JOHN FLETCHER’S METHODOLOGY IN THE ANTINOMIAN CONTROVERSY OF 1770-76 BY ROBERT A. MATTKE, B.D., M.A.

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JOHN FLETCHER’S METHODOLOGY IN THE ANTINOMIAN CONTROVERSY OF 1770-76

ROBERT A. MATTKE, B.D., M.A.

(Head of Religion Department, Miltonvale College)

For over two centuries, the name of John Wesley has been highly honored. He is the acknowledged leader of the Evangelical Revival and is credited with founding the Methodist Church and giving to it a distinctive theology. Many other deserving tributes could be paid this man. With-out detracting from Wesley’s accomplishments, it needs to be remembered that he had some very able assistants who made helpful contributions to his success. Today’s evangelistic association is not wholly a twentieth century phenomenon.

Admittedly, the team which John Wesley headed was small when measured by today’s standards. Ernst Sommer points out that by 1765 it was recognized that at the head of Methodism was a “troika” or, as he calls it, a triumvirate, John and Charles Wesley and John Fletcher. Luke Tyerman, the biographer of early Methodism, writes:

John Wesley traveled, formed societies, and governed them. Charles Wesley composed unequalled hymns for the Methodists to sing; and John Fletcher, a native of Calvinian Switzerland explained, elaborated and defended the doctrines they heartily believed. (1)

Unfortunately, this third man on Wesley’s team is a veritable stranger to many Wesleyan theologians, and this unfamiliarity with John Fletcher in contemporary Wesleyan circles is regrettable.

Those historians who have not overlooked the significance of the mutual efforts of those associated with John Wesley describe Fletcher as the “earliest and fullest expositor and interpreter in English of the Remonstrant Theology of Arminius; whose works remain the storehouse of its treasures and the armoury of its defense.” (2) Another claims that the theology of the Methodist movement was the theology of John Fletcher of Madeley. (3) Abel Stevens, one of the leading historians of Methodism, has written of Fletcher’s Checks: “They have been more influential in the denomination than Wesley’s own controversial writings on the subject. They have influenced, indirectly through Methodism, the subsequent tone of theological thought in much of the Protestant world. (4) Some writers have seen fit to call Fletcher “the theologian of Methodism” or “the chief theologian of the Wesleyans.” (5)

Wesley, who was always judicious in the giving of praise, readily acknowledges his indebtedness to John Fletcher. Wesley enjoined: “Let all our preachers carefully read over ours and Mr. Fletcher’s tracts.” (6) The esteem with which Wesley held Fletcher was such that on two different occasions, once in 1773 and again in 1776, Wesley tried to persuade Fletcher to become his successor.

The following reasons partially explain the scant attention paid to Fletcher today: the general theological pauperism in Wesleyan circles; Fletcher’s Works are not readily available; few students understand the historical context in which he wrote and, unfortunately, Fletcher’s name bears a stigma because it is associated with controversy. A failure to understand Fletcher’s methodology poses an additional hindrance. The purpose of this paper is to make some contribution to our understanding at this point.

John Fletcher’s significant contribution to Wesleyan-Arminian theology came about as a result of his participation in the Antinomian controversy. As the Evangelical Revival progressed, it soon became apparent that there were two branches simultaneously developing, one Calvinistic, the other Arminian. In 1770 at the twenty-seventh annual conference of preachers, the following statement was made by Wesley: “We have leaned too much toward Calvinism.” (7)

This statement caused what was smoldering to burst into the open flame of the Antinomian controversy. Lady Huntingdon was greatly offended by the minutes of the 1770 Conference and believed that the fundamental truths of the gospel were put in jeopardy by them. Walter Shirley, Henry Venn, Richard and Roland Hill and others aligned themselves with Lady Huntingdon. Until 1770, John Fletcher had been much admired by Lady Huntingdon; so much so, in fact, that she had made him president of Trevecca College which she had founded in 1768. Now, because of their theological differences, Fletcher found it necessary to resign the presidency of this college.

It was after this breach in fellowship that Fletcher took up his ready pen and began to write his memorable Checks to Antinomianism. Not only did he write out of a sense of “duty towards God,” and towards his “honored father in Christ, Mr. Wesley, and his misunderstood minutes,” (0) but because of a deep-seated concern for the welfare of the revival. He stated his chief reason for publishing his first Check thus:

It appears if I am not mistaken that we stand now as much in need of a reformation from antinomianism as our ancestors did of a reformation from popery. People, it seems, may now be ‘in Christ’ without being ‘new creatures,’ without casting ‘old things’ away. They may be God’s children without God’s image; and ‘born of the Spirit’ without the fruits of the Spirit. (9)

Thus it was that Fletcher was firmly convinced that in evangelical Christianity you could not separate the faith of a Christian from the fruitage of a Christian life. Fletcher, like Wesley, was supremely interested in practical Christianity. (10)

Before we consider the methods Fletcher employed in the Antinomian controversy, it must be understood that his methodology was not in any way conditioned by blind partisanship, or by an element of surprise at what was developing in the Methodist Societies. He was not baffled by the sudden emergence of what might be falsely called a “new heresy”. You cannot detect any frustration on his part as to what the solution must be. Fletcher did not consider controversy to be a necessarily evil thing. His position was

that “controversy, though not desirable in itself, yet, properly managed, has a hundred times rescued truth, groaning under the lash of triumphant error.” (11)

Though emotions ran rampant at times, Fletcher retained his poise and always manifested a tender spirit. He submitted his First Check to Wesley before it was published so that all “tart” expressions might be removed from it. Wesley recorded his evaluation of Fletcher’s Checks with these words:

One knows not which to admire most – the purity of the language, the strength and clearness of the argument, or the mildness and sweetness of the spirit that breathes throughout the whole. (12)

Throughout the controversy, Fletcher demonstrated that he was a man of both sobriety and piety.

Fletcher’s methodology in the Antinomian controversy was based upon a careful historical analysis of the problem. He was aware that from the very beginnings of the Christian era, Antinomianism has always been a threat to the practical fulfilment of the Christian life as instituted by the New Covenant of Grace. Admittedly, the relationship between the moral law and the law of grace is not readily evident. Immanuel Kant expressed this relationship in terms of a mystery by saying: “Two things fill the mind with ever increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”

In an attempt to meet the ethical demands of the New Testament, some of the early Christians turned to mysticism, asceticism, or to any one of a great number of heresies. (13) By way of example, the Marcionites taught “that the God preached by the Law and the Prophets, was not the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one was known, the other unknown; the one righteous, and the other good.” (14) William James writes: “The heretics who went before the Reformation are lavishly accused by church writers of antinomian practices.” (15)

It is an accepted fact that by the sixteenth century the predominant emphasis in the church was upon a “work righteousness.” Luther’s reaction against this form of salvation supposedly achieved by means of meritorious works precipitated the Reformation. Just as the pendulum has the tendency to swing in the opposite direction, so Luther came dangerously close to an exclusive emphasis upon “faith.” At first he found difficulty in reconciling the emphasis of Paul with that of James, and at this stage he preferred the teachings of Paul because he did not yet fully understand either Paul or James. (16) It must be remembered that as Luther recoiled from the theological errors of his day, his emotions temporarily blinded him to an understanding of how the emphasis of Paul and James could be reconciled.

More basic to the problem, however, was Luther’s proclivity to Augustinianism in which he had been so thoroughly schooled. Not wanting to detract from Luther’s courageous performance in the Reformation, John Fletcher ventures to say,

He was so busy in opposing the pope of Rome, his indulgences, Latin masses, and other monastic fooleries, that he did not find time to oppose the Augustinian fooleries of fatalism, Manichean necessity, lawless grace, and free wrath. (17)

In this period of turmoil, the humanism of Desiderius Erasmus with its emphasis upon free will failed to be of any help to Luther because it erred on the side of Pelagianism.

Thus an ancient conflict of the early fifth century is renewed. Pelagius, a British monk, gave great prominence to the ability of man to save himself. St. Augustine was his chief assailant and fought the Pelagian heresy with an emphasis upon the free grace of God. In this justifiable controversy, it was Fletcher’s judgment that Augustine’s view of grace was not wholly orthodox, especially where it gave rise to predestination. (18) Thus Augustine’s corrective emphasis came short of achieving the equilibrium of the gospel in describing the God-man relationship.

