Update: I have since changed my position on this after having more thoroughly (at least as much as a lay person can) studied covenant theology and the cohesiveness of the Abrahamic and new covenant as essentially being one in the same, and seeing how this thought carries over into the NT in multiple places, and would have been a basic presupposition of first century Jewish thought (i.e., what shall we do with our children?). Long story short, I’m a paedobaptist now. The podcast has since disappeared below. However a newer debate between the two can be found here: http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=531151725250
Category: Audio Page 6 of 7
Written in 1923, Machen addresses a system encroaching upon the church that would bring about the sure eclipse of the very Gospel itself within the 20th century. It is important to note from the outset that this liberalism is not at all the same as modern political liberalism, but is rather theological liberalism. In his day, J. Gresham Machen, at great cost to himself, fought against the theological and doctrinal accommodation of the scientific culture within the church, who were denying miracles and the supernatural based upon empirical scientific evidence. Despite many of his “brethren” in the day, he held out that we must adhere to the divine, supernatural nature of all that Christianity entails or else forfeit the Gospel itself: the divine inerrancy of the Scriptures, the nature and qualities of both God and man, that salvation is a supernatural work of God, that real people with real sins were atoned for by the blood of Christ, the human and divine natures of Christ, amongst many things that set Historic Christianity apart from all other religions devised by man out in the world.
The thinking of the forerunners of theological liberalism went like this, “In order to reach the scientifically enlightened culture we live in, it is not important to hold to a literal virgin birth, a literal resurrection, atonement through the cross, or any miracles really at all, mainly because these events cannot be empirically proven through scientific analysis and methods; we believe these things personally, but it is not important to hold to these things in light of science.” Because the church was increasingly falling prey to this and in danger of apostatizing from the Gospel itself as a result, Machen wrote this book in response and fought vigorously for the truth of the Scriptures, Orthodoxy, and Historic Christianity. While it is definitely possible the intentions of the original liberals were good in trying to reach a culture with Christ that had scientific empirical evidence as a presupposition when coming to the spiritual/supernatural statements of Christianity, the followers in its wake have basically denied Christianity of any supernatural and divine quality (which is how lives are effectually changed, i.e. God creates in people something that was not there through the cross of Christ). Theological liberalism essentially renders Christianity just another choice of moralistic religions, that we are all “basically good,” and can morally reform ourselves outside of God, amongst a host of other religions saying the same thing in principle.
I believe it is deeply and vastly important for modern believers in the Gospel to read this book, because there is a movement underway in our culture that is doing the same things as liberals of the early 20th century. The liberalism of the 20th century addressed the Modern era, and now the Emerging church (or new liberalism) addresses the postmodern era. With modernism there was scientific certainty; with postmodernism, there is total uncertainty and skepticism, and this has translated into the realm of spirituality (i.e. “we can’t really know anything for sure concerning who God is, what He’s like,” etc). While times have changed (philosophical/cultural thinking) and even science itself (there is increasing ambiguity concerning the very nature of particles and waves in the scientific community, i.e. what scientists thought they knew for sure in the 20th century concerning matter, anti-matter, and laws of physics, they are not so sure about now, based greatly upon quantum mechanics – so miracles and the supernatural are no longer deemed as impossible scientific propositions), the premise is the same in both ages: adopt the culture with its thinking, belief structure, and presuppositions in order to win the culture for Christ. Make Christianity attractive by bringing in the thinking of the world around us.
Sounds good right? I mean, at least on a surface level, the intention may be good, which is win people for Christ! But is it effective in the long run? As John Piper properly notes in an introduction to a sermon he preached, “If you adjust your doctrine to fit the world in order to attract the world, sooner or later the world realizes that they already have what the church offers. That was the story of much of mainline Protestantism in Europe and America in the 20th century. Adjust your doctrine – or just minimize doctrine – to attract the world, and in the very process of attracting them, lose the radical truth [the Gospel itself] that alone can set them free.”
