On Frame's review of Horton's book

The Reformed blogosphere is (or was) abuzzed it seems with Prof. John Frame's review of Prof. Michael Horton's book Christless Christianity. Frame's review has been answered by Darryl G. Hart, Kim Riddlebarger, R. Scott Clark, and the staff of the White Horse Inn. My friend Stephen Macasil has entered the fray also with his latest blog post, which attempts to go deeper and interact with the topics raised.

When I was first directed to Frame's review through the article on Gospel-centered Legalism (ie a totally different topic), I was rather stunned by the review. Having owned and read Horton's book Christless Christianity, Frame's review was the worst misrepresentation of a single book I have ever seen. The most ludicrous part was when Frame semi-defended Joel Osteen (?!) against Horton's charges. Osteen is a Word-faith heretic, and Frame who is supposed to be Reformed defends a wolf against Horton? Amazing!

The state of the Church in general was another point where I just have to shake my head in amazement. Which planet is Prof. Frame living on? The "Ivory Tower" planet? It most definitely is not earth! America is awash with heresy as the Emerging Church movement, the Word-faith cult, and the Contemplative Spirituality nonsense is destroying the faith of many, yet according to him, the Church is still doing fine and "There is a greater interest in sanctification (not just justification), on Christianity as a world view, on believers’ obligations to one another, on love within the body of Christ, and in the implications of Scripture for social justice"? Even discounting America (which has a really bad habit of thinking they are the center of the world), the rest of the world is in really bad shape. But let us go back to America. What about the heresy of Federal Vision and Neolegalism wrecking havoc in Reformed and Presbyterian circles? Oh wait, Frame defended the heretic Norman Shepherd while he was still in WTS.

In their response to Frame, the White Horse Inn staff Eric Landry has picked the 10 points with which Frame accuses Horton of teaching, and refutes them all. I think it would be instrumental to just let Landry speak in this regard here (Dark Red Italics refer to Frame's points).

1. Attention to ourselves necessarily detracts from attention to Christ.

No, it can detract from Christ. But it does not necessarily detract from Christ. When it comes to the gospel, “we preach not ourselves, but Christ,” because the gospel is not about us at all. Confusion over this matter does detract from Christ. However, the good news about Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection has implications on the way we live, and so we must give some attention to ourselves as we let the light of the gospel shine in every dark corner, which challenges us to rethink our actions, self-centeredness, etc.

2. We should not give attention to the way we communicate the gospel, or to making it relevant to its hearers.

Relevance and context are clearly different than pragmatism. To which has the evangelical church at large given itself?

3. God’s sovereignty and human responsibility are a zero-sum game. The idea that man must do something compromises the absolute sovereignty of God.

This is an outright misrepresentation and we’re disappointed that Professor Frame should characterize Horton’s theology in this way. He is not a hyper-Calvinist and nothing in Christless Christianity or anything else that he has written bears this out.

4. God’s work of salvation is completely objective, external to us, and not at all subjective, internal to us. (Here he backtracks some.)

This is another caricature. Horton’s argument is that the gospel is completely objective and external to us: it’s the Good News about Christ’s person and work. However, Horton clearly says that God’s work of salvation includes regeneration and sanctification. The Spirit applies the redemption that the gospel announces.

5. God promises us no earthly blessings, only heavenly ones, and to desire earthly blessings is a “theology of glory,” deserving condemnation.

Horton’s critique is that we are trying to use God to attain our best life now, rather than to see God as the object of our faith and worship, for “every blessing in heavenly realms in Christ” (Eph 1:3-4). Lost in exaggeration, Frame’s caricature of this argument misses the point.

6. Law and gospel should be utterly separate. There should be no good news in the bad news and no bad news in the good news.

This is a longstanding complaint by Frame. Not only does he consistently misrepresent the Lutheran view on this point; he seems to be unaware of the consensus of Reformed theologians that the confusion of law and gospel is the heart of theological errors. This point has been made not only by Calvin, but by Beza, Ursinus, Perkins, Owen, and Spurgeon all the way to Louis Berkhof and John Murray. In Christless Christianity (and elsewhere), Horton very clearly affirms that law and gospel are to be distinguished but never separated. The one thing that Professor Frame accurately says about the book on this point is that “There should be no good news in the bad news and no bad news in the good news.” That’s why the law reveals our sin and misery (as the Heidelberg Catechism and Westminster Shorter Catechism confess), and the gospel reveals God’s saving grace toward us in Jesus Christ. One should be far less bothered that Professor Frame is confused about Christless Christianity than that he seems confused about the difference between commands (imperatives) and declarations of God’s promises (indicatives).

7. Preaching of the gospel must never use biblical characters as moral or spiritual examples. Nor must it address practical ethical issues in the Christian life.

Of course there are moral examples in Scripture, and Horton affirms this in his book; the point is that the Bible is to be read as an unfolding story of redemption, with Christ as the hero. All we ask is that if you use a character as a moral or spiritual example, be sure to include not just the exemplary things that he or she did but also the tragic sins that made it necessary for even a “friend of God” or a “man after God’s own heart” to look forward to a Redeemer. Don’t stop with the example, look to where the example actually points: to Jesus Christ. And ground your practical ethical issues in the new creation, just as the New Testament writers do. For more on the relationship between doctrine and ethics, see Horton’s People and Place.

