden or is the law not burdensome?Well then you got to keep going. Acts 15 has something similar. Now, therefore, Saint Paul says, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? This yoke that he's talking about isn't like, to understand that cont... it's not God's law. The yoke, the burden that he's talking about, the burden that Jesus is railing against is not the 10 commandments. It's the corrupt, Pharisaical law where they added layers to God's law. It's human invented 1,001 rabbinical regulations. True believers in the Old Testament, they understood that God's law is good. It's not burdensome. It's actually beautiful.Psalm 119:97, oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. He's gushing with affection for God's law and why is he doing it? Because he understands that God is beautiful and God's mind is ordered and God's law is a reflection, a manifestation of God's character. That's why. That God has given us the law because it's the best thing for us. It's how we flourish. Here's just an illustration to communicate what I'm talking about. When a young man wants to marry young woman and he proposes to her, there's certain protocol, there's certain etiquette to follow.He cannot get on a knee and say, will you marry me? And she says, yes and that's it. No, no, no. He needs to extend a hand with a product in it. What product am I talking about? A very expensive product that has to cost at least six months of your monthly wages, at least and like new societal laws have come into place where now you need it documented, if you didn't document it, it never happened. Someone got to be in the bushes. The phone with the video camera. Someone... and you got to put it on social media and the next thing is you got to tag your beloved and say, now our relationship status has changed.There's all kinds of things you got to do and this... why? Preparation to the wedding, you got to get the registry, you got to go a bed bath and beyond with a little scanning shooter thing and you've got to pick your products and then you've got to have et cetera, et cetera. You get the point. Why do people do this? Where do these laws come from? Where do these societal norms come from? I don't know. Corporate America, I don't know, I don't know. Here's the thing. We are more than willing to submit to societal laws. As a young man, I could not wait to do that. Did all the cliche stuff, did it all. Like met the law to a tee. Fulfilled the whole law... Why? What are you motivated by? The consequences of not doing that? Kind of, but no, you're motivated by the love for this person.If our societal norms, which are in many ways arbitrary, if we're willing to submit to them if we're motivated by love, how much more so to the beautiful law of God and it is beautiful. This is what we... even if I were not a Christian and if I were looking at the 10 commandments, I'm like, yeah, this makes a lot of sense. Like if people live like this, the world would be so much better. If individuals live like this, it will be better for them. If you look at God's laws and commandment number one, thou shall have no other gods before me. He's saying, be careful what your heart loves. That's what he's saying, that there's lots of gods vying for the affections of your hearts. Our hearts are an idol factory.Be careful not to worship and give your life to something that is unworthy. Have no other gods except for one who is worthy. Don't make little statues of God, and he's saying don't miniaturize God. God is great and he's glorious. Don't point at an object and say, that's God. God's name is powerful, so don't use it in vain. There's no higher authority. Don't abuse it. Don't misuse it and don't attach it to your own agenda that contradicts with God's. Take a day off. That's a sabbath. You don't run the world. You're only human. Take a day off. It's for your own health physically and also for your spiritual health. Honor your father and your mother. Respect those who have given you life, paved the way, sacrificed so much for you. Don't murder, human life is a gift. No unnecessary killing. Preserve it. Don't take it.Thou shall not commit adultery and he's saying sexuality is powerful and keep the boundaries on your sexuality because outside of those boundaries, it's like a fire. Outside of fireplace can be incredibly destructive. Don't steal, property's important. Respect property of others and work hard to have your own property to be able to share with others. Don't make up things about other people's reputation. Don't cave to jealousy, envy about someone else's life, family stuff. Imagine if people live like this. Imagine the world if it were like this. Imagine if your life if you had not transgressed some of these laws and each one of us has, and this is the beauty of the gospel. Though we are guilty, though we have transgressed and reaped not just the consequences of breaking those commandments, but we actually stand in condemnation before God. This is why Jesus Christ came.He fulfilled all of that law perfectly. Had never sinned, not sins of omission or commission and then goes to the cross to offer his life as a sacrifice for us as atonement for us, and his perfect record is counted to us. Our fallen record is counted to him on the cross as he bears God's wrath for our sins. By grace through faith in Jesus Christ when you believe all of your sins are forgiven, when Jesus is your Lord and savior. Forgiven for the negative side of the law, for breaking the law, but also there's a positive side of the law. God doesn't just say don't do these things or else he says and do these things. There's the positive side of the law where we see how much better God's plan is. That it's beautiful, that when we live by the spirit of God in the confines of God's will, it actually leads to freedom. Is God's law a burden only in the sense that a birds wings are a burden?Are a birds wings a burden? Sometimes, maybe. It's the only thing that allows it to fly. He says, true freedom is found when we submit ourselves to the will of God. Jesus said, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Where the spirit of the Lord is there freedom is. When we see God's law, we see wisdom, goodness, blessing. We see fulfillment. We see satisfaction. We weren't created to be free of God. We were created to obey and to adore and that's where true freedom is found and this right here, and he concludes with verse four and five and he talks about victory and this is really fascinating. Verse four, he says, everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world and this is the victory that has overcome the world. Our faith.Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes in Jesus and Jesus is the son of God. First of all, I think it's fascinating and I don't know if a lot of Christians think like this. That he talks about the Christian faith and walking in God's ways in terms of winning and losing. He uses the word victory over and over, overcoming, conquering, and the Greek word is it's Nike. Then we get the word Nike from it. He's saying like... He's talking about competition, about winning and losing and we're not competing with people. We are competing and he says, overcome what? Overcome the world. Now what is he talking about? First the world. We'll get back to the competing part. What is the world? He's not talking about physical world or creation. He defined this in chapter two where he says, this is the world. It's the desires of the eyes, desires of the flesh and pride of life.Desires of the eyes is I see it, I want it. Desires of the flesh is I want what I want and the pride of life is I want to be wanted and he says those right there. If you give yourself to that, and that's the world, like when he's talking about this is the world as opposed to God. It's a worldview opposed to God. When you live for stuff like I see it, I want it. I see it, I want it. I want to feel this thing. This is what my flesh wants. I want accolades. I want applause. I want to be revered by people. He said that right there, that's loss. You go down that path and it's going to be loss after loss after loss, loss of your own spiritual life, loss of relationships, loss of things, loss loss. You're just taking L after L after L after L. Why? Because that stuff never satisfies and he says, this is why faith, that's what he says. Faith is the way we overcome.What is the victory? It's our faith. What does faith do? God gave me faith. Now I get to see God for who he is. I get to see that Jesus Christ is immeasurably more beautiful, more satisfying than the desires of the eyes. That intimacy with Jesus feels so much better than any physical feeling that the world has formed. Jesus bed pride of life. I don't care what people think of me. I've got nothing to prove. No one to impress because God is glorious. That path right there, that's W, W, W and this... I like thinking about like this, about the Christian life like this because I like winning. I like winning a lot. This is why I did sports. I wrestled in high school. I played football. That feeling of victory no matter the sacrifices I had to make, that feeling of winning like it's the high is so much better than all the lows of all the sac... Any athlete knows this. Any student know this.You understand that short term sacrifices, they make all the sense when you got the win and he says that's why a lot of people they go down the path of the world where in the short term feels good, it feels good, it feels good and it just leads to loss and loss, loss. The Christian path yeah, it's difficult. Obedience is hard, but when you see that this is the best thing for you, when you see that proximity of God, there's nothing better. The God's law becomes not burdensome but actually beautiful.If you're not yet a Christian today, we welcome you to believe and repent and look to Christ, see how much he's loved you. The very moment that you trust in Christ and trust your life to him, all of your sins are forgiven. You become a child of God and you believe because you are a child of God, and I'll close with a few texts from the Psalms, just reveling in the law of God. Psalm 11 through two, blessed it is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night.Psalm 19 verse seven, the law of the Lord is perfect. Reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple, the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous all together more to be desired are they than gold. Even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and drippings in the honeycomb. Moreover by them is your servant warned and keeping them there is great reward.Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the word. We thank you, Jesus, that you are the word that you came to reveal the way of salvation, that you procured sacrifice for salvation in yourself and we thank you that you sent us the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, continue to empower each one of us to live victorious lives, overcoming the attacks of the enemy, overcoming our sinful flesh and overcoming the world and as we do so to abide in you, to grown our relationship with you. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
Are we Antinomian? What does being an Antinomian mean? Do the Boys promote Antinomianism, and what does the Bible have to say about it? The Boys answer these questions and more on today's podcast. We also see how 1 Pet. 1:16, Phil 2:12, and Heb. 12:14 should influence the discussion.
Romans 12:1-2 — What does doctrine and practice have to do with each other? Some Christians doubt the relevance of doctrine to the Christian life at all. For them, it's simply a matter of being ethical and moral. There is no need to understand biblical doctrine for good works. Antinomian's, on the other hand, hold to doctrine but live however they please. Preaching from Romans 12:1-2, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says “no” to both! You may claim doctrine however you wish, but if it does not change your life you have not understood the doctrine. Likewise, Dr. Lloyd-Jones says, doctrine is key to our Christian morals because they provide us with the right motivation and the right power to live the sanctified life in Christ Jesus. He contends in this sermon that Paul shows us that motives are important; we live in view of God’s mercy. Also, the strength to perform good works is not simply my own effort but the power that comes from the Holy Spirit. If the doctrine we proclaim in evangelism does not match our Christian practice, says Dr. Lloyd-Jones, we have not understood the doctrine. If our good works are not informed by doctrine we are not truly living the Christian life. Listen as he unpacks the key distinctive of a Christian life.