In order to accommodate a postmodern culture in which we live, the Emerging Church has brought down doctrinal walls in order to win the culture. However, as history shows, this does not work. This movement will ultimately wind up blocking people from seeing, believing in, and enjoying the true Christ of the Scriptures (as opposed to the Jesus made in their own image and likeness), for which they will be held accountable before His White Throne judgment (may God have mercy on us all on that day). Emergents have themselves adopted postmodern thought within a “new” system of Christianity, that you cannot really know anything for sure, so there is no need to be dogmatic on doctrine. And in addition to this, they have in many cases totally redefined the Christian message altogether, where it is no longer distinguishable from that of other religions with their pseudo-pietistic, works-based approach to God. As with the liberalism in the 20th century that Machen addressed in this book, the Emerging Church will surely bring about the very eclipse of Christ and the Gospel (the good news of redemption!) itself in the 21st century. The Emerging Church is just version 2.0 of the theological liberalism of the 20th century. May we learn from history and glorify Jesus by adhering to His infallible Word, even if people hate us!
“But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” – 1 Corinthians 1:23-34
If you want to read this book right now, go here (PDF):
http://reformedaudio.org/audio/machen/Machen%20-%20Christianity%20&%20Liberalism.pdf
Audio biography of J. Gresham Machen by John Piper (MP3):
http://www.desiringgod.org/media/audio/conferences/bcp1993/19930126_piper_machen.mp3
John Piper’s sermon on Romans 9:1-5:
http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/my-anguish-my-kinsmen-are-accursed
Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith – Review by Dale Van Dyke:
http://www.westerfunk.net/theology/articles/velvetelvis/
Praise God for raising up someone to oppose those who were holding down the Gospel through greed, power and manipulation. There had been those before Luther such as John Huss and John Wycliffe who some would consider the first line of troops to break the stronghold of the “Normandy beach” but most of the initial Reformers died for the sake of Christ in making His Gospel known. But Luther was the first to gain a foothold on the beach by nailing his 95 theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517 – aka Reformation Day (though it had already begun in debates and dialogs with various Roman Catholic theologians. It was revolutionary, the explosion of the Protestant Reformation was about to take place all over Europe. After seeing the Gospel pop out of the Scriptures before his eyes when reading Romans and Galatians in particular, that the righteous shall live by faith in Christ alone and nothing else (no works, etc), he could not help but see the unbelievable fallacies and evils of the Roman Catholic Church in direct opposition to the Gospel itself in the Scriptures. He saw they had set up a legalistic, religious system of approach to God, offering to all that more was needed than the blood of Christ alone to be saved, such as penance, purgatory, etc. Luther opposed this by showing that Salvation is by Sovereign Grace in the cross work of Christ on behalf of His people. Luther’s main emphasis in the Reformation was a returning to the Biblical Gospel, that we are saved by sovereign Grace Alone through Faith Alone in Christ Alone revealed in the Scriptures Alone to the Glory of God alone (the Five Solas).
Luther considered his most important work to be The Bondage of the Will, which spread like a wildfire throughout Europe, a letter (book really) written to Erasmus, a Roman Catholic theologian debating Luther on the Scriptural validity of the will being free from the corruption of sin or not. The heart of the Reformation itself dealt with the will, i.e. does God have to regenerate the will by the work of Christ to turn our affections and desires; whether God has to do a supernatural work in the heart to make a person willing to believe in Christ alone in order that they may be saved. Monergism vs. Synergism was the core issue. The doctrine of faith alone simply supported Grace Alone. It is God who saves from beginning to end, Alpha to Omega, the flesh is of no avail, just as Jesus said. I find it ironic that today most Protestant evangelicals in the West use the same arguments of Erasmus (a Roman Catholic theologian) when defending free will theology, whereas Luther would oppose them, just as he does in his most important book. It is odd that many disagree with the very conclusions of the heart of the Reformation itself, all the while benefiting from all that came out of it, even though this was the key issue to the whole thing, according to Luther himself. Regardless, praise God for raising up faithful people to spread his Gospel, even when it cost them their lives. Praise God for Reformation Day!
One of my favorite quotes from Luther:
“Whilst a man is persuaded that he has it in his power to contribute anything, be it ever so little, to his salvation, he remains in carnal self-confidence; he is not a self-despairer, and therefore is not duly humbled before God, he believes he may lend a helping hand in his salvation, but on the contrary, whoever is truly convinced that the whole work depends singly on the will of God, such a person renounces his own will and strength; he waits and prays for the operation of God, nor waits and prays in vain . . .” – Martin Luther
Martin Luther – Lessons from His Life (MP3) – John Piper
Biography of Luther
Luther’s 95 Theses
What is Monergism?