8. A focus on redemption excludes a focus on anything else.

This is baffling. Is Frame intentionally misrepresenting the book or is he unable to read the book without even a modicum of Christian charity? Stunning.

9. In worship and in the general ministry of the church, God gives and does not receive; the congregation receives and does not give.

Read Horton’s A Better Way for a substative rebuttal. That Frame and Horton have differences of opinion on what happens or should happen in a worship service is an understatement, but point 9 does not reflect either the points made in Christless Christianity or A Better Way. Horton has consistently argued that worship is dialogical; the congregation is a participant with God in the worship service. God serves us in Word and Sacrament, and we respond in songs of praise, prayer, confession, and attention.

10. Analysts of the church must compare the Church’s focus on Christ with its focus on other things, rather than considering that many of these other things are in fact applications of Christ’s own person and work.

If churches actually saw their focus on other things as extensions and applications of Christ’s ministry, we wouldn’t have an issue. But the facts (as cited in the works of both unbelievers and believers in many different traditions) just don’t bear out Frame’s optimism about mainstream evangelicalism here.

Gospel-centered Legalism?

Pastor Bill Streger, a pastor in the Acts29 network, has posted an interesting post (with which I do not necessarily agree on everything), Gospel-centered Legalism, asking the question: Is it possible to be legalistic about "Gospel-centeredness"? As he later clarifies in a comment:

...

My worry is not that we would be to centered on the gospel, but that rather than actually being centered on the gospel itself we would become enamored with “Gospel-Centered” as a catchphrase that includes all of our own theological distinctives and excludes those who don’t share them.

My fear is that we will create insider language and jargon that becomes the qualifiers for whether or not we judge someone to be orthodox, rather than what they actually believe.

My fear is that “gospel-centered” would become “the next big thing” in Christian marketing and countless pastors will use it as a badge of honor to wear (much like “missional” has become over the past decade) rather than a true state of our hearts.

My fear is that instead of actually being gospel-centered we would settle for simply talking about it.

[Bold added]

From my personal interaction with the New Calvinist crowd, I am similarly worried regarding such a scenario. As I have rhetorically asked in my initial paper on the New Evangelical Calvinism [probably going to be withdrawn soon], and repeated in my CREDO500 paper,

Will we aim for rational and lifestyle consistency even in our profession of the Gospel, or will we settle merely for outward compliance to the Gospel and perhaps agreements on the major flashpoints of the culture wars like homosexuality, complementarianism, racism and missions? What makes these flashpoints more worthy of contending for as compared to the other doctrines and practices of Scripture?

On the surface, my contention with the New Calvinists has to do with the issue of "tone" and of the necessity of discernment and calling out heretics. This Neo-Evangelical "mood" permeates at least the New Calvinist crowd over in Singapore and Tim Challies in Canada. However, despite whatever heat may be generated by such issues, these are not the fundamental issue of contention. The fundamental issue of contention boils down to the issue of Sola Scriptura. As I have written in my paper on this topic:

During the Reformation, the material principle was the principle of Justification by Faith alone, while the formal principle was Scripture Alone or Sola Scriptura. In an interaction on a blog ..., there has been the insistence that Gospel-centeredness is enough, for Gospel-centeredness will necessarily preclude what I call Gospel-Onlyness — the view that everything is decided with respects to its impact on and consequence of the Gospel. Does embrace of the material principle therefore necessarily implies the embrace of the formal principle? Why then does the Reformation consists of two principles instead of merely one, and the insistence on the supreme authority of the Scripture for all of life as much as the Gospel itself was the issue of contention?

The formal principle of Sola Scriptura deals with the epistemological foundation of the faith within which the Gospel will thrive. Without the foundation, there are no set boundaries on what the Gospel actually is limited to. This does not mean of course that the Gospel does not have implications on various sundry issues, but the fact of the matters is without an epistemological foundation, upon what authority can agreement on the major issues be made, and what basis can defence be made against sophisticated denials of the Gospel which professes to be Gospel-centered like for example New Perspectivism, or as we have discussed previously in the case of Douglas Wilson, Federal Vision? ... While it is true that emphasizing belief in Sola Scriptura does not necessarily preclude anyone from denying it in word or action, at least Scripture can function as a safeguard within which all matters of life and doctrine can be settled, instead of a vague, general appeal to the Gospel without its corresponding epistemic foundation.

In the controversy us Reformed folks have with the YRR (Young, Restless, Reformed) New Calvinists over the New Evangelicalism, the key point actually lies not with the doctrine of separation, important though it may be, or other points of doctrinal differences . The issue is with the supreme authority of Scripture over all of life INCLUDING our praxis. As Streger points out, the phrase “Gospel-Centered” can degenerate into a mere "catchphrase that includes all of our own theological distinctives and excludes those who don’t share them", especially uniting these New Calvinists around the various "flashpoints" which they love to champion (ie homosexuality, complementarianism, racism, missions). The term "Gospel" and "Gospel-centered" thus functions in the New Calvinism as a dividing line by which they differentiate between those who are "in" and those who are "out" based upon their theological perspectives instead of the Word of God.

