The Birthplace of Bad Theology | Theocast

Hi, this is Justin. Question for you. Where does all bad theology come from?

Here at Theocast, it is our conviction that all bad theology comes from a loss of the one true foundation on which the church can stand.

And that foundation is Jesus Christ, His work in our place, counted to us by faith alone.

So we're going to talk about that today on the podcast, and then in the members episode, we deal with some common objections to the emphasis that the

Reformation puts on Christ alone and faith alone. We hope this is a helpful conversation for you.

Stay tuned. If you'd like to help support Theocast, you can do that by leaving us a review on iTunes and subscribing on your favorite podcast app.

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Thanks for listening. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ.

Conversations about the Christian life from a Reformed perspective. Our hosts today are

John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, just south of beautiful Nashville.

And myself, Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in also beautiful Nashville, North Carolina.

John is trying to distract me with this very cool Theocast mug, which you can find that kind of swag over on the website,

I do believe, if you're interested in having some Theocast merch. And now that I've shamelessly done that, it's good to be with you around the microphone,

John. And for all those out there listening, it's good to be able to talk again about our one hope and the rock of our salvation, who is

Jesus Christ. John, how are you today, man? It's a busy season in my world. I don't know about you. Yeah, no, it's definitely been busy here.

I don't know what it is about January, but it's like Project Central. So my project list, we're going to actually finish my office right now.

My backdrop is actually, these are all my books in my downstairs living room, sitting at my bar top here, over here.

But my office is about to finally start, get that construction going. And it just, yeah,

January's, it's like, I always get too ambitious about what

I'm doing. And then by February, I'm just like, man, I'm so done. I feel like it's good.

I feel like things are really busy right now. But I also realize that I've been saying that for a long time.

Many, many a month have I been saying stuff is just crazy right now. And I don't know if I just have a skewed perspective on that, or if I and you and others are just trying to do too much.

I'm not really sure. It's probably a combination of all of that. Yeah. Well, I will say when it gets into summertime, my schedule does slow down because I purposely like to do things, like go places with my family and golf.

So I tend to what I book in my works, I work really hard at the beginning of the year, slows down in the middle.

And then I work really hard at the end of the year. That's my theory. My wife says I am totally blind.

Yeah. So I don't know, I don't even know what my theory on it is. I mean, I think there are certain seasons of the year that do feel a little bit easier, but they're kind of hard to predict, it seems.

And you just, well, I think occasionally look up all of our, it's not as insane right now. I think all of our bad decisions are built upon just, you know, the wrong kind of foundation in the brain.

So we got to. So, so true, man. The wrong foundation. Boom. We need to.

Wrong foundation. We need to make sure that we're building on a firm and solid foundation as we think about decision -making and everything else in our lives.

It's so true. That's right. That's right. That's right. Well, that's what we're going to be talking about today.

It's a subject that has been brewing in mine and Justin's conversations over the last, well,

I guess a while, but just trying to articulate. If I can interject,

I mean, not only brewing in our hearts and minds for a while, I think it is foundational. I'm not trying to be cute here.

It is foundational to everything that we're doing at Theocast and even what I would say characterizes our ministries in our local churches too.

Oh, absolutely. And, you know, it's lately with Theocast, we've been, those who have been joining are really vocal and man, they're involved and it's, it's unreal in how encouraging everybody is and so many people are hungry and coming from all kinds of backgrounds.

We're not just talking Baptist background. We're not talking Calvinistic, people coming from charismatic, legalism, fundamentalism.

I mean, it's, it's, it's a broad perspective and I know this to be true in my own church where my church has seen a pretty big influx of the charismatics who are leaving that theology and coming into our church and people from fundamentalism coming in this direction.

So one of the things that I get asked about all the time is these people are finding rest and they love it.

They love how much joy there is in Christ and what's their number one passion.

They want to rescue anybody and everybody from their past. They want everybody to know what kind of joy they can have and they call me and they texted me so frustrated with the text conversations they're having and the dinner conversations they're having.