When Calvin arrived on the Reformation scene, he likewise failed to find a mediating position with regard to the “holy doctrines of grace, and the gracious doctrines of justice.” (19) His Augustinian teachings continued to aggravate the controversy in which Luther and Erasmus had been the chief disputants. The first reformer to balance the “Gospel ., axioms was, according to the viewpoint of John Fletcher, the English reformer Thomas Cranmer who had written these lines:

All men be monished and chiefly preachers, that, in this high matter, they, looking on both sides (i.e. looking both to the doctrines of grace and the doctrines of justice), so attemper and moderate themselves, that neither they so preach the grace of God (with heated Augustine), that they take away thereby free-will, nor on the other side so extol free-will (with heated Pelagius), that injury be done to the grace of God. (20)

Because of the Augustinian sentiments in Reformation circles on the continent, the Roman Catholics in launching the counter-reformation soft-pedaled their veneration for Augustine to the extent that following the Council of Trent they became decidedly more Pelagian. Thus both branches of Western Christendom were driven “still farther from the line of Scripture moderation.” (21) According to Fletcher, the unpleasant result was:

That in the popish countries, those who stood up for faith and distinguishing free grace began to be called heretics, Lutherans, and Solifidians: while. in Protestant countries, those who had the courage to maintain the doctrines of justice, good works, and unnecessitated obedience, were branded as Papists, merit mongers, and heretics. (22)

In his review of history, Fletcher pointed to the seventeenth century saying that Arminianism within Protestantism and Jansenism within Roman Catholicism were both movements whose intention was to check the excesses to which these respective branches of Christendom were addicted. The Synod of Dort (1618-1619) condemned Arminius for his leadership in a reaction aimed at scholastic Calvinism’s failure to recognize fully the

significance of human responsibility. Cornelius Jansen’s attempt to bring into focus the Augustinian concept of grace especially within the Society of Jesus came to be known as Jansenism. Although both movements were officially condemned, all was not lost, however, for as Fletcher observes, “truth shall stand, be it ever so much opposed by either partial Protestants or partial papists.” (23)

Fletcher believed that the problem of antinomianism in early Methodism was quite properly analogous to a similar problem which confronted the Presbyterians in the seventeenth century. It is for this reason that Fletcher’s Works are replete with references to the works of the more moderate Puritan or Non-Conformist divines (e.g., Richard Baxter, Matthew Henry, John Flavel, Daniel Williams, Philip Doddridge). He also quotes from Bishop Lancelot Andrewes who represents the so-called Arminians of the Caroline divines.

Thus it was Fletcher’s conclusion that the great central problems of theology change far less in matter and substance than in form and temper as they appear in history’s successive ages. These problems dress themselves up in a new garb and outwardly they appear to be transformed. In more recent times, an English scholar verifies Fletcher’s conclusion by saying:

Under the new names of Rationalism and Romanticism, we recognize the old antagonisms of free-will and predestination which at one era bore the names of Pelagianism and Augustinianism, and, at another, Arminianism and Calvinism. (24)

Fletcher’s incisive study of history convinced him that Antinomianism became a threat to sound evangelical doctrine whenever the polarity between divine sovereignty and human responsibility was neutralized. To avoid this subtle pitfall, he believed that responsible theologians must bring themselves to an acceptance of the paradox.

In most cases, the Christian scholar’s background in Aristotelian logic is a serious handicap in any understanding of the paradox. The natural temptation is to want to relieve the tension. David Shipley observes that the usual method is to take one truth and explain it “in terms of the other so that the dialectical tension is lost or lessened sufficiently to make possible popular uncritical perversion.” (25) Thus it is with ease that the theologian can put an irreconcilable opposition between two equal truths to the end that he cancels them both out.

After a careful historical analysis of theological movements in the Christian church, Fletcher develops in the Antinomian controversy a methodology which accepts the reality of the paradox. Gertrude Huehns categorically states that “research has repeatedly pointed out that one of the main reasons for the victory of Christianity over other competing sacrificial mythologies was its paradoxicality.” (26)

Accepting the element of paradox and recognizing the difficulty of making clear-cut distinctives between opposition and complementarity, Fletcher proceeds to develop a

methodology which has been called the “via media”, or “the middle way.” In his words he called it, “the harmonious opposition of the Scriptures.” In more recent times this method has been called “dialectical.” (27)

Fletcher’s methodology undoubtedly grew out of his peculiar conception of the nature of Truth, which he maintained is an organic unity. “Truth,” he says, “is confined within her firm bounds; nay, there is a middle line equally distant from all extremes; on that line she stands, and to miss her, you need only step over it to the right hand or to the left.” (28)

During the course of the Antinomian controversy, Fletcher’s dialectical methodology became the hermeneutical principle which he used in the exegesis of Scripture. When he was confronted with seeming contradictions in the Scriptures and differences of interpretation among individual Christians and theological groups, this was the method by which he sought a reconciliation. For example he cites Romans 4:5 and 5:1 which indicate that man is justified by faith. It is equally as important that the mind be confronted with John 6:27 which is a command of Jesus Christ to “labor [ergazesthe, literally, ‘work’] for the meat that endureth to everlasting life.” (29)

Any proof-text method not balanced by this dialectical methodology was thought by Fletcher to be potentially dangerous. To him this would be “wresting the Scriptures to one’s own destruction” (I Pet. 3:6).

Fletcher’s methodology gave him some keen insights into the Antinomian problem. He was able to appraise the current situation by saying, “Once we were in immediate danger of splitting upon ‘works without faith’: Now we are threatened with destruction from ‘faith without works’.” (30) He accounts for the fact that Antinomianism had again raised its ugly head because of Calvinism’s one-sided emphasis upon Christ as the dispenser of grace and thus its preoccupation with only ‘the first Gospel axiom,” or justification by faith in the day of salvation. In contradistinction the rigid Arminian position imprisoned Christ within the context of the law and thus it was preoccupied with the “second Gospel axiom,” a second justification by works. Fletcher insisted that both gospel axioms were complementary and must be held together theologically, and in practice by emphasizing Christ in all of His offices. Thus Fletcher wrote: 44

If I may compare the Gospel Truth to the child contended for in the days of Solomon, both parties, while they divide, inadvertently destroy it. We, like the true mother, are for no division. Standing upon the middle Scriptural line, we embrace and hold first both Gospel axioms. With the Calvinists, we give God in Christ all the glory of our salvation; and, with the moralists, we take care not to give him in Adam any of the share in our damnation. (31)

Fletcher’s doctrine of a “second justification by works” must be understood as the means by which he sought to reawaken the Antinomians and to encourage believers to pursue a life of holiness. His explanation of the doctrine is that initial justification or conversion is by faith alone; justification at the day of judgment will be only by the works of faith. His prayer was that the “merciful Keeper of Israel” would save from both extremes by a

living faith, legally productive of all good works, or by good works, evangelically springing from a living faith.” (32)

The current interest in ecumenicity is calling for a reappraisal of Fletcher’s methodology. Because he was a mediating theologian, it is believed that he has something significant to offer to our contemporary situation. If this interest reflects a genuine quest for truth, then these words from Fletcher’s pen are worthy of careful study:

Mankind are prone to run into extremes. The world is full of men who always overdo or underdo. Few people ever find the line of moderation, the golden mean; and of those who do, few stay long upon it. One blast or another of vain doctrine soon drives them east or west from the meridian of pure truth. (33)

If this evaluation of mankind’s tendencies appears to be too pessimistic, it is only fair to Fletcher to add that he would balance this “pessimism of nature” with an “optimism of grace.” (34)

Because Antinomianism is one of the very real problems in our contemporary society, Fletcher’s Checks to Antinomianism are taking on a new relevancy. Churchmen of the twentieth century need to avail themselves of whatever they can find of value in Fletcher’s methodology.

There is a small minority of people in our modern society who is concerned about our Antinomian problem and is sounding an alarm. Robert E. Fitch, professor of Christian ethics at the Pacific School of Religion, is one of them, and he writes a description of the widespread erosion of authority. He says:

Of course, I have in mind primarily moral authority. . . . The erosion of this authority has taken place partly under allegedly democratic and egalitarian theories that we’re all equal and nobody’s any better than anybody else, partly under the impact of relativistic teachings in history, anthropology and philosophy that say everything is relative to the culture and there’s no objective standard of right and wrong, truth and falsehood. (35)

So widespread is this lawlessness that it respects neither the “radical right” nor the “existential left.” Fitch continues:

Any number of ‘liberals’ and ‘radicals’ believe passionately in this same proposition…. This inordinate love of liberty apart from law, apart from social structure and order, which is not the classical pattern of liberty in either England or America. So you have a kind of individualistic, egoistic liberty, that destroys self. (36)

It is believed that the cause of today’s widespread Antinomianism can be laid at the door of existentialism. L. Harold De Wolf suggests this when he writes:

Much existentialist thought moves on the very edge of antinomianism, that is, the repudiation of all moral law as related to salvation. Kierkegaard’s depreciation of consistency and his doctrine that God commands the unethical and irrational, and Tillich’s defining of justification as ‘acceptance of acceptance’, without specifying the need of repentance, tend to lessen the moral earnestness of Christian faith. (37)

Someone has expressed the plight of today’s Christians in the following line: “How free we seem, how fettered fast we lie.” (38)

Today’s brand of Antinomianism must be recognized for what it is. Responsible leadership in the tradition of Wesley and Fletcher must guide the church today between the twin rocks of licentious lawlessness and Pharisaic legalism.