That is why the correct emphases must be placed on Sola Scriptura as well as Sola Fide and Sola Gratia. The Gospel IS NOT the determining factor of what constitutes orthodoxy. As the material principle, it is the subject of orthodoxy but never the arbiter of it. The arbiter of orthodoxy must always remain the Scriptures alone. When the material principle is made to bear the full weight of orthodoxy when it was never designed by God for that purpose, distortion of the Gospel inevitably happens sooner or later.

Just like the monocovenantalist who attempts to collapse the two covenants into one, the mono-emphasis on the Gospel in being "Gospel-centered" will create the type of as-of-now hypothetical scenario Stretger rightly fears and decries. In point of fact, as monocovenantalism can degenerate into its legalistic and antinomian branches (conditional covenant versus unconditional gracious covenant), the mono-emphasis on the Gospel can degenerate into Gospel-centered Legalism and Gospel-centered Antinomianism (whereby all are believed as orthodox as long as they preach the "Gospel" - as long as it somehow sounds like the Gospel), which seems to be practiced by John Piper in the case of Douglas Wilson.

The only corrective for the New Calvinism is to recover the proper emphasis on Sola Scriptura. It is not enough to simply have Sola Scriptura as a truth to be believed in, but it must be a truth to be embraced with just as much passion as the Gospel. Instead of calling themselves "Gospel-centered" people, perhaps they should be "Gospel-and-Word-centered" people, putting both principles in their proper places.

It is only in this light that progress can be possibly made on any issues and doctrines. It is feared that currently, any discussion of "tone" etc will be based upon whether such is "Gospel-centered" or not. The New Calvinist may very well be, probably unintentionally, bringing their unbiblical view on this matter to the topic, and disguising it based upon his agreement with the Gospel message proper. Using the epistemic standard of Sola Scripture however forces all involved to deal with the actual teachings of Scripture on this subject, instead of leaving room for errant views of ministry etc to hide in the darkness. It is only then that we can work for resolution of our doctrinal differences. May God grant us a renewed focus on the absolute authority of His Word alongside a renewed zeal for the Gospel. Amen.

Emergent Shane Hipps teaches that all religions are valid

This does not need any commentary. From a transcript (with added commentary) done by Apprising Ministries:

John is the ultimate unifier and integrator of two religious systems that have nothing in common; the Jews and the Greeks…nothing in common…nothing at all in common…didn’t even use the same language most of the time. So here John comes along and says, “Hey (to the Jews) you know that thing you talk about…that wisdom…that beautiful wisdom that you talk about? Yeah, that…right. You know that?” And to the Greeks he says, “Hey, you know that logos…that mysterious, beautiful thing with life and fire and light? That, yeah right?” Both of those things, wisdom and logos…they are actually one thing. And they found full and complete expression in the person of Jesus. (pause)

So here’s what’s so stunning: at a time when it was unthinkable to try and unify religions, John is basically saying your religion totally valid…I love it…I’m even using your language…and your religion…I love it…it’s beautiful, totally valid…I’m even using your language, but I just want you both to know that there’s something bigger than what you’ve got.

There’s something that transcends what you have; it doesn’t nullify what you have, it doesn’t get rid of what you have. It just moves beyond it. So John does this unbelievably beautiful thing of basically saying, “I want to get past the religious divisions among us in our world. I don’t want to get past it…Jesus comes to bring us past it.” Jesus is the ultimate unifier of these various diverse ways of looking at the world…

So these…these external things…religion is about making these distinctions…and guess what? That isn’t a bad thing. Having a distinct religious identity marked by some boundaries, knowing how you’re different from other religions isn’t a problem. John isn’t trying to get rid of that, he’s trying to point beyond it. Keep it, but move beyond it.

To lose your religious identity is like losing a sail at sea. The sail is like religion, the wind is the Spirit. You need a sail to catch the wind…to harness the wind, but you gotta’ realize that that sail isn’t the wind. The sail is actually dependent on the wind. See, here’s the crazy thing, the Spirit (the wind), doesn’t need sails in order for it to move about the world. The sails need the wind. So the Spirit in order for it to move and operate in the world has no need of religion, but we (those of us made the way we are) for some reason need sails in order to catch the wind. We need religious structures, external things we can touch and see and traditions and lineages that teach us so that we can better catch the wind.

Now some sails are built better than other sails; some sails are bigger than other sails, some sails are a different shape than those other sails, and those differences matter. And sometimes, one sail is better than another sail in the same way that some religions are better equipped to catch the Spirit of God. Some religions are not as well equipped to fully capture and be compelled by the Spirit. So it matters what religion you choose. It matters why that religion…why you choose it. It matters what it looks like…how it’s shaped, but don’t ever confuse the sail with the Spirit…the sail with the wind.

