1. Thou shalt have no other gods before thyself or thy Mother, the Earth.
2. Thou shalt worship thy god(s) in the way that seems best to thee.
3. Thou shalt use the name “Jesus” and any of its variations (e.g. geez, Christ, Jesus H. Christ, etc.) to comment upon the most fleeting of things, but thou shalt not profane the name of any other religious figure for that is intolerant and disrepectful and therefore forbidden.
4. Thou shalt work as little as thou possibly canst and demand compensation that is more than thou deservest, or thou shalt work too much for the sake of living “well.”
5. Thou shalt despise thy parents and blame them for all thy deficiencies … that is when thou actually ownest up to thy deficiencies. Thou shalt also place thy parents in a nursing home when they are unable to care for themselves since thou art too occupied with commandment number four.
6. Thou shalt respect a mother’s right to butcher her own child if she so desireth, and thou shalt be horrified at the brutality and injustice of capital punishment and at the mistreatment of animals.
7. Thou shalt divorce thy spouse if thou so desirest for any reason.
8. Thou shalt not smoke.
9. Thou shalt recycle and reduce thy carbon footprint.
10. Thou shalt desire all things that thy neighbor owneth and strive to outdo them.
Archive for May, 2009
14 MayThe New Ten Commandments
09 MayThe Hellishness of Altar Calls
Most of us have experienced it: the enthusiastic preacher, the classic phrase “If you were to die tonight…,” the bowing of heads and raising of hands, the pronouncements of spiritual birthdays, and a preacher writing in his Bible the name of yet another soul who he had saved after another successful altar call.
If you have not experienced these things, you are among the fortunate, and, hopefully, more doctrinally sound.
For these things are indicative of the doctrinal fallacy that has slowly crept into the post-Reformation church, namely the doctrine of justification by acceptance. This doctrine says simply that one is saved by accepting Jesus Christ as his personal Savior and asking him to come into his heart. This doctrine stands opposed to the doctrine of justification by faith, for it warps the nature of faith from that which not meritorious to that which is meritorious. In other words, it takes faith and shifts its weight. Instead of faith being mere belief in the God who has revealed himself to his people through the Spirit and the preaching of the Gospel, faith, in this “justification by acceptance” doctrine, is fully an act of human reason and free will whereby one evaluates the case of Christ and chooses to accept him by asking Christ into his heart or to reject him by doing nothing.
07 MayJustification by Faith is Dead, V. FAQs: Part 1. “Whosoever Believes?” “Why Preach the Gospel?” & “What is Faith Then?”
I believe that the “whosoever believes” of John 3:16 means that everyone has an equal opportunity to believe the Gospel. According to you, this is not true. Why?
Not that I find joy in flogging an ex-horse, but I must reiterate that we must understand the difference between what a text says and what we interpret a text to mean. In the text of John 3:16, the phrase “whosoever believes” is a modifier that places limitations on the phrase, “will not perish.” Therefore, those who believe in Jesus Christ will not perish, and conversely, those who do not believe in him will perish. However, this phrase says nothing of one’s ability to believe. This verse simply states what is said elsewhere, namely that is through faith that one is justified. Where this faith comes from, to whom it is to be credited, or the universal ability or opportunity for all men to believe is not addressed in this verse at all. Actually, if we study this text in its context, i.e. John 3:1-8, we would likely come to much different conclusion about the interpretation of this text than we typically do.
06 MayJustification by Faith is Dead, IV. The Neutering of the Holy Spirit
If you would take the time to listen to non-charismatic evangelicals on the matter of the Holy Spirit, you would likely find both a willful ignorance of the present mission of the Holy Spirit portrayed in the Bible and a tendency to avoid discussion about him and his work altogether. For many who have stood against the doctrines of charismatics, the Holy Spirit is a subject to be avoided and even one, to some, to be loathed. Therefore, to these, the Holy Spirit is nothing more to the Christian than a glorified conscience that “dwells in” a person (whatever that means) whenever he accepts Jesus Christ as his personal Savior. He aids the Christian in choosing between right and wrong, and he helps the Christian understand the Scriptures.
However, this present view of the Holy Spirit stands in opposition to the teachings of Scripture on him and his works, and they rob him of his glory that is rightly due him.
Who is the Holy Spirit? Simply, he is the third person of the Triune God–the one who proceeds from the Father and the Son to testify about the work of the Son. He is to the elect the one by whom the work of Christ is applied to them. This application by the Holy Spirit is called “regeneration”–the bringing to life that which was dead. Figuratively, this work is called causing one to be born again (cf. Jn. 3:1-8; 1Pet. 1:3), the circumcision of the heart (cf. Rm. 2:29), the removal of a heart of stone and the giving of a heart of flesh (Ez. 11:19), and the writing of the law upon one’s heart (cf. Jer. 31:33). All these things the Spirit does from salvation’s beginning, and the Spirit continues to work in the saved soul till the end, for as the apostle testifies, “[The Spirit] who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).
01 MayJustification by Faith is Dead, III. Doxological Ramifications
Before I begin, allow me to preface this post by stating that I believe quite wholeheartedly that all things, both good and evil, minute and grand, work together for good for those who love God, which is the riches of his glory accomplished for them (cf. Rm. 8:28; 9:23). Therefore, in spite of our constant failings and in spite of our doctrinal fallacies, God will be glorified, and he will be glorified to the high degree which he has decreed. For whether or not we attribute credit to God appropriately with our petty minds on the matter of our salvation and its accomplishment, God will be glorified fully, be it through our unrighteousness which serves to show his righteousness (cf. Rm. 3:6) or through our obedience which demonstrates our being driven by his Spirit (cf. Rm. 8:13,14).
In spite of the great certainty with which we can be assured that God’s ultimate manifestation of his glory will be accomplished without regard to the fickleness of our wills, we are nevertheless clearly commanded to be holy as he is holy, to be transformed by the renewal of our minds, and to not be carried away by the doctrines of men (cf.1Pt. 1:16; Rm. 12:2; Eph. 4:14). In other words, we are never given warrant to be content in our ill-founded doctrines or in our disobedience knowing that God is and will be glorified in our mishaps. Quite the contrary, we are encouraged not to think as those fools who slanderously charged Paul with “doing evil that good may come” (Rm. 3:8), but we are rather charged to patiently seek for glory and honor and immortality or be met with the full wrath and fury of God (cf. Rm. 2:7,8).