Luther resisted the idea of participation in sanctification altogether, and Calvin defined it as cultivating obedience. Both men stated emphatically that all holiness arises from union with Christ which begins in the inner spiritual life of a Believer which eventually results in good works. "Not of works lest any man should boast.”
Tuesday, June 30, 2020
Gothard's Game of Grace: An Exemplar of Externally-Pursued Sanctification
Monday, June 29, 2020
Luther and Calvin on the Three Uses of the Law
Friday, June 26, 2020
Hirelings and Their Deceptive Theology of Glory
He sees the Law as nothing but the source of condemnation and death for the Christian, and it is not something that humans can harness for their use. Luther shares with Calvin the view of the total depravity of human beings who are unable to sanctify themselves (Gen 6:5, Jer 17:9, Rom 3:10).
Sanctification: from Luther's Cross to Calvin's Union
Thursday, June 25, 2020
RC Sproul, Sr: A Brief Description of Justification
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Luther on the Righteousness of Faith
Late Edit: [I don't know how well it conveys, but I chose the statue of Hamlet at Stratford on Avon to illustrate how I think of Luther's contemplation of the Law. Because our efforts to keep it prove futile, I had it drilled into me at a young age that “all we get from the law is sin and death.” My mind locked it into auditory memory so clearly because I spent so much time and effort thinking about the paradox of Paul's writing in Romans that we do nothing to merit or receive salvation that becomes an admonishment to go forward and walk into the future with our weapons of righteousness.
We are amazing creatures, and I think twice of Hamlet. First, comes the soliloquy of “what a piece of work is man!” How noble in reason; infinite in faculty; in form, in action, in apprehension, in beauty, the paragon of animals, yet a quintessence of dust. And in contemplating sin, death and dust do follow. And so I chose the image of Hamlet holding Yorick's skull as he realizes all too painfully that life is so short. I imagine that Luther held that same kind of expression as did so many thespians in their portrayal of the sweet prince.]
Monday, June 22, 2020
How Martin Luther Understood Justification
I see my issue with the Young, Restless and Reformed as quite similar to how Martin Luther felt about how the Catholic Church relied upon good works and upon a mediator to obtain sanctification. (We hear the language of marriage as a sanctifying element in the life of the Christian in the Complementarian View of gender hierarchy where husbands claim that they can make their wives and children holy.)
Friday, June 19, 2020
Understanding the History of the Priesthood in Justification and Sanctification
The terms of Justification (right-standing with God) and Sanctification (to be free from sin) emerge as primary themes in the Protestant Reformation from the Roman Catholic Church as separate components of forgiveness from sin. Today, we hear them used by Presbyterians, Reformed Baptists, and others who argue for Calvinism as the true way to comprehend how God confers forgiveness as an act which depends on God's sovereign act alone (monergism).
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Towards Understanding New Calvinism's Other Gospel
Sunday, June 14, 2020
Holiness at the Expense of Kindness?
“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this,
Monday, December 12, 2011
Gothard on Grace in his Thanksgiving Letter to Alumni
“I rejoice in all that God has taught us since ATI began twenty-six years ago. However, in the process I know various ones have been offended in different ways. Over the years, I have made my personal contacts or phone calls to ask forgiveness, yet I know there are others whom I have missed. Therefore, I would be extremely grateful if you would contact me directly if you have been offended."
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Converging Thoughts and Divergent Thinking (Speculations on the Tension Between Divine and Human Agency)
My husband and I think in different ways, but we often come to so many same conclusions independently and even say the same things at the same time. If a week goes by when we fail to utter the same unexpected comment simultaneously, I wonder if there is trouble in our relationship. So it's odd to consider how I comprehend things in terms of global perspective (borrowing a term from Cynthia Ulrich Tobias – Remember her of FoF fame, Moms?) and he comprehends best by looking at the finer details first. I quickly become uncomfortable without the overview when I am handed too many fine details, not knowing where to put them.He needs the specific, objective details first, as they help orient him. I'm all about framing out the house and getting the plywood on the roof before I can begin to worry about shingles, and he is all about the shingles and the budget. So far, we have been a wonderful match for one another, showing complementary strengths.
Contrary to what we read on Professor Clark’s blog, I do not support and have never supported the FV. It’s odd that the critics of the FV do not grasp this readily documentable fact, because the FV’ers themselves do. They all know that I cannot agree with and in fact criticize their ecclesiology, their sacramentalism, their liturgy, their covenantalism and much else besides. The fact that I have defended — and will defend — them against historically misguided charges of heresy and “denying the Gospel” no more suggests that I embrace the FV than the fact that R. C. Sproul may defend John MacArthur against charges of heresy and “denying the Gospel” for being premillennial makes Sproul a premillennialist. Such (il)logic is just plain silly, as any thoughtful, dispassionate person must acknowledge.