DOCUMENT A TIONS

1. Luke Tyerman, Wesley’s Designated Successor (New York: A.C. Armstrong & Son, 1886), p. 340.

2. Townsend-Workman-Eayrs (eds.), A New History of Methodism (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1919), I, 320.

3. J. A. Dorner, History of Protestant Theology (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1871), II, p. 92.

4. Abel Stevens, The History of Methodism (New York: Hunt & Eaton, 1859), II, 55.

5. C. A. Briggs, Theological Symbolics (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1914), p. 327.

6. Wesley’s Works, VIII, 336. 7. Fletcher’s Works, I, 8.

8. See John Allan Knight, “John Fletcher and the Early Methodist Tradition,” Unpublished doctoral thesis. Graduate School of Vanderbilt University, 1966, p. 90.

9. Op. cit., I, 108.
10. Ibid., p. 206.
11. Ibid., p. 135.
12. Wesley, op. tit., XI, p. 300.

13. Fletcher, op, Mt., II, p. 277f.

14. Euscbius, The Ecclesiastical History, 2 vols., trans. by Kusopp Lake (NewYork: G. P. Putnam’s, 1926), I, pp. 327-328.

15. Gertrude Huehns, Antinomianism in English History (London: The Cresset Prom, 1951) p. 18.

16. Albert H. Newman, A Manual of Church History, 2 vols. Philadelphia: The American Baptist Publication Society, 1931) II, p. 68.

17. Fletcher, op. cit., II, p. 274. 18. Ibid., p. 272.
19. Ibid., p. 261.
20. Ibid., p. 274.

21. Ibid., p. 276.

22. Loc. cit.

23. Loc. cit.

24. John Omen, Grace and Personality (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1917), p. 28. This book has been reprinted by the Association Press, N.Y. 1961.

25. David C. ShipIcy, “Methodist Arminianism in the Theology of John Fletcher.” An unpublished doctoral dissertation presented to the faculty of the Graduate School of Yale Univ., 1942. p. 379.

26. Huehns, op. tit., p. 13.
27. ShipIcy, op. tit., This is the term by which ShipIcy refers to Fletcher’s methodology. 28. Fletcher, 0p. cit., I, p. 486.
29. Ibid., I, p. 30, p. 80.
30. Ibid., I, 131.
31. Ibid., p. 330.
32. Ibid., p. 131.

33. Ibid., p. 274.

34. Colin W. Williams, John Wesley’s Theology Today (New York: Abingdon Press, 1960), p. 54. Quoted from G. Rupp, Principalities and Powers (London: Epworth Press, 1952), pp. 77ff.

35. Robert E. Fitch, “Is America Ready for A ‘Great Society’?” U. S. News and World Report, edited by David Lawrence, March 8, 1965. Vol. LVIII No. 10, p. 54.

36. Loc. tit.

37. L. Harold DeWofl, Present Trends in Christian Thought (New York: Association Press, 1960), pp. 73-74. A similar criticism of Existentialism is voiced by E. Herbert Nygren in an article entitled “Wesley’s Answer to Existentialism,” published in the Christian Advocate, Feb 11, 1965, vol IX.

38. Oman, op. cit., p. 63.

 

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Sanctification a Condition of Justification or else Antinomianism is True by Charles Finney

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Sanctification a Condition of Justification or else Antinomianism is True

By Charles Finney

An except from his Lecture on Justification in his Systematic Theology 

4. Present sanctification, in the sense of present full consecration to God, is another condition, not ground, of justification. Some theologians have made justification a condition of sanctification, instead of making sanctification a condition of justification. But this we shall see is an erroneous view of the subject. The mistake is founded in a misapprehension of the nature both of justification and of sanctification. They make sanctification to consist in something else than in the will’s entire subjection or consecration to God; and justification they regard as a forensic transaction conditionated on the first act of faith in Christ. Whole-hearted obedience to God, or entire conformity to his law, they regard as a very rare, and many of them, as an impracticable attainment in this life. Hence they conditionate justification upon simple faith, not regarding faith as at all implying present conformity of heart to the law of God. It would seem from the use of language that they lay very little stress upon personal holiness as a condition, not ground, of acceptance with God. But on the contrary, they suppose the mystical union of the believer with Christ obtains for him access and acceptance by virtue of an imputed righteousness, not making his present obedience a condition in the sense of a sine quà non, of his justification. A recent American writer*(see below) says, “It is not the believer’s own personal obedience to the law, which, properly speaking, forms the condition of justification before God.” “Some writers,” he says, “use the term ‘condition’ in a philosophical sense, meaning by it simply the state or position in which things stand connected with each other, as when having said that faith and holiness are conditions of salvation; and when called upon to explain themselves, affirm that they by no means intend that these are the meritorious grounds, but merely that they will be found invariably connected with, as they are the indispensable evidences of, a state of justification.” Here this writer confounds the distinction between the grounds and conditions of justification. And he does more, he represents present faith and holiness as merely the evidences, and not as a sine quà non of justification. So this writer cannot admit that faith is “a that without which” a sinner cannot be justified! I say that faith is not the meritorious ground, but insist that it is a proper condition or sine quà non, and not a mere evidence of justification. It is an evidence, only because it is a condition, of justification, and must therefore exist where justification is.

     If his view of the subject be correct, it follows that God justifies sinners by his grace, not upon condition of their ceasing to sin, but while they continue to sin, by virtue of their being regarded by the law as perfectly obedient in Christ, the covenant and mystical head; that is, that although they indulge in more or less sin continually, and are never at any moment in this life entirely obedient to his law, yet God accounts them righteous because Christ obeyed and died for them. Another class of theologians hold, not to an imputed righteousness, but that God pardons and accepts the sinner not upon condition of present entire obedience, which obedience is induced by the indwelling Spirit of Christ, but upon the condition that he believes in Christ. Neither of these classes make present sanctification, or entire present obedience a condition of justification; but on the contrary, both regard and represent justification as a condition of sanctification. We have seen what justification is; let us inquire in a few words what sanctification is.

     To sanctify is to set apart, to consecrate to a particular use. To sanctify anything to God is to set it apart to his service, to consecrate it to him. To sanctify one’s self is voluntarily to set one’s self apart, to consecrate one’s self to God. To be sanctified is to be set apart, to be consecrated to God. Sanctification is an act or state of being sanctified, or set apart to the service of God. It is a state of consecration to him. This is present obedience to the moral law. It is the whole of present duty, and is implied in repentance, faith, regeneration, as we have abundantly seen.

     Sanctification is sometimes used to express a permanent state of obedience to God, or of consecration. In this sense it is not a condition of present justification, or of pardon and acceptance. But it is a condition of continued and permanent acceptance with God. It certainly cannot be true, that God accepts and justifies the sinner in his sins. I may safely challenge the world for either reason or scripture to support the doctrine of justification in sin, in any degree of present rebellion against God. (See argument, Lecture XV. II.) The Bible everywhere represents justified persons as sanctified, and always expressly, or impliedly, conditionates justification upon sanctification, in the sense of present obedience to God. 1 Cor. vi. 11; “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” This is but a specimen of the manner in which justified persons are spoken of in the Bible. Also, Rom. viii. 1; “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” They only are justified who walk after the Spirit. Should it be objected, as it may be, that the scriptures often speak of saints, or truly regenerate persons, as needing sanctification, and of sanctification as something that comes after regeneration, and as that which the saints are to aim at attaining, I answer, that when sanctification is thus spoken of, it is doubtless used in the higher sense already noticed; to wit, to denote a state of being settled, established in faith, rooted and grounded in love, being so confirmed in the faith and obedience of the gospel, as to hold on in the way steadfastly, unmovably, always abounding in the work of the Lord. This is doubtless a condition of permanent justification, as has been said, but not a condition of present justification.

By sanctification being a condition of justification, the following things are intended.

     (1.) That present, full, and entire consecration of heart and life to God and his service, is an unalterable condition of present pardon of past sin, and of present acceptance with God.

     (2.) That the penitent soul remains justified no longer than this full-hearted consecration continues. If he falls from his first love into the spirit of self-pleasing, he falls again into bondage to sin and to the law, is condemned, and must repent and do his “first work,” must return to Christ, and renew his faith and love, as a condition of his salvation. This is the most express teaching of the Bible, as we shall fully see.

     5. Perseverance in faith and obedience, or in consecration to God, is also an unalterable condition of justification, or of pardon and acceptance with God. By this language in this connexion, you will of course understand me to mean, that perseverance in faith and obedience is a condition, not of present, but of final or ultimate acceptance and salvation.