Jude gives the reader his reason for writing the letter.
Jude gives the reader his reason for writing the letter.
Four days after clergy held a synod to determine theological truths, the Court decided to eliminate the heresy by any means necessary. Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson were convicted of sedition and banished after long, heated trials, and their supporters were given the choice between recanting and banishment. Under increasing scrutiny, and faced with a complete lack of control of the movement, Cotton finally turned against it.
Political maneuvering and outright hostility turned a Bostonian theological movement into the basis of a colony-wide controversy.
Also known as the Free Grace Controversy, this dispute pitted John Winthrop and most non-Boston leadership against Anne Hutchinson, Henry Vane and John Wheelwright (supported by John Cotton). It was a battle for the theological and political heart of the colony.
This week we revisit the concept of law and grace and how much law we fall under today. Are we antinomian? Tune in to find out.
Catholic author and speaker Mark Shea hates Trump and totally thinks you're a member of the “Gun Cult” because you won't accept meaningless gun control legislation. According to him, those who say “you can't outlaw evil” are a bunch of Antinomian heretics. THIS EPISODE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY COOK'S HOLSTERS. AMERICAN MADE CUSTOM HOLSTERS WITH A 100% SATISFACTION GUARANTEE. www.CooksHolsters.com Links of Interest Patheos.com – Heresy of the Day: Antinomianism Politico.com – Why we can't trust the CDC with gun research LutheranReformation.org – The Antinomian Disputations Ballistic Minute with Sergeant Bill Sgt. Bill talks about tools you can use to make your dry-fire practice more productive. Aaron Israel of Fundamental Defense Aaron could not be with us this week. Mia's Motivations with Mia Anstine Mia could not be with us this week. Clinging to God and Guns Lloyd and Pastor Bennett dive back into Patheos.com for a post by a Trump-hating Catholic writer who thinks we're all a bunch of heretical Antinomians because we oppose new gun laws. Prayer of the Week O Lord, we implore You, mercifully hear our prayers, and, having set us free from the bonds of sin, defend us from all evil; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. Our Closing Theme A rockin' rendition of A Mighty Fortress is Our God, performed just for Armed Lutheran Radio by Kenny Gates.
Join the West Coast Divines in one of our best shows yet. This week the PorchCrew had the great privilege of interviewing Dr. Stephen J. Wellum and get the answers you are seeking: What’s the difference between PC and NCT? Is there a Garden Covenant? Are we antinomian? And much, much more. If you sleep on this one you’ll have no one to blame but yourself! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Episode #42 Resources: God's Kingdom through God's Covenants: A Concise Biblical Theology https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Kingdom-through-Covenants-Biblical/dp/1433541912/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1486844864&sr=1-2&keywords=kingdom+through+covenant Progressive Covenantalism: Charting a Course between Dispensational and Covenantal Theologies https://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Covenantalism-Dispensational-Covenantal-Theologies/dp/1433684020/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=6949YDZZBTRXRFT3E2AR --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Porch-Con Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Porch-Con-2017-A-New-Covenant-Theology-Conference-193107494426990/?hc_ref=SEARCH&fref=nf NEW DAVID GAY TRACT: Two Questions… A big thanks to Marv Plementosh of www.onemilliontracts.com http://shop.onemilliontracts.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Blake White Resources: Blake’s Article ‘What is The Law of Christ?”: http://ablakew.blogspot.com/2015/06/what-is-law-of-christ.html Blake’s Books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004ROZCXA Blake’s Blog - Barabbas: http://ablakew.blogspot.com/ Blake White on GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3450080.A_Blake_White?utm_medium=api&utm_source=author_widget -------------------------------------------------------------------------- What is New Covenant Theology? Cross to Crown Ministries: A short Primer on New Covenant Theology, by Blake White http://crosstocrown.org/article/a-short-primer-on-new-covenant-theology-essentials/ Providence Theological Seminary: What is New Covenant Theology http://ptstn.org/nct.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Striving For Eternity: Theology Discussion/Debate Series: Covenant Theology vs New Covenant Theology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuuUQ7v1zMw&feature=youtu.be&fb_ref=Default New Covenant Theology vs Dispensational Theology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89cMw-Edpec Covenant Theology vs Dispensational Theology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efAzzvVM-Yo ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Steve Atkerson and NTRF New Testament Reformation Fellowship Website: http://www.ntrf.org/ NTRF’s NCT Series: http://ntrf.org/index.php/new-covenant-theology/ NTRF/SteveAtkerson on Sermon Audio: http://www.sermonaudio.com/source_detail.asp?sourceid=ntrf ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ David H.J. Gay on Sermon Audio http://www.sermonaudio.com/source_detail.asp?sourceid=davidhjgay David H.J. Gay Archive Website: All David’s books are now available for FREE in PDF, Mobi, and EPub formats! www.davidhjgay.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact CFTP: CFTP Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1710049122585165/ NCT Porch Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/574200849397709/ New Covenant Baptist Church: https://www.facebook.com/ncbcnorcal/?fref=ts Ask The Porch: (916) 399-3878 Twitter: @PorchcastNCT Email: NCTPorchcast@Gmail.com YouTube Channel: New Covenant Baptist Church: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgx_0oUu3EELtdTET6rNBPQ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dem Interwebs: New Covenant Baptist Church: http://www.ncbcnorcal.com/ Sermon Audio: http://www.sermonaudio.com/source_detail.asp?
In this episode we will look at the extremes of the spectrum on God's Law between the Hebrew Roots observant and the Antinomian and look to find a bit more rooted understanding from Joel McDurmon.
Toby is covered in a full body rash. Matt fell off a stool at the last Emery acoustic show and feels bad for Joey after reading his book. The reformed crowd is questioning our salvation in a dangerous antinomian shell game. A listener sends Joey a pizza, but how did he get the address?! In science, we learn about CRISPR. And in the news, a tale of 2 obituaries plus a guy in Oklahoma gets in trouble for hanging nooses in his yard. Finally, we learn that Joey is "costume tolerant." Sponsors and Links: Blue Apron - http://blueapron.com/badchristian Citizens & Saints - http://gospelsong.merchnow.com/ Emery Acoustic - http://emeryacoustic.com/ Join the BC Club! - http://thebcclub.com/
In this minisode we will be looking at Arminius on the Doctrine of Imputation within his larger doctrine of Justification. You may be surprised to find out how close Arminius was to Calvin on this! And we are not making this up...this is all what Arminius wrote himself! To explore this topic we will be looking at "The Declaration of Sentiments" by Arminius as well as his "Public Disputation 19: On the Justification of Man Before God." We will be releasing an episode in the next couple of weeks focusing on what Wesley had to say about the Doctrine of Imputation. Then a full Remonstrance episode will be released in July for a full treatment of this doctrine and how Wesley and Arminius were able to simultaneously hold to the Doctrine of Imputation while avoiding Antinomian conclusions. Please subscribe!