Here’s what’s so confusing about this…John comes along and says, “Hey both of you guys you’ve got great sails…they look awesome.” I just want you to know it’s the wind that I’m interested in. He says Jesus became the fullness of that wind. And so along comes us and we create a sail around that person. We go, “Now we’ve got it!” Wooo! It’s just another sail. Just because we claim Jesus as the center of our religion does not make us one and the same with the wind of God. It just means we have another sail. I happen to think it’s a better sail than most other sails. I happen to think it’s a more effective sail than other sails (that’s why I chose this particular sail), but it ain’t the wind. (pause)

This is what John is doing and it’s extremely innovative and it’s very unsettling that he’s inviting us beneath and beyond the things that make distinctions between us. He’s pointing beyond the sail to the wind and he desperately wants us to experience the wind…the logos…that animating, creative life force that gives you breath right now in this very moment. That’s what John’ll be pointing us to, so as we go through this series, that’s what we’re going to be experiencing and exploring is this whole thing of the logos becoming flesh, and the difference between our…how we operate in the world and how God animates everything that is in the world.

And that’s why it says, “It was the life and light of all people.” It didn’t say the light and life of the people who believe in Jesus. This logos affects everybody including Osama bin Laden, as long as he’s got breath, in him, is a spark of the divine.

Michael Horton on the Purpose Driven paradigm (part 2)

In his book The Gospel Driven Life, Horton dismisses the Purpose Driven life paradigm, instead asking us to live by the promises of God. In a later chapter dealing with the church, Horton strikes again at the PD paradigm, this time on the issue of the church.

Under chapter 8 "How the Good News Creates a Cross-Cultural Community", under the section "The Promise-Driven Church", Horton addresses a couple of issue including the idea of the inclusion of children in the covenant, which is an interesting topic altogether but I digress. Horton undermines the entire PD enterprise, and finally attacks the marketing strategy both the Seeker Sensitive and the PD paradigm uses.

On the issue of being ambassadors for Christ:

... it is a promise that the church is called to deliver on God's behalf and in Christ's name. Ambassadors do not send themselves, write up their own job description, and then formulate their own policies. God already has his plans figured out. He has already elected the citizens-to-be of his kingdom, sent his Son to redeem them, and poured his Spirit out on them and within them, so that they come joyfully to his feast. (p. 205)

In other words, the Church and Christians have no right whatsoever to change God's message or "do ministry" in whatever way they think is right. This extends also to individual Christians, who are to conform their lives and witness to the precepts of Scripture. In the Christian walk, God is not a pragmatist; working for a commendable goal (ie a desire to see men repent and believe the Gospel) with pure motives even does not allow one to cut corners and practice whatever methodology one thinks is best to achieve that commendable goal.

Regarding the focus on friends and socializing in church, especially as focused on the young (the "Youth Ministry" - Purpose Driven Youth Ministry?):

... fellowship often takes the form of the niche marketing ... We may still call it fellowship, but it may be closer to socializing. There is nothing wrong with socializing. Clubs are fine. There is a time and place for hanging out with people with similar tastes, interests, and hobbies. However, Christian homes and churches are the only institutes in which our children will learn to find themselves in God's story. When they are united more by the trends of pop culture than by the faith and practice of the whole church in all times and places, our youth become victims of our sloth. We should not be surprised that over half of those reared in evangelical homes and churches today do not join or even attend a church regularly when they go off to college. If we are going to see our children grow up into Christ instead of abandoning the church, our spiritual life at home and in the church must incorporate them into the teaching and fellowship of the apostolic faith. They can find "ministry opportunities" through United Way, the Peace Corps, or Habitat for Humanity. They can find friends at the fraternity or sorority. They can find intellectual stimulation in class. And they can find a sense of meaning and purpose in their vacations. If their home churches exchanged the ministry of preaching and teaching the apostles' doctrine for a variety of ministries and activities that they could find legitimate versions in the world, then it is difficult to come up with a reasonable answer when they ask, "Why do I need the church?" (pp. 207-208)

On the goodness of diversity in the church:

I [Horton] tend to pray for the same things over and over again and these requests sound a lot like those of other Christians in my same age-group and demographic profile. Throw in some prayers from older and younger saints, from people who are richer and poorer, black, Latino, Asian, and European, and now my prayers become part of the prayers of the church. Once again, my narrow horizon of self-enclosed existence is opened up to a cross-centered and cross-cultural communion. (p. 208)

And finally, the case against the marketing that makes up the most part of Seeker-sensitive, Purpose Driven "outreach" methodology:

There are perfectly good reasons to target a particular niche-demographic for a marketing campaign. It all depends on what one is trying to do. A quick return on an investment, with the recognition that the product will become obsolete and therefore lack long-term profits, is one way of doing business. In that case, you'll want to make the product as attractive as possible not only to a narrow slice of consumers, but to a narrow slice of consumers who will soon move on to other fashions. The covenant of grace, on the other hand, is passed on "from generation to generation". Selling a product to the hot prospects is different from receiving a heritage from a previous generation and passing it down to the next. Everything that can be shaken will be shaken, the Scriptures remind us, and only the kingdom that God is building will remain (Heb. 12:27-28). The churches that become slaves of the market are made of hay, wood, and stubble, while those built on the apostolic foundation of gold, silver, and costly stones will remain (1 Cor. 3:5-17) (p. 209)

Amen. Which is why niche-marketing the church does not work, even if one were to overlook the doctrine of total depravity in the first place.