     Those who hold that justification by imputed righteousness is a forensic proceeding, take a view of final or ultimate justification, according with their view of the nature of the transaction. With them, faith receives an imputed righteousness, and a judicial justification. The first act of faith, according to them, introduces the sinner into this relation, and obtains for him a perpetual justification. They maintain that after this first act of faith it is impossible for the sinner to come into condemnation; that, being once justified, he is always thereafter justified, whatever he may do; indeed that he is never justified by grace, as to sins that are past, upon condition that he ceases to sin; that Christ’s righteousness is the ground, and that his own present obedience is not even a condition of his justification, so that, in fact, his own present or future obedience to the law of God is, in no case, and in no sense, a sine quà non of his justification, present or ultimate.*

     *Dr. Duffield, a recent expounder of what, he is pleased to insist, is the only orthodox view of the subject, says:–“The sacred Scriptures clearly teach, that God, by one gracious act, once passed, and for ever immutable, releases the sinner who believes, so effectually and fully from the penalty of the law, that he is removed from under its dominion, and never more comes into condemnation. Justification is an act of God’s free grace, which takes immediate effect in this mortal life, and by which the relation of the sinner who believes on Jesus Christ, is so thoroughly changed to the law, that through the actings of his faith he passes from under the condemnation, and penalty of the law, and being accepted as righteous, only for the righteousness of Christ, is adopted into the family of God’s children. It is one act of God, once done and for ever, and begins immediately to produce its fruits.” Indeed, Christian, what do you think of this? One act of faith, then instantly justified, once and immutable, you can never by any possibility need pardon again. No, the law has perished as it respects you. Faith has made it void, for that is no law that has no penalty. Then you can no more sin, for you have no law. “For where there is no law, there is no transgression.” “Sin is not imputed where there is no law.” So if you do sin, your sin is not imputed, and you need no pardon. What an infinite mistake are Christians labouring under, according to this theory, when they ask for a pardon of their sins committed after this immutable act of justification. And further: live as you may, after once believing, you must be saved, your justification is immutable. What say you to this?

     Now this is certainly another gospel from the one I am inculcating. It is not a difference merely upon some speculative or theoretic point. It is a point fundamental to the gospel and to salvation, if any one can be. Let us therefore see which of these is the true gospel.

     I object to this view of justification:–

     1. That it is antinomianism. Observe: they hold that upon the first exercise of faith, the soul enters into such a relation to Christ, that with respect to it the penalty of the Divine law is for ever set aside, not only as it respects all past, but also as it respects all future acts of disobedience; so that sin does not thereafter bring the soul under the condemning sentence of the law of God. But a precept without a penalty is no law. Therefore, if the penalty is in their case permanently set aside or repealed, this is, and must be, a virtual repeal of the precept, for without a penalty it is only counsel, or advice, and no law.

     2. But again: it is impossible that this view of justification should be true; for the moral law did not originate in the arbitrary will of God, and he cannot abrogate it either as to its precept or its penalty.**(see below) He may for good and sufficient reasons dispense in certain cases with the execution of the penalty. But set it aside in such a sense, that sin would not incur it, or that the soul that sins shall not be condemned by it, he cannot–it is naturally impossible! The law is as unalterable and unrepealable, both as to its precept and its penalty, as the nature of God. It cannot but be, in the very nature of things, that sin in any being, in any world, and at any time, will and must incur the penalty of the moral law. God may pardon as often as the soul sins, repents, and believes but to prevent real condemnation where there is sin, is not at the option of any being.

3. But again: I object to the view of justification in question, that it is of course inconsistent with forgiveness or pardon. If justified by imputed righteousness, why pardon him whom the law accounts as already and perpetually, and perfectly righteous? Certainly it were absurd and impossible, for the law and the law-giver judicially to justify a person on the ground of the perfect obedience of his substitute, and at the same time pardon him who is thus regarded as perfectly righteous. Especially must this be true of all sin committed subsequently to the first and justifying act of faith. If when once the soul has believed, it can no more come into condemnation, it certainly can no more be forgiven. Forgiveness implies previous condemnation, and consists in setting aside the execution of an incurred penalty.

     4. If the view of justification I am opposing be true, it is altogether out of place for one who has once believed, to ask for the pardon of sin. It is a downright insult to God, and apostacy from Christ. It amounts according to their view of justification, to a denial of perpetual justification by imputed righteousness, and to an acknowledgment of being condemned. It must therefore imply a falling from grace, to pray for pardon after the soul has once believed. But upon their view falling from grace is impossible.

     5. According to this view of justification, all the prayers offered by the saints for the pardon of sins committed after their first act of faith, not even excepting the Lord’s prayer, have all been wrong and impious, and have all been a virtual denial of a fundamental truth of the gospel. Shame on a theory from which such consequences irresistibly follow! The soul cannot be pardoned unless it be condemned; for pardon is nothing else than setting aside the condemning sentence of the divine law.

     6. But this view of justification is at war with the whole Bible. This everywhere represents Christians as condemned when they sin–teaches them to repent, confess, and pray for pardon–to betake themselves afresh to Christ as their only hope. The Bible, in almost every variety of manner, represents perseverance in faith, and obedience to the end, as a condition of ultimate justification and final salvation. Let the following passages serve as examples of the manner in which the Bible represents this subject:–

     Ezek. xviii. 24. “But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned; in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die.”

     Ezek. xxxiii. 13. “When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousness shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it.”

     Matt. x. 22. “And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake; but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.” [Matt. xxiv. 13.]

     John xv. 6. “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.”

     Rom. ii. 4. “Who will render to every man according to his deeds.” 7. “To them who by patient endurance in well-doing seek for glory, and honour, and immortality; eternal life.”

     1 Cor. ix. 27. “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection; lest that by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.”

     1 Cor. x. 12. “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.”

     2 Cor. vi. 1. “We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.”

     Col. i. 23. “If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister.”

     Heb. iii. 6. “But Christ as a Son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence, and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” 12. “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.” 13. “But exhort one another daily, while it is called to-day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” 14. “For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.”

     Heb. iv. 1. “Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. 11. Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.”

     2 Pet. i. 10. “Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure; for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall.”

     Rev. ii. 10. “Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. 11. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh, shall not be hurt of the second death. 17. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it. 26. And he that overcometh, and, keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations; 27. And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers; even as I received of my Father.”

     Rev. xxi. 7. “He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.”

     Observe, I am not here calling in question the fact, that all true saints do persevere in faith and obedience to the end; but am showing that such perseverance is a condition of salvation, or of ultimate justification. The subject of the perseverance of the saints will come under consideration in its proper place.–(See “Perseverance.”)

     7. The view of justification which I am opposing is contradicted by the consciousness of the saints. I think I may safely affirm, that the saints in all time are very conscious of condemnation when they fall into sin. This sense of condemnation may not subject them to the same kind and degree of fear which they experienced before regeneration, because of the confidence they have that God will pardon their sin. Nevertheless, until they repent, and by a renewed act of faith lay hold on pardon and fresh justification, their remorse, shame, and consciousness of condemnation, do in fact, if I am not much deceived, greatly exceed, as a general thing, the remorse, shame, and sense of condemnation, experienced by the impenitent. But if it be true, that the first act of faith brings the soul into a state of perpetual justification, so that it cannot fall into condemnation thereafter, do what it will, the experience of the saints contradicts facts, or, more strictly, their consciousness of condemnation is a delusion. They are not in fact condemned by the moral law as they conceive themselves to be.

     8. Christ has taught the saints to pray for forgiveness, which implies that when they sin they are condemned. There can be no pardon except there be condemnation. Pardon, as has been said, consists in setting aside the execution of the penalty of law upon the sinner. If therefore the law and the lawgiver do not condemn him, it is absurd to pray for pardon. The fact therefore that inspired saints prayed repeatedly for the pardon of sin committed subsequent to their regeneration; that Christ taught his disciples to pray for forgiveness; that it is natural to saints to pray for pardon when they have sinned; also, that the Bible expressly asserts that if a righteous man forsake his righteousness and sin, his righteousness shall not be remembered, but he shall be condemned for sin; and also that the human intellect affirms that this must be so: these facts render it plain, that perseverance in faith and obedience must be a condition of final justification and of eternal life.