Bondage of the Will – Martin Luther
Many people in our society simply cast aside such a comparison as non-sense, mainly because The Secret, authored by Rhonda Byrne, is a first place New York Times best seller (on the list for 25 weeks now!), at one point selling around 4 times the amount of the second place best seller. Let’s start by talking about how they are not related: one is blatantly calling itself Satanism (the religion of self as they proclaim) and the other is packaging itself in a much cleaner fashion, in the form of love and tranquility. One is abrasive, the other is seemingly harmonious. In my estimation, The Secret will do far more damage to our society than blatant Satanism. But how does the “theology” of The Secret differ from that of Satanism? Well it doesn’t really when you get down to what each “religion” is saying. Quote from Anton Szandor LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, from their website:
“Since Satanism is essentially a religion of the self, it holds that the individual and his personal needs comes first … Satanism is the only religion which serves to encourage and enhance one’s individual preferences, so long as there is admission of those needs. Thus, one’s personal and indelible religion (the picture) is integrated into a perfect frame. It’s a celebration of individuality without hypocrisy, of solidarity without mindlessness, of objective subjectivity.” – Taken from http://www.churchofsatan.com/Pages/MostPower.html (WARNING – be careful on this site, a few bad pictures and a few bad links, I would say just stick to that one page and that will be enough to give you the overview).
Well unfortunately, Satanism is not the only religion which holds to this kind of thinking.
In comparison, here are some audio sound bites from Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret (just hover over the links below to play them in the window that pops up):
The Magnificence of You (MP3)
The Sun Rises for You (MP3)
You Are the Creator (MP3) < This one just amazes me
This teaching is blatantly Satanic. How? Just rewind to the Garden of Eden. Satan told Eve, “You will be like God.” (Gen 3:5) What is the fundamental difference between these two “religions”? None. It is all about self. Satan fell from heaven because of his assertion that he was God and could conquer Him. Is The Secret any different? The church must embrace the Biblical Gospel and cast aside anything that would come into our churches that is not only non-Christian but anti-Christian, like The Secret. According to Al Mohler, from this radio program (mp3) he did back in March, ladies watching Oprah (also this) are bringing this filth into Bible studies! Unbelievable. This is why we must preach a clear Gospel and Biblical doctrine from Scripture. People in our Christian culture are so unfamiliar with their own belief system they cannot even recognize something as blatantly Satanic as The Secret.
“A great civilization is not conquered from without, until it has destroyed itself from within.”
– Will Durant
The Goal of God’s Love May Not Be What You Think It Is – John Piper
“What in the world could possibly be wrong with the Purpose-Driven movement’s approach to the Gospel?”
On the surface, Rick Warren’s approach seems so nice and palatable. I mean isn’t it a good thing that so many people are going to these really large churches by the thousands? So what could possibly be wrong with the Seeker-Sensitive approach and ministry philosophy of this movement? Well from a biblical standpoint, there is no true seeker of God and who He is.
This movement has been labeled “Seeker-Sensitive,” and yet there are no true seekers of God until we are regenerated to seek Him. No one wants to approach God on God’s terms, it’s always on their terms, unless God opens their hearts and minds to see Christ and His sufficiency. Otherwise, left to themselves, all men would continue in a state of rebellion straight to the eternal wrath of God.
What does Scripture say about man and his moral state? In Romans 3:10-18 it says of all men, both Jew and Gentile, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
What a radical indictment against man. Sounds harsh, but this is the reality of how bad we are, even if we don’t want to hear it. 1 Corinthians 1:18 states in no uncertain terms, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” In Ephesians 2:3, Paul clearly shows that our nature before regeneration and conversion was that we “were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”
All men are by nature objects of wrath. God isn’t just hateful (in a wrathful way) toward the sin of the sinner, but outside of Christ, He hates those very people who do iniquity (Psalm 5:5). Yes He desires all men to repent. But He wants nothing to do with those who reject Him (which is exactly what Christ will say to many on the last day: “Away from Me, I never knew you”).