Revisiting British Neo-Evangelicalism: The split of Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones with Dr. J.I. Packer

Over at the Heidelblog, Dr. R. Scott Clark has posted an interesting post regarding J.I. Packer and his compromise in the ECT (Evangelicals and Catholics Together). It is agreed that Dr. Packer's compromise did not "just happen". The spirit of compromise started with Packer's involvement in the British New Evangelical movement (partly due to his Anglican via media convictions) as stated by Martin Downes and Carl Trueman (via video), resulting in a break with "Old" Evangelicalism in the split with Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones in 1970.

In 1959, Packer gave an address that later become the book Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. In this post by Downes, we can see that there was already some form of a "young, restless, reformed" generation back then. Yet, it was not long before Packer's compromise led to the tapering off of that movement. Lloyd-Jones died without a true successor, and the entire Reformed (English non-conformist) movement in the UK, while still present, is left leader-less, as Trueman states.

This has implications for the modern New Calvinist movement. History has shown over and over that compromise ultimately destroys a movement, even if the initial results seem multiplied many-fold. Yet, few it seems want to learn from history. The biggest growth of the Church comes in times of contention and strict denunciation of errors, as seen in the early Church and the Reformation era. Compromise (and worldliness, which is a form of compromise) severely harms the Church. In the Second Great Awakening, the toleration of the Pelagian heretic Charles G. Finney resulted in whole sections of New England being referred to as the "burnt over district" (cf Iain H. Murray's book Revival and Revivalism) as many professing Christians from Finney's "revivals" apostatized. New Evangelicalism as an experiment is not yet over, but the results can be already seen in the multitudes of churches jettisoning the Gospel in all manner of ways (for example the Emergent Church Movement), and the toleration of heresies enabling them to leaven the churches and destroy souls.

With the toleration of the Federal Vision heresy by no less than Dr. John Piper in the recent Desiring God conference 2009, the need of the hour is for the proper exercise of biblical separation (not separationism) and the rejection of the New Evangelical paradigm, in order for this Calvinist resurgence to continue strong. Otherwise, history will repeat itself again, with different people involved. (Try substituting the name of J.I. Packer with John Piper), and that will be a sad thing indeed.

Add: Martin has posted extracts from Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones' address on evangelical unity here. Notice that Lloyd-Jones linked Evangelical Unity with the necessity of separating from false churches and thus the doctrine of separation, unlike the New Calvinists.

The church, surely, is not a paper definition. I am sorry, I cannot accept the view that the church consists of articles or of a confession of faith. A church does not consist of the Thirty-Nine Articles. A church does not consist of the Westminster Confession of Faith...A church consists of living people.

You and I are evangelicals. We are agreed about these essentials of the faith, and yet we are divided from one another. We meet like this, I know, in an occasional conference, but we spend most of our time apart from one another, and joined to and united with people who deny and are opposed to these essential matters of salvation. We spend our time with them. We have visible unity with them. Now, I say, that is sinful.

Let me therefore make an appeal to you evangelical people here present this evening. What reasons have we for not coming together? I think we ought to be able to give an answer to that question.

Let me put it positively. Do we not feel the call to come together, not occasionally, but always? It is a grief to me that I spend so little of my time with some of my brethren. I want to spend the whole of my time with them. I am a believer in ecumenicity, evangelical ecumenicity. To me, the tragedy is that we are divided. Is it right that those of us who are agreed about these fundamental things should only meet occasionally and spend, as I say, most of our time when we are among others fighting negative battles, showing how wrong our own leaders are, and so on? Now you and I have been called to a positive task.

[Bold added]

Let's see if the Gospel Coalition would embrace the same form of Evangelical Unity that Lloyd-Jones advocated, or the type of ecumenical unity that Packer and [John] Stott advocated.

Michael Horton on the Purpose Driven paradigm (part 1)

Prof. Michael Horton has came out with a new book, The Gospel-Driven Life, which is supposed to be the sequel to his previous book Christless Christianity, another excellent book. In this very new book of his, Horton attempts to show us the solution to the problems infecting the American Church, and many churches around the world.

Due to my schedule, I do not currently have the time and focus to write a review at one go. However, I would post certain excellent excerpts of the book here which addresses certain topics pertinent to the Church.

The topic for this post, as it can be seen from the title, is the Purpose Driven (PD) life paradigm. Right from the onset, the title looks eerily familiar. In the book itself, chapter 6 is entitled The Promise-Driven Life, and it is in there where the PD life paradigm is either overtly attacked or undermined.

