Scripture references:
2 Corinthians 11:3
Romans 7:15ff
Galatians 5:17
Ephesians 4:27, 6:12ff
James 1:13-15, 4:7
1 Peter 5:8
1 John 1:8-2:2, 3:8
Resources:
Our primer on assurance
Our episode on "How Much Can a Christian Sin?"
Giveaway: "Safe in Christ: A Primer on Assurance" by Theocast
https://youtu.be/3B25jZtPvOk
Semper Reformanda Transcripts
Jon Moffitt: Welcome to Semper Reformanda. It is growing and we're excited.
Justin, this is a good example of what SR is going to probably look like going forward. Once in a while, you and I are going to grab some subjects that I think are very nuanced when it comes down to an internal theological debate amongst Reformed people. That's what today is going to really be. Why is it that we rest where we rest and why is it that our message in Christ finds its safety... the key is locked away, thrown into the bottom of the sea. It cannot be found and you will not be lost because you cannot be drawn without the safety of Christ.
We're going to walk through four sections of what we would say is an observation of what we hold as a traditional view of the Reformed/1689 perspective compared to some of the other traditions that are out there. The listener can use it as a means of encouragement, one, of how to disagree, and two, of looking at your options for what's available.
So starting with the evangelical perspective, which is not based upon tradition...
Justin Perdue: When we say that, we mean broad evangelical.
Jon Moffitt: So non-confessional, probably even non-Calvinistic. Just your typical evangelical church that is truth-believing. They do preach the gospel.
Justin Perdue: Think of your Baptist megachurch or your average Baptist church. Bible church, etc.
Jon Moffitt: Right. The tradition that I grew up in was that if you were ensnared in sin, you basically rededicated your life to the Lord and got baptized again. And then that was the way back into it.
Justin Perdue: At a minimum, you had to rededicate. You had to walk down to the front and do the whole thing, be there kneeling at the bench or talking to the pastor after. Or you're at some event where you're called to make some gesture. Every head is bowed, every eye is closed, and you raise your hand if you've rededicated. Or you're at some youth camp? And it's like, "Hey, if you know that you've blown it, you need to rededicate your life to Christ. Come put your stick in the fire." It's that kind of stuff.
Jon Moffitt: It is. So it's a rededication theology really. Instead of you being restored in the mercy of God, it's Prodigal Son 101. "I will do this. I'm going to rededicate myself to my father by being a servant." You're rededicating your life and you've got a reading plan now.
Justin Perdue: For the dear saints who are in such an environment, those who rededicate their lives over and over again, it's not their fault directly. They just were just taught what the Christian life looks like and the fact that it will be filled with sin and struggle. It does not mean that Christ no longer has you. It's just never been told to them before.
Another stream of theology that we had talked about a decent amount on the podcast that has a different view on this issue. This topic that we've discussed today is the Calvingelical, the Calvinistic-evangelical world. Jon, how would you describe their posture?
Jon Moffitt: These are well-known Calvinists. They often will have the term "Reformed" but they're not. You can go to our podcast on Reformed Theology. I've also done a short episode on that and there will be a primer on it. Not because we're trying to be jerks, but the clarification is important. Clarity is good.
Calvingelicals will be people that would not hold to a Reformed confession. They are not covenantal. They're not ordinary means of grace people. Guys like Matt Chandler and John MacArthur would fit in the Calvingelical category.
Now I'm not being mean. If someone says, "Oh, I can't believe you don't call them Reformed." A lot of these men that are running the T4G, they're not covenantal.
Justin Perdue: Or Gospel Coalition, too.
Jon Moffitt: They're not law-gospel, they're not confessional. So they are Calvingelical. That's kind of that crowd that we're talking about.
Justin Perdue: And in that world, when it comes to this question of sin and whether you're legit or not, the answer that's often given there is to look to the fruit in your life and look to your disciplines as evidence of the fact that you are legitimate. If you're not doing enough, then you should be concerned about your standing before the Lord. Because what you're probably going to do is demonstrate that you're an unbeliever. And in that world—we say this all the time, but it perhaps is worth repeating—there is this suspicion that the church is full of fakers, and that American Christianity has produced that. Now what we need to do, in one sense, is to purify the church and rid it of all of the false converts, and we need to smoke out the nominal Christians in name only. So that seems to be the project of at least some of the teaching in that world.
