arapahoepark
Puritan Board Professor
Guilt by association much?
I wouldn't put PCRA next to crazy Dispensationalists.
Help understanding Paul Washer on assurance?
- Thread starter RamistThomist
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I wouldn't put PCRA next to crazy Dispensationalists.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
If he is presuming damnation or that one is unregenerate, yes. By contrast, I am not presuming election or regeneration. I am presuming God's covenant promise.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Self-examination is fine. Morbid introspection is not. Presuming damnation is out of the question.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
I'm not saying don't examine yourselves. By all means. But Paul is speaking to people who were tolerating sleeping with stepmothers, getting drunk at communion, denying the resurrection, and following false teachers. By that criteria I am doing fine.
Jerusalem Blade
Puritan Board Professor
I think a Biblical balance would solve the difficulties we're having as regards assurance. I've been reading a book lately, Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal ( ISBN 13: 9780853642664), by Richard Lovelace, and want to quote from “Chapter 6, The Renewal of the Local Congregation”. I'll comment a little after the quote.
[End Lovelace]
I do have some reservations with Lovelace's book, but parts of it are profound with simple clarity of spiritual, Biblical insight. And I'm a learner in this school of Christ and the Holy Spirit myself. I started near the middle of the book where he spoke of things I am interested in, but then – really intrigued by his wisdom – began for a while from the beginning, but then continued again in the middle. The book is a tonic to me!
I may shortly be laboring in a congregation again (my doctors have given me a clean bill of health), and this is a matter dear to my heart, both as a pastor and as a disciple – a robust and deep spiritual life such as is our portion as God's children in Christ. Stephen Charnock once said, "A man may be theologically knowing and spiritually ignorant." I would like to grow in this area of my walk, and would like to bring the flock into it as well. Justification is the foundation of our relationship with God, part of the gift of His adopting us, but so also is Sanctification, which the indwelling Holy Spirit produces in us as He enables us both to will and to do His good pleasure. I need to grow in this, and I need to know Him better.
Justification is such a blessing, especially when I fail; I can, as I am in Christ, repair to our Father for the lavish love and strengthening He gives His beloved children, so I may again walk the highway of holiness. I'm heading to the City of God, I am.
While evangelical churches have been preaching incessantly on the love of God since the Moody era, in far too many instances the justifying work of Christ has not been spelled out and balanced by an equal stress on sanctification, so that the grace of God can be both intelligible and credible for the individual believer. Many of our people are severely enculturated [i.e., worldly] because their relationship to Christ is so insecure that they are not free to cut loose from cultural support. So we must first make real to them the grace of God in accepting them daily, not because of their spirituality or their achievements in Christian service, but because God has accounted to them the perfect righteousness of Christ.
This may seem like the most elemental concept in the Protestant tradition but it is just as rare an act of faith among Protestants as among Catholics. We all automatically gravitate toward the assumption that we are justified by our level of sanctification, and when this posture is adopted it inevitably focuses our attention not on Christ but on the adequacy of our own obedience. We start our day with our personal security resting not on the accepting love of God and the sacrifice of Christ but on our present feelings or recent achievements in the Christian life. Since these arguments will not quiet the human conscience, we are inevitably moved either to discouragement and apathy or to a self-righteousness which falsifies the record to achieve a sense of peace.
Much that we have interpreted as a defect of sanctification in churchpeople is really an outgrowth of their loss of bearing with respect to justification. Christians who are no longer sure that God loves and accepts them in Jesus, apart from their present spiritual achievements, are subconsciously radically insecure persons—much less secure than non-Christians, because they have too much light to rest easily under the constant bulletins they receive from their Christian environment about the holiness of God and the righteousness they are supposed to have….
….As P.T. Forsyth says, “It is an item of faith that we are children of God; there is plenty of experience in us against it.” [P.T Forsyth, Christian Perfection, p 9] The faith that surmounts this evidence and is able to warm itself at the fire of God’s love, instead of having to steal love and self-acceptance from other sources, is actually the root of holiness….