In mentioning, and lightly undermining the PD life paradigm, Horton states:

As evidenced by Rick Warren's phenomenal bestseller, The Purpose -Driven Life, the passion for meaning and purpose has not been extinguished by the daily grind or by the unrelenting buzz of our consumer culture. While affirming the importance of having clear goals and worthy focus in life, I am urging us to put purpose in their place, as servants of promise. No longer under the law's condemnation, the justified are free now to respond to God's commands out of thanksgiving for the God whose character it displays and out of love for our neighbors. The gospel saves us, giving us a reason to walk through the wilderness to the promised land, and the law guides us, giving us directions for that journey. Christians are driven by God's promises, and directed by God's purposes. (p. 133)

It can be seen that we are NOT to driven by God's purposes. If purpose is analogous to Law, while promise is analogous to Gospel, then by implication, a life driven by purpose is driven by Law, in other words, Legalism.

Horton further remarks on this contrast between law/purpose and gospel/promise:

The law cannot create faith because it tells us what is to be done. It can only announce to those who transgress it what they have not done; consequently, it brings despair in its wake. The promise, by contrast, tells us what has been done by someone else. That is why it brings life. (p. 139)

And finally, attacking the PD life paradigm:

When we really understand justification, we really understand how God works with us in every aspect of our lives before him. Christ lived the purpose-driven life so that we would inherit his righteousness through faith and be promise-driven people in a purpose-driven world. (p. 141)

The purpose-driven life is a life of works-righteousness. Only Christ can live the purpose-driven life, fulfilling all righteousness for His people. The world tries to be purpose-driven, and in so doing heaps up wrath upon itself since all men's righteousness are as filthy rags before God. The PD paradigm therefore is of the world and operates on the same principle of works that is antithetical to grace and true biblical faith.

In the next installment, we would look at the second part of the PD paradigm: the PD Church.

Charismatics and Pentecostal jumping onto the NPP bandwagen?

It seems that certain Charismatic and Pentecostal theologians want to jump onto the NPP (New Perspective on Paul) bandwagan. As stated:

Amos Yong, a charismatic theologian at Regent University, in his book review of Don Garlington's, In Defense of the New Perspective on Paul: Essays and Reviews (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2005), comments on Assembly of God scholar Frank Macchia's new book:

What I have observed is not that Renewal (by which I mean pentecostal-and-charismatic, broadly speaking) biblical scholarship has engaged the NPP--they might well have, but I am not as up-to-date in this area — but that pentecostal theologians and, especially, systematicians have made some recent proposals at least consistent with, if not presuming of, some of the basic NPP proposals as defended by Garlington. For instance, one of the main points in Frank D. Macchia's Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology (Zondervan, 2006) concerns the interconnectedness between the doctrines of justification and sanctification. For Macchia, the pentecostal theological emphasis on the Spirit means that justification can never be merely a forensic imputation of alien righteousness, but must also be a pneumatological impartation of the righteousness of Christ resulting in a transformed life. As an extension of this idea (although actually preceding Macchia's book by two years), pentecostal systematician Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen — although he prefers to call himself an ecumenical theologian — has argued in his One with God: Salvation as Deification and Justification (Liturgical, 2004) that justification is intimately tied in not only with sanctification but also with full salvation understood as glorification. [Bold in original post]

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James White responding to Obama's anti-Christian bigotry

Dr. James White has responded to radical leftist Barack Obama's "dream for a secular, non-Christian nation". Actually, that is a misnomer. It is actually Obama's vision for a homofascist, bigoted, anti-Christian nation, one in which bigoted hate crimes are sanctioned by the State as long as the opponent believes the Bible and practices it.

"If you honor that which sent Christ to the Cross, you are not a Christian" - Dr. James R. White (32 mins into the show)

Simon Murphy on the Gospel and your money

My friend Simon has preached a very good sermon etitled The Gospel and Your Money, which can be heard here. If you are sick about hearing sermonettes about money that sound like a fund-raising speech, this is a sermon you would not want to miss.

Genesis 1: Plenty of room on the slippery slope

Justin Taylor over at his new Between Two Worlds blog over at The Gospel Coalition has highlighted the fact that Dr. Tremper Longman, a "professor of OT at Westmont College, author of numerous commentaries, and co-author of the acclaimed An Introduction to the Old Testament", "explains in the following video that for him it’s an open question as to whether or not Adam was a literal, historical figure, and that to “insist” that Gen 1-2 conveys this is dependent on a “very highly literalistic” reading."

Rick Philips over at the Reformation21 blog has commented on this issue as follows:

When I was in seminary, I learned from my professors that even though Moses believed the days of creation were normal week days (as evidenced by his application of Genesis 1's chronology in the fourth commandment, Ex. 20:11), God was just using Moses' primitive cosmology to teach us something different from what the text said. I was not surprised, therefore, when one of these professors recently appeared on the internet insisting that we need not maintain a historical Adam and Eve. The slippery slope is broad enough for us all, my friends, not just for known "liberals".

