Enablers of a False Gospel and Bad Church

Consider the following criminal law:

At law, an accomplice is a person who actively participates in the commission of a crime, even if they take no part in the actual criminal offense.

Even further,

A person charged with aiding and abetting or accessory is usually not present when the crime itself is committed, but he or she has knowledge of the crime before or after the fact, and may assist in its commission through advice, actions, or financial support.

To be an accomplice or to aid and abet, you don't have to commit the actual criminal act itself, and yet you are still criminally liable under the law.  Most people know this.  A similar act occurs on a regular basis, I believe, all over evangelicalism and fundamentalism.  Here's what got my attention on this.

I know of a certain itinerant speaker (called an evangelist) who speaks at Lancaster Baptist Church (LBC) or West Coast Baptist College.  I was looking at the website of a church that would be close to what our church is and does. I see this itinerant speaker is there speaking.

We don't fellowship with Lancaster or West Coast, but I wanted to find the church doctrinal statement to see what they said the gospel was.  When I did, up came the opening meeting of their college school year with Renee Oullette speaking.  I listened to him for about fifteen minutes and he was very entertaining and funny, comedic really.  I have more of a take on his preaching, but I'll come back to that.  After being derailed from that original task, I went to the church site and looked at the doctrinal statement.  Here's what it says on salvation:

We believe all men were born with an inherited sin nature received from our common ancestor, Adam. We believe that because of his nature, man is a sinner by choice, and he is totally incapable of reforming himself or ceasing from his sin by his own power. We believe the only hope of deliverance for man is a total change of mind concerning his sinful condition and inability to change it, and a turning to Jesus Christ as the only Saviour. We believe that only through the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on the cross can a man be delivered from his sin. We believe that all those who reject Jesus Christ as their Saviour are already condemned to an eternity in the lake of fire. (Genesis 5:1-5; Acts 4:19; Acts 16:31; Romans 3:10-23; Romans 5:6-12; Romans 6:23; Romans 10:9-10; Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:5-6; Revelation 20:11-14)

I'm happy their doctrinal statement was even included -- it's nice that they don't try to hide it. Perhaps when you read that, you think it is a pretty good statement.  I'm telling you it isn't, and especially when you know what they believe, preach, and practice.  What's wrong?

This paragraph is not where I'm going with this post, but the LBC statement is weak, especially for as many words.  How could someone leave out, "believe in Jesus Christ"?  I'm pretty sure LBC thinks "faith in Christ" is required for salvation, at least their version or understanding of what faith is and who Christ is.  I think LBC would say it, even though they didn't include it. Neither the word "repent" or the word "believe" occur.  Nowhere does the statement say that if you you believe in Jesus Christ, you'll be saved, something as simple as that.  It says your "only hope of deliverance is" and "a man can be delivered."  "Hope" and "can be" are not how salvation reads in scripture.  It just isn't written very well, and perhaps that occurred to leave out what I'm writing next.

First, the statement says nothing about Jesus as Lord.  Nothing.  Certain points read like "Lord" would fit, and it is isn't there.  One would be, "turning to Jesus Christ as the only Savior."  The idea of "turning" hardly has anything to do with Jesus as Savior.  "Turning" has to do with Jesus being "Lord," but that is left out, purposefully.   People are condemned "who reject Jesus Christ as their Saviour," and that's it -- nothing about Jesus as Lord.

Second, the statement uses a very specific language, "total change of mind," reducing the response to Jesus to the merely intellectual.  It doesn't use the word, "repent," but it dumbs down repentance to something less than biblical.

LBC and West Coast preach a false gospel that excludes Lordship and true repentance.  Ouellette, the man at the opening of the the WCBC school year, preaches the same message.  These men commit the crime.  They're not just accomplices.  They don't just aid and abet.  But what I'm writing in this post is about those aiding and abetting, and the accomplices, the enablers in fundamentalism and evangelicalism.  Even in the world, you are guilty if you are an accomplice, if you aid and abet.  What I'm saying is that you the reader understand this.  It's just a matter if you think what LBC and West Coast believe and do are that serious.

After watching the fifteen minutes of Oullette and looking at the LBC doctrinal statement, I went for a walk with my wife.  She asked if Oullette was preaching a passage.  He used a passage, but he wasn't preaching a passage.  I'm not even saying he's the worst at it, but what he was doing was more like what some have termed, performance art.  The authority of the message was the rhetoric, the use of language and a style of speaking, the stories, the shouting, the rhythmic pattern, his pronunciation of words, rising and lowering, the loudness and the softness, the use of his voice to sway an audience. People feel something that they think is the Holy Spirit.

Preaching should be the furthest thing from manipulation.  Preaching should not be the use of the voice or stories or human excitement to stir people.  You see that all over the Charismatic movement. It is revivalism.  It isn't biblical.  It is against the Bible.  People should be preaching what the Bible says.  They should expose it.  They should apply it.  Preaching is not an act, an event, a speech that depends on stirring techniques to change people.  When men who do that are praised and admired and used and elevated, that hurts everyone.  I'm not saying someone goes for boring or isn't interesting, so don't turn this into that.  You know that isn't what I mean.  I'm talking about preaching as a performance that is staged to produce an effect.  People should be ashamed for doing that, but they are promoted.