I embrace the doctrine of justification precisely as it appears in the Westminster Confession of Faith. The exclusive instrumental cause of justification is faith. That faith rests entirely on the redemptive work of Jesus on the Cross and from the empty tomb and grasps hard on Jesus as Savior and Lord. The issue is not sola fide, which Scott and I both heartily affirm, but the nature of saving faith. Scott, like his colleague Mike Horton, has made clear his position that justifying faith is exclusively passive (trusting in and resting on Jesus) and never active (submitting to Jesus as Lord and as his disciple). I affirm that it is both simultaneously (in the distinct senses I have stated), and that a faith that is merely active is moralistic while a faith that is merely passive is antinomian. On this point, I dissent from Clark and Horton and I agree with J. I. Packer in Evangelical Affirmations:
There is an evident confusion here between faith as a psychological act, that is, something that you do (in this case, “closing with Christ” as the Puritans used to put it), and faith as a meritorious work, that is, a means of earning God’s favor and inducing his acceptance. When it is argued that to call for active commitment to discipleship as a response to the gospel is to teach works-righteousness, the confusion is clear. The truth is that every act of faith, psychologically regarded, is a matter of doing something (knowing, receiving, and trusting are as much acts in the psychological sense as is resolving to obey); yet no act of faith ever presents itself to its doer as other than a means of receiving undeserved mercy in some shape or form. This is as true of a trustful commitment to follow Christ as it is of a trustful resting on the Saviour’s [sic] promise of pardon. There is no need to restrict faith to passive reliance without active devotion in order to keep works-righteousness and legalism out of the picture.Packer believes what Clark and Horton do not: a saving faith defined only passively lends aid and comfort to antinomianism, and a saving faith defined both passively and actively does not lend aid and comfort to a moralistic works-righteousness and legalism. Justifying faith is both passive and active, and this is precisely what James denotes when he demands justification by works, which in no way violates sola fide but, rather, protects it.
This also is what NS believes and teaches, but agreeing with NS on this issue is not tantamount to support for the FV, just as RJR and GLB agreed with NS on this issue, and did not agree with JBJ’s views that eventually became known as the FV.
Reversal
This account, all-too-brief, is an accurate summary of the genealogy of the FV. One hopes that it will help to reverse some of the historical revisionism (or just plain ignorance) parading under the guise of thoughtful commentary.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Christ As Our Sanctification: The Meaning of Ephesians 5:22 - 32 ("The Jewish Way")

Concluding the comparison to and contrast of patriocentricity with the practice of Orthodox Judaism according to Rabbi Maurice Lamm in “The Jewish Way in Love and Marriage
In previous posts in the blog series, I've provided quotes from Rabbi Lamm's book demonstrating many beliefs and practices in traditional, orthodox Judaism that actually contrast if not denounce many of the submission doctrines taught by Bill Gothard, the Shepherding/Discipleship movement (Christian Growth Ministries, New Wine Magazine, Sovereign Grace Ministries, etc.) and the so-called “Biblical patriarchy movement.”
From Lamm's writing, we established the following:
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Marriage Is Sanctified From Concubinage Through the Law, Not the Bride and Groom ("The Jewish Way")

Comparing patriocentricity to the practice of Orthodox Judaism according to Rabbi Maurice Lamm in “The Jewish Way in Love and Marriage”
In this post, I would like to lay the groundwork for the understanding of Ephesians chapter 5 and what Paul's language meant, based upon the significant similarities between “sanctify” and “marriage” within the Hebrew language. In the post that follows this one, I will explain why I believe Paul teaches and uses the language that he does to explain how Christ takes His Church Bride and sanctifies her to present her holy to God the Father. Paul, as an expert in the Jewish law and all things Jewish, once the Jewish legalist who demanded Steven's death to further the purification of Judaism, held nearly unrivaled academic expertise in the Jewish Law in his day. He was a “Pharisee's Pharisee.”
