LOOKING TO PRAISE AND WORSHIP JESUS THE CHRIST, THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD. 18 No man has ever seen God at any time; the only unique Son, or the only begotten God, Who is in the bosom [in the intimate presence] of the Father, He has declared Him [He has revealed Him and brought Him out where He can be seen; He has interpreted Him and He has made Him known].

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

GES Dishonesty

There is a very vocal proponent of The Grace Evangelical Society's version of the Gospel that claims that he studies Calvinism in order to better refute it. Below I will provide you with questions that he recently asked some Calvinists concerning how they share the gospel to the unsaved. Then I will provide some statements made by him concerning his take on what it is that we Calvinists both preach and teach, and the outcome of our message on the unsaved. But first the questions he asked the Calvinists. Here they are...
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"First let me ask you all (Jonathan, Soldem, Donsands, and Mark) a question.When you come to the invitation aspect of your evangelism, how is it you invite people to life in Christ? In other words, how do you answer the question:What must I do to be justified and/or have eternal life?And mind you, I will ask follow up questions if you do not answer forthrightly.I have my opinion on how you can answer this. I think you have to answer it in one of two ways. Yet, for the sake of clarity and fairness, please answer the question, each one of you individually.The Reformed Lordship Salvationist could answer that question one of two ways:

1) You do nothing. You must wait till you get zapped by the Lord with irresistable grace. But you may be reprobate and never get such a benefit. The invitation in the Reformed tradition's evangelism could be:Lam 3:26It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.Thing is that a man could wait forever.

2) The kitchen sink!One must believe an ever-increasing amount of doctrine.One must submit and surrender everthing to the LordOne must be willing to follow Christ and leave everything for Him. One must be willing to turn from all sin. One must persevere until the end. One must blah, blah, blah.In this case, no one could ever know if they fulfilled these conditions to the extent to which they could deem themselves saved, having jumped through each one of the Reformed evangelist's hoops.In this case, the Reformed evangelists's invitation to salvation could sound like this:Mark 13:13he who endures to the end (in believing every doctrine, in persevering in every work, in following enough, in surrendering enough, in repenting enough, etc...) shall be saved.With such subjective standards, no one could ever possibly know if he has or can fulfill such. Even on the death bed, one may well consider if he sufficiently endured enough.as an aside. Those who think they are enduring enough now, may wish to take a better look at their lives. How many spurious saints down through the centuries have had a greater testimony and array of good works than you? How many reprobates have been enlightened with temporary faith whereby they have had more dedication to the Lord than your own self?Why is it that you are so presumptious to declare that you are one of the elect? You may very well posess a faith that in the end proves to be evanescent. You may fully prove that God wished to enlighten you the better to condemn you later.In Reformed Lordship Salvation it is impossible to know if you have objectively fulfilled all the heaps of criterion necessary to ascertain if one is saved or not. Was it not John MacArthur's book, Saved without a Doubt, that includes a list of some 25+ things that one must do?How do you know that you have done them and in sufficient quantity? You can never know if you must persevere until the end!Answer me my question, and I will be more than happy to entertain yours.It is not MacArthur who is saved without a doubt, but the Free Gracer..."
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Then there are these statements from him..."The enemy is Lordship Salvation in its many guises! Recently Dr. Hixson stated in a newsletter, “I appreciate these men [John Piper, Mark Dever, Al Mohler] and their passion to speak out against sin.” Frankly, what does it matter if these people speak out against sin but preach a non-saving message of works-righteousness? What does it profit a man to repent from sin, reform his life, and then end up in hell? I do not appreciate the teachers of Lordship Salvation."
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Again this man claims to study Calvinism in order to better refute it. In the above do you see any evidence of any serious effort on his part to know the position that he opposes?

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8 Comments:

Blogger jazzycat said...

Mark,
In spite of all of the Scriptures that speak of Christians being changed by the power of God through regeneration and being sanctified by God’s power, these free grace false teachers cannot accept that justification by God’s grace produces a Christian that is conformed more and more to the image of Christ as he is sanctified. They refuse to separate justification from the results of sanctification that flow from it. When they see Calvinists teach and preach exactly what the Bible teaches about sanctification, they claim that works justification is being taught.

I am a Calvinist and about two years ago I challenged them to show me one quote from my blog (which is full of doctrinal writings) where I have advocated a works justification. While they are good at pulling out of context quotes from books and papers to make their false charges, they have failed to take up my challenge. Why? They know there is none and if they attempt to fabricate a trumped up charge, they will be successfully refuted.

Therefore, either my brand of Calvinism is not true Calvinism or they are engaging in dishonest slander. The challenge remains. Go through my blog and show me works justification This challenge goes especially for their readers who tend to believe their false accusations.

June 11, 2008 9:47 AM

 
Blogger mark pierson said...

Wayne,
In looking at the statements and questions made and posed by this individual it seems obvious that he has NO IDEA what he is talking about. If one wants to refute Calvinism please try to refute the real thing. Please try to do so intelligently, not like what we saw from this individual.

June 11, 2008 1:49 PM

 
Blogger Colin Maxwell said...

Hi Mark,

I see several things as I debate with non Calvinists:

1) Many (though not all) are dependent on the writings of othersand that mainly non Calvinists. They mainly regurgitate Vance and Dave Hunt.

2)Once they embrace a wrong notion, it is mighty hard to shift them from it. We are not asking them, first of all, to embrace Calvinism, but to understand it accurately - the latter being the foundation. I often find I end up repeating myself over and over again.

3) There is a refusal to attribute anything positive to Calvinists. David Cloud (although a bitter opponent of calvinism - or what he thinks is Calvinism) once listed what he admired about Calvinists (the BIG GOD etc.,) but then retreated into his bunker again and returned to his bitter and nasty attacks.

4) There has others been spats between Calvinsts and non Calvinists over the centuries, but it sees to have got bitter of late. The FG camp in particular with their insistence that we are pushing human works. Yet their war is not so much against Calvinism, but against orthodox Evangelicialism. Repentance in its historic sense and the whole Christ ("Lord and Saviour") is common to both Calvinism and Non Calvinist groups within the Evangelical camp. I know they don't like the charge of "Easy Believism" - but its hard to escape.

Regards,

June 11, 2008 2:48 PM

 
Blogger mark pierson said...

"Yet their war is not so much against Calvinism, but against orthodox Evangelicialism."

What's sad is that they really don't see just how unorthodox they are. Sad indeed.

June 12, 2008 11:00 AM

 
Blogger mark pierson said...

This whole idea of time periods in God's economy of "Pure law" and of "Pure grace", plus the concept of the "carnal Christian", all coming from the early dispy's - L.S. Chafer looms large here - serve as the shoulders upon which the GES stands on.

June 12, 2008 11:06 AM

 
Blogger Maalie said...

> There has others been spats between Calvinsts and non Calvinists over the centuries

Calvin lived in the 1500s. Are you really honestly slavishly adopting the musings of a man who lived some five centuries ago?

We understand a lot more about life's processes now than he possibly could have then. For example, we know that a bat is not a bird and that there are no such things as inter-continental swimming kangaroos.

June 12, 2008 12:38 PM

 
Blogger mark pierson said...

And we know there are fools who will spend an eternity in the lake of fire if they do not repent and call on the name of Jesus for their salvation.

June 12, 2008 1:07 PM

 
Blogger mark pierson said...

I am having trouble with my internet connection. Wayne could you please monitor BC until this problem is solved?

Mark

June 13, 2008 6:48 AM

 

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