When it comes to the issue of assurance, it's often a very mixed presentation. There is comfort in Christ and there's the gospel preached. But then there always is this need to return back to the diligence and the faithfulness and the obedience of the Christian. If there's not enough of that, then concern should be there.
I guess my thought on that is that for the people like we're describing today, who are questioning, "Am I doing enough? Do I have enough faith?" People like that are going to be crushed in a Calvingelical environment.
Jon Moffitt: I would say the way I describe Calvingelical environments is they make Christianity hard. The harder, the better.
Justin Perdue: It's kind of that Green Beret Christianity. Only the strong survive.
Jon Moffitt: That's right. Those who are really going to be willing to do it.
I had a listener who was messaging us through Instagram listening to the recent David Platt thing. He was doing an underground church. He was describing to me some of the things that he was saying, and my conclusion was he's making Christianity really, really hard.
When I hear Jesus say, "Come to me, and I will give you rest. My yoke is easy and my burden is light," the Christ which Christianity is based off of is describing an easy form of Christianity, not a hard one.
Justin Perdue: Well, the Christian life is undoubtedly hard, but that's because of what we've been talking about today: the battle against the flesh and the battle against Satan.
Jon Moffitt: But the point of it is they make impossible statements about almost anyone. No one can live up to those expectations. If you think I am just winking at sin, wait for what we're about to say. I'm not winking at sin; what I am saying is that Christianity has an ordinariness to it that is not radically hard.
Secondly, it is to lead you to rest; it's not to lead you to anxiety. If what you are hearing on Sundays is leading you to anxiety and you're in sin, that's fine. Repent of your sin and go find rest. But if what you're hearing you can say, "I don't know of any unrepentant sin or sin that I'm just winking at," and yet you can't find rest, you are being bludgeoned. That's not shepherding; that's sheep-beating. That's very dangerous. I think the most obedient, sin-fighting people I know are the ones who fully rested in Christ. I see him all the time. Resting does not create laziness; resting creates energy. Because you're no longer striving to enter the gate because you're there.
Justin Perdue: Let's pivot to talk about one other tradition that is different from us when it comes to our understanding of these issues that we've discussed today: that is the Lutheran tradition. We obviously, here at Theocast, have a number of Lutheran friends and even a number of Lutheran listeners. We love our Lutheran brothers and sisters. There are so many points of agreement on justification, the nature of the gospel, the distinction between the law and the gospel, and theology of the cross. We could name a number of other things. Saint-sinner reality, all of that. We're completely there. But there are differences in how we understand the issues of Christians and sinning and our relationship to God, maybe between when that sin occurs and when restoration occurs and all that.
I'm going to read a few excerpts—just so that we're reading things from often referenced Lutheran works. That which I'm reading from is the kind of seminal work, the sort of magnum opus on law and gospel distinction in the Lutheran world, which is CFW Walther's The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel, which is a great book. I would highly commend it. But Walther is going to cite Martin Luther at a number of points in one of his lectures contained in this book, and then he's going to write some things himself concerning some of these things that we're talking about today.
Here are the words of Martin Luther first, and then I'm going to read some stuff from Walther, and then we'll just comment a little bit on it. And I think the difference will become clear.
This is Luther: "It is, accordingly, necessary to know and to teach that when holy men, still having and feeling original sin, also daily repenting of and striving with it, happen to fall into manifest sins, as David into adultery, murder, and blasphemy, that then faith and the Holy Ghost has departed from them. For the Holy Ghost does not permit sin to have dominion, to gain the upper hand so as to be accomplished, but represses and restraints it so that it must not do what it wishes." Here's Walther: "David had ceased to be a prophet enlightened by the Holy Spirit and a child of God when he fell into sin. Had he died in those days, he would have gone to perdition. Yea, that could have happened to him during the entire year before Nathan came to preach repentance to him; for David had pronounced the man who had committed the crime narrated by Nathan a doomed man, when Nathan told him, "Thou art the man," and showed him that he had uttered his own sentence: if he did not turn from his iniquity, he would go to hell and be damned." Walther continues, "The light of faith can be extinguished not only by gross sins, but by any willful, intentional sin. Accordingly, defection from faith occurs far oftener than we imagined." There are other passages that I could read even from this same lecture.
