The lordship issue if you have not read any articles from Mark McCulley or David Bishop is the idea that once a sinner believes in Christ as saviour he must then accept Him as Lord of his life. He does this by walking in obedience and repenting from sin. A person who only believes in Christ as Savior but not as Lord i.e. not walking in obedience is not a true believer. For a true believer is one who will make it his endeavor to repent from every sin. Repentance is not just a change of mind for them but is also repenting from works of sin i.e. behavior. In other words if you do not actually change your conduct then you have not really repented.
Of course they will probably not say you repent of every sin right away but if your not continually growing in holiness then your salvation is in question. Have you really believed the gospel? Believe is not just the act of the mind that accepts as true the gospel propositions but also includes the element of trust. What this last element is really is not clear.
The totality of the lordship issue is that the lordshiper will stress a change life over and above a change mind. They stress works rather than belief. What they say is that your assurance is grounded in doing not in knowing.
With that said the Bible Really Stresses The Opposite. It stresses what is to be believed. For by faith one does good works.
If you read Gordon H. Clark you see his stress is on what a person knows rather than what he does. The older reformers do the same. Not all of course. But the majority.
If you want to say it this way the issue is an existential issue. The lordship salvation guys are existentialist. If you are not doing then it is not really real.
1 corinthians 1-4 is about our epistemology.
Showing posts with label John Piper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Piper. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Thursday, January 30, 2014
John Piper denies The Scripture alone
http://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/do-christian-hedonists-idolize-joy
"Just because one claims sola scriptura does not mean they actually believe it. That should be the logical flow of thought with you Lordship guys." Why are you not consistent in your view of one's professing of having faith and in this matter of Piper saying he believes in Scripture alone? Is it not true that one who does not have WORKS or EMOTIONs in faith that he does not have faith? If that is the case then just because one professes Scripture alone does not actually mean that he believes it. Maybe because you cannot? Be consistent here please.
Regardless, perhaps maybe you think that desiring God is the ultimate thing? It is not. Perhaps, you think rather that an appeal to Scripture means that one is biblical it is not. Question: is man made up of emotions? I mean he is made up of Intellect and Will but is he made up of emotions as well? Perhaps maybe you think that an appeal to Intellect and Will and Emotions is not an issue. But this is an issue when you consider the fact that usually when emotions are added, it is the only real thing that is looked at. For example to say that there are three things that are involved in Man (Intellect and Will and Emotions) then means that a man may have both Intellect and Will, but if he does not have emotions then his intellect and will are really not real. Emotions are given a greater issue. He denies that Scripture alone is the basis of faith (Intellect and Assent) and says that one must also Desire God or be passionate about God. Regardless of whether a man may have emotions, Piper's view of the matter is that Emotions are the ultimate testing ground. One may have Intellect and Assent, but (as I said) unless he or she has a "real" desire for God he is not really a Christian. He also denies Scripture not just in the fact he claims Emotions, but also in the fact that as he said many of his views came from C.S. Lewis. Lewis was a big proponent not of doctrine or true doctrine, but of MERE CHRISTIANITY. Piper's views are anti-intellectualism. I apologies ahead of time you are fighting a losing battle here. Your famed Pastor is not a Scripturalist.
Or again when one says that Faith is not just Intellectual Assent to Biblical truths, but also something else need to be added (perhaps that something else is trust). It is the fact that that ultimately that something else diminishes the role of Intellect and Assent so that it is not enough to just believe the truths of Scripture but one must also actually trust it. Or as the famous analogy goes: It is not enough to merely believe in the Chair, one must also actually sit in the chair. This means that belief in the chair which stands for Christ Jesus is not enough one must also add works or trust to the occasion. Piper says essentially that Emotions are the real evidences of saving faith and not intellect or will. He moves beyond Scripture alone. If the Christian religion was emotions then there is no real Intellectual Assent to the Scriptures.
"We may note here that the complainants express themselves very carefully: 'the more recent theologians seem to agree in large measure.' But even so the complainants are in error. It is far nearer to the truth to state that Reformed theologians have generally speaking, been strongly opposed to the threefold distinction of intellect, will, and emotion, and have often expressed their fear of the danger of this distinction. The danger of this distinction, to which they usually pointed, is that the emotions in that case gradually assume a dominating and controlling position in the soul of man, and that according to this trichotomous psychology, such experiences as love and hatred, sorrow and joy . . . are relegated to the emotions or feelings. [Which] . . . would exactly be the deathblow to all true religion."