[For] as Forsyth points out, justifying faith must necessarily be repentant faith. It must be the kind of faith which proceeds to sanctify the whole life. Where justification is preached without an equal stress on sanctification, the good news as always perceived as “too good to be true.” People may say they believe it and try to pacify their consciences with the message of cheap grace, but they will not succeed in believing the truth about God’s grace until they believe the truth about themselves and begin to strive to change what they see.
We cannot claim Christ’s justifying work without claiming at the same time his delivering power for sanctification. Thus Paul says, “We are convinced that one died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Cor. 5:14-15). Real justifying and sanctifying faith involves death and resurrection for the believer; it involves being born again. Every minister who is aiming toward a renewed congregation must seek to bring every individual member into the light concerning the depth of his or her need to appropriate the justifying and sanctifying work of Christ through a response of faith….
…. Beyond the goal of a regenerate congregation, the minister aiming at renewal must work toward one in which the members are growing in sanctification and making progress at conquering sin in their lives. (pp 211, 212, 213, 214)
_____This may seem like the most elemental concept in the Protestant tradition but it is just as rare an act of faith among Protestants as among Catholics. We all automatically gravitate toward the assumption that we are justified by our level of sanctification, and when this posture is adopted it inevitably focuses our attention not on Christ but on the adequacy of our own obedience. We start our day with our personal security resting not on the accepting love of God and the sacrifice of Christ but on our present feelings or recent achievements in the Christian life. Since these arguments will not quiet the human conscience, we are inevitably moved either to discouragement and apathy or to a self-righteousness which falsifies the record to achieve a sense of peace.
Much that we have interpreted as a defect of sanctification in churchpeople is really an outgrowth of their loss of bearing with respect to justification. Christians who are no longer sure that God loves and accepts them in Jesus, apart from their present spiritual achievements, are subconsciously radically insecure persons—much less secure than non-Christians, because they have too much light to rest easily under the constant bulletins they receive from their Christian environment about the holiness of God and the righteousness they are supposed to have….
….As P.T. Forsyth says, “It is an item of faith that we are children of God; there is plenty of experience in us against it.” [P.T Forsyth, Christian Perfection, p 9] The faith that surmounts this evidence and is able to warm itself at the fire of God’s love, instead of having to steal love and self-acceptance from other sources, is actually the root of holiness….
[For] as Forsyth points out, justifying faith must necessarily be repentant faith. It must be the kind of faith which proceeds to sanctify the whole life. Where justification is preached without an equal stress on sanctification, the good news as always perceived as “too good to be true.” People may say they believe it and try to pacify their consciences with the message of cheap grace, but they will not succeed in believing the truth about God’s grace until they believe the truth about themselves and begin to strive to change what they see.
We cannot claim Christ’s justifying work without claiming at the same time his delivering power for sanctification. Thus Paul says, “We are convinced that one died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Cor. 5:14-15). Real justifying and sanctifying faith involves death and resurrection for the believer; it involves being born again. Every minister who is aiming toward a renewed congregation must seek to bring every individual member into the light concerning the depth of his or her need to appropriate the justifying and sanctifying work of Christ through a response of faith….
…. Beyond the goal of a regenerate congregation, the minister aiming at renewal must work toward one in which the members are growing in sanctification and making progress at conquering sin in their lives. (pp 211, 212, 213, 214)
[End Lovelace]
I do have some reservations with Lovelace's book, but parts of it are profound with simple clarity of spiritual, Biblical insight. And I'm a learner in this school of Christ and the Holy Spirit myself. I started near the middle of the book where he spoke of things I am interested in, but then – really intrigued by his wisdom – began for a while from the beginning, but then continued again in the middle. The book is a tonic to me!