This week on StoryWeb: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel “The Scarlet Letter.” “What we did had a consecration of its own.” So says Hester Prynne to Arthur Dimmesdale in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel, The Scarlet Letter. When I was 15 and reading the novel for the first time in my high school American literature class, I had no idea what Hester – she of the scarlet letter – meant. But as I got older, as I experienced my own deep connections with others, I came to understand Hester very well. In her view, her forest rendezvous with Dimmesdale was not lustful fornication but sacred, holy lovemaking, lovemaking that honored both of them. If you read (or read about) The Scarlet Letter in high school and haven’t touched it since, I highly encourage you to give it another chance. I don’t think it is a book for teenagers, for they do not have nearly enough life experience to understand the bond between Hester and Dimmesdale. They can’t fathom what each gives up – or considers giving up – for the other. (Other teachers, however, report some success with teaching the complex moral novel in high school. See Brenda Wineapple’s essay “The Scarlet Letter and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s America,” and David Denby’s piece “Is It Still Possible to Teach The Scarlet Letter in High School?”) If you’re ready to read The Scarlet Letter for the first time or if you’re ready to read it again, you can read the book online for free or buy a hard copy for your collection. Don’t bother with any of the wretched film adaptations (especially the 1995 version starring Demi Moore as Hester). Just stick with the novel itself. Your own imagination will bring the book to life! Once you’ve got the book in hand, it’s best to start with Hawthorne’s opening essay, “The Custom House.” Many readers skip it, wanting to move ahead to the story. But “The Custom House” is key to the novel in so many ways. It tells of Hawthorne’s years working as the chief executive officer of the Salem, Massachusetts, Custom House. Salem, of course, was the site of the heinous Salem Witch Trials. In 1692, the Puritans “pressed” one man to death and hung fourteen women and five men, all of them falsely convicted of witchcraft. Salem was Hawthorne’s hometown, his long-time ancestral home. In fact, one of his direct ancestors was Justice John Hathorne; he was the chief interrogator of the accused witches. So distressed and estranged was Hawthorne by his family’s participation in the Salem Witch Trials that he changed the spelling of his surname, thereby distancing himself from the family legacy. In “The Custom House,” Hawthorne tells of his struggle to come to terms with his family’s past. He says, This long connection of a family with one spot, as its place of birth and burial, creates a kindred between the human being and the locality, quite independent of any charm in the scenery or moral circumstances that surround him. It is not love, but instinct. . . . It is no matter that the place is joyless for him; that he is weary of the old wooden houses, the mud and dust, the dead level of site and sentiment, the chill east wind, and the chillest of social atmospheres. . . . The spell survives, and just as powerfully as if the natal spot were an earthly paradise. So has it been in my case. I felt it almost as a destiny to make Salem my home. . . . Nevertheless, this very sentiment is an evidence that the connection, which has become an unhealthy one, should at last be severed. Later in the essay, Hawthorne tells of poking around one day in the “heaped-up rubbish” of the Custom House and finding a beautifully embroidered, red letter A, “a certain affair of fine red cloth, much worn and faded.” It had been wrought,” Hawthorne says, “with wonderful skill of needlework; and the stitch . . . gives evidence of a now forgotten art.” While puzzling over the meaning of the scarlet letter, Hawthorne places it on his chest. “I experienced a sensation not altogether physical, yet almost so, as of burning heat,” he writes. “as if the letter were not of red cloth, but red-hot iron.” Accompanying the scarlet letter, Hawthorne finds a “small roll of dingy paper,” which reveals that Hester Prynne had been the wearer of the letter. Hawthorne’s story of discovering the scarlet letter and finding out about Hester Prynne is completely fabricated as far as we know, but the reader is hooked. The novel that follows promises to tell the story of the infamous Hester Prynne and her even more infamous scarlet letter. While the story of the scarlet letter may be a figment of Hawthorne’s imagination, what is real is the harsh legacy of the 17th-century Puritans and Hawthorne’s own Transcendentalist-touched life in the 19th century. In a surprising and quite interesting turn of events, it was the descendants of the 17th-century Puritans who became the Transcendentalists – those fervent free thinkers – in the 19th century. I always imagine that the Puritans would have rolled over in their graves had they known what their heirs espoused. In fact, Hester can easily be seen as a Transcendentalist heroine set smack dab in a Puritan world. As Hawthorne created his heroine, he made her much more a product of the 19th century than the 17th century. As she “stand[s] alone in the world” and “cast[s] away the fragments of a broken chain,” she determines that “[t]he world’s law was no law for her mind.” Wearing her scarlet letter, “[i]n her lonesome cottage, by the sea-shore, thoughts visited her, such as dared to enter no other dwelling in New England.” In fact, says Hawthorne, “she might have come down to us in history, hand in hand with Anne Hutchinson, as the foundress of a religious sect. She might, in one of her phases, have been a prophetess.” No wonder Hester is ostracized from her community: she was much too dangerous for the small community of Boston! Ready to explore Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter further? Start with an overview of Hawthorne’s relationship to his ancestral hometown, created by one of my students at Shepherd University and illustrated with photos of our 2002 trip to Salem. “Hawthorne in Salem” is another great website that helps the scene and the context for Hawthorne’s writing of The Scarlet Letter. For links to these resources, visit thestoryweb.com/hawthorne. Listen now as I read excerpts from the first three chapters of The Scarlet Letter. You’ll see Hester Prynne as she leaves the prison, walks to the scaffold to receive her punishment, and returns to her cell. A THRONG of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes. The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison. In accordance with this rule, it may safely be assumed that the forefathers of Boston had built the first prison-house, somewhere in the vicinity of Cornhill, almost as seasonably as they marked out the first burial-ground, on Isaac Johnson’s lot, and round about his grave, which subsequently became the nucleus of all the congregated sepulchres in the old church-yard of King’s Chapel. Certain it is, that, some fifteen or twenty years after the settlement of the town, the wooden jail was already marked with weather-stains and other indications of age, which gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front. The rust on the ponderous iron-work of its oaken door looked more antique than any thing else in the new world. Like all that pertains to crime, it seemed never to have known a youthful era. Before this ugly edifice, and between it and the wheel-track of the street, was a grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pig-weed, apple-peru, and such unsightly vegetation, which evidently found something congenial in the soil that had so early borne the black flower of civilized society, a prison. But, on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him. THE GRASS-PLOT before the jail, in Prison Lane, on a certain summer morning, not less than two centuries ago, was occupied by a pretty large number of the inhabitants of Boston; all with their eyes intently fastened on the iron-clamped oaken door. Amongst any other population, or at a later period in the history of New England, the grim rigidity that petrified the bearded physiognomies of these good people would have augured some awful business in hand. It could have betokened nothing short of the anticipated execution of some noted culprit, on whom the sentence of a legal tribunal had but confirmed the verdict of public sentiment. But, in that early severity of the Puritan character, an inference of this kind could not so indubitably be drawn. It might be that a sluggish bond-servant, or an undutiful child, whom his parents had given over to the civil authority, was to be corrected at the whipping-post. It might be, that an Antinomian, a Quaker, or other heterodox religionist, was to be scourged out of the town, or an idle and vagrant Indian, whom the white man’s fire-water had made riotous about the streets, was to be driven with stripes into the shadow of the forest. It might be, too, that a witch, like old Mistress Hibbins, the bitter-tempered widow of the magistrate, was to die upon the gallows. In either case, there was very much the same solemnity of demeanour on the part of the spectators; as befitted a people amongst whom religion and law were almost identical, and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused, that the mildest and the severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful. Meagre, indeed, and cold, was the sympathy that a transgressor might look for, from such bystanders at the scaffold. On the other hand, a penalty which, in our days, would infer a degree of mocking infamy and ridicule, might then be invested with almost as stern a dignity as the punishment of death itself. The door of the jail being flung open from within, there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and grisly presence of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side and his staff of office in his hand. This personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law, which it was his business to administer in its final and closest application to the offender. Stretching forth the official staff in his left hand, he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he thus drew forward until, on the threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air, as if by her own free-will. She bore in her arms a child, a baby of some three months old, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day; because its existence, heretofore, had brought it acquainted only with the gray twilight of a dungeon, or other darksome apartment of the prison. When the young woman—the mother of this child—stood fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as that she might thereby conceal a certain token, which was wrought or fastened into her dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore; and which was of a splendor in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony. The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance, on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes. She was lady-like, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterized by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace, which is now recognized as its indication. And never had Hester Prynne appeared more lady-like, in the antique interpretation of the term, than as she issued from the prison. Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped. It may be true, that, to a sensitive observer, there was something exquisitely painful in it. Her attire, which, indeed, she had wrought for the occasion, in prison, and had modelled much after her own fancy, seemed to express the attitude of her spirit, the desperate recklessness of her mood, by its wild and picturesque peculiarity. But the point which drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer,—so that both men and women, who had been familiarly acquainted with Hester Prynne, were now impressed as if they beheld her for the first time,—was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and inclosing her in a sphere by herself. “She hath good skill at her needle, that’s certain,” remarked one of the female spectators; “but did ever a woman, before this brazen hussy, contrive such a way of showing it! Why, gossips, what is it but to laugh in the faces of our godly magistrates, and make a pride out of what they, worthy gentlemen, meant for a punishment?” “It were well,” muttered the most iron-visaged of the old dames, “if we stripped Madam Hester’s rich gown off her dainty shoulders; and as for the red letter, which she hath stitched so curiously, I’ll bestow a rag of mine own rheumatic flannel, to make a fitter one!” “O, peace, neighbours, peace!” whispered their youngest companion. “Do not let her hear you! Not a stitch in that embroidered letter, but she has felt it in her heart.” The grim beadle now made a gesture with his staff. “Make way, good people, make way, in the King’s name,” cried he. “Open a passage; and, I promise ye, Mistress Prynne shall be set where man, woman, and child may have a fair sight of her brave apparel, from this time till an hour past meridian. A blessing on the righteous Colony of the Massachusetts, where iniquity is dragged out into the sunshine! Come along, Madam Hester, and show your scarlet letter in the market-place!” A lane was forthwith opened through the crowd of spectators. Preceded by the beadle, and attended by an irregular procession of stern-browed men and unkindly-visaged women, Hester Prynne set forth towards the place appointed for her punishment. A crowd of eager and curious schoolboys, understanding little of the matter in hand, except that it gave them a half-holiday, ran before her progress, turning their heads continually to stare into her face, and at the winking baby in her arms, and at the ignominious letter on her breast. It was no great distance, in those days, from the prison-door to the market-place. Measured by the prisoner’s experience, however, it might be reckoned a journey of some length; for, haughty as her demeanour was, she perchance underwent an agony from every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and trample upon. In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvellous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it. With almost a serene deportment, therefore, Hester Prynne passed through this portion of her ordeal, and came to a sort of scaffold, at the western extremity of the market-place. It stood nearly beneath the eaves of Boston’s earliest church, and appeared to be a fixture there. In fact, this scaffold constituted a portion of a penal machine, which now, for two or three generations past, has been merely historical and traditionary among us, but was held, in the old time, to be as effectual an agent in the promotion of good citizenship, as ever was the guillotine among the terrorists of France. It was, in short, the platform of the pillory; and above it rose the framework of that instrument of discipline, so fashioned as to confine the human head in its tight grasp, and thus hold it up to the public gaze. The very ideal of ignominy was embodied and made manifest in this contrivance of wood and iron. There can be no outrage, methinks, against our common nature,—whatever be the delinquencies of the individual,—no outrage more flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face for shame; as it was the essence of this punishment to do. In Hester Prynne’s instance, however, as not unfrequently in other cases, her sentence bore, that she should stand a certain time upon the platform, but without undergoing that gripe about the neck and confinement of the head, the proneness to which was the most devilish characteristic of this ugly engine. Knowing well her part, she ascended a flight of wooden steps, and was thus displayed to the surrounding multitude, at about the height of a man’s shoulders above the street. Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her attire and mien, and with the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity, which so many illustrious painters have vied with one another to represent; something which should remind him, indeed, but only by contrast, of that sacred image of sinless motherhood, whose infant was to redeem the world. Here, there was the taint of deepest sin in the most sacred quality of human life, working such effect, that the world was only the darker for this woman’s beauty, and the more lost for the infant that she had borne. The scene was not without a mixture of awe, such as must always invest the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellow-creature, before society shall have grown corrupt enough to smile, instead of shuddering, at it. The witnesses of Hester Prynne’s disgrace had not yet passed beyond their simplicity. They were stern enough to look upon her death, had that been the sentence, without a murmur at its severity, but had none of the heartlessness of another social state, which would find only a theme for jest in an exhibition like the present. Even had there been a disposition to turn the matter into ridicule, it must have been repressed and overpowered by the solemn presence of men no less dignified than the Governor, and several of his counsellors, a judge, a general, and the ministers of the town; all of whom sat or stood in a balcony of the meeting-house, looking down upon the platform. When such personages could constitute a part of the spectacle, without risking the majesty or reverence of rank and office, it was safely to be inferred that the infliction of a legal sentence would have an earnest and effectual meaning. Accordingly, the crowd was sombre and grave. The unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a woman might, under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes, all fastened upon her, and concentrated at her bosom. It was almost intolerable to be borne. Of an impulsive and passionate nature, she had fortified herself to encounter the stings and venomous stabs of public contumely, wreaking itself in every variety of insult; but there was a quality so much more terrible in the solemn mood of the popular mind, that she longed rather to behold all those rigid countenances contorted with scornful merriment, and herself the object. Had a roar of laughter burst from the multitude,—each man, each woman, each little shrill-voiced child, contributing their individual parts,—Hester Prynne might have repaid them all with a bitter and disdainful smile. But, under the leaden infliction which it was her doom to endure, she felt, at moments, as if she must needs shriek out with the full power of her lungs, and cast herself from the scaffold down upon the ground, or else go mad at once. Yet there were intervals when the whole scene, in which she was the most conspicuous object, seemed to vanish from her eyes, or, at least, glimmered indistinctly before them, like a mass of imperfectly shaped and spectral images. Her mind, and especially her memory, was preternaturally active, and kept bringing up other scenes than this roughly hewn street of a little town, on the edge of the Western wilderness; other faces than were lowering upon her from beneath the brims of those steeple-crowned hats. Reminiscences, the most trifling and immaterial, passages of infancy and school-days, sports, childish quarrels, and the little domestic traits of her maiden years, came swarming back upon her, intermingled with recollections of whatever was gravest in her subsequent life; one picture precisely as vivid as another; as if all were of similar importance, or all alike a play. Possibly, it was an instinctive device of her spirit to relieve itself, by the exhibition of these phantasmagoric forms, from the cruel weight and hardness of the reality. Be that as it might, the scaffold of the pillory was a point of view that revealed to Hester Prynne the entire track along which she had been treading, since her happy infancy. Standing on that miserable eminence, she saw again her native village, in Old England, and her paternal home; a decayed house of gray stone, with a poverty-stricken aspect, but retaining a half-obliterated shield of arms over the portal, in token of antique gentility. She saw her father’s face, with its bold brow, and reverend white beard, that flowed over the old-fashioned Elizabethan ruff; her mother’s, too, with the look of heedful and anxious love which it always wore in her remembrance, and which, even since her death, had so often laid the impediment of a gentle remonstrance in her daughter’s pathway. She saw her own face, glowing with girlish beauty, and illuminating all the interior of the dusky mirror in which she had been wont to gaze at it. There she beheld another countenance, of a man well stricken in years, a pale, thin, scholar-like visage, with eyes dim and bleared by the lamp-light that had served them to pore over many ponderous books. Yet those same bleared optics had a strange, penetrating power, when it was their owner’s purpose to read the human soul. This figure of the study and the cloister, as Hester Prynne’s womanly fancy failed not to recall, was slightly deformed, with the left shoulder a trifle higher than the right. Next rose before her, in memory’s picture-gallery, the intricate and narrow thoroughfares, the tall, gray houses, the huge cathedrals, and the public edifices, ancient in date and quaint in architecture, of a Continental city; where a new life had awaited her, still in connection with the misshapen scholar; a new life, but feeding itself on time-worn materials, like a tuft of green moss on a crumbling wall. Lastly, in lieu of these shifting scenes, came back the rude market-place of the Puritan settlement, with all the townspeople assembled and levelling their stern regards at Hester Prynne,—yes, at herself,—who stood on the scaffold of the pillory, an infant on her arm, and the letter A, in scarlet, fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom! Could it be true? She clutched the child so fiercely to her breast, that it sent forth a cry; she turned her eyes downward at the scarlet letter, and even touched it with her finger, to assure herself that the infant and the shame were real. Yes!—these were her realities,—all else had vanished! Hester Prynne had been standing on her pedestal, still with a fixed gaze towards the stranger; so fixed a gaze, that, at moments of intense absorption, all other objects in the visible world seemed to vanish, leaving only him and her. Such an interview, perhaps, would have been more terrible than even to meet him as she now did, with the hot, mid-day sun burning down upon her face, and lighting up its shame; with the scarlet token of infamy on her breast; with the sin-born infant in her arms; with a whole people, drawn forth as to a festival, staring at the features that should have been seen only in the quiet gleam of the fireside, in the happy shadow of a home, or beneath a matronly veil, at church. Dreadful as it was, she was conscious of a shelter in the presence of these thousand witnesses. It was better to stand thus, with so many betwixt him and her, than to greet him, face to face, they two alone. She fled for refuge, as it were, to the public exposure, and dreaded the moment when its protection should be withdrawn from her. Involved in these thoughts, she scarcely heard a voice behind her, until it had repeated her name more than once, in a loud and solemn tone, audible to the whole multitude. “Hearken unto me, Hester Prynne!” said the voice. It has already been noticed, that directly over the platform on which Hester Prynne stood was a kind of balcony, or open gallery, appended to the meeting-house. It was the place whence proclamations were wont to be made, amidst an assemblage of the magistracy, with all the ceremonial that attended such public observances in those days. Here, to witness the scene which we are describing, sat Governor Bellingham himself, with four sergeants about his chair, bearing halberds, as a guard of honor. He wore a dark feather in his hat, a border of embroidery on his cloak, and a black velvet tunic beneath; a gentleman advanced in years, and with a hard experience written in his wrinkles. He was not ill fitted to be the head and representative of a community, which owed its origin and progress, and its present state of development, not to the impulses of youth, but to the stern and tempered energies of manhood, and the sombre sagacity of age; accomplishing so much, precisely because it imagined and hoped so little. The other eminent characters, by whom the chief ruler was surrounded, were distinguished by a dignity of mien, belonging to a period when the forms of authority were felt to possess the sacredness of divine institutions. They were, doubtless, good men, just, and sage. But, out of the whole human family, it would not have been easy to select the same number of wise and virtuous persons, who should he less capable of sitting in judgment on an erring woman’s heart, and disentangling its mesh of good and evil, than the sages of rigid aspect towards whom Hester Prynne now turned her face. She seemed conscious, indeed, that whatever sympathy she might expect lay in the larger and warmer heart of the multitude; for, as she lifted her eyes towards the balcony, the unhappy woman grew pale and trembled. The voice which had called her attention was that of the reverend and famous John Wilson, the eldest clergyman of Boston, a great scholar, like most of his contemporaries in the profession, and withal a man of kind and genial spirit. This last attribute, however, had been less carefully developed than his intellectual gifts, and was, in truth, rather