The preaching of Oullette, the philosophy of ministry of LBC, the whole package there, gives people a wrong understanding of church, how churches should function or operate.  They are talking people into something, using methods to do it.  The key is the method.  A point of a dumbed down doctrinal statement is to help do that.  The part they leave out is crucial, repentance and lordship.  You get to be saved.  They seduce people, using many different mediums to do it.  This is not what you read in the Bible.  It isn't what Jesus or the Apostles did.  You would think that would be good enough for people who talk about relying on the power of God.  It isn't the power of God.  It is a feeling that is produced by manipulation through many various means and it is called the power of God.

Some men preach at LBC and WCBC, who are just like them.  They also preach at the Sword of the Lord with the men there.  Some churches with almost identical doctrinal statements as ours, as mine, the men at the national Sword of the Lord conference also preach for them.  Then you have those who preach at LBC and WCBC, who preach at churches that would probably say they are like our church.  I understand those men preaching at LBC and WCBC and at those churches.  They are with LBC and WCBC.  That's how they think.  They are fine with it.  They aren't there attempting to change LBC and WCBC.  They are cooperating with them.  Perhaps they are the accomplices.  But the churches and their pastors that have those men, the accomplices -- they are aiding and abetting. They are enabling.

Stop enabling!  Make yourself clear.  You don't need these men.  Leave them to the Sword.  Leave them to LBC and WCBC.  Leave them alone.  You don't need them.  They don't help you and you don't help them.  Please stop!

I want to be very clear.  If you are an enabler, I don't want to enable you.  It's not good for you and it's not good for our church.  Get out of the enabling practice.  Let's all do that.

The Meaning of the Word Church According to ReligiousAffections.Org

Religiousaffections.org (RA) will help you discern. You should read the works by Scott Aniol, its president.  I recommend the site and most of the work done by its contributors.  It doesn't surprise me that it differs on the nature of or definition of the church, but in light of the purpose of RA, it intrigues me that it posted on the meaning of the word "church."  I want to review what Pastor David Huffstutler has written there in an article entitled, "The Meaning of the Word Church and What It Means for Us Today."

I want to evaluate the linked article for two main reasons.  First, Huffstutler presents a defense of the universal church and I want to investigate the scriptural premises provided, whether they prove his assertion.  Second, I want to diagnose the effect of the content or theology of the post on the religious affections of professing believers.

My experience with those who write about a universal church is that they assume what they don't and can't prove.  A first assumption comes in the first paragraph, last line, "Ekklesia. . ., as applied to believers in the present age, . . . refers to people who have been called out of this dying world to be part of the church, the body of Christ."  Not one verse in the Bible makes that point.  I wouldn't even call it speculation, because it's made up.  I would be happy to admit it if it were true, but it reads something into the Bible that isn't there.  One should not assume ekklesia, which means "assembly" and is used in that way exclusively, is an unassembled thing and never in time will be an assembled thing.

Hufstutler says that ekklesia is used four ways in the New Testament, two of which are never assembled and belie the meaning of the word.  The first is its usage as an assembly other than the institution Christ founded, four times in the New Testament.  The nature of ekklesia is still an assembly, a point Hufstutler should have mentioned in a post about the meaning of church.  These referenced usages key an understanding of the word, a group of people assembled for a particular purpose, how people would have understood it in that day.

The second usage for ekklesia Huffstutler says is "the universal church," terminology absent from the Bible even in descriptors.  You can't locate that universal idea anywhere, which should be tell-tale. He lists three references to prove that usage.  His fourth usage is closely related, what he calls "the entire church on earth at a given point in time."  He uses four New Testament references to buttress that point.  He briefly cites a second usage, "local church," not mentioning that of the 115 and more usages of ekklesia, the majority speak of particular churches.  Obviously, when ekklesia is used in the plural, those are assemblies and then when it is connected to a locale, it is again, an assembly there.

What some might call the more ambiguous usages of ekklesia are nothing more than generic singular nouns, referring to the church as an institution.  If you are not talking about a particular church, that doesn't change the meaning of the word "church."  A church is local only, because it is an assembly, and assemblies are always local.  There can't be a universal church.

Huffstutler's first proof text is "Ephesians 1:22-32."  There is no Ephesians 1:24-32, but guessing he meant Ephesians 1:22-23, you don't have a basis for believing that "church" in Ephesians 1 means "all believers."  There are only two grammatical usages of the singular noun in language, a particular or a generic.  It is true that there is only one church, the church, and it is local only.  Jesus is the Head of the church.  If I answer the phone, it doesn't mean that I'm answering a universal, mystical phone. That doctrine would need to be established somewhere in order to assume it some place.  If it hasn't, then we should assume that it is a generic use of the singular noun, what it would always be unless otherwise communicated, which it isn't.

Next Hufstuttler uses 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 to say “all the members of the body… baptized into one body,” proving a universal church.  What is "the body?"  If it is all believers, then Paul excludes himself later in the chapter, when he writes in verse 27, "Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular."  Paul says the church at Corinth is "the body of Christ," excluding himself from what he calls "the body of Christ."  That alone clinches the argument that the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12 is local only -- or else Paul wasn't a Christian.