I may shortly be laboring in a congregation again (my doctors have given me a clean bill of health), and this is a matter dear to my heart, both as a pastor and as a disciple – a robust and deep spiritual life such as is our portion as God's children in Christ. Stephen Charnock once said, "A man may be theologically knowing and spiritually ignorant." I would like to grow in this area of my walk, and would like to bring the flock into it as well. Justification is the foundation of our relationship with God, part of the gift of His adopting us, but so also is Sanctification, which the indwelling Holy Spirit produces in us as He enables us both to will and to do His good pleasure. I need to grow in this, and I need to know Him better.
Justification is such a blessing, especially when I fail; I can, as I am in Christ, repair to our Father for the lavish love and strengthening He gives His beloved children, so I may again walk the highway of holiness. I'm heading to the City of God, I am.
Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
Yes, this point is often one that is all too easily overlooked. I know of one man who has not had assurance for over a decade. When talking to a close friend of his, I remarked that this person was probably not visiting hookers every night and that his doubt was a greater sin than the other sins which were causing him to doubt his salvation.
You've thrown this line out a few times now. But that wouldn't be a simple exhaustive list of sins to compare ourselves to, right?
The catechisms rightly open up the ten commandments on this point. The reformed and puritans have maintained a law/gospel distinction and robust view of the three uses of the law. Certainly introspection is required. And in our current context the modern man is blessed with a wealth of biblical knowledge and information but a cursed saturation of worldliness that pervades even our reformed world.
Even more, with this seasons newfound appreciation of gospel-centered/focused preaching, in many churches there is an obsession with "finding Christ in every passage" to a degree that the third use of the law is diminished and we are simply left with platitudes of "trust in the promises of God" and "rest in Christ's finished work" snuck in nearly if not all sermons. The balance has been lost. Many moderns seemingly loathe the calls to the particular forms of holiness, with retorts that it's legalism and causing people to doubt their salvation, and would prefer we rather just focus on the theological truths of God's work. I think Beeke, Washer, et al are working within their respective contexts we are familiar with (hypercalvinism, presumptive regeneration) to restore some of this balance and likewise have an eye out to the problems that plague the church at large (lax Christianity). That will create an emphasis, especially as informed by our puritan fathers.
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RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Of course it isn't an exhaustive list, but it is the context of Corinth from which the verse came.
I am not sure what "finding Christ in every passage" has to do with the promises.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
I grant one of your points, though. If you divorce "promise talk" from the third use of the Law, you have problems.
Solparvus
Puritan Board Senior
I am trying to read through Mark Jones' book on Antinomianism, subtitled "Antinomian's Unwelcome Guest?". He shares a similar concern. Historically, it's interesting how much of the Westminster was written in response to the antinomian controversy of its day. I'll be frank, some of the antinomian views he points out were views which I (ignorantly) held not too long ago myself, or was at least open to them. Not having finished the book, I'm guessing the question mark is in the title because perhaps antinomianism is only nominally unwelcome in Reformed circles, or unbeknownedst has a backdoor in.
A few years ago Tchividian--a clear antinomian--was quite popular not just among the standard evangelical dispie Baptist, but among those who call themselves Reformed. By that, I mean anyone who would claim to be fans of Calvin, Edwards, the Puritans, Reformers, even if all they have in common is four of the five points. These are the kind of people who would be able, far as they think, to assent to the terms of membership here on PB.
From my own experience, I certainly agree with what's been said that self-examination should be done keeping in mind God's promises. The grace of God enables us to be thoroughly honest with ourselves as to our real condition--because no matter how bad our condition, God will be merciful to the one who believes and turns. And our children already have a great inducement to mercy via church membership and baptism, which are powerful witnesses to that promise. Bare law only makes a bigger sinner.