Remember one's ideas may come from Scripture, it does not mean that his ideas are actually scriptural. Satan indeed quoted Jesus many Scripture verses that said if he did this, then something else would happen.
"Just because one claims sola scriptura does not mean they actually believe it. That should be the logical flow of thought with you Lordship guys." Why are you not consistent in your view of one's professing of having faith and in this matter of Piper saying he believes in Scripture alone? Is it not true that one who does not have WORKS or EMOTIONs in faith that he does not have faith? If that is the case then just because one professes Scripture alone does not actually mean that he believes it. Maybe because you cannot? Be consistent here please.
Regardless, perhaps maybe you think that desiring God is the ultimate thing? It is not. Perhaps, you think rather that an appeal to Scripture means that one is biblical it is not. Question: is man made up of emotions? I mean he is made up of Intellect and Will but is he made up of emotions as well? Perhaps maybe you think that an appeal to Intellect and Will and Emotions is not an issue. But this is an issue when you consider the fact that usually when emotions are added, it is the only real thing that is looked at. For example to say that there are three things that are involved in Man (Intellect and Will and Emotions) then means that a man may have both Intellect and Will, but if he does not have emotions then his intellect and will are really not real. Emotions are given a greater issue. He denies that Scripture alone is the basis of faith (Intellect and Assent) and says that one must also Desire God or be passionate about God. Regardless of whether a man may have emotions, Piper's view of the matter is that Emotions are the ultimate testing ground. One may have Intellect and Assent, but (as I said) unless he or she has a "real" desire for God he is not really a Christian. He also denies Scripture not just in the fact he claims Emotions, but also in the fact that as he said many of his views came from C.S. Lewis. Lewis was a big proponent not of doctrine or true doctrine, but of MERE CHRISTIANITY. Piper's views are anti-intellectualism. I apologies ahead of time you are fighting a losing battle here. Your famed Pastor is not a Scripturalist.
Or again when one says that Faith is not just Intellectual Assent to Biblical truths, but also something else need to be added (perhaps that something else is trust). It is the fact that that ultimately that something else diminishes the role of Intellect and Assent so that it is not enough to just believe the truths of Scripture but one must also actually trust it. Or as the famous analogy goes: It is not enough to merely believe in the Chair, one must also actually sit in the chair. This means that belief in the chair which stands for Christ Jesus is not enough one must also add works or trust to the occasion. Piper says essentially that Emotions are the real evidences of saving faith and not intellect or will. He moves beyond Scripture alone. If the Christian religion was emotions then there is no real Intellectual Assent to the Scriptures.
"We may note here that the complainants express themselves very carefully: 'the more recent theologians seem to agree in large measure.' But even so the complainants are in error. It is far nearer to the truth to state that Reformed theologians have generally speaking, been strongly opposed to the threefold distinction of intellect, will, and emotion, and have often expressed their fear of the danger of this distinction. The danger of this distinction, to which they usually pointed, is that the emotions in that case gradually assume a dominating and controlling position in the soul of man, and that according to this trichotomous psychology, such experiences as love and hatred, sorrow and joy . . . are relegated to the emotions or feelings. [Which] . . . would exactly be the deathblow to all true religion."
Remember one's ideas may come from Scripture, it does not mean that his ideas are actually scriptural. Satan indeed quoted Jesus many Scripture verses that said if he did this, then something else would happen.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
The essence of Christianity.
This is drawn from a sermon on Isaiah 53 from John Piper.
"What is the essence of Christianity? What's at the heart and center of it all? Here is the answer. Let's use the words of verse 6: All humans have gone astray. All of us have turned to our own way. This is called sin. Turning from God and making ourselves our own master and our own treasure.
