Faith for Faith

Being from North Carolina, it is difficult not to love the sight of snow. It is a sight that is seldom seen, and when it sticks it transforms everything on which it falls. Regardless of where the snow lands, be it on the lawns of the wealthy or on the trash heaps of the landfills, everything is made beautiful. It is, in some ways, a perfect picture of the Gospel. For the Gospel, like the snow on divers landscapes, is not a respecter of social class, race, nationality, or political position, and it falls upon God’s dispersed elect and covers them beautifully with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. God’s people, called forth from every tongue and every tribe, from paupers to kings, who are as muddy and filthy as the natural landscape, find themselves fully blanketed with the whiteness of Jesus Christ and, when the clouds give way to clear skies, reflect with blinding radiance the glory of their Father. They who were once dirty are now clean; they who were once dull are now radiant–not by any merit of their own, but because God came near and gave to them his cleanness and his radiance and thereby made them beautiful.

Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Theology | No Comments »

Upon leaving Christian Philosophy class somewhat perturbed and despairing after having listened to the teachings of Scripture trampled by the philosophies of men again, I came to a sad realization, namely that we as Modern American and Evangelical Christians have absolutely lost the great doctrine of Justification by Faith. I am sure that there are many who are standing by quick to object to such a charge, but I am fully convinced that the justification by faith that we preach today is not the same Justification by Faith that was heralded by the great reformer Martin Luther neither does it resemble anything taught by Christ or the apostles. Additionally, since this great doctrine is by necessity one of the great pillars of the Christian religion, its loss has had profound effects on subservient doctrines, so much so that our tainted minds cannot even begin to fathom the depths of their distortion. I am not quite sure of the goal of my writing this, for I am nearly convinced that we are so blinded by our presuppositions on the matter so as to beyond retrieval. I pray that God might grant grace to me as I write and to you, the reader, as you think upon this most weighty of doctrines.

Justification by Acceptance rather than Justification by Faith
As those who claim to be Evangelical Christians–those who bear the very word Gospel (euangelion) in our self-made title, one would think that we would be quite sure about the Gospel to which we claim such allegiance. Yet in spite of our nominal allegiance, we find in modern Evangelical Christianity in place of the Gospel call given exclusively in Scripture by Christ and the apostles, namely, “Believe and repent!”, there is now almost exclusively the call: “Accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, and ask him into your heart.”

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Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Theology | 7 Comments »

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).

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Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Theology | No Comments »

Since what most modern American Christians call faith is actually not faith but a work of acceptance, faith is no longer the unmeritorious means by which one is justified by the work of Christ, but it is righteousness itself. In other words, in the end we say that we are saved exclusively by our acceptance and not exclusively by the work of God since God has supposedly granted to everyone the ability to accept him and the Christ whom he has sent, no matter who they are, where they live, or when they lived. Therefore, the buck stops with us. We are saved in the end not because God did something, but because we did something. We charge that everyone is given the opportunity, and some, like us, have accepted Christ, and the rest have not.

Our justification by acceptance therefore is not justification by faith, but it is justification by works lite. For our justification by acceptance is no different than any other justification by works religion on the planet save the fact that we have only one rule, “Accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior.” If you obey this rule you will be considered righteous, but disobey it you will be judged for not accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Savior.

But what of those who have not heard the Gospel? What will be their fate?

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Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Theology | No Comments »

Being from North Carolina, it is difficult not to love the sight of snow. It is a sight that is seldom seen, and when it sticks it transforms everything on which it falls. Regardless of where the snow lands, be it on the lawns of the wealthy or on the trash heaps of the landfills, everything is made beautiful. It is, in some ways, a perfect picture of the Gospel. For the Gospel, like the snow on divers landscapes, is not a respecter of social class, race, nationality, or political position, and it falls upon God’s dispersed elect and covers them beautifully with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. God’s people, called forth from every tongue and every tribe, from paupers to kings, who are as muddy and filthy as the natural landscape, find themselves fully blanketed with the whiteness of Jesus Christ and, when the clouds give way to clear skies, reflect with blinding radiance the glory of their Father. They who were once dirty are now clean; they who were once dull are now radiant–not by any merit of their own, but because God came near and gave to them his cleanness and his radiance and thereby made them beautiful.

Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Quick Thoughts | 4 Comments »

Oftentimes, we in the church tend to oversimplify the canon of Scripture. Some look upon the Old Testament and the Nation Israel and consider it a particular dispensation of salvation through sacrifices, rituals, etc. and look at the New Testament and the time following it as a dispensation of Grace whereby God saves men by grace through faith in Jesus Christ–his death, burial, and resurrection.

The Apostle Paul, however, will not allow us to think in such neat divisions and dispensations. Thus, throughout his letter to the Roman church, the apostle has instructed us with phrases such as, “Not all Israel is Israel” (v. 9:5), “a Jew is one who is one inwardly” (v. 2:29), there is no distinction between Jew and Greek (v. 3:22), Abraham was saved by faith alone (v. 4:3), and, now, Moses writes both about a righteousness based on the law and a righteousness based upon faith (vv. 10:6-8).

For salvific dispensations to be true (i.e. that men at different points in history are justified before God by different means), the means by obtaining righteousness must be singular in each dispensation. The apostle, writing to the Roman church, demonstrates that this notion of salvific dispensations is false in vv. 10:5-9:

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Posted by D. Matthew Brown under Fridy Night Bible Study | No Comments »