The point of "one body" in 1 Corinthians 12:13 is not that there is numerically one in the entire universe, but that the body is unified where it is.  1 Corinthians teaches the unity and then diversity of a church.  Plural diversity becomes part of singular unity.  One body, many body parts.  One is not numeric one, but the oneness of each body.  That is clear through the teaching in the chapter and similar references are found all through the New Testament, like Philippians 1:27, "ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel."  "One body" in 1 Corinthians 12:13 doesn't mean numeric one any more than "one spirit" and "one mind" are numeric one in Philippians 1:27.

Then Hufstuttler references Ephesians 5:25 as a usage of the "universal church":  "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it."   Two verses earlier, Paul writes, "For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church."  To be consistent, if "the church" is universal and invisible, then "the husband" and "the wife" both need to be universal and invisible too.  "The husband" is a generic singular noun.  "The church" is a generic singular noun.  It is not talking about a particular husband or a particular church, but in both cases, the meaning of the word doesn't change.

Christ gave Himself for "the church," but Paul also writes in Galatians 2:20 that He "gave himself for me."  Did Christ give Himself only for Paul?  We can't assume that Christ's giving Himself for the church means that the church is all believers.  And if "the church" is universal in verse 25, then "the husband" and "the wife" must be in verse 23.

Regarding the usage of 1 Corinthians 15:9 and Galatians 1:13, identical usage, at the time Paul persecuted the church, there was only one church that we know of.  Believers had been scattered, but there was only the church of Jerusalem.  Even if there were another church besides at Jerusalem, Paul was persecuting Christ's assembly, His institution.  It is either particular or generic.

1 Corinthians 7:17 doesn't prove a universal church, when Paul writes, "And so ordain I in all churches," and in 1 Corinthians 14:33, "in all churches of the saints."  Why would Paul write "churches of the saints" if "the church" means "the saints"?  That proves the opposite of what Huffstutler is writing.  According to his proposed belief, Paul would be saying, "churches of the church," but he doesn't.  "Churches" and "the saints" are not identical like Hufstuttler himself is asserting, and this is seen in the text he references.  He's seeing something there that isn't there because of his predispositions.  He's not getting his teaching from the text, but reading into it.

Huffstutler asserts the universal church teaching to get to a particular point of application in the last two paragraphs:

Theoretically, if all the true, local churches indeed belong together as the one church and body of Christ, we should be able to perfectly get along. Unfortunately, there is great divide in understanding many important passages in Scripture, which has led to scores of denominations today. The choice one is left with is to limit one’s message and increase their connections or to decrease their connections but have a high level of commonality with others by means of a confession. For the sake of practicality in relating to others and in accord with my own doctrinal convictions, I encourage opting for the latter of the two.

For those who are truly our fellow Christians, we should strive to have what level of fellowship we can. And for those who are sister churches in both cardinal doctrines and distinctives, we should strive for fellowship all the more.

The application of his universal church teaching contradicts his universal church assumption.  If the church really is universal, he says that all the churches should get along.  He's right.  The Bible doesn't teach unity among all believers.  When Paul says there should be no schism in the body, he's saying there should be no schism in a particular church.  The unity taught in scripture is in individual churches.  Each church can have it.  It isn't "theoretical," but real.  Huffstutler treats the very unity of scripture as theoretical, as though it is no more than an ideal.

As a result of Huffstutler's wrong understanding of the nature of the church, he is obviously struggling with an application.  It's impossible, so he resorts to calling the unity required in the New Testament as theoretical (if you want a non-theoretical teaching, showing what the Bible says, buy and read A Pure Church), like most of the rest of fundamentalism and evangelicalism.  The Bible is not like this in any doctrine and practice.  It doesn't offer a theoretical, impossible teaching.  Evangelicals and fundamentalists are constantly looking for the sweet spot between separation and unity in article after article after article.  They assume that you have to give a little on both unity and separation and never have biblical unity or biblical separation, but settle for a compromise between the two.  The debate and argument and articles are about where the proper line or balance is.

The idea of a "level of fellowship" isn't taught in the Bible.  The idea of "cardinal doctrines and distinctives" isn't taught.  Fellowship is like what occurs between the Father and the Son (John 17).  This isn't theoretical.  It's real.  Much of the New Testament tells us how to have that fellowship.  The assumption of the New Testament isn't that you can't have it.  Huffstutler thinks it's theoretical, because what he's teaching about the church is wrong.  The New Testament works.  If it isn't working, you aren't getting it right.  This is foundational to the only view of truth and a Christian worldview, which brings me to the application to religious affections themselves.

Religiousaffections.org can never and will never protect religious affections with the wrong ecclesiology.  Scott Aniol and his fellows there don't separate from an apostasy of religious affections.  They just talk about religious affections.  They exhort.  They warn.  They do not separate.  God separated the culture outside the ark from the inside.  He didn't leave it muddled.  God expected Israel to separate from outside culture.  The only way to preserve the right way is to separate from the wrong way.  This theoretical unity and separation will never get it done.