a matter of shame than self-congratulation with him. There he stood, with a border of grizzled locks beneath his skull-cap; while his gray eyes, accustomed to the shaded light of his study, were winking, like those of Hester’s infant, in the unadulterated sunshine. He looked like the darkly engraved portraits which we see prefixed to old volumes of sermons; and had no more right than one of those portraits would have, to step forth, as he now did, and meddle with a question of human guilt, passion, and anguish. “Hester Prynne,” said the clergyman, “I have striven with my young brother here, under whose preaching of the word you have been privileged to sit,”—here Mr. Wilson laid his hand on the shoulder of a pale young man beside him,—“I have sought, I say, to persuade this godly youth, that he should deal with you, here in the face of Heaven, and before these wise and upright rulers, and in hearing of all the people, as touching the vileness and blackness of your sin. Knowing your natural temper better than I, he could the better judge what arguments to use, whether of tenderness or terror, such as might prevail over your hardness and obstinacy; insomuch that you should no longer hide the name of him who tempted you to this grievous fall. But he opposes to me, (with a young man’s oversoftness, albeit wise beyond his years,) that it were wronging the very nature of woman to force her to lay open her heart’s secrets in such broad daylight, and in presence of so great a multitude. Truly, as I sought to convince him, the shame lay in the commission of the sin, and not in the showing of it forth. What say you to it, once again, brother Dimmesdale? Must it be thou or I that shall deal with this poor sinner’s soul?” There was a murmur among the dignified and reverend occupants of the balcony; and Governor Bellingham gave expression to its purport, speaking in an authoritative voice, although tempered with respect towards the youthful clergyman whom he addressed. “Good Master Dimmesdale,” said he, “the responsibility of this woman’s soul lies greatly with you. It behooves you, therefore, to exhort her to repentance, and to confession, as a proof and consequence thereof.” The directness of this appeal drew the eyes of the whole crowd upon the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale; young clergyman, who had come from one of the great English universities, bringing all the learning of the age into our wild forest-land. His eloquence and religious fervor had already given the earnest of high eminence in his profession. He was a person of very striking aspect, with a white, lofty, and impending brow, large, brown, melancholy eyes, and a mouth which, unless when he forcibly compressed it, was apt to be tremulous, expressing both nervous sensibility and a vast power of self-restraint. Notwithstanding his high native gifts and scholar-like attainments, there was an air about this young minister,—an apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightened look,—as of a being who felt himself quite astray and at a loss in the pathway of human existence, and could only be at ease in some seclusion of his own. Therefore, so far as his duties would permit, he trode in the shadowy by-paths, and thus kept himself simple and childlike; coming forth, when occasion was, with a freshness, and fragrance, and dewy purity of thought, which, as many people said, affected them like the speech of an angel. Such was the young man whom the Reverend Mr. Wilson and the Governor had introduced so openly to the public notice, bidding him speak, in the hearing of all men, to that mystery of a woman’s soul, so sacred even in its pollution. The trying nature of his position drove the blood from his cheek, and made his lips tremulous. “Speak to the woman, my brother,” said Mr. Wilson. “It is of moment to her soul, and therefore, as the worshipful Governor says, momentous to thine own, in whose charge hers is. Exhort her to confess the truth!” The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale bent his head, in silent prayer, as it seemed, and then came forward. “Hester Prynne,” said he, leaning over the balcony, and looking down stedfastly into her eyes, “thou hearest what this good man says, and seest the accountability under which I labor. If thou feelest it to be for thy soul’s peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer! Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him; for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life. What can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him—yea, compel him, as it were—to add hypocrisy to sin? Heaven hath granted thee an open ignominy, that thereby thou mayest work out an open triumph over the evil within thee, and the sorrow without. Take heed how thou deniest to him—who, perchance, hath not the courage to grasp it for himself—the bitter, but wholesome, cup that is now presented to thy lips!” The young pastor’s voice was tremulously sweet, rich, deep, and broken. The feeling that it so evidently manifested, rather than the direct purport of the words, caused it to vibrate within all hearts, and brought the listeners into one accord of sympathy. Even the poor baby, at Hester’s bosom, was affected by the same influence; for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze towards Mr. Dimmesdale, and held up its little arms, with a half pleased, half plaintive murmur. So powerful seemed the minister’s appeal, that the people could not believe but that Hester Prynne would speak out the guilty name; or else that the guilty one himself, in whatever high or lowly place he stood, would be drawn forth by an inward and inevitable necessity, and compelled to ascend the scaffold. Hester shook her head. “Woman, transgress not beyond the limits of Heaven’s mercy!” cried the Reverend Mr. Wilson, more harshly than before. “That little babe hath been gifted with a voice, to second and confirm the counsel which thou hast heard. Speak out the name! That, and thy repentance, may avail to take the scarlet letter off thy breast.” “Never!” replied Hester Prynne, looking, not at Mr. Wilson, but into the deep and troubled eyes of the younger clergyman. “It is too deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that I might endure his agony, as well as mine!” “Speak, woman!” said another voice, coldly and sternly, proceeding from the crowd about the scaffold. “Speak; and give your child a father!” “I will not speak!” answered Hester, turning pale as death, but responding to this voice, which she too surely recognized. “And my child must seek a heavenly Father; she shall never know an earthly one!” “She will not speak!” murmured Mr. Dimmesdale, who, leaning over the balcony, with his hand upon his heart, had awaited the result of his appeal. He now drew back, with a long respiration. “Wondrous strength and generosity of a woman’s heart! She will not speak!” Discerning the impracticable state of the poor culprit’s mind, the elder clergyman, who had carefully prepared himself for the occasion, addressed to the multitude a discourse on sin, in all its branches, but with continual reference to the ignominious letter. So forcibly did he dwell upon this symbol, for the hour or more during which his periods were rolling over the people’s heads, that it assumed new terrors in their imagination, and seemed to derive its scarlet hue from the flames of the infernal pit. Hester Prynne, meanwhile, kept her place upon the pedestal of shame, with glazed eyes, and an air of weary indifference. She had borne, that morning, all that nature could endure; and as her temperament was not of the order that escapes from too intense suffering by a swoon, her spirit could only shelter itself beneath a stony crust of insensibility, while the faculties of animal life remained entire. In this state, the voice of the preacher thundered remorselessly, but unavailingly, upon her ears. The infant, during the latter portion of her ordeal, pierced the air with its wailings and screams; she strove to hush it, mechanically, but seemed scarcely to sympathize with its trouble. With the same hard demeanour, she was led back to prison, and vanished from the public gaze within its iron-clamped portal. It was whispered, by those who peered after her, that the scarlet letter threw a lurid gleam along the dark passage-way of the interior.
Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. James 1:21
When the law is preached, it only has one function - and that is to kill the self. The preaching of the law is to not able to bring about holiness. It does not have that ability. But before Christ can bring new life, the law must first bring death...
When the law is preached, it only has one function - and that is to kill the self. The preaching of the law is to not able to bring about holiness. It does not have that ability. But before Christ can bring new life, the law must first bring death. In this message, we examine the Biblical function of the law to bring us to the foot of the Cross.
Many have labeled the preachers of grace as "antinomians", meaning, they consider that the law no longer has value. In this sermon, we examine Apostle Paul's response to the accusers who said he no longer saw the value of the law, as...
Many have labeled the preachers of grace as "antinomians", meaning, they consider that the law no longer has value. In this sermon, we examine Apostle Paul's response to the accusers who said he no longer saw the value of the law, as we see the proper value that the law has in pointing us to the finished work of Jesus.
This is 13th and final part of the our series, nomism, antinomianism and The Marrow of Modern Divinity. If you’re just joining us, you can start at the beginning with episode 58. Why this series? Because The Marrow was an important classic . . . Continue reading →
This is 13th and final part of the our series, nomism, antinomianism and The Marrow of Modern Divinity. If you’re just joining us, you can start at the beginning with episode 58. Why this series? Because The Marrow was an important classic . . . Continue reading →
The law of God was never meant to justify; rather, the law reveals the holiness of God and the sinfulness of men. It is the law that informs mankind of their need of a Saviour outside of themselves. Paul makes it abundantly clear that any man who is justified (declared righteous) before a holy God is justified on the basis of their faith in Christ's finished work on the cross alone. Once we have been justified, we are now free from the bondage of the law and empowered to live a new life of obedience "unto God" as Christ lives in and through us.Support the show (http://www.maplecitybaptistchurch.com)
• Interview With Tullian Tchividjian • Good Sermon by Pastor Tullian on Romans 1:18-2:11
Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Galatians 5:13-15 exploring how Christians can responsibly use their freedom. - SERMON TRANSCRIPT - Isn't that marvelous? That a week after Easter we still get to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Amen. It's not over when Easter is over, we get to do this every week. We get to celebrate Jesus' resurrection victory. He who was dead, he who was in the tomb, on the third day God raised him from the dead, and He was seen by many witnesses and they proclaimed in Jesus, the Gospel of forgiveness of sins and we have believed that Gospel. And it's my privilege today and I've just been marveling at God's grace to me to get to do this week after week, to get to stand in front of you and proclaim in Jesus the forgiveness of sins. And how awesome is that, that I get to stand in front of you and proclaim to you that if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, all your sins are forgiven, and that you are free. Now the Apostle Paul got to do that with the Galatians, he got to go to that town, and he got to preach in that region and preach the Gospel. Many of them that heard Paul believed and by the Holy Spirit they repented, and they became followers of Jesus Christ. But after Paul left, some false teachers came in with the false Gospel. And they sought to draw them away from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ and to follow a different Gospel which is no Gospel at all. It was a poisonous mixture of repentance and faith in Christ plus obedience to the laws of Moses, and the doorway into that life of bondage, that life of slavery under the law of Moses was circumcision. And so they were saying, “unless you are circumcised and unless you keep the law of Moses you cannot be saved.” And that makes Jesus recede and get smaller and smaller. And so Paul wrote this incredible epistle of freedom to correct that false doctrine and to heal them from the poison that Satan had tried to inject into their spiritual veins, so that they would know the freedom they have in Christ and that they would celebrate it. Now, I've