I wholly concur. The fight for 6-day creationism is the fight for the inerrancy and authority of Scripture. Concede it, and one might as well be a liberal/neo-orthodox. As Justin Taylor mentioned in one of his comment:

1. Jesus and Paul both believed in a literal, historical individual named Adam.
2. Jesus and Paul based arguments on this belief and intended to convey this belief in teaching the implications of it (for covenant headship, marital headship, the marriage ideal, common humanity, etc.).
3. If there was no [sic] literal, historical individual named Adam, then Jesus and Paul were not only mistaken in a belief, but taught an incorrect belief.
4. If so, Jesus and Paul were in error on this, and so is the Bible.

See also Was Adam a real historical individual?

R. Scott Clark: What is the Federal Vision?

Dr. R. Scott Clark had written an article introducing the Federal Vision some time back. In light of John Piper's compromise in his recent DG conference 2009 with Federal Visionist Douglas Wilson, this article would help us know more about the pernicious error of the Federal Vision. An excerpt:

The FV is 33-year old movement that originated, at least in this episode, with the Rev Mr Norman Shepherd who was then teaching systematic theology at WTS/P. In 1974 he defined faith, in the act of justification, to be "faith and works." It wasn't that, in justification, faith is "receiving and resting" and works are evidence and thus a sort of vindicatory justification of the claim that one believes. Nothing so nuanced or Reformed. Rather, he flatly claimed that there are two parts to faith in justification. When that created a predictable uproar, he modified his language to "faithfulness." At the same time he, and others, was about revising covenant theology. In baptism, he wrote, we are all united to Christ and receive the benefits of Christ temporarily and conditionally. What is the condition of retaining them? Faithfulness!

...

In baptism every baptized person receives all the benefits of Christ (election, union with Christ, justification, adoption) so that one is in "the covenant" by grace but one retains these benefits and either remains or becomes (they've said both) elect, united to Christ, and justified by cooperating with grace through trusting and obeying. This was their scheme to combat evangelical antinomianism. Of course it's an old brew called moralism and it's been on tap forever. At the same time, the FV movement also re-defines covenant theology to say that there is but one covenant. Historic Reformed theology had affirmed three covenants:

• a pre-temporal covenant between the Father and the Son (and implicitly the Holy Spirit) to accomplish the redemption of the elect and to apply it to them;
• a covenant of works before the fall;
• a covenant of grace after the fall.

The FV affirms only one covenant: a gracious conditional covenant before the fall and a conditional gracious covenant after the fall. The FV generally rejects the pre-temporal covenant. This version of covenant theology has also had support among certain Dutch Reformed theologians in the 20th century (which served a a background to the current controversy). This re-construction of covenant theology served the FV movement well as it allows them to emphasize grace -- who can criticize grace? -- and it allowed them to insinuate conditions into the covenant of grace which supported their doctrine of justification through faithfulness (trust, Spirit-wrought sanctity, and cooperation with it in good works).

Edward Sim's review of my CREDO500 article on New Evangelical Calvinism, and my response

In just a few minutes time, the official publication of my modified paper on the New Evangelical Calvinism would be done. Edward Sim, a good brother in Christ, has reviewed my paper and the review has been published as well here. In response to Sim's review, I have written a response to it as follows:

I am grateful for Edward Sim’s review of my article on the New Evangelical Calvinism. Though I would most definitely not be in agreement with him on some of the issues he raised, I appreciate his frankness and his desire for the truth. In a culture which desires peace at all costs, those who are willing to disagree and do it in a Christian manner as based upon the authority of Scripture are indeed rare, and it is in this sense that I appreciate Sim’s review (cf Prov. 28:23).

It must first be reiterated that this paper was initially written in response to the attack of Tim Challies on “watchbloggers” on his blog. This paper was not therefore intended to be a full-scale analysis of the current Calvinist Resurgence, and thus of the positives and negatives found in it. Also, being a movement, it is definitely the case that the movement is not monolithic and thus not everything stated would apply to everyone. The article therefore was meant to be a clarion call towards the New Calvinists of the concerns with regards to possible deficiencies in the movement itself, which of course may or may not apply to them as individuals. It must be said that I am sympathetic to the movement, being able to identify with them on certain issues like the need for having a dynamic and passionate faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, after all having experienced the transformation that comes with embracing the Doctrines of Grace later in the Christian life.

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Tim Keller compromising the Gospel

It seems that Tim Keller, a poster child of the Calvinist Resurgence, has came back from a conference held at Willow Creek, and blogged about how he appreciates "The 'Kingly' Willow Creek Conference". Using John Frame's "tri-perspectivalism", Keller states that Willow Creek has a "kingly" emphasis, Reformed churches have a "prophetic" emphasis, while Emerging churches have a "priestly" emphasis.

In response, Rick Phillips has responded to Keller's post in an irenic tone on the Reformation21 site here. Phillips asked the pertinent question:

Did one of the founders of the Gospel Coalition (of which I, like many of us at Ref 21, am a member) really just suggest that gospel clarity is non-essential to a church? (Bold added)

I would like to offer some additional thoughts on the matter; readers can read Phillips excellent response to Keller at the Reformation21 blog post.