However, the Tchividian types throw up an immediate barrier to anything approaching on self-examination or even true holiness. In their book, the First Commandment is in substance "Thou shalt not morbidly introspect thyself." I recount a conversation with a friend a year and a half ago, one who at least is in tune with the Reformed world. He tried throwing RC Sproul's analysis of Martin Luther at me to support his antinomian views, and not for anything could I get him to see that 1 John calls the reality of our faith to account according to fruits. I was a member of a Reformed Baptist church which was split by people infected with antinomianism. And not "I don't need to obey" antinomianism, but "we need to think more about our justification to become holy" antinomianism. The antinomian types are experts on grace far as they know. The remedy to antinomianism is multifaceted, but among them includes a man to starkly set before them what fruit grace should be bearing.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
I'll summarize my point like this: as Calvinists we believe sin touches the root (radix) over everything. If you look for sin in your hearts, you are going to find it. If you try to run an exhaustive list when you examine yourself, you will never finish. That's why some in Dutch American churches are 80 years old and never take the Lord's Supper, even though they've never missed a Sunday.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Fair point. Not all "promise-types" share Tchividian's disastrous ministry. Klaas Schilder reacted against the morbid introspection of Kuyperianism and he certainly wasn't an antinomian (he's usually [wrongly] accused of being neonomian).
Solparvus
Puritan Board Senior
Fully agreed. I myself agree that promises must be presented in conjunction with the preaching of law or self-examination. Bare law makes a bigger sinner, and one must be taught of God (Jn 6:45, 1 John 2) to even know what sin is, or how deep it runs--which means you can only know it in a gracious relationship. Tchividian types are not wrong to highlight grace itself, but they are wrong as to what is gracious, what is not, how grace works, and grace's practical result. In other words, they don't get it.
Pilgrim
Puritanboard Commissioner
In some circles, it coincides with the idea that there should only be indicatives in preaching, and no imperatives.
Edit: More specifically, about 10 years ago, you may recall that a controversy erupted over "Redemptive historical preaching" in which some argued that you shouldn't have any application in preaching.
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Pilgrim
Puritanboard Commissioner
To some degree, I think we're talking past each other and reacting what we think the other's position must lead to.
Based on most of what you've written on this subject in recent days, if I didn't know better, I'd think that you'd denounce the Q&As in the WLC on the 10 Commandments as outrageous legalism. And that's exactly what a lot of people in allegedly "confessional" Reformed churches do, including some pastors.
If I didn't know better, I'd think that a conversation might go something like this:
Watson: "Knowledge without repentance is a torch to light men to hell."
"Forget about that old boy, just look to your baptism and ponder your justification. All that repentance stuff is for drunkards and whores." (Yes, some people really do think this way. And they are legion. The Baptist version is "remember that time you prayed to receive Christ" and an insistence that we should never have any doubts whatsoever.) Hence my "After all, this is the Puritanboard" statement.
So we keep going round and round.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
I recently memorized the shorter catechism, including the ten commandments part. I've never denied repentance. I simply say we shouldn't look inward for assurance. To be sure, knowledge of ongoing sin can tell us where we need to do better, but I wouldn't make it the font of assurance.
I am not surprised to hear that. There are two tendencies or standpoints, which to some extent we see exemplified on this very thread, and they can come out at very different places. They can be identified by their response to "assurance is of the essence of faith."
For one group, that is a very comforting statement. Almost any qualification of it meets with resistance. They want assurance baked right into the crust of their believing.
For the other group, that statement is very disquieting. If assurance is of the essence of faith, and they lack assurance, what conclusion can they draw but that they also lack faith? This second group is often helped by very "searching" books and preaching; in order to help them through the slough of despond you have to get into the weeds and distinguish one thing and another very narrowly, as John Bunyan struggled through in Grace Abounding.
Both groups agree in desiring assurance, in thinking of it as something good. But they differ widely in their approach, no doubt for many reasons. If you belong to the first group, it's worthwhile asking yourself why you find comfort where others find terror. The danger here will be that of resting on a profession of orthodox faith and an outwardly moral life, becoming complacent rather than truly dependent. When in good spiritual health, this group will emphasize the sufficiency of Christ, which is of course a tremendous engine of sanctification and comfort.