been marveling about the truths of this chapter, Galatians 5, a very deep and rich and full chapter. And my mind went to a moment in church history when Martin Luther, the German monk that God was using to bring about reformation and reclamation of the true Gospel in Germany from medieval Catholicism, and from all the false doctrine that had flowed for centuries in Europe, false understanding of the Gospel. God used him for reformation. He wrote a treatise in 1520, entitled The Freedom of a Christian. And he began by asserting two seemingly contradictory ideas, thesis. Number one, listen to this, “A Christian is a perfectly free Lord of all, subject to none.” Number two, “A Christian is a perfectly dutiful slave of all, subject to all.” Now he supported that from one text, 1 Corinthians 9:19. There the Apostle Paul talking about his proclamation ministry and his strategies, he goes from place to place speaking about Jews and Gentiles. He had a certain strategy, he says this in 1 Corinthians 9:19, "For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all." Well, that's his supporting text for that seemingly contradictory argument he's trying to make. I think you can get those ideas right out of our text today and out of Galatians 5. How is it that we as Christians are perfectly free Lords of all, subject to none? Well, that has to do, dear friends, with the mystery, the glory of justification. When it comes to our salvation from sin, there is no one between you and God. You have Jesus as your mediator and no one else can stand between you and God. You need no other mediator, you don't need any authorities coming in there. You don't need any help from the Pope or from Councils or from priests or any of these things or authority figures that come in, you just need Christ. He alone, the God man is the mediator between you and our Holy God. And by Christ alone can you be freed from your bondage, your true bondage and that is bondage to sin. Jesus said in John 8, "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin. But if the son sets you free you'll be free indeed." How many of you could testify like Jessica did earlier? "I am free indeed through Jesus. And I didn't need anyone to come minister that to me that was Jesus. He alone is my mediator between me and God." Are you free, have you been set free? Are you right now as you're listening to me, right now, free from all condemnation, free from all sin? Are you free from Satan's kingdom? Are you free from sin's bondage? Are you free from fear of death? Are you free from all condemnation? Jessica talked about Roman's 8:1. Are you set free now from all condemnation? If you're a Christian you can say, yes! Yes! Yes, a thousand! I'm set free! And that wasn't anything that was mediated to me by some legalistic authority figure coming in and telling me what's what with the law. So I'm free from all of that. Set free forever from these things. Paul was adamant about that. He actually in some moments in this letter sounds angry about these human authority figures, these legalists that are coming to kind of wrap chains of bondage around the people that he'd seen the gospel set free. And so he argues like a free man in Galatians 1:10, he says, "Am I now trying to win the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man or God. If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ." So he says, "I'm perfectly free Lord of all and I'm not subject to any human being." But now, Paul in our text is saying, "Okay, what are we going to do with that freedom?" And what he's saying in our text today is, "You're going to become a slave to everyone you meet." Huh? Scratch your head, question mark. How can that be? How can we be free from every human authority, where no one can come and tell me that I'm not forgiven, no one can get between me and God. And yet here I am, called to become a slave to everyone. That we are to be in a beautiful Christ-like service to others in love. 07:02 S1: It says right there, "Serve one another in love." Putting it even stronger, "Enslave yourselves to other people in love." Because the entire law is summed up in a single command, love your neighbor as yourself. So we come now to understanding the true boundaries of Christian freedom. How do we understand Christian freedom? Most people, when they start to understand the gospel of freedom are tempted to understand it selfishly, tempted to understand it through the flesh. As I said a couple of weeks ago, people, Americans, we tend to think of freedom in terms of the ability to do anything you want to do anytime you want to do it, with no repercussions. A complete severing of any shackles and chains and boundaries, and requirements that could restrict your ability to do whatever you want to do. If you want to go there, you go there, if you want to eat this, you eat it, if you want to jump off a cliff and soar like a bird you can do it. If you want to have this possession, you can have it. If you want to say these words, you can say them. No boundaries, no rules, no restrictions, no regrets. I. Called to Soaring Freedom… to Please God (verse 13) Is that what freedom is? Is that what we're to do now with our gospel freedom? The Bible has a lot to say about freedom. Galatians 5 is a centerpiece. We've already been told in Galatians 5:1, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. But today, Paul is going to instruct us on what is the proper use of that freedom, what are the boundary lines around that freedom. So look at verse 13 again, we are called to soaring freedom, but that freedom is to please God. Look at verse 13, "You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature, rather serve one another in love." So as I said a couple of weeks ago, just picture freedom in this way, the ability to run, or fly, or swim in whatever area God created that creature to run or swim or fly in. The freedom of an eagle to soar on the thermals, the freedom of a gazelle to run across the tundra, the freedom of dolphins to leap and play in the sea. And the freedom of Christians to delight in God's will for you. That's the essence of Christian freedom. That's what it is. If we are now set free by the gospel, we are set free by the spirit to delight in God's revealed will for you. That's a different kind of definition than what I was citing earlier. Vastly different definition of freedom than that in the minds of people committed to a form of libertarianism. They're marching in the streets with fist in the air, chanting for their rights. Demanding legislation to support and protect their rights, chanting slogans with fists in the air. Those people define freedom as the right to do anything that makes them happy as they define it. "The freedom of an eagle to soar on the thermals, the freedom of a gazelle to run across the tundra, the freedom of dolphins to leap and play in the sea. And the freedom of Christians to delight in God's will for you." Many times, the rights that they're seeking to defend so vigorously are things the Bible calls evil. Their idea of freedom is self-defined. It's linked to their pleasures, it's linked to their flesh, like in the days of Judges. For it says in Judges 21:25, "In those days, there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes." So that's how people define freedom in our age. It's self-defined. But I think Christian freedom is the power to delight in and to do God's will for you. And that's going to be defined as Paul does in this text by his law. In other words, he is going to bring us back having been set free from the law in one sense, he's going to now bring us back to the law in another sense. We are set free from the law in its power to condemn us and send us to hell. We are set free from the law in its ability to assault and to bind our conscience and to accuse us of wrongdoing. We're set from the minutia of the law and its ability to define a godly life for you in very detailed prescriptions about what you can and can't eat, what you can and can't wear, where you must go three times a year to assemble for worship and all that, set free for those things. Set free from the requirements to circumcise your boy babies on the eighth day, set free from those things. But that doesn't mean we're done with the law, not at all. Actually, now brought back to the law to understand it. That we are now free to run in the path of God's commands because he has set our hearts free. Psalm 119:32, to delight in what God wills for us. So now we come again to facing, as we have often times in the studying Galatians, the twin dangers of legalism on one side and license on the other. And for the rest of Galatians 5, he's going to be working, I think, primarily on the issue of license. Most of the book has been on the issue of legalism and he has dealt very plainly with that. We are not justified by works of the law but by simple faith in Christ. And so he is against legalism, in verse one he said, "It's for freedom that Christ has set us free, stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." He's talking there about the Judaizers and their enslaving legalistic doctrine. But then in verse 13, he's against license. He says in verse 13, "You my brothers were called to be free but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh." Tim Keller put it this way, "Don't lose gospel freedom," verse 1, "And don't abuse gospel freedom," verse 13. John MacArthur put it this way talking about legalism and license, he said this, "Someone has pictured legalism and license as two parallel streams that run between heaven and earth. The stream of legalism is clear sparkling and pure because God's law is pure and holy, but its waters run so deep and furiously that no one can enter that stream without being drowned or smashed on the rocks of its unrelenting demands. On the other hand, the stream of license, by contrast, is relatively quiet, still, and shallow, and crossing it seems easy and attractive but its waters are so contaminated with poisons and pollutants that to try to cross it is also certain death. Both streams therefore are uncrossable, both are deadly. One because of impossible moral and spiritual demands, the other because of moral and spiritual filth. But spanning those two deadly streams is the bridge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The only passage there is from earth to heaven, these two streams lead to death because they are man's ways but the Gospel leads to life because it is God's way." So those are the dangers and I find that image helpful. All right? We have these opposite dangers both of them will destroy our soul, both of them expressions, really, of the flesh, two different expressions of the flesh, but the Gospel calls us to freedom. And we are free. You are free if you're a Christian, and if you're not, I just want to plead with you trust in Christ crucified and resurrected. Put your faith in Jesus the Son of God, he died in the place of sinners to give them a gift of righteousness. Don't leave this place in the invisible spiritual chains that you carried when you walked in here, chains of guilt, condemnation, and fear of death and judgment, but be immediately freed by putting your faith in Christ. Jesus said, "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin" John 8:34. Romans 6:20 says, "We were slaves of sin." We were also slaves to Satan, it says in Ephesians 2, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live. When you follow the ways of this world and of the ruler of the Kingdom of the air, that's Satan, the Spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of the flesh and following its desires and thoughts, and like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath..." and because of that we were under the wrath and curse of God. Romans 2:5 says, "Because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant hearts, you're storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath when His righteous judgement will be revealed." So we had unseen chains binding us to continue to live like that, the chains of the flesh which were internal lusts and drives that bound us and kept us from living to please God. The chains of Satan's power, unseen influences, unseen clever temptations and flaming arrows that guaranteed that we were going to continue in bondage to him. And the chains of addiction and habits and lusts and the world's influence. This chain, Romans 7:15, "I do not understand what I do, for what I do I do not want to do. And the good I want to do, I do not do." So these invisible chains are now broken in Christ. We are completely free from all compulsion to sin, Amen, hallelujah! You are free from sin by Christ. Now, Christian freedom is a mysterious mix of already and not yet. We are completely free from sin's authority to command, free from sin's ability to condemn, but we're not free from sin's presence in our