In response to Keller's ecumenical post, the question we should ask ourselves is: What defines a true church? According to the Reformed tradition [It can be shown in Calvin's Institutes also but I do not feel like searching for the reference], a biblical church is defined by three essential marks: The pure preaching of the Word, the proper administration of the sacraments, and the exercise of church discipline. Before being mushy about the greatness of different "churches" and their different emphasis, do these churches first qualify as true churches?

With regards to sound doctrine, let us be as maganimous as possible. I can grant for the sake of argument that pure preaching refers to getting the Gospel correct, and that only. After all, since the whole idea is about being Gospel-centered, shouldn't this be the main emphasis? So how would the churches mentioned grade based merely on this one criteria?

The Emerging churches, and most definitely the Emergent churches will automatically fail the test. There are many examples of Emergents denying the Gospel outright, with the most recent case being that of Rob Bell. Instead of the biblical Gospel which proclaims the wrath of God against sinners, and the necessity of repentance from sin and belief in Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation, the Gospel is painted as social justice and ushering in "a new creation", or whatever liberal nonsense that can be recycled by the latest guru in the Emerging Movement.

Willow Creek church unfortunately fails the grade as well. A Gospel message without the depravity and wickedness of Man, the wrath of God against sinners, the necessity for sinners to repent and turn from their life of sin, the command to be holy as God is holy etc etc is NOT a biblical Gospel. Instead of preaching the biblical Gospel, Willow Creek through their seeker-sensitivity are only interested in reaching "unchurched Harry and Mary" through meeting their felt-needs. If a gospel, it is the "Gospel of Pelagius"; even Rome does not officially sink to that level.

So therefore, based upon the New [Evangelical] Calvinist idea of Gospel-centeredness, the churches mentioned by Keller (besides the Reformed churches), have all failed the test of being a true church. Such being the case, what kind of "kingly" and "priestly" ministry can false churches have?

Dr. Phillips has called Keller to task for implying that Gospel clarity is non-essential to a church. This is in fact the best reading of Keller's endorsement not only of Willow Creek (which is bad enough), but Emerging churches. I will go further to say that Keller's endorsement of such "churches" as being legitimate churches implies that the Gospel itself is non essential to a church. Is this what the "Calvinist Resurgence" is all about; that the Gospel is not essential to a church!?

[HT: BiblicalThought]

Phil Johnson on the heresy of Rob Bell

Phil Johnson has posted an excellent article here exposing the heresy of Emergent Rob Bell as seen in his interview with the Boston Globe. I honestly do not thnk there is any way anyone can spin this sort of nonsense and pass it as historic Evangelicalism.

Q: OK, how would you describe what it is that you believe?

A: I embrace the term evangelical, if by that we mean a belief that we together can actually work for change in the world, caring for the environment, extending to the poor generosity and kindness, a hopeful outlook. That's a beautiful sort of thing.

Q: Is religion a part of that?

A: At the heart of the Christian story is resurrection, the belief that this world [sic] is good, and that, as a follower of Jesus, a belief that God hasn’t abandoned the world, but is actively at work in the world. Even in the midst of what can look like despair and destruction there is a new creation present.

Nothing about the Gospel there. The world is good? Oh well, Rom. 3 it seems does not exist in Bell's 'bible'.

An excellent excerpt from John MacArthur's new book

Over at the Shepherd's Fellowship blog, Pastor John MacArthur has posted an excellent excerpt from his latest book, which addresses the Zeitgeist in the area of "niceness". Was Jesus always "nice"? Check it out.

Here it an excerpt:

Jesus’ compassion is certainly evident in two facts that bracket this declamation. First, Luke says that as He drew near the city and observed its full panorama for this final time, He paused and wept over it (Luke 19:41-44). And second, Matthew records a similar lament at the end of the seven woes (23:37). So we can be absolutely certain that as Jesus delivered this diatribe, His heart was full of compassion.

Yet that compassion is directed at the victims of the false teaching, not the false teachers themselves. There is no hint of sympathy, no proposal of clemency, no trace of kindness, no effort on Jesus’ part to be “nice” toward the Pharisees. Indeed, with these words Jesus formally and resoundingly pronounced their doom and then held them up publicly as a warning to others.

This is the polar opposite of any invitation to dialogue. He doesn’t say, “They’re basically good guys. They have pious intentions. They have some valid spiritual insights. Let’s have a conversation with them.” Instead, He says, “Keep your distance. Be on guard against their lifestyle and their influence. Follow them, and you are headed for the same condemnation they are.”

This approach would surely have earned Jesus a resounding outpouring of loud disapproval from today’s guardians of evangelical protocol. In fact, His approach to the Pharisees utterly debunks the cardinal points of conventional wisdom among modern and post-modern evangelicals — the neoevangelical fondness for eternal collegiality, and the Emerging infatuation with engaging all points of view in endless conversation. By today’s standards, Jesus’ words about the Pharisees and His treatement of them are breathtakingly severe.

(Bold added)