Warren and others like him will not use the type of language the Scriptures use because it is offensive to the world (i.e. it might make them hate us or offend them), which is why so many droves of people are going to seeker churches and others like his. I am always very leery of large movements within the church where thousands upon thousands, and millions upon millions go after a few people bringing up “new” language and ideas. The whole Purpose-Driven/Seeker-Sensitive movement seems to be a people-pleasing movement within the church that doesn’t want to “offend” and turn people away with such “harsh” words and phrases as wrath, sin, judgment, hell, lake of fire, and outer darkness because that would turn people away.
Where is the confidence in the message of the pure Gospel though? The courageness of speaking the truth in love without fear? Who is it that actually converts people? Who is it that convicts the sinner of their plight? Is it not God alone? And this is where we get down to what drives the Purpose-Driven movement theologically: synergism. At a fundamental level, they essentially believe that there is within man an island of righteousness left after the fall, left untouched by sin, where man still has the ability to turn to God without any prior regeneration by God’s Spirit. But this semi-pelagianism is error and was officially condemned by the church back in 529 AD at the Council of Orange.
We must recover monergistic, Biblical preaching and teaching of the Gospel (that it is God alone who first regenerates the sinner that gives rise to the sinners’ faith in Christ), with all its hard edges and difficult Biblical language, or else sacrifice the very thing that will actually save people from the wrath of God: the Gospel itself spoken through the Word of God.
If our preaching of the Gospel doesn’t make the world (i.e. unbelievers) uncomfortable and hate us even (as Jesus Himself said would happen to believers who preach His Gospel) then could there be something wrong with our preaching and teaching? If we’re not using Biblical language to describe the nature of God, man, sin, justice, wrath, the cross, atonement, resurrection, repentance, grace, mercy, salvation, then what other language can be used? Worldly language, language that is not of God, but is from man.
What is left of the Gospel if we strip these difficult truths down to where the unregenerate, unbelieving world can accept them without ever being converted? (The statistics nowadays concerning the evangelical church, her beliefs, and her morality, back all of this up too.) They are then not receiving the Biblical truth of man’s plight but a man-generated philosophy that exalts man’s condition to not be nearly as bad as the Bible speaks of it.
Is this movement not stripping the essential message of the Gospel of its power and content by making people feel good about themselves in their natural state of sin and wickedness toward God? Could it be they have fallen victim to the liberal’s worldview notion of political correctness to where it has now infiltrated the most essential, most important message in the history of man; the Gospel?
The Gospel is an offensive message to man, it is folly to the world, because it means we must admit our fallenness, our sinfulness, that the deserved punishment of that sin is eternal hell, but then believing ( and that itself by the power of God through the message of the Gospel) that Christ came, lived a perfect life, died on the cross, and rose from the grave, that anyone who believes in Him will have the wrath of God turned away, and that the righteousness Christ earned would be credited to their account. The Gospel is an offensive message to those who are perishing (and yet we still preach it to all), but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God unto salvation. And so we preach the Gospel, using Scripture itself as the thrust of our message.
Bob DeWaay, in this series of messages on the Purpose-Driven movement, does an excellent job of laying out how they are redefining Christianity from its historical, Biblical context to fit the needs of the modern cultural “seeker”.
http://cicministry.org/radio_series.php?series=redefining
This is a great overview of the history of the church by Tommy Nelson, pastor of Denton Bible Church (not the publisher). I highly recommend this because it is so vitally important to know how we got where we are in the modern day church. Check it out!
Sermon 1 (MP3)
Sermon 2 (MP3)
Sermon 3 (MP3)
Sermon 4 (MP3)
Sermon 5 (MP3)
Sermon 6 (MP3)
Sermon 7 (MP3)
Sermon 8 (MP3)
Sermon 9 (MP3)
Sermon 10 (MP3)
Sermon 11 (MP3)
Sermon 12 (MP3)
Sermon 13 (MP3)
“He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”
> 1 John 2:2 (ESV)
“He (Caiaphas) did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.”