     9. If I understand the framers of the Presbyterian Confession of Faith, they regarded justification as a state resulting from the relation of an adopted child of God, which state is entered into by faith alone, and held that justification is not conditionated upon obedience for the time being, but that a person in this state may, as they hold that all in this life in fact do, sin daily, and even continually, yet without condemnation by the law, their sin bringing them only under his fatherly displeasure, and subjecting them to the necessity of repentance, as a condition of his fatherly favour, but not as a condition of pardon or of ultimate salvation. They seem to have regarded the child of God as no longer under moral government, in such a sense that sin was imputed to him, this having been imputed to Christ, and Christ’s righteousness so literally imputed to him that, do what he may after the first act of faith, he is accounted and treated in his person as wholly righteous. If this is not antinomianism, I know not what is; since they hold that all who once believe will certainly be saved, yet that their perseverance in holy obedience to the end is, in no case, a condition of final justification, but that this is conditionated upon the first act of faith alone. They support their positions with quotations from scripture about as much in point as is common for them. They often rely on proof-texts that, in their meaning and spirit, have not the remotest allusion to the point in support of which they are quoted. I have tried to understand the subject of justification as it is taught in the Bible, without going into laboured speculations or to theological technicalities. If I have succeeded in understanding it, the following is a succinct and a true account of the matter:

     The Godhead, in the exercise of his adorable love and compassion, sought the salvation of sinners through and by means of the mediatorial death and work of Christ. This death and work of Christ were resorted to, not to create, but, as a result of the merciful disposition of God, and as a means of securing the universe against a misapprehension of the character and design of God in forgiving and saving sinners. To Christ, as Mediator between the Godhead and man, the work of justifying and saving sinners is committed. He is made unto sinners “wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.” In consideration of Christ’s having by his death for sinners secured the subjects of the Divine government against a misconception of his character and designs, God does, upon the further conditions of a repentance and faith, that imply a renunciation of their rebellion and a return to obedience to his laws, freely pardon past sin, and restore the penitent and believing sinner to favour, as if he had not sinned, while he remains penitent and believing, subject however to condemnation and eternal death, unless he holds the beginning of his confidence steadfast unto the end. The doctrine of a literal imputation of Adam’s sin to all his posterity, of the literal imputation of all the sins of the elect to Christ, and of his suffering for them the exact amount due to the transgressors, of the literal imputation of Christ’s righteousness or obedience to the elect, and the consequent perpetual justification of all that are converted from the first exercise of faith, whatever their subsequent life may be–I say I regard these dogmas as fabulous, and better befitting a romance than a system of theology.

     But it is said, that the Bible speaks of the righteousness of faith. “What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith.”–Rom. ix. 30. “And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.”–Phil. iii. 9. These and similar passages are relied upon, as teaching the doctrine of an imputed righteousness; and such as these: “The Lord our righteousness;” “Surely, shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength.” By “the Lord our righteousness,” we may understand, either that we are justified, that is, that our sins are atoned for, and that we are pardoned and accepted by, or on account of the Lord, that is, Jesus Christ; or we may understand that the Lord makes us righteous, that is, that he is our sanctification, working in us to will and to do of his good pleasure; or both, that is, he atones for our sins, brings us to repentance and faith, works sanctification or righteousness in us, and then pardons our past sins, and accepts us. By the righteousness of faith, or of God by faith, I understand the method of making sinners holy, and of securing their justification or acceptance by faith, as opposed to mere works of law or self-righteousness. Dikaiosune, rendered righteousness, may be with equal propriety, and often is rendered justification. So undoubtedly it should be rendered in 1 Cor. i. 30. “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” The meaning here doubtless is, that he is the author and finisher of that scheme of redemption, whereby we are justified by faith, as opposed to justification by our own works. “Christ our righteousness” is Christ the author or procurer of our justification. But this does not imply that he procures our justification by imputing his obedience to us.

     The doctrine of a literal imputation of Christ’s obedience or righteousness is supported by those who hold it, by such passages as the following: Rom. iv. 5-8. “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputed righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.” But here justification is represented only as consisting in forgiveness of sin, or in pardon and acceptance. Again, 2 Cor. v. 19, 21. “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Here again the apostle is teaching only his much-loved doctrine of justification by faith, in the sense that upon condition or in consideration of the death and mediatorial interference and work of Christ, penitent believers in Christ are forgiven and rewarded as if they were righteous.

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Charles Finney Refutes the Heresy of Justification in Sin by Dead Faith

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Charles Finney Refutes the Heresy of Justification in Sin by Dead Faith

Revivalist Charles Finney refuted the false Calvinistic doctrine of “justification by faith” while living unsanctified in “daily sin.”

“You ought to understand, brethren, that the doctrine of justification by faith, as it is now generally held by the orthodox churches, is a modern invention, and was unknown to the ancient church. It is this, that men are justified by faith in Christ, while they are not sanctified. In other words, that faith is so substituted for holiness, that they are accounted as righteous, while in fact they are not so, but are living in the daily and hourly practice of sin.

The doctrine of the primitive Church was, that men are made righteous by faith. In other words, that they are sanctified, or made holy, by faith, and that they were justified only so far as they were made just by the grace of God through faith. Now this must be the truth. And take heed to the doctrine, brethren, that you do not convey the idea, that men are justified while living in sin.” Charles Finney

This is what the Bible teaches on justification as well:

“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,  Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” 1 Corinthians 6:9-11

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The Burden of Sin & Blessing of God’s Law by Jesse Morrell

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The Burden of Sin & Blessing of God’s Law

Sin is the Burden We Need Deliverance From, Not God’s Moral Law!

by Jesse Morrell

I hear sinners talk about obedience the moral law of God as being a heavy burden hard to bear… To saints, a life of sin is the heavy burden hard to bear. Sinners delight in sin but saints delight in holiness. So for sinners the moral law is a burden but to saints it is sin that is the burden.

“the way of transgressors is hard.” Prov. 13:15
“thy law is my delight.” Ps. 119:77
“I delight to do thy will” Ps. 40:8

When a sinner hears a sermon about obeying God, they cringe and think “do I have to?” When a saint hears a sermon about obeying God, they rejoice and think “what a blessing that I get to!”

There’s only two types of pastors in the church – those who preach that you must obey God and those who preach that you must obey sin. When sinners hear that you must obey God, that is a grievous to them. When saints hear that you must obey sin, that is grievous to them.

Sadly, the churches today have many sinners in the pews and the pulpits. Instead of attacking sin and defending holiness, many preachers attack holiness and defend sin. While the Bible urges us on to perfection and to sin no more, these twisters of the HOLY Bible use the scriptures to try to justify and excuse their lives of sin!

It is presented as “gospel” that you don’t have to repent of your sins and live a holy life. You can simply believe in Jesus and trust that His righteousness is imputed to you while you continue on in daily sinning and rebellion against God. You can’t stop sinning they say and you don’t have to. Just believe and keep on living in sin without worrying about it – you are eternally secure. But knowing the horrors of sin, such a false gospel is far from being good news to me! The good news of the gospel is one of deliverance, victory, repentance unto holiness, etc! The transformation of character promised in the Bible is good news to those of us who know the pains of sin! What a dread, what a horror, what a burden to even think about the necessity of continuing in a life of sin!

Jesus Christ came to set us free from our sins, not set us free to sin!

When you love God and consequently live in obedience to Him, the Antinomians will say things like, “I feel bad for you. You are under the bondage of legalism.” But when you hate God and consequently disobey Him, my thought is “I feel bad for you. You are under the bondage of lawlessness.”

The church is twisted today with twisted theology. Blessing is called bondage and bondage is considered blessing. Truth is called heresy and heresy is called truth. Bad news is called good news and good news is called bad news.

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” Isa. 5:20

 

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Even Antinomians Really Believe in Repenting of Sin to Be Saved by Jesse Morrell

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Even Antinomians Really Believe in Repenting of Sin to Be Saved

By Jesse Morrell

Antinomian heretics often accuse me of preaching justification by works of the law because I preach that sinners must repent of all their sin to be forgiven through Christ. They falsely accuse me of preaching earning or meriting your salvation, when the Bible represents repentance as a condition of being forgiven by grace and mercy and not as a means of earning or meriting salvation.

Antinomians say things like, “You don’t need to repent of your sins to be saved. You only need to repent of your unbelief and self-righteousness.” But they overlook the simple fact that unbelief and self-righteousness are themselves sins. So in their own view, you do have to repent of sins to be saved.

They will point to Scriptures that speak of the Gentiles turning from idols and say that repentance is not turning from all sins but simply turning from idols to God. Granted, the Gentiles did in fact turn from idols. But now these Antinomians are saying that salvation includes an obedience to the first two of the Ten Commandments. If an unbeliever needs to repent of his idol worship to be saved, it stands to reason that He must become obedient to the first two of the Ten Commandments.

And does a man need to completely turn from idols? Does he need to perfectly keep the first two commandments? Or can he worship idols just a little bit every day of his life in word, thought, and deed? Certainly, even the Antinomians I am thinking of would be appalled at the notion of a genuinely saved believer worshipping idols every day of his life, even if it were “just a little bit.” And so in their own system, even they believe that a person must be made perfectly obedient to God’s commandments, at least in part.

And if an unbeliever needs to repent of putting other gods before the Lord and of worshiping idols, then this is in fact a repentance of selfishness or self-centeredness because every sinner has essentially made himself his own god. And if a sinner is going to repent of his selfishness, which is in fact the essence of all sin, the consequence will be that they will be obedient to all of the moral law of God.