But God was not willing to leave us in this guilty and condemned condition. He planned from ages past to send a Suffering Servant, not mainly to model love for us, but to bear our sins as a substitute for us. "The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." This is the heart of Christianity. Jesus Christ came into the world to fulfill this prophecy – yes, many others to be sure, but this one is central and basic. He came to die. He came to die in our place. He came to die for our sins. This is our only hope. And the New Testament is all about how this happened and how it affects our lives now and in the ages to come. I urge you to pursue the knowledge of these things with all your heart and all your mind."
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Thoughts on John 4:23-24
"But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."
True Worshipers are those who are 1. Spirit filled, because God is Spirit and because man by nature is flesh and thus liable to sin and hates God by nature, he cannot rightly relate with God correctly because he is depraved and dead (Ephesians 2:1-3), So because God is Spirit and man is by nature depraved idolators and haters of God, the Spirit must regenerate the rebel and not only by His grace, make us alive with Christ, but also He must raise us up with us, and then He must then seat with Christ. So thus anything that the Christian (the one who has been regenerated and redeemed) in accordance with the Word and character of God is done in Spirit. 2. The Father seeks for those who worship Him in spirit and in truth. (This is going to be brief and made into one point rather than three different points. In other words, rather than a 3rd point, I will put this with 2.)It is necessarily to point out that the worshipers the Father seeks are those who worship Him in spirit. This means that the Father is seeking those who worship Him with emotion, rather than stoicy, hard, no feelings at all type of person. But it must be pointed out that He seeks those who Worship in Spirit (right emotion) and Truth. Which means that our worship must be grounded in the Truth of God's word and who He ultimately is and with right emotion which is grounded in the right knowleddge of God's word and who he has revealed Himself to be to us. Worship is not an arbituary ambiguous act, but one that is set by God Himself and set by the Truth of who God is and who we are, which produces right emotions.
John Piper rightly says, "Truth without emotion produces dead orthodoxy and a church full (or half-full) of artificial admirers (like people who write generic anniversary cards for a living). On the other hand, emotion without truth produces empty frenzy and cultivates shallow people who refuse the discipline of rigorous thought. But true worship comes from people who are deeply emotional and who love deep and sound doctrine. Strong affections for God rooted in truth are the bone and marrow of biblical worship." (Desiring God, pg. 81-82)
So Another verse for thought is Jude 18-19 which is pretty much the opposite of Worshiping by Spirit and Truth. Jude writes, "They said to you, "In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions." It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit."
True Worshipers are those who are 1. Spirit filled, because God is Spirit and because man by nature is flesh and thus liable to sin and hates God by nature, he cannot rightly relate with God correctly because he is depraved and dead (Ephesians 2:1-3), So because God is Spirit and man is by nature depraved idolators and haters of God, the Spirit must regenerate the rebel and not only by His grace, make us alive with Christ, but also He must raise us up with us, and then He must then seat with Christ. So thus anything that the Christian (the one who has been regenerated and redeemed) in accordance with the Word and character of God is done in Spirit. 2. The Father seeks for those who worship Him in spirit and in truth. (This is going to be brief and made into one point rather than three different points. In other words, rather than a 3rd point, I will put this with 2.)It is necessarily to point out that the worshipers the Father seeks are those who worship Him in spirit. This means that the Father is seeking those who worship Him with emotion, rather than stoicy, hard, no feelings at all type of person. But it must be pointed out that He seeks those who Worship in Spirit (right emotion) and Truth. Which means that our worship must be grounded in the Truth of God's word and who He ultimately is and with right emotion which is grounded in the right knowleddge of God's word and who he has revealed Himself to be to us. Worship is not an arbituary ambiguous act, but one that is set by God Himself and set by the Truth of who God is and who we are, which produces right emotions.
John Piper rightly says, "Truth without emotion produces dead orthodoxy and a church full (or half-full) of artificial admirers (like people who write generic anniversary cards for a living). On the other hand, emotion without truth produces empty frenzy and cultivates shallow people who refuse the discipline of rigorous thought. But true worship comes from people who are deeply emotional and who love deep and sound doctrine. Strong affections for God rooted in truth are the bone and marrow of biblical worship." (Desiring God, pg. 81-82)
So Another verse for thought is Jude 18-19 which is pretty much the opposite of Worshiping by Spirit and Truth. Jude writes, "They said to you, "In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions." It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit."
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