Does Christ live the Christian Life for the Christian? The Keswick View of Galatians 2:20 Examined, part 1 of 4

Does Jesus Christ live the Christian life for the Christian--the Christ-life--or does the Christian live the Christian life empowered by Jesus Christ?  The former is the Keswick position, the latter the Scriptural one.  Galatians 2:20 is the text that is supposed to prove that Jesus Christ lives the Christian life for the believer:

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Before an exegetical examination of this passage is undertaken, the historical development of the Keswick view from the preaching of Hannah W. Smith will be examined.  As a Quaker, Mrs. Smith thought that she had a Divine Seed within her--Jesus Christ.  The Quaker Divine Seed heresy and its related heresies of the Inner Light, Quietism, and mysticism constitute the basis for the Keswick misinterpretation of Galatians 2:20.  Mrs. Smith wrote: “[H]ow few realize that as to themselves they are dead, and it is only Christ who is alive, and they in Him!” and affirming that the Inner Voice only gives “certain guidance” when one has recognized this secret (Letter to Abby, August 20, 1865, cf. Journal, July 22, 1859, reproduced in the entries for February 3 & January 19 of The Christian’s Secret of a Holy Life, Hannah W. Smith, ed. Dieter).  “[W]e Quakers” can say to one another, “do not expect . . . ever to find yourself any better . . . [y]ou yourself will always be utterly vile, and ignorant, and corrupt, but Jesus is your life now.  It is with you ‘no more I’ but Christ who lives in you.  And isn’t this glorious to lose your own life and find Christ’s divine life put in its place” (Letter to Frank, May 30, 1871, reproduced in the entry for June 6 of The Christian’s Secret of a Holy Life, Hannah W. Smith, ed. Dieter).  She knew that Christ was “not only the One who gives me life, but the one who lives it too . . . it is no more I who live but Christ who lives in me,” so that since “Jesus is our life, of course our only work must be to keep from living our own life and let[ting] His life work in us. . . . [We are to] reckon ourselves dead and alive only in Christ. . . . Is our new nature anything more than Christ in us?”  Thus, “I am dead, and . . . the only life I have now is His life,” as she “by faith claim[s] His life as [her] own”  and became “passive of choice and willingly” (Journal, 1867; Letter to Sister Mary, 1867; Letter to Mary, March 8, 1867, Letter to Priscilla Mounsey, March 15, 1874; Letter to Daughter, May 25, 1878, reproduced in the entries for February 24, 26, 27, July 10, & August 26 of The Christian’s Secret of a Holy Life, Hannah W. Smith, ed. Dieter; cf. also the entries for March 1, 3).  Thus, that “He would live my life for me” is “a genuine Quaker experience I am sure . . . a truth which the early Friends, and especially George Fox, rejoiced in . . . the secret of all their lives of devotedness and power . . . the secret of holiness” (Letter to Mother, March 18, 1867, reproduced in the entry for March 7 of The Christian’s Secret of a Holy Life, Hannah W. Smith, ed. Dieter).  “[W]e are dead, really and truly dead, and the only life we have is ‘Christ living in us.’ . . . [W]e have no more independence of being . . . apart from Christ” (Letter to a Friend, March 27, 1867, reproduced in the entry for March 8, ibid).  “I am sure the early Friends [Quakers] understood this, and when they spoke of ‘the Seed’ & ‘the Light’ etc. they meant Christ” (Letter to a Friend, Mary 28, 1867, reproduced in the entry for March 9, ibid; cf. the entry for March 10 & April 1).  Thus, Mrs. Smith preached her Quaker quietism in sanctification based on her view of Galatians 2:20:  “It is your own trying to live your life that is the greatest hinderance.  Stop this, and let His life live in you . . . let Him be your indwelling life[.] . . . Then it will be easy to live right . . . no effort to live. . . . You are trying to live, and your life is nearly strangled with the effort.  Give up trying, and let Christ, who is your life, live in you, and you will live easily and without effort” (pgs. 70-71, Account of the Union Meeting for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness, Held at Oxford, August 29 to September 7, 1874. Chicago:  Revell, 1874).

Hannah Smith’s teaching on Galatians 2:20 became that of the Broadlands Convention and its successors, the Oxford, Brighton, and Keswick Conventions; thus, those at the first Broadlands Convention heard:  “I know that Christ lives in  me] . . . recognize that it is Christ and not I that lives in the soul” (pg. 121, Memorials [of William Francis Cowper-Temple, Baron Mount-Temple], Georgina Cowper-Temple).  Broadlands knew that “the Christ-life” is present in all men because “Christ is the life of men, the Divine seed in every one” (pg. 178, The Life that is Life Indeed:  Reminiscences of the Broadlands Conferences, Edna V. Jackson.  London:  James Nisbet & Co, 1910); the Christ-life is simply the Quaker doctrine of the Divine Seed.  An important proclamation of Broadlands from the first was that “it is Christ and not I that lives in the soul” (pg. 134, The Life that is Life Indeed:  Reminiscences of the Broadlands Conferences, Edna V. Jackson.  London:  James Nisbet & Co, 1910).  At Broadlands Mr. and Mrs “Temple [experienced] great joy as the result of this meeting [where] many [came to live] . . . the heavenly life . . . Christ’s life . . . Christ Himself . . . living in these [bodily] tabernacles a supernatural life” (pgs. 130, 125, Memorials [of William Francis Cowper-Temple, Baron Mount-Temple], Georgina Cowper-Temple).  The Keswick and Higher Life leader Evan Hopkins relates that he learned from the catalyst of the Keswick Higher Life movement, Hannah W. Smith’s husband Robert Pearsall Smith, that “Christ . . . would live in him His own holy life” (pg. 159, So Great Salvation, by Steven Barabas; pg. 15, The Keswick Story:  The Authorized History of the Keswick Convention, Polluck).  Mr. Smith taught Hopkins that Christ “would do all, and would live in [the Christian] His Own Holy Life—the only Holy Life possible to us” (pgs. 52-55, Evan Harry Hopkins:  A Memoir, Alexander Smellie; italics in original.).  Indeed, as Robert P. Smith preached at the Brighton Convention, “Christ . . . is living His life in us . . . Christ’s own glorious life in Heaven is to be lived down here in these poor, mortal bodies,” based on Galatians 2:20—a doctrine which Mr. Smith associated with the Pentecostal precursor, the Faith Cure.  Thus, Smith taught that those who experience the Christ-life “will have power to work all [their] days for the Lord Jesus” and “will not wear . . . out” but “live as children do,” their “youth . . . renew[ed] . . . like the eagle’s” (pg. 338, Record of the Convention for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness Held at Brighton, May 29^th to June 7^th, 1875. Brighton: W. J. Smith, 1875; cf. pg. 84 for Mrs. Smith’s preaching of the Christ-life; cf. also pgs. 118, 152, 220, Account of the Union Meeting for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness, Held at Oxford, August 29 to September 7, 1874. Chicago:  Revell, 1874.).