They're like, John, how do I show them? How do I, how do I show them that this is so wrong? And, and, you know, they get so upset because not because these people are wrong, but they're missing out on just the absolute joy that you can have in the midst of pain, suffering and a world that is crumbling.

And so one of the conversations I've been having with Justin about this is how do we help people articulate the patience that is required and what are we trying to accomplish when we're being patient with people who we theologically disagree with?

Like, what, what are we trying to do? So one of the things that here at Theocast, you'll notice is that we have no problem talking about bad theology and pointing out where things are off and wrong.

But we aren't, I'll just say it this way, JP, and I know we didn't really talk about this beforehand, but what really annoys me about discernment ministries is that they are just hatchet jobs.

All they do is they go in and they just, they just hack away at people's bad theology for the sake of telling them they have bad theology.

Now, and I know I'm imputing people and I'm assuming their motives, but I can only go off of sometimes of what

I see. And it just seems like all, all the conversations are about is proving where you're wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, right?

This is unbiblical, this is unbiblical, this is unbiblical. To maybe briefly jump in and, and maybe rescue some of those motivations a little bit.

I assume that people that are doing that, they would say, and to an extent we would agree that in tearing down bad arguments and tearing down bad theology, you are aiming to do good to people.

And so I assume that their motivations are good in that regard. I totally agree. It's the, it's the attitude by which is perceived.

The thing is, and I'm with you, John, I mean, you and I are going in the same direction, but I just try to nuance and clarify.

Right. Perception is reality. And a lot of times all people perceive you doing is coming in and telling them where they're wrong.

And it seems like it's all it is, is an attack all the time. Now I know this because my poor wife had to deal with me doing this when

I first discovered, you know, the relief of our theology. Sure. It was like everything she did was wrong.

And it just overwhelmed her because she never felt like she could trust anything because everything was wrong.

And so instead of building up a better foundation and then moving someone to that foundation, we just toppled it down, you know, battering rams were just these wrecking balls, right?

A theological wrecking ball. And so what I've learned is that, sure, you can liberate people from bad theology, but what did you liberate them to?

You know, it's more of you, you, you crumbled them. You didn't assure them.

So what we want to talk about today is the birthplace of bad theology. And if you understand where it comes from, then it's a lot easier to deal with it than it is just to destroy it.

Because if you understand something and the root cause of it, it's kind of like versus leaving the splinter in your arm and taking an ibuprofen or maybe going to the splinter and figuring out how to get it out, you know, the stick in the arm.

So that's kind of where we're at with this. We're going to talk broadly about the birthplace of bad theology.

And then, you know, depending on how this goes, we would love to do a subsequent podcast talking about how maybe it plays out in different areas in theology throughout history.

That's right. So we didn't talk exactly about this either, John, and I'm going to spring this on you.

What makes sense to me is we're looking at the next 30 minutes or so. We can talk about where bad theology comes from, kind of high level, and make some comments there.

Then maybe transition to how that relates to our posture and our method here at Theocast, and even for ourselves, maybe in our own churches too.

And then maybe conclude, at least this portion, with some allusions to some of the various manifestations of this systemic problem.

Does that seem good? Yeah. I just kind of did the preacher thing where I gave everybody the outline.

That's right. You're welcome. Get your pencils out. Here we go. I don't know. Yeah, absolutely.

Notetakers in the room. Here we go. Point one. So let's talk about the real issue, the heart of the matter here.

From our perspective, the birthplace of bad theology is a result of, or the birthplace of bad theology, let me just say it this way, is losing the foundation of all true religion, which the foundation of the one true religion in the world is justification by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

And so if we lose that foundation of Christ, and Christ alone being the ground of our peace before God, and Jesus being our righteousness,

Him making satisfaction for our sins, His work, His merit being applied to us by faith alone, all of those things, if we lose that foundation, then bad theology will necessarily follow.

We're just going to talk for a little bit about that foundation and the loss of it and the fallout of that.