flesh. In the indwelling sin, that's there and driving us still to do evil things. Now, sin doesn't have any power to command us, Satan doesn't have any power to command us, says in Roman 6:14, "Sin shall not be your master because you're not under law but under grace." Romans 6:18 says, "You've been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness," but because of the ongoing power of the flesh, we are commanded to live up to our freedom. We have to fight to do it. We have to fight to not be burdened by a yoke of bondage, either in legalism or license. We are called to be free and this is an upward call living more and more like Jesus Christ, serving God and others. Living a more and more joyous powerful heavenly life, living as free from sin as you were at one time, free from righteousness. You used to live free from righteousness. Righteousness seemed to have no claim on you when you were lost. It says in Roman 6:20, "When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness." Now everything has changed, and we are to live as free from sin. "We have to fight to not be burdened by a yoke of bondage, either in legalism or license. We are called to be free and this is an upward call living more and more like Jesus Christ, serving God and others." Free like Jesus. Amen? The freest man that ever lived, completely free. Think about the freedom of Jesus. I like this. In John 14, Jesus getting his disciples ready for the events of that night, He's going to be arrested. He's going to be bound up like a criminal. He's going to be condemned and He's going to die on the cross. But I assert, He's a free man all the way through that whole thing, absolutely free. And it's interesting what he says before He's arrested in John 14:30-31, he says to his disciples, "I will not speak with you much longer for the prince of this world is coming." Now don't think of the Roman authorities or Annas, or Caiaphas. Think of Satan. "Satan is coming for me. The Prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me." Think about that. "But the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me to do." Do you see that? "Satan has no hold on me, no compulsion on me. He has no power over me. He has no ability to accuse me. I've never sinned and he knows it. He cannot accuse me of any wrongdoing. He has no claim on me, whatsoever. But the reason I'm going to die is I want the world to see what obedience looks like. I want to go to the cross and obey completely everything my Father has told me to do." It's completely free, all the time, at every moment. And so He offers to you that same freedom. "If the son sets you free, you will be free indeed." You'll be as free as I am. It says in Romans 8:2, through Christ Jesus, "the law of the spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death." 2 Corinthians 3:17, it says, "Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." So we are free in Jesus and we're called on to live as free people, but in order to do that, we have to understand what this freedom doesn't mean and what it does mean. II. Christian Freedom Does Not Indulge the Flesh (verse 13) First of all, Christian freedom does not indulge the flesh. Look at verse 13, "You my brothers were called to be free but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh" or as different translation says, "an opportunity for the flesh." So the first thing you need to know is know that you're free, truly free, free from sin, then don't sin! Don't use this new freedom you have as an opportunity to indulge the flesh. Now, first of all, this is the very thing Paul's opponents were saying that his doctrine was open to, that he's an Antinomian. He's saying the law doesn't mean anything anymore. You don't need to be circumcised. It doesn't matter how you live. Jesus has come to set you free. He's saying, "This is not what we're teaching." He says in Romans 3:8, "Why not say as we are being slanderously reported as saying and that some claim that we say. Let us do evil that good may result." They had got the doctrine wrong. Wherever the true Gospel appears and starts to preach this kind of freedom, immediately people start saying, "Well, then if that's true, you can sin as much as you want and still go to heaven." Ever heard people say that? If that's true that you're forgiven for all your sins, past present and future in an instant by faith, then what's going to stop people from being wicked and immoral? They haven't understood the Gospel. They haven't understood this freedom that Paul is talking about here. Jesus came to save us from sin completely like the angel said to Joseph, "You will give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins." So what does it mean now? It says, "You, my brothers were called to be free but do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh." What do we mean by flesh? We have to face this now full on. Try to understand this word. The Greek word flesh is "sarx." Sometimes that word has to do with just animal flesh, like the flesh of a bull or a goat, something like that, or flesh and bone. Jesus had flesh in His resurrection body. He said, "A spirit doesn't have flesh and bones, as you see I have." So it's the physical stuff you can touch, the stuff of the body. But usually in the New Testament, it has to do with a drive toward sin and an innate drive that we have toward rebellion and sin. The NIV doesn't just translate it into “flesh,” but in those cases every time it says “sinful nature.” It's the drive of our minds and bodies toward habitual rebellion against God. Now for years, we trained our minds and bodies by yielding to temptations. We are habitual. All of us, all people build up habits. It's why athletes practice free throws over and over and over, so that just have the muscle memory. They don't even think about it. They just do it. So we were with sin. We just had trained ourselves for years in sin. It's habitual rebellion. So there's an inner drive of self-worship, making the most of myself, thinking about ourselves all the time. I don't know if you remember a few years ago, the yellow pages. Do you guys even remember the yellow pages? Some of you do. All right. The rest of you, over the last few years, you see them at the bottom or at the end of peoples’ driveways, getting soaked with rain. Have you seen that? I felt sorry for the people that did all the ads, and the delivery, and all that, all those people. But I didn't feel sorry enough to bring it in the house. But they had these clever ads about different things or advertisements in the yellow page. Now really funny, there are a lot of funny ones. But I like this one. A room full of really eccentric Hollywood-type people wearing interesting clothes and all that. And they're just going around just doing all this boasting and just talking in this kind of way. Boasting about themselves and all this sort of stuff. And finally this one woman with this elaborate outfit and all that she says, "Well enough about me. Let's talk about you. What do you think about my hat?" And then the word was vanity cases. I don't know if I even know what a vanity case is but it's just a bunch of egotists that are out there… But that's us. A relentless drive to me-ism. What's making me happy? What makes me feel good? That's the essence of the flesh. And it drives normal bodily desires beyond boundaries that God set up. Eating becomes gluttony. Drinking wine becomes drunkenness. Marital relations becomes adultery and fornication and other sins, sexual sins. So that's the flesh, it drives beyond boundaries. Possession becomes materialism, that kind of thing. Good gifts get abused by the flesh. Now, how could our freedom then be an opportunity for the flesh? Well the word “opportunity” here, often you could picture it as a base of operations. Think about World War II, think about D-Day Normandy. Okay, June 6, 1944. On June 7, 1944, this beachhead was expanded, the hard one the blood-soaked beach there was used as a base of operations for the Allies to begin their reconquest of France and of all of Europe. And so man and materials and arms and food and supplies were just pouring in now. Pouring in on this beachhead. Well, that's the picture here, don't use this freedom as a beachhead for the flesh to serve its lust. That's what he's saying here. Don't do this. And this happens when Christians think this way, "It really doesn't matter how I live now that I'm forgiven. It doesn't matter how I live now that I'm definitely going to heaven. I'll be forgiven no matter what I do, I'll go to heaven no matter what. Once saved, always saved. Right? Isn't that what the pastor said? So I can live however I want and I can do whatever I want without being too worried about what will happen after I die." Now this kind of doctrine has been around since the beginning of the church. In 2 Peter chapter 2, Peter the apostle is writing against false teachers but not the legalist type, the license type. It says of them, "They promise their disciples freedom while they themselves are slaves of depravity, for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him." And it says of them, "With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning. They're experts in greed and accursed brood." So they're teaching this. They're openly, in 2 Peter 2, teaching that because of Christ, it doesn't matter what you do with your body, you're still going to heaven. Well that's not true. It's a lie from the pit of hell. It matters very much whether you're fighting for holiness. Very much. If you are a Christian, you will fight the flesh. Absolutely. That's what's being taught. Now, in our day, you have forms of, kind of, cotton candy Christianity. You see it easily in the media. You can see it on networks and other things. You can see preachers getting up there avoiding controversial topics, saying things that everyone likes, things that everyone can agree on, staying positive, want to be positive. Don't want to be talk about difficult topics, like pornography or other wickedness and sins in our culture. We don't want to discuss these things. We want to stay positive. Well, in Luke 6:26 it says, "Woe to you when all men speak well of you for that's how they spoke about the false prophets." But what would cause everyone to speak well about a teacher? Well, if he always stays positive people would be tempted to speak positive things about him all the time. False teachers. We have to be willing to address the hard issues of facing issues of holiness and issues of sin and controversial topics and standing in there and speaking words of righteousness into the lives of those who are completely forgiven for sin. And that's the very thing I want to do here. How do we live this out? There's so much worldliness today. So much indulgence of worldly input, from internet, movies, and books and magazines. And Christians go trolling through the sewer system of our culture to try to find some pleasure. And it's deadly dangerous to our souls. And we're thinking, "You know, God will forgive me, God will protect me. It doesn't matter what I look at on the internet." Well, it does matter. "If your right eye cause you to sin," Jesus said, "gauge it out and throw it away. It's better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell." Why would he link lust to hell? Because that's what we're talking about here, the deadly dangerous sin. Well, how does the New Testament refute this? Well, Peter refutes it in one verse. 