William Boardman likewise taught that Galatians 2:20 teaches that “Christ . . . [is] dwelling in [the believer] to do His work, and to live His life in and by them,” and since Christ is the one who is living, not the believer, and Christ is perfectly holy and healthy, based on Galatians 2:20 “[m]en and women [can be] . . . so used by the Spirit, that He can use them as the Father used the Son, and as the Son used His apostles,” so “that He might use them in defeating the devil in the souls and bodies of all who are willing to hear and heed the Word,” in a flourishing ministry of Higher Life sanctification and Pentecostal healing (pgs. 225-226, Life and Labours of the Rev. W. E. Boardman, Mrs. Boardman), a belief which permeated the later Keswick and Pentecostal movements.

 Jessie Penn-Lewis wrote:  “Galatians 2:20 . . . ‘No longer I’ is the very central point of deliverance . . . the man himself retiring . . . to make room for the Risen Christ to dwell in him and live his life for him! . . . This is the deliverance of Calvary  . . . it draws the believer . . . out of sight into the crucified Lord, making way for the Christ Himself to possess the earthen vessel and manifest His life and power” (pgs. 66-70, Pg. 74, The Warfare With Satan, Jessie Penn-Lewis).

A. B. Simpson wrote:  “[The believer’s] life has been superseded by the very life of Christ Himself. ‘Not I,’ nay, not even the new and heaven-born I, but ‘the Christ that liveth in me.’ . . . [T]he Christ who lived of old is living again in me, thinking in my thoughts; choosing in my will; trusting in my faith; loving in my heart; triumphing in my victories, and covering my insufficiency with His glorious all-sufficiency. . . . Are we living the Christ life rather than trying to live a Christian life?” (“Spiritual Talismans” (Alliance Weekly, June 14, 1919, 178-179).

Watchman Nee preached that “the secret of the overcoming life . . . is to let Christ live in our stead, according to Paul’s testimony in Galatians 2:20” (pg. 131, Watchman Nee:  A Seer of the Divine Revelation in the Present Age, by Witness Lee); indeed, Nee went to the point of affirming that Christ is the one who not only lives instead of the believer, but that Christ believes instead of the believer:  “When we believe and receive the Son of God, not only His life but His faith too enters into us.  Hence we may live by His faith”  (pg. 29, God’s Plan and the Overcomers, Watchman Nee.  New York, NY:  Christian Fellowship Publishers, 1977).

Modern Keswick advocate John R. Van Gelderen writes:

Keswick . . . was for the deepening of spiritual life. To accomplish this purpose a definite theological position was taught—sanctification by faith, sometimes called holiness by faith. The focus of the theology was on Christ as one’s life. This was sometimes called ‘The Higher Life’ or ‘The Deeper Life’ or ‘The Victorious Life.’ . . .[T]he ‘Higher Life’ . . . is a Life. That Life is a Person, and His name is Jesus! Jesus is the ‘Higher Life.’ Jesus is the ‘Deeper Life.’ Jesus is the ‘Victorious Life.’ How can it be otherwise? Sanctification or holiness by faith is simply accessing the ‘Holy Life’ by faith. It is ‘I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me . . . by faith’ (Gal. 2:20). Holiness by faith is accessing the Holy Life of Jesus to empower holy living and serving. . . . Keswick teaches that just as justification is by faith, so also sanctification is by faith. . . . Faith for victory means you are depending on the victorious Life of Christ to enable you to obey. It is not a matter of you trying to live the Christian life . . . Jesus Christ is the only one who can live the Christian life! Jesus is the Christian Life. . . . Jesus is the Victorious Life, the Higher Life, the Deeper Life, the Spirit-filled Life, the Revived Life, the Hidden Life,—the Christ-Life! To us, when holiness by faith—the Holy Life accessed by faith—is attacked, the attack is ultimately on the indwelling Life of Christ”  (“Keswick: A Good Word or a Bad One?” ).