So there's a reason why we talk constantly about Jesus on this podcast, and there's a reason why

John and I, as pastors of churches, every single week in our pulpits unashamedly herald

Jesus Christ and the justification that is ours in Him. Because it is our understanding that this is the only firm, true, and solid foundation upon which imperfect, sinful people can stand.

If I can, this is a Reformed podcast, and we oftentimes point people to the

Confessions. I think one of the best paragraphs in the Confession that my church uses, that John's church uses, the 1689

London Baptist Confession, is chapter 11, paragraph 1 on justification.

I may just read this. We do this about every six months, and I think it's useful to do. That paragraph reads this way.

Those God affectionately calls, He also freely justifies. And to be justified, just for the sake of clarity, is to be declared righteous.

It is to be reckoned righteous. It's a legal term. It is not that we in and of ourselves are righteous.

It's that we are deemed to be so, and we are considered that and declared to be that. So those whom

God affectionately calls, He also freely justifies. He does this not by infusing righteousness into them.

So He doesn't just give us a dose of righteousness so that we then become righteous. He does this by pardoning their sins and accounting and accepting them as righteous.

He does this for Christ's sake alone and not for anything produced in them or done by them.

That's massive. It's for Jesus' sake alone, and it's not for anything that is produced in us or anything that we do.

God does not impute faith itself, the act of believing or any other gospel obedience to them as their righteousness.

So this is important. It's not our faith that is our righteousness. It's not the act of believing that is our righteousness.

It is not any other obedience that is our righteousness. Christ is our righteousness. Instead, God imputes

Christ's active obedience to the whole law, that's His perfect life, and His passive obedience in His death as their whole and only righteousness by faith.

This faith is not self -generated. It is the gift of God. So the firm foundation,

John, in other words, is the fact that Jesus Christ is our whole and only righteousness, and we receive that righteousness by faith alone, apart from anything in us, apart from anything that we do.

We don't achieve it. We receive it, and it is Christ's righteousness that's counted to wretches like us by faith, and that is the firm foundation upon which true religion is built and upon which the church stands.

So that's our starting point. This is where we at Theocast want to drive everyone towards, to understand that if your foundation is not there, you have no hope.

You should not have hope. Your hope should be questionable because everything else is sinking sand, as the song says.

It can absolutely not withstand the judgment requirement that God will put upon it.

The weight of your sin will sink you if you are not standing on the firm foundation of Jesus Christ.

We could sing a song about how weak a foundation is. That's right. We'll harmonize for you.

Well, those of you who don't know, Justin actually has a pretty amazing voice. You have to go to his church to find that out.

Or live stream. Do you sing on your live stream? There you go. Let's send everybody to your live stream. I know, total distraction.

I apologize. This is something that helped me really strongly.

It's that when I am dealing with somebody who is believing something that I think is not only unbiblical, and we may disagree on in times, but I think damaging.

It's hurtful to their spiritual health. They probably are going to be frustrated and even question their assurance.

When I know I'm talking to somebody like that, I can't just go over and push them off of the foundation that they're on because that not only removes their security, but anybody who feels unsafe, they don't respond well to that.

It's like a scared animal. You corner a scared animal and that's going to go sideways on you really fast. So, one of the things that you need to think about is that before someone can identify they're on a bad foundation, or they're standing on a bad foundation, you have to begin to point out maybe the weakness of their foundation while you're pointing to a strong foundation.

This is kind of where we're getting at. The birthplace of all bad theology is when

I'm talking with somebody who has, and we'll probably get into this later, it could be fundamentalism, it could be the

Calvinistic pietism that's out there, or even the charismatic theology. If you look at those systems, they're built on what

I call a prop -up position where they're trying to prop themselves up by different methods so that they can look at those methods and then find assurance that they are good with God.

I will say almost all bad theology is the attempt of finding your assurance, your right position before God, in anything else other than Jesus Christ and the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Justin Perdue Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to try to qualify what I'm about to say. When John and I are using the language of finding assurance, we're talking in absolute terms here.

The confessions are clear that our assurance can be bolstered, for example, by our good works, but our good works are never the foundation or the ground of our assurance.

