September 11 and Pluralism
Why "grace not justice" Calvinism is worse than Islam

Part 4

by Mark McCulley

    Have YOU become so enculturated by “evangelical” habits that you try to use the Arminian code language in order to convey the truth of the gospel? Do you say “for those who believe” in order to avoid the “for the elect”? Do you say “the cost of discipleship” in order to avoid saying that those not yet delivered to the doctrine of the gospel are still servants of sin, free from righteousness? (Romans 6:17-21) In the interests of pluralism do you teach the satanic lie which says that “future justification” depends on what God enables sinners to do?

    To say what is true, we need to say what it false. And when we do that, we will be persecuted. Turn to one of the first books Paul wrote: II Thess 1:4-10 we boast of you (insiders) among the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure. Is Paul a cultist?

    In verse 5 he writes that this persecution is evidence of God’s favor. Not that everybody who is persecuted is a Christian, but that all Christians will be persecuted: “which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you also suffer.”

    Is Paul a legalist? Is Paul saying that people are saved by suffering and being persecuted? No, but he is saying that persecution happens to saved people, that it is evidence. If you want to call that being “cultic”, then your disagreement is with early “sectarian” Bible Christianity itself.

    But read on: Paul is an apocalypticist also, who not only believes in a second coming but looks forward to it with the idea that on that day there will still be us and them and God over both. Not everybody is saved from God’s wrath. II Thess 1:6-8 "Since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God..."

    We know God, they don’t? As Niebuhr (the hero of those who justify war) warned us, certain parts of the Bible are very sectarian and cultic. See I John 4:5, 6 “They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God; he who knows God hears us...” I John 5:19-20 “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true..." II Thess 1:8 “taking vengeance on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ."

    We are not saved by believing the true gospel, but if we do not believe the true gospel, that is evidence that we are not saved. Faith is a gift of God, but that does not mean that faith is not “obeying” or that faith is not a duty commanded.

    II Thess 1:9-10 “These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed.

    There is coming a day when God will come here in a way that God is not here yet. On that day, there will be those who believe the gospel and those who do not. Those who believe the gospel believe Paul’s testimony about Christ’s person and work. Those who do not believe that testimony will have “troubled” those who do believe that testimony. If one reads this kind of “black and white thinking” as cultic, and wants there to be some kind of “soul liberty of conscience” to believe or not believe anything one wants, then one still worships an idol. There is a false god of “grace” who either does not see sin or who accepts our sinful performance (or performance of non-performance) as pleasing enough to be accepted.

    The false god of “grace not justice Calvinism” supposedly saves sheep who keep hearing the voice of strangers and who never receive knowledge about a perfect righteousness brought in for the elect by the God-man mediator. Calling people who are submitted to the true gospel “cultists” is only more evidence that these lost Calvinists are refusing to come to the light of the truth which would expose the evil deeds of their religious community. (John 3:18-21).

    The book of Philippians (1:27-30) speaks of those with “one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel” One might call this black and white “cultic groupthink”. Some groups have one mind to say that the mind does not matter: since the mind is not perfect, the mind is not important, since the mind is not everything, the mind is nothing. But Paul says that people who believe the gospel will be in the same conflict. Even if they don’t know each other, those who know the true gospel will get the  same accusations (antinomian, gnostic, cultic) from those who oppose and deny the gospel.

    Phil 1:28 “and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you proof of salvation and that from God”. We see here the same “cultic” mentality as in II Thessalonians. Be encouraged when you are persecuted, because it is evidence. Not that all who are persecuted for any reason are saved (see I Peter), but that all who are saved will be persecuted.

    Phil 1: 29-30 “For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake, having the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear in me." Notice that the gift of faith (and suffering) is on behalf of Christ. It’s not that Christ died for everybody but that “grace” (apart from merit and justice) gives the elect faith so that the  elect can get the benefit of Christ’s death . Christ never died for the non-elect. The faith the elect receive is given on behalf of Christ. Because of Christ’s work for the elect gift of the Holy Spirit is given to the elect.

    Lost five point Calvinists do not believe this gospel. They do not relate every blessing to the righteousness Christ obtained at the cross. These lost Calvinists say that faith is a gift of grace but they do not teach that life and faith are a gift of righteousness. They do not give Christ the pre-eminence as having earned and merited all of salvation, including the work of the Spirit including even the faith which receives the righteousness.

    In Philippians 3:18-19 Paul further describes these “adversaries. “For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is their shame - who set their mind on earthly things.”

    Most commentators can only relate these verses to immorality. They don’t see any connection back to chapter one, or to those who oppose the doctrine of the gospel. Having as their number one concern those who teach “easy believism”, these interpreters see nothing but immorality in these two verses. Thus legalistic Calvinists join forces with legalistic Arminianism against "carnal Christianity". Neither group sees that the most carnal and fleshly sin is self-righteousness.

    After all, the verses say ‘belly”. Thus the pluralists, both Calvinists and Arminians, agree that the text must not be talking about bad doctrine. This pluralist opposition between "merely bad doctrine" and flesh is one of the biggest problems in the minds of most lost people who profess to be Christians. They do not see that having salvation depend on what God does in the sinner is flesh. While they may change doctrines, may learn new doctrines, they refuse to do what Paul did in the first part of Philippians chapter three. They refuse to call bad doctrine dung; they refuse to call believing bad doctrine flesh (enmity against God: Romans 8:5-8).

    See Part 5, The Belly Problem.