I want to be fair and charitable, but those statements both from Luther and from CFW Walther indicate a very different understanding than we have. Because Luther's take and Walter's take is this: that when Christians engage in mortal sins or heinous, grievous sins, like adultery or murder or blasphemy, or Christians engage in willful, intentional sins, then in those seasons, faith and the Holy Spirit depart from the Christian. Until restoration via repentance occurs, the Christian is actually in an apostate state and is in a state of condemnation and would go to perdition, should he or she die before being restored. Obviously, it's very different from the things that we've been saying today. And even what we read from our confession of faith, from the 1689 London Baptist Confession, where we understand that Christians often do find themselves mired in sin, even for long seasons. The Lord though has them and is working even through that sin to humble them, to discipline them, to teach them their dependence upon Him, and other good and holy purposes. Our relationship to God in a season of intentional sinning or in a season of heinous sinning is not changed nor jeopardized because God has and keeps his own, because the Lord Jesus says that he has us and we will never be plucked out of his hand, and we will be kept by faith until the day of salvation. It's a significant difference.
Jon Moffitt: It is. I think you're very gracious there and I think it's very helpful in understanding that when we're talking about the idea of Reformation, we're always trying to look at Scripture and look at how we can formulate a consistent understanding of Scripture. By no means did Walther or Luther come to their conclusions by whimsical or flimsy solutions. We respect them. We read them.
Justin Perdue: And we profit from them often. But we disagree with them on this point.
One of the things that is a comfort to us, for example: we are confessional Baptists, we confess the 1689 London Baptist Confession, and that confession of faith reads almost identical to the Westminster Confession of Faith and also the Savoy Declaration. All of these statements were produced in the 17th century, and there were a host of voices speaking into them. A lot of times, I think, people assume that Reformed Theology or Calvinism is just basically John Calvin's theology and that's just what we all believe. That really is a gross misrepresentation, because Reformed Theology is way bigger than Calvin, though Calvin has profited many of us like Luther and like Walther. But we have a confessional heritage that has many, many voices speaking into it. And there are many points at which we would disagree with Calvin and that's not a problem as far as you and I are concerned within the Reformed tradition.
Meaning to be gracious and charitable, but we do not, as a confessional Baptist, as Reformed guys, understand that Christians fall into apostasy, or fall from grace, and literally have faith in the Holy Ghost taken from us, the departing from us, because of our sin.
Jon Moffitt: That's just us trying to be consistent with the covenant of grace and passages that talk about...
Justin Perdue: Our understanding of the Scriptures.
Jon Moffitt: Right. The perseverance of the saints. I say it in that way because that's a simple way to house those passages. But it's very clear that those who are in Christ fully, by faith alone, sola fide cannot be out of Christ by action. You can't enter into Christ by faith and then lose that adoption by action. Now, many would say in the Reformed tradition, which I would agree with, is that that would be a false profession. For whatever their motivation might be, they professed publicly that they have faith in Christ, but never truly were given the gift of faith.
This is a scary thing to say for many people, but I have people in my life that I know that aren't in unrepentant sin right now. I do think they're believers. I honestly think that Satan has got them really tangled up. When I have interactions with them, I do the same thing as I always want to do: I love them, I care for them, and I want to call them to repentance. They're enslaved. I know they know the gospel. These people wouldn't even say that they don't. Their response to me was, "I don't know where my faith is, but I haven't walked away from God." That's how tangled up they are, and so that requires a lot of love and patience and calling to repentance. I look at that and think that God's mercy can cover a long period of time, because if it couldn't, then poor David would and is in a deep amount of trouble. I don't think David had a second salvation. I don't think that's what the text says.