Monday, May 26, 2008
A Man Does Not Answer For The Sins Of His Wife: She Is Her Own Moral Agent and Her Own Possession ("The Jewish Way")

Comparing patriocentricity to the practice of Orthodox Judaism according to Rabbi Maurice Lamm in “The Jewish Way in Love and Marriage”
One of the most disturbing things that I’ve heard in recent years is this whole idea that men somehow atone for their sins of their wives or will somehow answer for his wife’s shortcomings before God. I believed that this odd belief was just confined within the so-called “Biblical patriarchy” movement and patriocentricity, but when I lectured at a Southern Baptist Seminary a few months ago, I had several young men approach me to explain why I believed that they would not stand before God to give an account for their wives’ actions when they themselves one day stand before God to give an account of their lives. I never dreamed that anyone outside of this aberrant, spiritually abusive belief system would embrace such an idea. One can even easily find an example of this at Homeschooling Today Magazine concerning the editor and his wife. The editor declares that his responsibilities include “sanctifying his wife.”
Friday, February 29, 2008
A Deeper Understanding of Sanctification
From my traditional understanding, it was just this issue of justification and sanctification that moved Martin Luther to hang his famed Ninety-Five Theses on that famed door in Wittenberg in protest of Catholic Doctrine. The Catholic church essentially sold salvation through indulgences and works, teaching that sanctification was a process of "infusion" of grace into the life of the believer over the course of his life through compliance with the law and through obedience to the clergy. Salvation depended more upon compliance with standards and works than it did with faith, but one day, Luther had an epiphany. Reading that we were saved by grace through faith and not by works or PIETY in Ephesians chapter 2, Luther realized that salvation was of God and not through man's merit nor through the merit of his works.
On Sanctification The danger is in thinking that the holiness given you in Christ is not whole, perfect, complete. * It IS. *
It is not at all so much the case that holiness grows in you, but that you grow in holiness.
The gift is given: now we make progress in learning to live from it, so that love becomes ever more our life.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
The Family Integrated Church Model and Spiritual Abuse
It is in such a place that God chose to reveal Himself in the hearts of men and fathers. Our founding churches formed as God opened the truth of the Scriptures to elders who up to that point had been held in sway by modernity and compromise. God showed this group of men that victorious Christian living can come when the Bible is embraced in its fullness. This includes a trust in the historic faith, presbyterian polity, a commitment to the Biblical Creation model, biblical gender roles, and family-integrated worship.
Unbalanced: Abusive religions must distinguish themselves from all other religions so they can claim to be distinctive and therefore special to God. This is usually done by majoring on minor issues such as prophecy, carrying biblical law to extremes, or using strange methods of biblical interpretation. The imbalanced spiritual hobby-horse thus produced represents unique knowledge or practices which seem to validate the group's claim to special status with God.
- It encourages schisms in local church bodies by encouraging its adherents to change the theology and philosophy of the churches of which they are members.
- It does violence to local church authority, calling on local church members to leave their churches when the church does not bow to the philosophical demands of the movement.
- It espouses an ecclesiology based upon the family that is not based upon the New Testament but rather is an adaptation of Old Testament patriarchy.
- It falsely lays the claim that the destruction of the family in the U.S. is solely the fault of age-graded ministries in local churches. We contend that this is a simplistic and therefore false accusation.
- It espouses a postmillennial theology that is contradictory to a dispensational understanding of Scripture.
- It is oddly inclusive, basing fellowship on a particular philosophy of ministry rather than on the great fundamentals of the faith.
Consider also, the realted controversy regarding gender roles as a matter of Biblical Authority:
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Homeschooling only (Once stated to be sin, now is a strong recommendation as "normative") "Tenets"
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No secular curriculum for children “Tenets”
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Women are to function only within the sphere of home unless at the workplace of and with the patriarch (Once stated to be sin, now is a strong recommendation as “normative”) (“Tenets," McDonalds, Bodkins)
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Women to remain under the roof of the father or husband (or family home) at all times (in compliance with the concept of the sphere of home which makes attendance of a school outside of God’s “normative order”) (“Tenets,” McDonalds, Bodkins)
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Sons bear the duty of spreading the glory and fame of the father (Brown)
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Christian complementarians are essentially egalitarians which makes them feminists which makes them open theists (Russell Moore and Roy Moore)
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Non patriarchal complementarians compromise the Bible as "white washed feminists" and "unruly and filthy stray dogs on washday" (Stacy McDonald)
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Patriarchy and complemenatianism as a “plumb line” for determining that which is truly Christian (and other views as less or possibly sub-Christian) (Commonly held belief)
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Non-VF homeschoolers are "Canaanites" (Commonly held belief)
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“Multi-generational” worship setting, etc. (family remains together during worship and vilifies segregated, age-appropriate groups) (BCUCF)
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Pessimistic view of leadership within the church (vilification of group leaders and pastors that usurp the patriarch) (BCUCF)