If you are in the second group, it's worthwhile asking yourself why others find comfort where you find terror. Is the tendency to conclude against yourself relating more to a lack of faith or to the presence of profound self-knowledge? You'll know you're standing on the rock, not by feeling your feet, but by feeling the rock (as H.C.G. Moule memorably put it). In other words, is self, even if self in miserable forms, distracting you from Christ?
If the groups are going to communicate to any profit, it would be helpful to understand the other side a little bit. It's not wrong to resist being distracted from holding the Head! And someone experiencing an intense struggle for clarity and peace, and needing detailed help in that, is no cause for contempt. Today they may be a bruised reed; tomorrow they might be the next Bunyan.
lifelong_sinner
Puritan Board Freshman
I am indeed a false convert and yes, the result of my understanding that im a false convert is why i have much despair concerning my salvation. Paul washer showed me, he did nothing wrong by explaining why there are so many false converts in our churches today. Lots of people dont like Paul washers sermons, but i do believe his strong point is to reveal why we need Jesus and how getting saved shouldnt be viewed as simply a get out of hell free card.
Dear Raul, I will pray for you. Have you spoken to your pastor or elders about the condition you find yourself in? If not, I strongly encourage you to approach them immediately.
I entirely agree that "getting saved" is not a "get out of hell free card." Those who think that way reveal that their genuine concern is not sin but punishment. But while it's morally good for sinners to be punished, it's not morally good to be a sinner, so I think it's clear which should be considered the worse evil.
Now the Lord Jesus came to deal with sin and to deliver us from it. "All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven." Before you resign yourself to despair, in other words, ask yourself if there is any hope apart from Christ. The answer is no, as your post above reveals. But if God has shut you up to the only true hope, that isn't for the purpose of destruction or despair; it's so that in Christ you will find a sufficiency, an abundance, of grace. The well-known words remain true: "All that the Father gives to me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." (John 6:37). "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:27)
A sinner like you needs the Lord Jesus as a savior. It doesn't matter if previous efforts didn't take. It doesn't matter if you were converted before or not. What matters is that today you should appeal to Christ to save you, in all your corruption and inadequacy and even insincerity. Don't dishonor Christ by thinking that you're too much for him to save; realize that he is able to deliver you even from that sin. May the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ break in upon you very soon.
lifelong_sinner
Puritan Board Freshman
Hello py3ak. You have revealed 2 issues of mine, which further prove my false conversion. One is the issue of fear of punishment vs sin. I get that sin is bad, but its similar to speeding on the highway is bad. Speeding is bad, but only because govt said so. Thats my mindset.
And the other issue is that while i have tried to find a relationship with Jesus, i just cant. I dont feel the weight of sin, my despair is over the punishment of hell. But do i fear God? Absolutely, but not in the christian sense. I fear Him more in the light of His wrath. Mercy?? I dont see how a just God can show mercy. He must give to each what they deserve.
alexanderjames
Puritan Board Sophomore
I am praying for you.
Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world.
Hear the words of the Lord in Joel 2,
"Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:
And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil.'
And in Isaiah 45,
"Look to Me, and be saved,
All you ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other."
I think we're both getting old. I believe that controversy is more like 10-20 years old as it was roiling in the SoCal OPC Presbytery when I was a member there. Lee Irons was a huge proponent of the idea that you should never make application in sermons and leave it to the Holy Spirit. A person was only ever told how Christ fulfilled the Law if the Law was discussed at all. He (and others) rejected the Westminster Standards ideas on how the Law operates for believers under the Covenant of Grace.