1 Peter 2:16, "Live as free men but do not use your freedom as a cover up for evil. Live as servants of God." So freedom shouldn't be a cloak for evil. Not at all, any more than in Galatians here, it should not be a base of operations for evil. That's not what freedom was meant for, to live however you want. Paul then spends three chapters refuting it in Roman 6-8. Remember, he says at the end of Romans five, "Where sin abounds," what? "grace abounds all the more." If that's not one of the sweetest verses in the bible I don't know what is. Amen. Hallelujah! I have likened that verse before to this. This is the image I have. I can't shake it, it's just in my head. I need a new one because as a preacher you need new images. But this is the one I have. Grace is like the Pacific Ocean and sin is like a fire. And someone's fire is like a match and someone's like a torch and someone is like a beach bonfire and someone's sin is like the Twin Towers on September 11th. But if you take that match and you put it in the Pacific Ocean it goes out. And you take that torch and you put it in the Pacific Ocean it goes out. And you take that bonfire, you put it in the Pacific Ocean it goes out. You even take the World Trade Center, you put it in the Pacific Ocean, it goes out. God's Grace is greater than all of our sins. And that's an awesome thing, but the next thing he says in Romans 6 is, "What then, shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase, may it never be." So as part of my job as a pastor and discipler is to make you say that with more and more vehemence, even violence, as you go on in your Christian life. "Shall I go on sinning so that grace may increase, may it never be," that you would be violent about temptations. That you'll be angry about the poison it's trying to bring in your life and say, "I've gotta fight this, it's deadly evil." So Romans 6:11, I've got to count myself dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. "What then shall we," verse 15, "shall we sin because we're not under law but under grace? By no means. You are the servant to the one you actually submit yourself to and obey, whether it's sin which leads to death or to obedience which leads to righteousness and into eternal life." Then he says, as Jessica said earlier, in Romans 8:1-4, "Therefore, there's now no condemnation," well, for anybody? No, for a specific category of people. Who? Who is there no condemnation for? Well, "There's therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus," comma not period comma, "because through Christ Jesus the law of the spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do and that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His son in the likeness of the flesh, and so we condemn sin in the flesh in order that," listen to this, "the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live by the flesh but by the spirit." So if you're living by the flesh, there's condemnation for you because you're not a Christian. That's the logic of Romans 8. It is, read it right through. If you're living by the spirit there's no condemnation for you. And then he says the culmination for me is there Romans 8:13-14. "If you indulge or live according to the flesh, you will die, [that means go to hell] But if by the spirit, you put to death the misdeeds of the body you'll live, [that means go to heaven] Because those who are led by the spirit of God, those are the children of God." You see, it's clear isn't it? Every Christian is at war and that's where we're going in Galatians five, just look at the next verse and verse 16 at the end. There's a war between the spirit and the flesh. We'll talk about it God willing, very soon. So let me just immediately stop and apply this. How are you using your freedom? Just assess your own life right now. Do you think I'm forgiven and will be cleansed by grace while you look at internet pornography; is that going on for you? Do you think it doesn't matter what books I read, it doesn't matter what novels I read, what romantic novels or different things, it doesn't matter what magazines I look at? It doesn't make any impact on me what movies I watch. I'm not under law. Do you bristle when pastors, like me, meddle in matters of personal lifestyle, thinking that such preaching is really legalistic? Do you think I can skip my quiet time so I can skip church regularly because I don't want to be legalistic in the Christian life, are you thinking like that? Do you think to have a regular time of intercessory prayer or Bible reading is legalistic, that you're going to be disciplined about that? Do you think that for FBC to emphasize the absolute need for personal holiness and the internal journey is legalistic? Do you use your freedom as a cover up for evil? Do you live as though all that matters is that grace is greater than all our sins or is there more truth besides that? III. Christian Freedom Serves Others in Love (verse 13) Now, not only are we not to indulge the flesh, we are to serve others in love. Look at verse 13 and following. "You my brothers were called to be free but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh, rather serve one another in love." As I've said, Christian freedom is the power to do what is right. To delight in what is right and to do it. That means not only pleasing God, but serving others. To stop being fanatically committed to yourself. Look around you, look around to the body of Christ, look around to the people around you and serve them in love, that's what it says. Christian freedom means serving others in love. "Now, not only are we not to indulge the flesh, we are to serve others in love. " Do you realize that what I've been saying is that you folks, you genuine Christians are infinitely rich? All of your needs are met. You're free from Satan and sin and death and hell? You're free to Christ, and to serve him and you're free to inherit the new heaven and the new earth, the home righteousness. You are wealthy. All your needs are met. So get busy serving others. You don't need anything, you see. That's how it works. Think about Jesus; you remember the night before he was crucified in John 13. He looked around and noticed a bunch of dirty feet, remember that story? And, I think, it's so interesting how in John 13, how John sets up the foot washing. He says, "Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart from the world and having loved his own, he loved them to the end," to the fullest extent then it says, "Jesus knew that the Father had given everything into His hands and that He had come from God and was going back to God." He knew all that. Well, you can know similar things about yourself. All right? So, "He got up from the supper, laid aside His robe, took a towel, tied it around himself, poured water in a basin, began to wash His disciples' feet drying them with the towel." So I think you Christians should do the same thinking, "I know that I'm a child of God. I know all my sins are forgiven, all my needs are going to be met, everything I need for life is going to be provided for me, I'm going to heaven when I die, that's all secure, what do I do now? Serve others in love, serve." So Jesus taught this, "You know that," in Matthew 20, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them and their high officials exercise authority over them not so with you, instead whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must be your slave, just as the son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many." So just stop for a moment and apply this point. By the power of the spirit, do you understand that we are enabled to forget about ourselves and live for others? Do you understand that? How is your life of service going? How's it going? What's going on in your life? Are you serving others in love? Are you using your freedom to live for other people? Is there a regular pattern of laying down your life in cheerful service to the needs of others? Are you visiting the sick? Are you evangelizing the lost? Are you caring for the elderly? Are you sacrificing for the poor? Are you counseling discouraged people or troubled people? Are you discipling people, building them up in their faith? Are you doing these things? Young people, let me speak to the young people, are you using that strength and energy that you have, and I admire it more with every passing year it's awesome. Are you using that strength and energy and freedom that you have to serve those that have less strength and energy than you have? Are you using it to help the elderly? Using it help people that are struggling because they can't take care of their houses as much now, maybe a widow? Are you using your time and energy to serve others? Rich people, okay, please don't anyone slink down at this moment, all you rich people, alright, are you using your money to advance the gospel? Are you using your money for the relief of the poor? Are you using your money to support some of those young and energetic people who want to set themselves apart for ministry and just need money to do it? Homeowners, is there a regular pattern of hospitality in your life? Can I just stop and say for a moment, I just want to say thank you to all of you that are hosting home fellowships. I want to just say thank you and I would urge all of you that are attending home fellowships but are not hosting home fellowships, to thank your host families tonight. It's a lot of work. They labor for you to serve you. I just want to say thank you. Let me just say big picture, I have never been in a church like FBC that has so much of a heart of self sacrificial service, this is a great church in that regard. I find, I have been blessed for 16 years by the generosity and the prayers, notes of encouragement, ways that you all have loved on me and my family more than I can count. I'm just saying, I'm asking and urging you in the Lord to do so more and more. Let's serve one another in love. I already see this up and running at FBC, let's do it more and more, Amen. And if you're not involved, be involved, serve one another in love. Paul says in verse 14, Christian freedom fulfills law, "the whole law is fulfilled in this one word, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" The whole law fulfilled in this one word, that's a mystery. Jesus gave us two commandments, right? First and greatest commandment is love the lord your God with all your hearts soul mind and strength. Second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. Everything hangs on these two, this is the second table of the law, the human aspect. This moral law is still binding on us Christians. Do you know that? We're set free from the law’s condemning power but now we are empowered to love God and to love our neighbor and that fulfills the law. We must obey the law by the power of the spirit. Now, God's law is excellent, isn't it? It's the best possible way to live and that's what I'm saying to you, you want to live the best life? Live the law. Not to forgive you for your sins, not to earn God's smile or favor but because this is the best way you can possibly live. I like this, Psalm 119:97, "Oh, how I love your law, I meditate on it all day long." Well, Psalm 19, "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The statues of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the lord is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the Lord are sure and all together righteous. They are more precious than gold, even than much pure gold, they're sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb." so the law gives us these commandments, you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal or bear false witness. Paul says in Romans 13, "Love doesn't harm your neighbor, so love is the fulfillment of the law." But we know it goes beyond just not just harming, we are serving one another in love. It's a whole different kind of life. Finally, Christian freedom does not destroy others, look at verse 15, he says "If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you'll be destroyed by each other." This is really grievous. After Paul left, this beautiful little Christian community, fell apart because of these false teachers. Legalism came in and made them mean. Legalism came in and made them mean. They started judging each other, and being judged, resenting being judged but then feeling superior to others, that's just what the legalism does. It makes communities mean. But it's a problem for everybody. This is human nature. Have you ever heard the expression, "It's a dog-eat-dog world out there?" It's like acting like beasts and that's what this verse says, "If you keep on biting and devouring, ripping flesh, you're going to be destroyed by each other." Well, when the flesh takes over, what happens in a marriage? This. When the flesh takes over in a parent-child relationship, what happens in that relationship? This happens. If false doctrine, either legalism or license, comes into a church, what starts to happen? This. I've seen it with my own eyes. Those of you who've been here my whole 16 years, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Biting, devouring, acting like animals and it's wickedness. So Christian freedom is the anecdote to this, Amen. Treat each other not like dog eating dog, but we treat each other like brothers and sisters in Christ who are delighted to spend eternity with each other. That's what the Spirit does. Friends, we've been set free. We've been set free from sin, we're not going to use that freedom to indulge the flesh. We're rather going to serve each other in an increasing pattern of self-sacrifice to one another and we're going to stop acting like animals. We're going to act like holy people who are delighted to be on a journey to heaven together. Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the things we've learned today, so much to know and Father I pray that you would teach us the Law now not as a way to justify ourselves from our sins but as a beautiful, the most perfect way to live. Teach us to love one another and serve one another. And Father, I pray that you would be working in the hearts of lost people, unregenerate people within the sound of my voice. Bring them to salvation through Faith in Christ. In your name, I pray. Amen.
© 2020-2025 Ivy Podcast Discovery LLC