What we're talking about is ground zero. What is the foundation of our assurance and peace before the

Lord? What is the foundation of our salvation, of our hope, of our confidence, of all of that?

We're speaking in absolute terms. This is bottom of the barrel, rubber meets the road.

What is it that we're standing on, and what is it that is our hope and our confidence?

The answer to that question, biblically speaking, is only Jesus Christ. What we are constantly doing—I agree,

John, with what you said, and we're transitioning to our methodology here in the way that we're talking about this, and I trust that will become clear.

What we're doing constantly as preachers or as hosts of this show is we continue to beat the drum of Jesus Christ, His righteousness,

His satisfaction, His work, and that being the only thing that you can ever trust in, hope in, rest in, or find peace in.

What we're doing there is a twofold thing. We're trying to extol as much as possible all of these things about Jesus, who

He is, what He's done, so that we might look to Him and be satisfied in that, and rest in that, and look to nothing else.

We're doing that. Then we're also trying, like you said, to point out how these other foundations, these other things that we all tend to look to are really lousy foundations.

They're just not solid. They're weak. They're rotten. They can't bear weight. They certainly can't bear the weight of our sin and our transgressions, the weight of our corruption.

For me, as a pastor, that is so much of the work that I feel like I'm doing in an ongoing manner.

In this podcast, it's what we're doing in an ongoing way because we all tend to want to look to other stuff.

We all tend to not just look to other stuff, but begin to put our hope in some other things.

Or we fall into the trap of reasoning where it's like, well, there needs to be these other things.

There needs to be evidence and all this stuff. Then we start putting our hope in the evidence, not in the groundwork of our justification, which is

Christ. It sounds at points like we're trying to have a very nuanced, splitting -hairs conversation, but it makes all the difference in the world.

We've said so many times, for example, that things that flow out of the gospel aren't the gospel. There are all kinds of implications for our lives that do matter.

There are things that are going to flow out of our justification, namely our good works, but to begin to put our hope in any way in those things is wrong.

To begin to look to those things in any way is effectively you trying to build your

Christian life and to build your assurance on a shaky foundation. As you've said, there are many manifestations of this, which we may allude to more in just a moment, but they all come from the same place.

Please jump in. Then I may talk about my posture as a pastor, or even as a host of Theocast, and why we do what we do.

If you're new to Theocast, we have a free e -book available for you called Faith versus Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest.

And if you've struggled with legalism, a lack of assurance, or simply want to know what it means to live by faith alone, we wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a

Reformed confessional perspective. You can get your free copy at theocast .org

slash primer. Think about a house that is not built on a very solid foundation and it starts to topple over, adjust, or you have cracks and things start falling apart.

What you then have to do is prop and put things in place that should never even be there.

They're not even supposed to be a part of the original design of the house. And so you have this patched together house that the more you patch it, the worse that it gets.

Before you know it, you're looking at it and you're like, there's a resemblance of a house there, but it is a convoluted mess of patchwork and it is not really functioning.

It seems like there's always something breaking, and what you end up becoming is exhausted by this constant patchwork you find yourself in.

Because if I put this over here, then I'm imbalanced over here, and I've got to add this. I've met Christians who are so overwhelmed because they can't seem to keep everything propped up or all the balls in the air or all the plates spinning.

There's this constant frantic feel that if I don't hold this correctly, then this is going to fall down.

It can be manifested in multiple different ways, and we don't have time in the podcast today to get into it, but what

I'm trying to get at is that what makes Reformed theology so refreshing and what was recovered during the

Reformation was the solid foundation. This is what Luther found himself. Luther was exhausted.

He could not keep it up. He realized the entire foundation that his entire religious experience was built on was just crushing him underneath the weight of his sin.

When someone introduced to him Christ, it was like the weight was gone.

He now understood that all of this bad theology that had been placed on top of him, where it came from, and once he did, he slowly started to drift away from the

Roman Catholic Church. Not at first. He was trying to change it within and realized he couldn't do it, and so he slowly started to drift away from it.