Van Gelderen wrote elsewhere:

Receiving the Holy Life of Jesus opens the way for accessing the Holy living of Jesus. . . . The Lord Jesus, the Holy One, moved into you at salvation to live His life, not yours. . . . The Christian life is a life—a person—and His name is Jesus.  Jesus Christ is the Christian Life.  Therefore, no one can live the Christian life but Christ. . . . Christ [is] the Christian Life Himself . . . [and He] moved in to impart to you that very life so that you can live, yet not you, but Christ in you, the Christian life. . . . [T]here is hope for holiness by means of the Holy One living out His holy life in and through you. . . . [H]oliness is not something you accomplish but rather that which you allow . . . a matter of dependence on the one whom you are allowing to work His holiness in and through you. . . . Faith is the one thing you can do . . . faith is not a work[.] . . . Personal holiness is not imitating moral motions. Personal holiness is accessing the Person of holiness by faith to live His holy life through your personality. . . . The provision for holiness is perfect. It has to be—His name is Jesus. It is our consistent access of Him that is sadly imperfect. (pg. 14, “Holiness by Faith in Jesus,” by John R. Van Gelderen. Revival magazine, Issue 12 (2011).  Germantown, WI: Revival Focus Ministries, Inc.)

The Keswick affirmation that when one is “filled with the Holy Spirit . . . the Holy Spirit has absolute possession and control of our spirit. . . . [The] human personality . . . is . . . controlled by a divine personality; . . . the human personality is brought under the domination and control of the Holy Spirit” (pgs. 143-144, So Great Salvation, Barabas) appears to provide the third Person of the Trinity the same sort of “absolute . . . control” of the human personality that is ascribed to Christ when it is affirmed that the Son of God lives the Christian life instead of the believer.

Thus, a plain trajectory exists from the Quaker teaching of Hannah W. Smith on Galatians 2:20 to the modern Keswick movement.  But is their view of Galatians 2:20 supported by the actual exegesis of the passage?

See here for this entire study.

TDR

The Lie of Two Worlds, pt. 2

Earlier today, I linked to a sermon I had preached on coming to positions.  Still go there and listen to that.

Some of you might recognize this "two worlds" language as Christian worldview talk, and you would be right on that.  Only one thing ever happens, not two.  I don't both do what I did and what I want people to think that I did.  If you come along writing in the sand, it wasn't caused by waves.  Someone wrote it, and the person who wrote it is the one who wrote it.  There are not two options there, depending on what you feel it to be or want it to be.

We live in an age in which your position is more authentic, because its yours, even if it didn't happen. Things that didn't happen can't be authentic.  Only real things can be authentic.  Only one real thing happens.  I understand that there are different interpretations of what happened, but still only one thing happened.

We can speculate on the motives of someone in the present and in history, but a person's motive is his motive.  God knows what that is.  There isn't more than what his motive was.  Only one thing happened too regarding motivation.  Someone could have a certain motivation and later say that it was a different, better sounding one.  God knows.  The only authentic motivation was the one the person actually had.

Things also work only the way God has designed, upheld, and allowed them to work.  Whether they really work is also determined by God.  Someone may say they work, but God is the final judge on whether that's true.  For years, many people could say that something was great and really worked, and wasn't that tremendous, when actually it was very bad and didn't really work, except toward the bad.  God knows.  For instance, someone could have been very successful previous to the flood and then didn't get on the ark.  The fact that he wasn't on Noah's ark meant that he wasn't successful.  His life was a failure, even if the story was that he was successful.  He failed.

I can have a James White say that I'm the biggest dufus, the biggest moron, the all time dud of all history, and actually not be that person.  He could also be right, but it can't be two ways.  There isn't a world where I'm very fine and a world where I'm horrible on what James White is speaking.  Phil Johnson can say that the experience of White with me is purgatory, when it could be that James White is really purgatory and I'm just pointing out that he is wrong.

James White and I, for instance, take different positions.  I say that, based upon the Bible, we know what the words of scripture are.  We've had them in every generation available and they are settled. James White comes along and says that's not true and gives his reasons.  Our two positions could be both right in our two worlds, except that there is only one world.  There aren't two worlds.  Neither is there a position that is the best of both worlds.  There is only one world.  When there is a contradiction, the positions both can't be right.  They could both be wrong, but there is a position that is right that God knows is right.  It's a lie to say there are two worlds on this.

It is true that people can live in their own world that doesn't exist.  They live it in their imagination, and like Paul says, that needs to be pulled down with a spiritual weapon, namely scripture.  Scripture can eliminate the fantasy world and it should.  The only world left is the real one, which is the one that lines up with the Bible.

Evangelicals and most fundamentalists today give credit to a fantasy world.  Amillennialism represents a fantasy world.  It's sheer fiction.  We don't do better to justify it by ignoring it and having communion anyway.  This makes room for a world that doesn't exist.

Conservative evangelicals act like there is one truth.  They trumpet that.  They tell you that they think that.  And yet, they behave as though there is more than one.  They act like there are several worlds that exist in which you can live.  They say, well, those things will just be sorted out in heaven, and we're going to ignore them now in the only real world in which we live.  They should repudiate the false and separate from it, rather than giving people the impression that there are gradations of reality.

There might be more to come.

How to Come to Positions on Issues

I might be coming back to write a second part of the series on the lie of two worlds, but we had recently uploaded a sermon I preached or taught on a Wednesday night in July of 2012 on how to come to positions, actual title -- How To Come to Positions on Issues Scripturally and Obediently.  It would be worth listening to understand what is wrong with the approach of James White on issues and others in conservative evangelicalism.  You can get it by clicking here.  It's only 41 minutes.