And if Gentiles are going to repent of their unbelief and put their faith in Christ, they will consequently obey Christ or else they do not truly trust in Him. If they trust Him with the salvation of their souls, they will certainly trust Him with their daily lives as well. If a man trusts God, he will obey God.

I am not talking about keeping the Old Testament Torah, but the New Testament Law of Christ or the moral law of God. The New Testament says that believers “keep His commandments” and that “love is the fulfillment of the law.”

The real problem is that Antinomians confuse repentance for the remission of sins and justification by works of the law. Repentance for the remission of sins has to do with changing your mind about violating the moral law of God as a condition of gracious and merciful pardon. Justification by works of the law has to do with trying to earn and merit your salvation by being circumcised and keeping the law of Moses or Torah.

Abraham was justified by his faith. The Torah or law of Moses did not exist yet and so Abraham could not have been justified by The Law. Instead, Abraham was justified by faith. But justification is not being declared righteous while you continue to live unrighteous. Justification is when you are made actually righteous. Abraham was justified or made righteous by faith because it is faith that God imputes or considers as righteousness and because faith will result in an obedient life. The Bible also says that by faith Abraham obeyed God.

There were Jews, on the other hand, who sought justification by law and not by faith. They did not believe in the promises of God or trust in Jesus Christ as the Messiah, but they were circumcised and kept the letter of the Sabbath, etc. They, of course, were not justified. They were not righteous because fundamentally righteousness starts with faith. God did not impute them as righteous because it is faith that God imputes or considers as righteousness.

And so, it is by faith that a man is justified but that means that it is by faith that a man is actually made righteous. To be saved a man must repent of their unbelief and put their faith in Christ and as consequence, they will live a life of obedience to God. Furthermore, repentance from sin is not a means of earning or meriting your salvation but is simply a condition of the gracious and merciful pardon of God. Even those who deny the need to repent of your sins actually themselves do teach that you must repent of sin. It is inescapable. And if repenting of your unbelief, worshipping idols, (the first two commandments of the Ten Commandments) is not a means of meriting your salvation but is only a condition of pardon, than there is no reason why you cannot say that repenting of all of your sins or of all of your violations of God’s moral law cannot also be viewed as a condition of pardon and not as a means of meriting your salvation….

 

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Was the Incestuous Corinthian Still Saved? What about the “Carnal Christians?” Jesse Morrell

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Was the Incestuous Corinthian Still Saved?

What about the “Carnal Christians?”

By Jesse Morrell

An Antinomian Heretic on YouTube posted this on my latest video:

“The following is a story of a brother in Christ that was saved and then commits a really GROSS SIN, and still remains SAVED !!

The story is found in 1 Corinthians 5:1-5, this is a story of a really GROSS SIN committed by a SAVED believer that is taking place within the Corinthian church.

Verse One – It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.

That is a really gross sin for a son to commit fornication with his mother or step-mother !! Paul is not clear if it is a mother or step-mother , I assume that it is a step-mother.

Verse two – And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.

It is very clear that this man’s sin is very well known by the members of the congregation, and that the congregation has done nothing about it !! They need to separate themselves from this man. It is an open sin that is a blemish on the congregation. ( See Galatains 6:1 ) This man’s sin gives that congregation a bad testimony !!

Verses three thru four ……………
3 For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed,
4. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,

The first part of verse five – 5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, ………………………

So Paul is telling this congregation to put this man out of the congregation, for God to deal with him, in so far as for God to allow Satan to take this man’s life early ( i.e ” destruction of the flesh ” ) . But the man involved in this gross sin is a believer, and ultimately what happens ?? …….

Verse five continued – that the spirit may be (( SAVED )) in the day of the Lord Jesus.

The day of the Lord Jesus, is the judgement seat of Christ, and at the judgement seat of Christ , the man is SAVED, but he shall suffer LOSS! ( See 1 Corinthians 3:12-15 )

So as a SAVED BELIEVER, it is clear that sin does NOT send you to hell !!
Your sin has no effect on the relationship that you have with God. You have to understand that you can NOT lose your salvation due to sin !! ( See Ephesians 1:13-14, WE ARE SEALED! ) The man WAS saved, so he did NOT have to repent of the GROSS SIN that he was committing !! If he wanted rewards in heaven, then he did need to repent of the sin that he was committing !!”

________________________________

His post was long and continued and was full of even more heresies, like saying God cannot punish us because Jesus died for us, that if you could stop sinning you wouldn’t need Jesus, that if you think you have to repent of your sins and that you can lose your salvation you are trying to save yourself with your works, etc. His post was horrible.

All I responded with was this:

You forgot the rest of the story. Paul said in 2 Corinthians that his first letter (1 Corinthians) brought those who were sinning in the church to repentance – repentance to salvation.

2Co 7:8-11 – “For though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent: for I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season. Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance TO SALVATION not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.”

So those who were sinning which Paul rebuked in 1 Corinthians repented and got saved.

The Biblical fact remains that sin is only forgiven after it is repented of. And praise God that the sinners inside the Corinthian church, mentioned in 1 Corinthians, repented to salvation!

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Why doesn’t the Gospel of John Use the Word Repent If You Must Repent to be Saved? Jesse Morrell

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Why doesn’t the Gospel of John Use the Word Repent

If You Must Repent to be Saved?

By Jesse Morrell

Someone asked in my Theology Facebook Group, “If repent is a requirement of salvation, then why doesnt the book of John mention it?”

I said, the book of John says “sin no more.” But read the book of Acts, which was the evangelism of the Apostles, in which they called sinners to “repent.”

If faith is required for salvation, how come the book of John doesn’t use the word “faith”?

If the atonement is required for salvation, how come the book of John doesn’t use the word “atonement?”

If mercy is required for salvation, how come the book of John doesn’t use the word mercy?

See where this faulty logic leads?

Read in the Epistles of John what he said about those who were born of God – that they sinneth not and practice righteousness.

 

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Do Men Need to Repent of Sin or Just Repent of Unbelief and Self-Righteousness? Jesse Morrell

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DO MEN NEED TO REPENT OF THEIR SINNING

OR ONLY  REPENT OF THEIR UNBELIEF AND SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS?

By Jesse Morrell

“I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.” Jer. 23:21-22

I have had many conversations with modern Antinomians who have said things like, “You don’t need to repent of your sins. You only need to repent of unbelief” or “You don’t need to repent of your sins. You only need to repent of self-righteousness.” And they classify repentance from sin as “works righteousness,” “works based salvation,” and “justification by works of the law.”

Antinomians reason this way, “We are justified by faith and not by works of the law. Therefore, we do not need to repent of our sins or repent of breaking God’s law, but only need to repent of our unbelief and repent of trusting in our self-righteousness and believe the gospel.”

This Antinomian theology is also known as “Easy Believism.” They teach that all you have to do to be saved is believe, you do not need to repent of your sins, and so long as you believe you are saved even though you continue in sin. No amount of sin can send you to hell, or forfeit your salvation, so long as you trust that Christ died for you.

This is, in reality, nothing more than the devil’s faith spoken of in James and turns the atonement into nothing more than a license to sin.

Just recently, someone posted this quote from me on Facebook:

“There is no salvation without repentance. No matter how much a person says that they “believe” and that they have “faith,” if they have not repented of their sins, they have not yet experienced biblical saving faith. It is possible for a person to “believe in Jesus” and still go to hell. I believed long before I repented. If God forgave without repentance, salvation would be nothing more than a license to sin.”

Someone else commented on this and said:

“Jesus never preached to repent of your sins. He preached repent from keeping the law to be in right standing with God. It has always been about faith and relationship.”

I responded:

Repentance is often used to mean change of mind about sinning, not merely or exclusively a change of belief or a change of mind about self-righteousness.

Take this example of how Jesus used the word repent: “Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.” Lk. 17:3-4

Here Jesus said that if a man sins against us, we should rebuke him. And if he repents, then we should forgive him. In other words, if he repents of the sin then he should be forgiven.

We see that the word repent, as used by Jesus, does not merely mean to “change your mind about trying to save yourself through works” like Antinomians teach, but an actual change of mind about sinning. It is not merely self-righteousness that needs to be repented of, but all sin.

This use of the word repent, as used by Jesus, helps us to understand what Jesus meant in these verse:

“And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matt. 3:2

“From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matt. 4:17

“And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.” Mark 1:15

“I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” Lk. 13:3

As Jesus said, “sin no more” (Jn. 5:14; 8:11) and this necessarily implies repentance from all sin, as a person can only “sin no more” if they first change their mind about sinning all together. So Jesus did preach repentance from all sin.

And since Jesus preached repentance, so did his disciples:

“And they went out, and preached that men should repent.” Mark 6:12

Notice also that the Bible says that Jesus Christ came to call sinners to repentance. It doesn’t say unbelievers or the self-righteous, but sinners, because it is their sins that they are repenting of.