Of course, during the Reformation, that constantly happens. I will tell you that Justin and I, that is our experience.

Once we understood that our foundation was a little off, that we weren't fully standing on the sufficiency of Christ, people will say, and this is the hard part about it.

I think what

I want you to hear is that I can barely think of a theology, a bad doctrinal position, that isn't down the road directly propping up a bad theological position that isn't related to one's assurance in Christ.

It may not be directly connected, but it is connected in some way back to the history of they got assurance wrong, and now because of that, you have all of these tentacles that go out.

They're all propping up something that was first of all built in the wrong place. Justin Perdue Yeah.

They're all a manifestation or a form of what I would call Jesus plus theology.

Everybody is agreeing that we're saved. People will say this, and this is part of the frustration that I think some of our listeners experience.

I've even seen people in my own church as they're trying to talk with friends or loved ones or other people, they feel this frustration too.

When you talk to other people who are Christians, they of course are going to agree with you.

We are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. If they're Protestant, they're going to absolutely affirm that.

But then I think a lot of times people, like our listeners or people in our churches, as they're trying to talk with others, they get frustrated because they're like, no, you don't get it.

You're saying you agree with me, but you don't really agree with me. You said earlier, John, they're emailing us and calling us and saying, guys, what do

I do? How do I help people see? A lot of times our response is unsatisfactory for people because we'll tell them, you need to be patient, you need to be gracious, you need to be winsome and kind and humble, and you need to play the long game.

You need to just love these people and slow drip this stuff over the course of time and trust the

Lord with it. People are like, okay, but that just doesn't seem like a sufficient plan of attack here.

I got to have something else. I think this brings us back to - Can I jump in real quick?

What I hear is this, but John, they don't see how bad this is. I'm like, you should hear yourself.

You're right. They don't see it, which means you should be patient.

Well, exactly. We've said a number of times, and you even said something like this before we recorded today, you're not going to convince people of their own off -centered, not great theology by just always punching them in the face.

There are other ways to go about doing it that are actually more effective. For us, the posture that we take as a general rule here at Theocastle, and I know this is true for me at CBC, and John, I know it's true for you at Grace Reformed Church, is to continue to unashamedly over and over and over again, every time we record and every time we preach, point people to Christ and Him alone.

We're preaching that and nuancing that in different ways every time we talk about it. It's like that proverbial diamond, and we just keep slightly turning it and letting people just gaze at it.

What we're trying to do there is at least a couple of things. One, we're trying to so catechize people as to what the real thing is that they then, over the course of time, are better able to recognize the counterfeit.

They realize, oh, this thing over here that I'm thinking about or I'm trusting in a little bit, I realize that I'm off and that that's not

Jesus, and thereby it will fail me. They'll realize that every time. But then the other thing that we're trying to do is show them by constantly heralding

Christ and extolling Him, we're trying to help them see the beauty and the goodness of Christ and the fact that He really is sufficient.

It's a twofold thing. You're helping them see the error, but then you're also helping them to just soak in Jesus so that they're satisfied in Christ and that they are resting in Him and really do believe that Christ will do and that there isn't anything else that they need to add into it.

It can't be done overnight. It takes time. That's why we exhort people to patience and graciousness as they deal with people who don't yet see this stuff, because it will happen.

Sometimes it takes a while, and when it happens, it's very clear. The light bulb goes off, the toothpaste is out of the tube, and they can't get it back in, but they don't want to anyway because it's like, man, this is so good.

It's worth the wait. Jon Moffitt One of the things that I even used to do when

I was first in ministry dealing with college students, I was always trying to correct every little thing that was off and wrong that they had, and I never really understood how they were all connected.

Their perspective on this and their perspective on that, and it was always, well, let's look at this Bible, let's look at this verse.

The longer I was a pastor, I started to realize that almost every little thing

I was dealing with was a symptom of a greater problem.

What we're trying to say is that if you can identify that almost all theological issues are directly connected to an assurance issue.

Sometimes when I say there's a result of a result, because I'm sure someone can say, how is this directly connected to the doctrine of assurance?