The Lie of Two Worlds

You've heard the expression, the best of both worlds.  As an expression, it doesn't need to be wrong, because someone can live in the country close to the city and enjoy the best of both.  I get that. Almost everyone in the world though acts like there are really two worlds.  There is the world they live in, which is acceptable, albeit not real, but fictitious, and then another world, the biblical world, which is actually the only world,  To them the real world is a kind of ideal world, an impossible one and, therefore, not required.  They choose to live in a fantasy world.  They do.  God is still going to judge them for what they do in His world, the real one, the only one.  He's not going to judge them based upon how they operate in their own fictitious world.

What happens, of course, is that people have to alter the truth about God Himself, invent a new god, who does accept their fictitious world, and inhabits that world in their imaginations.  He's fine with them.  The problem is, it's not Him, this one they've made up.  The one judging their fictitious world is a false God.  At some point this all breaks down into false worship, because they are not worshiping the one and true God.  There is no such thing as a brain in a vat, but they are living like they are brains in vats, projecting on this world the one in which they live, which doesn't happen to be the one in which they live.  They're only living it in their brain.

From the perspective of the world, there is the world of engineering that builds bridges and skyscrapers according to certain laws that it cannot transgress without consequences.  Then there is the world of their own morality that can infringe many other natural laws that are as concrete and inviolable as the laws of physics adjudicating the construction of infrastructure.  However anyone argues, he is assuming laws of logic that exist to the same degree that man is separated from God because of his sin.  There are not two worlds, but the world lives like there are.

I've been thinking of this two world thought for awhile, but what brought it to my mind is especially when I have seen it all over in evangelicalism and in fundamentalism.  Let me give you an example that I observed recently.  A segment of evangelicalism says they believe in complementarianism and eschew egalitarianism.  They write books about it.  I would like to take them at their word in those instances.  I'm very happy that they would want to support in writing male headship of a home and distinct roles for the man and the woman.

Sometimes in the real world, the only world, male headship does clash with evangelical church growth philosophy or technique.  Other times it contradicts their views of the church and of unity.  To make this all work with everything they might want to allow, they right on the spot spontaneously invent their own version of complementarianism that looks just like egalitarianism.

There is a fairly conservative, evangelical Christian talk show host(ess), Janet Mefferd, who got more famous at one time when she attacked the cussing former pastor, Mark Driscoll, because of plagiarism in one of his books among other things.  She got big time support for her putting it to Driscoll again and again.  Several conservative evangelicals fawn over her pounding of Driscoll and treat her like fans for this kind of application of her gender role.  It's not intended for a woman, but she gets a pass because of her position.  Is this right or even appropriate?

Driscoll deserves negative exposure and repudiation, but do complementarians support this being done by a woman?  Do we need a woman to do it?  Should a women be encouraged to do it or even be placed in a position to do it?  How can an evangelical support complementarianism on the one hand and then cheer her role reversing behavior on the other?  This occurs again and again in evangelicalism, because they have capitulated to their own world, even conservative ones.  Conservatism itself has chosen to do this too.  Rejecting two worlds is at the heart of conservatism, but yet accepting various editions of world has begun to characterize it.

The encouragement of egalitarianism is a small example that is very much on the ground that anyone can see day by day.  Conservative evangelical men, who say they are complementarian, essentially act egalitarian or encourage it.  They are supposed to be giving a clear presentation of the only world, God's world, to everyone, and yet they don't because they have sunk to the fantasy, the fictitious.  The real world isn't egalitarian even if real people construct that fiction in their fake worlds.  Same sex marriage is a mirage.  They swear it.  That's true too. One egalitarian mirage should not accompany another though if we live in just one world. And yet, they give in again and again, this just an example.

The above type of exposure I make of the two world lie brings upon me the wrath and disdain of conservative evangelicals, as seen in this tweet by Phil Johnson, giving his best evidence against it.

@DrOakley1689 Bob Wilkin and Kent Brandenburg in the same week? It’s your own personal purgatory.

— ٩(ಠ益ಠ)۶ uosuɥoſ lᴉɥԀ (@Phil_Johnson_) August 13, 2015

I'm not a thing like Bob Wilkin, who preaches a false gospel in my opinion.  He is living in his own world.  However, Phil Johnson must live in mine, because it is the only one.  He can't defend his view of the world, so he just mocks me in order to poison the well.  That is enough  proof for his adherents.  Phil Johnson never gives me biblical reasons why he opposes the things I preach that he denies.  He just calls names.  This reveals the level of desperation in keeping the bridge from the only world that exists to the fantasy one he has erected in his own mind to justify its existence.  You're in trouble if you even point it out. It isn't real trouble though.  It couldn't be, because it's only trouble in their fantasy world, not in the real world that God created.

***********

I would like add another example for those who are reading here.  I'm right now watching the google hangout as part of the Ligonier, R. C. Sproul work, with John MacArthur.  There is so much for which I'm thankful with John MacArthur.  So much of what he says is good and right.  You'll hear much helpful.  I wish people would recognize that I say that.  Very few people even in fundamentalism are as strong as him.  However, the host there asked about his relationship with R. C. Sproul.