“But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Matt. 9:13

“When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Mk. 2:17

“I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Lk. 5:32

“I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.” Lk. 15:7

You said, “Jesus never preached to repent of our sins, He preached repent from keeping the law to be in right standing with God.“

So is keeping the law to be in right standing with God a sin? If so, Jesus did preach repent of your sin by your own words. If it is not a sin, why repent of it?

Some say it is only unbelief that needs to be repented of, not sins. But is unbelief a sin? Yes, anything that is not of faith is sin (Rom. 14:23). Therefore, to repent of your unbelief is to repent of sin. If unbelief was not a sin, why repent of it? But if unbelief is a sin, then unbelievers do need to repent of their sin.

I agree that trying to earn your salvation by your works is a sin and a sin that needs to be repented of, and that not believing the light that you have is a sin and a sin that needs to be repented of, but I go further and say that all sin must be repented of.

Repentance is not a work of the law, but a condition of mercy. It is a change of mind. It does not merit or earn salvation, as those who repent still deserve punishment, and therefore the pardon of the repentant is an act of grace and mercy.

“Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” Isa. 55:7

“He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh themshall have mercy.” Prov. 28:13

“John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.” Mark 1:4

“And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins” Lk. 3:3

“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord” Acts 3:19.

There is a world of difference between justification by works of the law and repentance for the remission of sins. One has to do with performing works of the Torah, like circumcision, while the other has to do with a change of mind about breaking the moral law. One is trying to be justified by merit, the other is justification by grace. One is condemned by the scriptures, the other is taught.

Repentance means a “change of mind” and is applied to God at times (Gen. 6:6-7; Ex. 32:12-14; Num. 23:19; Deut. 32:36; Judges 2:18; 1 Sam. 15:11, 15:29, 15:35; 2Sam. 24:16; Ps. 90:13, 106:45, 110:4, 135:14; Jer. 4:28, 15:6, 18:8, 18:10, 20:16, 26:3, 26:13, 26:19, 42:10, Eze. 24:14, Hos. 11:8, 13:14; Joel 1:13-14; Amos 7:3, 7:6; Jonah 3:9-10, 4:2; Zach. 8:14), but this does not mean that God repented of any sin. God has no sin to repent of. It just means that He changed His mind about His plans in light of new developments. He changed His mind about what He was going to do. Like when God repented of destroying Nineveh, He changed His mind about His future actions. But when God repented of making mankind in Genesis, He changed His mind about what He had already done, and His future choices were affected by this as He sent the flood.

But repentance is often applied to man and sin, in which case it means to change your mind about sinning. When it is used in connection to sin, it also means to change your mind about your future actions, as you determine to sin no more, while also a change of mind about what you have already done.

“Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.” Eze. 14:6

“Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord GOD. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.” Eze. 18:30

“Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.” Acts 8:22

“Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.” Rev. 2:22

“And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.” Rev. 2:21

“And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk” Rev. 9:20

“And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.” Rev. 16:9

“And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.” Rev. 16:11

While repentance itself is not a work of the law, but simply a change of mind about sinning, this change of mind will result in a change of life. This the Bible calls the fruit of repentance.

“Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance” Matt. 3:8

“But shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.” Acts 26:20

You also said, “If you can turn away from your sin by the power of yourself then you have become self righteous.” But biblical repentance for the remission of sins is not self-righteousness, as it is not a choice that we make independent of God all by ourselves, but a choice that we make under His divine influence. It is a choice that we made under the influence of the gospel. So it is not self-righteousness, but a change of mind about sinning brought about by the grace of God.

Also, self-righteousness is when you think that you are righteous on your own, by your works, without God and without Jesus Christ, and therefore do not deserve hell but deserve heaven. Self-righteousness is not when you have been changed and transformed by Jesus Christ, having been brought to repentance by the gospel of His grace. To classify the born again experience as self-righteousness is to misrepresent and misunderstand both the born again experience and self-righteousness.

Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with works of righteousness, as the Bible says:

“But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” Acts 10:35

“Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.” 1 Jn. 3:7

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” Matt. 5:16

“Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: she me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” James 2:18

The only problem is when people think that their good works earn or merit salvation, or when men have selfish motives for their good works like the Pharisees did (Matt. 6:1; 23:5). In that case, their righteousness is filthy rags (Is. 64:6) instead of pure white robs (Rev. 19:8). Any performing any religious ceremony or ritual, while having an impenitent heart, is of course “righteousness” which is nothing more than filthy rags.

Some suppose that any works of righteousness or good works are filthy rags. Filthy rags, as many know, refer to dirty tampons. But that would mean that these verses are saying, “But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh dirty tampons, is accepted with him,” “Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth dirty tampons is righteous, even as he is righteous,” “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your dirty tampons, and glorify your Father which is in heaven,” and “Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have dirty tampons: shew me thy faith without thy dirty tampons, and I will she thee my faith by my dirty tampons.”

Obviously, there is nothing wrong with good works or works of righteousness. Good works done out of faith are not filthy rags. That is, works of faith are not dirty tampons. Real works of righteousness are acceptable to God, but they do not earn or merit salvation. Justification is by  grace through faith, a faith that includes repentance and that will result in a change of life and good works.

 

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The Heresy of Matt Slick of CARM by Jesse Morrell | “A person does not need to forsake his sin in order to be saved” Matt Slick

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The Heresy of Matt Slick of CARM by Jesse Morrell 

“A person does not need to forsake his sin in order to be saved” Matt Slick

 

 

Jesse Morrell Against Matt Slick in a Public Debate in Montana

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“I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”

~ Jesus Christ (Luke 13:3)

Founder of Christianity 

_______________________________________________

“I say that a person does not need to forsake his sin in order to be saved”

~ Matt Slick

Founder of Christian Apologetics Research Ministries. 

_______________________________________________

In one of the debates I had with Matt Slick of CARM (Christian Apologetics Research Ministry), we had this exchange:

Jesse Morrell, “I do believe you have to forsake your sins to be saved.”
Matt Slick, “Nope!”
Jesse Morrell, “But unbelief is a sin.”
Matt Slick, “Nope! Nope!”
Jesse Morrell, “Is unbelief a sin?”
Matt Slick, “Unbelief is a sin.”
Jesse Morrell, “Yeah, unbelief is a sin. Do you need to repent of unbelief to be saved?”
Matt Slick, “No.”

Matt Slick has since tried to “explain” his position on this matter, claiming that I am “misrepresenting him” when I quote that exchange. But all he has done is made matters worse by further confirming his heretical denial of repentance for salvation.

He said:

“Repentance is necessary to be a Christian, but not to become a Christian because repentance is the result of being a Christian, not the cause of being a Christian.” Matt Slick (Source)

Again Matt Slick said:

“I say that a person does not need to forsake his sin in order to be saved… I teach we must forsake our sin as Christians. But forsaking our sins is not what makes us Christians.  It is the result of being a Christian” Matt Slick (Source)

“We forsake our sins because we are Christian… We do not forsake our sins to become a Christian… Therefore, as Christians we ought to forsake our sin.” Matt Slick (Source)

Matt Slick is saying that you get saved in your sins and in your impenitence, and then AFTER you get saved in your sins and in your impenitence, you start to repent.

To restrain and confine repentance to “the saved” is serious error, as the Bible says:

Act 17:30-31 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

Here we see Paul saying that God is calling the whole world of unbelievers to repentance. Paul was not preaching to believers in this sermon. He was preaching a message of repentance to a Gentile audience at Mars Hill.

Again we see that repentance is to be preached to ALL nations:

Luk 24:47 And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

Jesus Christ rebuked unbelievers for not repenting of their sins, even proclaiming damnation over them for their impenitence:

Mat 11:20-21, 23 “Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not: Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes… And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.”

Matt Slick says that repentance isn’t for the unsaved but for the saved.

Jesus Christ said the exact opposite of what Matt is saying:

Luk 5:32 – I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Repentance isn’t for the righteous (the saved), but for the unrighteous (the unsaved).

The saved have repented of their sins but the unsaved haven’t.

The Bible says that the saved are righteous, whereas the sinners are unsaved:

–

1Pe 4:18 – And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?

–

Again, the unrighteous are unsaved:

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1Co 6:9-10 “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”

Since the saved are righteous, the Bible says they need no repentance. Whereas the unsaved are sinners and therefore need repentance:––

Luk 15:7 – I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

The saved person needs no repentance because they are already righteous (justified). But the sinner, who isn’t saved, is the one who needs to repent. And all heaven rejoices when the unsaved sinner repents. Why? Because they are getting saved!

Matt Slick says the unsaved don’t need to repent – the saved need to repent. The Bible says the exact opposite: The righteous don’t need to repent, the sinners do.