> John 11:51-52 (ESV)
Many will cite 1 John 2:2 to support their claim that Christ died indiscriminately for the sins of all men. And while on the surface this does indeed appear to be exactly what it says, upon closer examination within the context, using the reasoning skills God has blessed us with as humans, and in light of John 11:51-52 (written by the same John) amongst other passages, we have reason to think otherwise. First of all, we must ask ourselves, what exactly is a propitiation? It is a sacrifice (specifically of Christ) that effectually appeases, satisfies, turns away, or averts wrath for those the sacrifice is being made for. Now, in the book of Revelation, we have a very clear picture that in the end, there will be people both in heaven and in hell (Revelation 20:11-15). If Christ died to “appease, satisfy, turn away, or avert wrath” for all people for all time, then we must ask ourselves, why are there people that will still experience this wrath if Christ died effectually to take away that wrath for all men? Seems to me that if this is the case, God didn’t accomplish all He had in mind, and that there are conflicting interests within the Godhead. But this just isn’t the case. John Piper and Bethlehem Baptist Church, in the article entitled What We Believe About the Five Points of Calvinism, states of 1 John 2:2:
“If ‘the whole world’ referred to every individual in the world, we would be forced to say that John is teaching that all people will be saved, which he does not believe (Revelation 14:9-11). The reason we would be forced to say this is that the term propitiation refers to a real removal of wrath from sinners. When God’s wrath against a sinner is propitiated, it is removed from that sinner. And the result is that all God’s power now flows in the service of his mercy, with the result that nothing can stop him from saving that sinner. Propitiated sins cannot be punished.”
Someone will now object to this and say the reason some will be in hell and others will be in heaven is that those in hell didn’t have faith, they didn’t believe in Christ, and that’s true. But why does one person believe while another doesn’t? To shed some light on this, I would like to quote from the same document:
“Which of these statements is true?
1. Christ died for some of the sins of all men.
2. Christ died for all the sins of some men.
3. Christ died for all the sins of all men.
No one says that the first is true, for then all would be lost because of the sins that Christ did not die for. The only way to be saved from sin is for Christ to cover it with his blood.
The third statement is what the Arminians would say. Christ died for all the sins of all men. But then why are not all saved? They answer, Because some do not believe. But is this unbelief not one of the sins for which Christ died? If they say yes, then why is it not covered by the blood of Jesus and all unbelievers saved? If they say no (unbelief is not a sin that Christ has died for) then they must say that men can be saved without having all their sins atoned for by Jesus, or they must join us in affirming statement number two: Christ died for all the sins of some men. That is, he died for the unbelief of the elect so that God’s punitive wrath is appeased toward them and his grace is free to draw them irresistibly out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
But aside from the logical reasoning above refuting the idea of a universal atonement, spefically refuting this idea within 1 John 2:2, we also have the passage of John 11:51-52 that goes against the idea proported by universal atonement advocates, written by the same author, using the same grammatical structure, using different wording. And we know that John did not contradict himself, mainly because God-breathed Scripture doesn’t contradict itself, and neither does John. Now before I talk about those verses in particular, we need some background on the context of this passage. The chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together to figure out what to do about Jesus because so many people were believing in Him and they were afraid that if everyone believed, Rome would come and take away their land. John 11:48-52 states, “‘If we let him (Jesus) go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.’ But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, ‘You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.’ He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.”
Now with that context, we come upon verses 51-52 that states, “… [Caiaphas] prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad,” and in comparing this with 1 John 2:2 that says, “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world,” we have very similiar language that essentially states the same thing, that Jesus came to die for the sins of not only the readers of John’s letter in 1 John (namely the Jewish believers, but also to gather into one the children of God scattered abroad (i.e. over the whole world), or the Gentiles. John was not saying that Christ died to effectually take away the sins of every individual person in the world, but rather that God would gather to Himself and purchase men for God from every tribe, language, people and nation. And in fact, in Revelation 5:9 (this book also written by John), the four living creatures and the 24 elders cry out this very thing by saying, “Worthy are you (Jesus) to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”
So when we read 1 John 2:2, based on these other verses in Scripture that were also divinely inspired by the same author, the Apostle John, he’s not stating that Christ died to effectually take away the sins of all men for all time (mainly because that’s not what will happen in the end, Revelation 20:11-15), but rather that He would purchase men for God, who were given to Christ by the Father (i.e. chosen before the foundation of the world to receive divine, judicial, merciful pardon through Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross, John 6:37, Ephesians 1:3-7) from every tribe, language, people and nation (i.e. the whole world, Revelation 5:9).
Articles and Resources Pertaining to this:
What We Believe About the Five Points of Calvinism – John Piper and Bethlehem Baptist Church
Limited Atonement – Part 1 – Piper (MP3)
Limited Atonement – Part 2 – Piper (MP3)