MacArthur answered that Ligonier and Sproul invited him to a conference many years ago even though he was a premillennialist and they were so kind to him.  Later he talked about lying about choosing a president and figuring which is the best liar between them.  This is confusing to people, because isn't amillennialism a lie that peverts a third of God's holy Word?  What about the lie of infant sprinkling that might be the lie that has condemned more people to hell than any other lie?  If you don't care about the lie of amillennialism and the lie of infant sprinkling and you justify it with your fellowship, your communion, then what is lying?

Bruce Jenner is a liar, but is that a worse lie than amillennialism?  I understand that Ligonier says better things overall than Jenner would, but accepting other lies as almost commendable, at least acceptable.  You can preach against both, but can you fellowship with one of them?  Why?  This is where there are two worlds again -- the amillennial world and the premillennial world, the credo-baptism world and the paedo-baptism world.  This accommodation to two worlds influences and prepares people for the two worlds.  People just assume then that truth is relative and whatever world you want to live in is fine.

More to Come

Learn About Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and African Tribal Religions in Scholarly Christian Perspective

I have downloaded (for the right price--free!) and have recently been listening to a seminary level course on Islam, one on Hinduism, and one on Buddhism. as well as a seminar on African Traditional Religions taught by the same professor.  I had listened to a significant number of the great and highly Biblical and expository messages preached at Bethel Baptist Church, and while waiting for another batch of sermons to be uploaded and available, I went on to something else.  Knowing what people in false religions believe is very helpful in effectively evangelizing them, and listening to the lectures has strengthened me to be better equipped to preach the gospel and deal with the spiritual strongholds of those lost in the darkness of Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism.  The professor who taught the courses teaches at Gordon-Conwell, so he is both very scholarly and very neo-evangelical, but, I hope, possibly a genuine born-again Christian.  I by no means unconditionally recommend everything he says in the class (for example, at one point in the Islam course, for example, he mentions that he finds dispensationalism strange, although at another point he mentions that his mother was pre-mil and pre-trib--sad), and he is more concerned about "contextualization" than I would be.  In the lectures on Hinduism he mentions that the vast majority of the congregations he works with in India are Pentecostal, for, following in the footsteps of Keswick leader and Gordon-Conwell founder A. J. Gordon, the professor rejects cessationism for continuationism.  Despite these serious doctrinal problems, much of the information is very useful.  Nor do I unconditionally recommend courses specifically on theology by the neo-evangelical organization that offers the courses.  However, I have not found anything equivalent or better by someone closer to my own theological persuasion, so I wanted to commend these specific courses to you, especially if there are significant numbers of Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists in your area.  If we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, we would do well to know enough about these demonic religions to be able to effectively understand and deal with them.

I have written a pamphlet to evangelize Muslims, entitled The Testimony of the Quran to the Bible, but I do not have anything specifically for Hindus or Buddhists at this time; if you are aware of something similar to my pamphlet for Muslims, please mention it in the comment section, and I will, Lord willing, evaluate whether I want to use it.  Also, if you know someone who is capable and willing to translate the Muslim pamphlet into Arabic, please feel free to get in touch with me about it. (For that matter, I would be happy to have the various evangelistic resources and other material on my website in as many languages as possible, so if you want to do any translation, are of a like mind theologically, and are capable of doing a good job, please let me know, and I can post your translation so that the world can hear the truth in as many languages as possible.)

There are commentaries on the Quran written by people in the realm of Christendom (see here, #2) (I do not know enough about their authors to tell you if he is a true Christian or not), and a translation of the Quran by a born-again Baptist from a Muslim country that does not attempt to cover up the evil and error in the Quran, like many translations made by Muslims do.  My knowledge of Arabic is very limited, so I cannot comment on the accuracy of his translation or any other translation.  I am not aware of equivalent material for the holy books of Hinduism or Buddhism.  If you are aware of useful material for reaching people in any of these false religions, feel free to discuss it below in the comments.

TDR

I'm Not Reformed: Why Not?

During one of James White's videos, he called me reformed, among many, many other careless or purposeful errors.  I said I wasn't. Then he came back in another video to "correct" it by saying he was relieved I wasn't.  OK.  So I'm not reformed or restless or unfortunately young.  Why not?  This will be short, because I want to give you less than the cliffs notes.

One, I'm Baptist.  That might rile reformed Baptists, but Baptist history is not reformed.  We never needed reformation.  I don't trace my history through the reformation.  Our doctrine was never lost.  I don't believe in that.  True churches have always been around since Christ and those are my forefathers.

Two, I take a literal interpretation of scripture, that is, I believe in premillennialism and I guess I should just say that I'm dispensationalist, which is nothing more than a structuring of what already existed, the literal interpretation of scripture.  These first two relate.  If you are Baptist, you predate the allegorical interpretation that characterized the state church or Roman Catholicism, which is also amillennialism.  I'm not going to go further here, even though I'd like to.

Three, I don't think that doctrines were lost to be found.  They weren't altogether perverted to be reformed or regained.  I'm less than reformed in that my doctrine isn't reformed, but I'm also saying that I'm more than the reformed, because my ecclesiology and eschatology are literal and historical, true to the Word of God.  I take the prophetic passages grammatically and historically.  I am not state church or never have been.

Four, I don't believe the truth was preserved in Roman Catholicism.

There it is in four reasons.  I could give more, but this really does cover it.  Now I'm teaching Hebrews in eight minutes.