The Bible says repentance from sin comes BEFORE salvation:

“Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Acts 2:38

“For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” 2Corinthians 7:10

“Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.” Acts 8:22

“And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” Luke 24:47

“I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”Luke 13:3

“Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are you ways my ways, saith the Lord” Isaiah 55:7-8

“He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” Proverbs 28:13

“Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions, so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die” Ezekiel 18:30-31

The biblical principle is this: Sin is only forgiven AFTER it is forsaken.

Act 3:19 – “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord”

Here we see that before your sins are blotted out, you must repent and be converted. The Greek word for “be converted” is “ἐπιστρέφω” and it is translated as “turn (16x), be converted (6x), return (6x), turn about (4x), turn again (3x).”

Conversion, which happens prior to the forgiveness of sins, includes turning from sin (Acts 3:19) and turning to God (Acts 26:20).

The Bible promises mercy to those who forsake their sins, not to those who are impenitent over their sins. To the contrary, the Bible promises wrath for the impenitent, not mercy.

Mat 12:41 – The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here

Rom 2:5 – But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God”

Nowhere in the Word of God does God ever promise salvation to the impenitent.

The Bible says that repentance from dead works (sin) is a foundation that goes along side faith towards God.

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Heb 6:1 – “the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God”

–

The Apostle Paul preached both repentance and faith to the Gentiles:

–

 Act 20:21 – Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus taught that harlots and publicans were saved because they repented at the preaching of John the Baptist:

Mat 21:28-32 – “But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to day in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.

–

Evangelism is calling sinners to repentance, urging them to meet the conditions of salvation. This is why we read in the Bible:

Mar 6:12 – And they went out, and preached that men should repent.

The message of the gospel starts with “repent.” Jesus started his ministry with “repent!”

Mat 4:17 – From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Jesus said one of his primary purposes in coming to the world was to call sinners to repent:

Luke 5:32- I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

To call sinners to repent of what? Given the context, that is he calling sinners and not the righteous, he is calling sinners to repent of being sinners! Calling sinners to repent unto righteousness!

Matt Slick only confirmed his heresy with his “clarification” post.

The root of Matt’s heresy is a false definition of repentance.

Matt said:

“repentance is defined as following the Law” Matt Slick (Source)

He said:

“Romans 3:28, says that we are justified apart from the works of the Law.” Matt Slick (Source)

And since he defines repentance as a work of the law, he concludes we are justified apart from repenting of our sins.

He said:

“Repentance (forsaking sin) is not what makes us a Christian.” Matt Slick (Source)

Since Matt Slick defines repentance as a work of the law, and works are not the cause of salvation but follow as fruit of salvation, he says you don’t have to repent to get saved but you repent if you are already saved.

The Bible, however, does not classify repentance as a work of the law. The Greek word (μετανοέω) literally means to “change your mind.” A sinner is “carnally minded” which is “enmity with God” (Romans 8:7), and therefore to be reconciled to God the sinner must “change his mind” (repent of his carnal mind). To be carnally minded, in the Greek, means to be fleshly purposed – living for selfish gratification. To repent of the carnal mind is therefore a change of purpose or intention – from living for self to living for God.

Repentance is not a work, or a deed, or a work of the law. Repentance is a change of mind. When applied to sin, repentance is a change of mind about sinning. Repentance is not “keeping the law.” Repenting of your sins is simply a change of mind about breaking the law. You realize how stupid and wrong it is to sin and so you change your mind about doing it. A lifestyle of keeping God’s commandments comes after salvation as the fruit of repentance.

The Bible makes a distinction between repentance and works:

Act 26:20 – But shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should REPENT and turn to God, and do WORKS meet for repentance.

Notice that the message God told Paul to preach to the Gentiles was “repent.” This is where the message starts. Unlike what Matt Slick is saying, repentance is for the unsaved to get saved.

Also notice the difference between “repent” and “do works meet for repentance.” Works follow repentance, known as the “works meet for repentance” (Acts 26:20) or the “fruit meet for repentance” (Matt. 3:8), but repentance itself isn’t isn’t a work.

Works follow repentance. But repentance itself isn’t a work. 

Matt Slick himself defined “heresy” as:

“a false teaching. It is a belief or idea that is in contradiction to orthodoxy. In the context of Christianity, heresy is that which deviates from standard biblical teaching.” Source

Given his own definition, we see that Matt Slick is teaching heresy. The Bible does not classify repentance as a work of the law, like Matt Slick does. To classify repentance as a “work of the law” is gross error and serious heresy. The logical  yet false conclusion of such a false and unbiblical classification is that “a person does not need to forsake his sin in order to be saved,” which the Bible says you must do in order to be saved!

Matt Slick’s heresy is two fold:

1. He says repentance is a work of the law.
2. He says you don’t have to repent to get saved.

Matt Slick calls himself a Calvinist but he seems to be alone in the Calvinist camp with his strange and unorthodox view that repentance is works of the law and that repentance is unnecessary for salvation.

A Lutheran Reformer named Melanchthon (1497-1560) said this:

“There are many who speak only of the forgiveness of sin, but who say little or nothing about repentance. If there is nevertheless no forgiveness of sins without repentance, so also forgiveness of sins cannot be understood without repentance. Therefore, if forgiveness of sins is preached without repentance, it follows that the people imagine they have already received the forgiveness of sins, and thereby they become cocksure and fearless, which is then greater error and sin than all the error that preceded our time.”

As we already saw, Paul who was the Apostle to the Gentiles (Rom. 11:13), was told to preach to the Gentiles repent, turn to God, and do works meet for repentance (Acts 26:20), and that He actually did testify to the Gentiles that they must repent towards God and have faith in Jesus Christ (Act 20:21).

Paul’s Gospel to the Gentiles included repentance from sin, so those who deny repentance from sin are preaching another gospel.

Galatians 1:8 – But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach another gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

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Beware of Matt Slick and his CARM Ministry, as he is preaching “another gospel” that was not the Gospel delivered unto the Apostle Paul.

“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” 1 Timothy 4:1

 

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Does the Bible Teach “Repent of Your Sins” or Antinomianism? Jesse Morrell

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Does the Bible Teach “Repent of Your Sins” or Antinomianism?

By Jesse Morrell

I was on My Facebook and an Antinomian said this to me:

“not once in the Bible does it say, “Repent of your Sins”, whether it be in the Old Testament, or whether be it in the New Testament….”

I said:

What? You must either not read the Bible, not read the Bible well, or are lying about the Bible.

OLD TESTAMENT:

“Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are you ways my ways, saith the Lord” (Isa. 55:7-8).

“He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Prov. 28:13).

“Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressins, so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die” (Eze. 18:30-31).

NEW TESTAMENT:

“Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.” Acts 8:22

“And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed.” 2 Cor. 12:21

“And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.” Rev. 16:11

“And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:” Rev. 9:21

I was on My Facebook and had a “pastor” tell me that a believer could commit adultery and murder and die in your sins without repenting of them and still go to heaven! Oh boy! No wonder the churches are so ungodly! Consider what they are hearing from the pulpit!

But this same pastor accuses holiness preachers of being self-righteous and of trusting in their works instead of in Christ. He said that holiness preachers like myself are going to hell!

So according to Antinomians like this pastor, you can live and die as a murderer and as an adulterer and go to heaven. But if you are a holiness preacher and live a holy life because you love Jesus and have faith in Him, you are a self-righteous Pharisee and are going to hell! Wow! They think that the man living holy is not really trusting in Christ but the man who is sinning is! How backwards!

The fact is, the Bible condemns those who have a lifestyle of sin. Sinning every day in word, thought, and deed is a “lifestyle” of sin. You can’t have more of a “lifestyle” of sin than sinning every day. And there are many today who are think that they are saved because they “believe” in Jesus and claim to be covered by “the imputed righteousness of Christ” while they continue in a lifestyle of sinning. They will say things like, “It is not about what I do, it is about what Christ has done.” They think that the atonement of Jesus Christ has given them a license to sin! They have a false peace as there is no peace for the wicked. Those who claim to know God but break His commandments are liars because sin separates you from Him. What many in the church today need to do is “repent” of their sins and then they will have true peace with God and will be truly saved. There is gracious and merciful forgiveness in Jesus Christ for all those who forsake their sinful carnality or selfishness which is enmity with God. But those who remain in their sins, no matter what doctrines they invent to make themselves feel comfortable, are abiding under the wrath of God.

For a Saint to say, “I’m still a sinner” is for him to deny the power of the gospel – to undermine the work of Christ! Christians are new creatures in Christ! The old has past and the new has come

To say, “I can’t help but to sin” again denies the work of Jesus Christ. Whom the Son sets free is free indeed! He never allows us to be tempted above that which we are able!

The problem is that there is a sin-friendly gospel out there which makes people comfortable in their impenitence. It doesn’t call sinners to repent of their sins but says only believe while you continue to sin and you are saved.”

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