Justin Perdue: I don't think that's what Psalm 51 is about.
Jon Moffitt: No. "Restore the joy of my salvation," not, "Restore my salvation."
Justin Perdue: "Renew a right spirit within me." He's asking for cleansing and all these things, which we ought to pray for. When we pray for mercy, that's what we're asking for: "Forgive me for my sins. And I know that you're faithful to do that in Christ, and you're faithful to cleanse me, to renew me, and take these burdens off of me anew."
Jon Moffitt: This becomes a conversation about apostasy. Even in Hebrews, which we haven't got to, and we probably need to do a whole episode on it. But when we understand someone who's tasted the gospel, who has seen the Spirit's work, and then walks away from it, the writer of Hebrews says there is no hope for that person. There is no other life outside of those truths. They heard them, they saw them, they tasted them, and they walked away.
Justin Perdue: They partook in some measure and then concluded they don't want it.
Jon Moffitt: That person wasn't declared as justified. They were in the presence of justification, but then it was not declared that.
Justin Perdue: This is perhaps a final thought in this episode. What we're all trying to do as theologians and what we're all trying to do as students of Scripture and all is to aim to study the Scriptures and derive from them a theological understanding and a theological framework that is consistent, that can help us as we sort through some of these very difficult things that we wrestle with in the Christian life, because the battle against sin is real, Satan is real, and this life is hard. We need to have the truth of God to cling to.
I know you and I were talking before we recorded this about why we are confessional Baptists. We are 1689 London Baptist Confession guys. One of the things for us, in terms of consistency in the way that the Scripture presents these matters, is we don't understand that anyone for whom Christ is mediator can ever be finally lost. And so our understanding of even the covenant of grace, and thereby the administration of baptism, is that we give the covenant sign to those who have made a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who have been united to him by faith. Our understanding is that if Christ is your mediator and you have been united to him, then you are safe and secure. And him keeping you is going to happen through living and active means, but he will do it. So we don't have a category for people who have Christ as mediator but may never trust him, or who have Christ as mediator who will fall away.
Jon Moffitt: In both cases, Justin, you and I can have someone who is in our covenant body. Let me put it this way: you and I have children. We could have children that are in the covenant community, being that their presence physically, they're externally participating, and they leave the community rejecting the truth. We would say Christ was never their mediator. God was never their Father. That's why we hold to a 1689 perspective, because we want to make sure that those who receive the sign of the covenant of grace are understanding that if you have received one faith and the sign, that you are now being mediated for by Christ and he does not fail. He's never failed as a mediator.
Justin Perdue: And when we say, "Remember your baptism," that's what we mean. Remember that you've been united to Christ by faith, and that you, by faith, have been baptized into him. You've been sealed with the promised Holy Spirit and Christ has you; rest in him and trust in him alone.
Jon Moffitt: Just trying to be consistent with Christ never failing as mediator, and why we hold that position.
Justin Perdue: We rarely do this where we draw some of these distinctions even between us and our Lutheran friends, and some of our Presbyterian and Reformed friends. We love you guys and we understand that the convictions that you have, you disagree with us. But we all agree. I think what we want to rejoice over is all of the overlap that we have and the fact that we all believe that Christ is enough and that Christ is sufficient. In this question of what the antidote is for the struggler who is wrestling with whether or not he or she is enough and faithful enough, it's do not look within because you will never find it. Look to Christ.
Jon Moffitt: If you've blown up your life, there is no penance, there is only mercy. As Hebrews tells us, with boldness, run into His presence and guaranteed for you, 100%, His mercy. Take it.
Thank you guys for listening. There's a Semper Reformanda Facebook group. Go in there and interact with us. We look forward to seeing you. Justin and I spend a little bit more time there just because it's a smaller group. We want to really work with those of you who are leaders and participants. Thank you for joining the Reformation. Who knows what the future holds? But we're excited about it.
Justin Perdue: The Lord does.
Jon Moffitt: We'll see you next week.