I've often found that this kind of thinking is just that: "thinking". There seems to be an obsession with the idea that a believer must constantly think correctly lest he run the danger of depending upon himself instead of Christ. The Scriptures (and the Standards) certainly put emphasis on how we reckon ourselves but it is rooted not in "how we reckon" but in the fact that we are united to Christ. Thus, although my ability to "think properly" may not always be perfect, if I'm united to Christ then He is working by his Spirit to renew me.
Toward that end, for instance, when you read Owen on mortification, he points out that the fear of laws or the disapproval of men may be the very thing that turns us away from sinning in some way. Certain forms of the above thinking would find it virtually abhorrent that a person didn't sin in some way because they were not "thinking the right way". That is to say, they were afraid of the law and its punishments. If we consider ourselves in Christ under the Covenant of Grace, however, then we can thank God that He even used our feeble motivations or the threats of punishment to keep us from sinning in a certain way. It moves the locus away from "thinking perfectly" to what Christ is working (both with the good and the bad) toward our good and His glory.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
For the record I never said assurance was the essence of faith. In our post-Cartesian world, that statement can be problematic. Neither did I endorse redemptive-historical preaching (though it has its place). Focusing on the promises is not the same as finding Jesus in every Rock.
Raul, this is the sort of situation where it isn’t ideal for strangers on the internet to be your only interlocutors. Please do speak with the pastor or one of the elders at your church tomorrow.
Here are two things to think about in the meantime:
1. Do you wish for God to have mercy upon you? It kind of sounds that way.
2. Do you object to God’s righteous punishment? It doesn’t sound like it.
Along with acknowledging that God is holy and just, we also acknowledge that he is sovereign and free. It doesn’t make human sense that God forgives sin; but that is what he told us in Isaiah 55:8-9. God showing mercy also demonstrates how much higher his thoughts are than ours. “Judge not the Lord by feeble sense” is a good rule. His mercy is astonishing; if it were not divine it would be unbelievable. But it is divine: and the channel for mercy to flow to us with uncompromised righteousness was opened by the sacrifice of Christ.
Pilgrim
Puritanboard Commissioner
Yes, that case does seem to be perhaps an early preview. I was thinking of some criticisms that John Carrick and others made against redemptive historical preaching (or r-h taken to an extreme, maybe) around 10 years ago. Around that time, the denigration of exemplary preaching etc had become much more widespread including among Southern Baptists. I think this is probably a good summary. https://banneroftruth.org/us/resour...d-the-decline-of-the-preaching-of-repentance/
Ironically, if I’m not mistaken, some of these same preachers have little hesitation today when it comes to applications in preaching that pertain to various “social justice” issues.
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Pilgrim
Puritanboard Commissioner
Look to Christ, friend. Our feelings aren’t a reliable guide. And I don’t think that Washer would place that much emphasis on them. If we are looking for something in ourselves to merit acceptance by God, we aren’t going to find it.
That being said, your feelings may be an indication that God is doing a work (or has done a work) in you. The typical reprobate in our culture usually isn’t troubled with the fear of God or with having a relationship with him. The kind of issue some of us have been referring to is a man who places too much weight on his baptism or a prayer he said or whatever and never has a doubt about his relationship with Christ no matter how wicked he may be.
If God can show mercy to the wicked Ninevites under Jonah’s preaching, surely he can show mercy to us.
“For every look at self — take ten looks at Christ!” Robert Murray M’Cheyne.
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De Jager
Puritan Board Junior
He shows mercy by uniting a person to Christ in his death and resurrection. He is our federal head. It is a legal arrangement that satisfies God's justice. God says in his word that it satisfies his justice. You may not understand how that could be, but do you believe him?
alexanderjames
Puritan Board Sophomore
@lifelong_sinner
How are you?
How are you?
lifelong_sinner
Puritan Board Freshman
Im good, and you?
alexanderjames
Puritan Board Sophomore
Yes I’m well thank you. I just wanted to ask how you were in light of comments you had made in the thread. Do you think you have made any progress since you in knowing God in Christ?
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