That might just be a theological difference within Christianity. Let's be clear, denominations, if you're not a

Baptist, then there's an assurance issue. Not necessarily, so let's be clear on that, but what

I'm talking about is real theological issues. It is a problem.

It's pretty far off that if you can understand that the root cause of this is directly connected.

What I try and do is I walk people backwards. Why do you think that it's necessary that you perform or do this or believe this or hold to that or not hold to that or not partake in that?

Then you start walking them back, and eventually what I'm trying to do is I'm having them look at where they're looking to.

If I do this or if I don't do this, what am I looking to that it will perform or not perform, or what will it do in my heart and my mind?

We were even saying before the podcast got started that we were thinking about the charismatic movement and that a lot of people in that movement truly just want to see the power of God in a world where we've lost sight of how glorious and powerful

God is. How do you fault that? How do you fault that desire? Justin Perdue Yeah, they want to see the power of God because they don't think that the power of God is not demonstrably at work in many churches.

We want to see the power of God. I want to comment on something that you said.

We've said this a few times already, but sometimes nuance is helpful for people as they listen. Sometimes you need to hear it said a couple of different ways, and then it clicks.

Like you said, John, the birthplace of all bad theology can be traced back to compromising what the

Scripture teaches with respect to justification. What I mean specifically is it can all be traced back to trying to add something in some form or fashion to Christ and his work.

When we say justification, we mean we're declared righteous now and forever.

Not just peace with God now, but peace with God forever. Whenever you start bringing anything else into that equation, anything other than Jesus, who he is and what he's done, inevitably bad theology follows from that.

It doesn't matter if you're circumcision, Jesus plus a work of the law, or Jesus plus speaking in tongues, or whatever.

If you fill in the blank, or Jesus plus abstinence from certain kinds of behaviors, we could go on and on.

Anytime it's Jesus and something, we've lost the only foundation on which the church can stand.

We have given it all away. We could rant on that for a while, but that's what we're trying to draw out here.

There are so many ways, and what's hard here is that many of them are so subtle.

You're going to ask people how they're justified, and they're going to say Christ. Then functionally and practically, it becomes quite clear that it is

Jesus and this other stuff that is the ground of our hope. In some contexts,

I'm hoping in Christ, but you need to be concerned about good works. I'm hoping in Christ, but in some contexts, well, you need to be concerned with speaking in tongues and the baptism of the

Holy Spirit. In other contexts, it's like, I'm hoping in Christ, but you need to be concerned about your affections and your disciplines.

In other contexts, I'm hoping in Christ, but you need to be concerned about the kind of media that you're consuming, what kind of movies you're watching, what kind of music you're listening to, and how you dress for church on Sunday.

It's very clear that to hope in Christ alone always has been and still is and always will be scandalous.

In our legal spirits, we are always wanting to be able to contribute something or point to some other stuff.

We have such a hard time, John, with the biblical distinction of Christ is the only hope we have.

He is our whole and only righteousness. He is the ground of our salvation now and in the future.

Having been united to Jesus and having been indwelt by the Holy Spirit, there will be outflow from that.

We have such a hard time keeping those things distinct. We want to meld them together to where the outflow and the groundwork become merged.

Then you give the whole thing away. That's why we keep doing what we're doing. It's why we keep talking about the same stuff week after week after week, and we keep preaching the same stuff week after week after week, because it's absolutely imperative that we get this right.

That's right. Just for the last few minutes, maybe look at a couple of passages where we really, just as where Justin and I find a lot of hope and security in what we teach, and where we base our entire ministries, no matter if it's on a podcast or sitting across in a counseling session.

The Apostle Paul overwhelmingly places this foundation of Christ upon almost any letter that he writes.

Let me give you a couple of examples, JP. I know as soon as I start, you'll jump in with some. Even in Colossians, Paul is bringing us into the beauty and glory of Christ.

Toward the end of chapter 2, he says, if with Christ you died to elemental spirits of the world, why as if you were alive in the world do you submit to regulations?

Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to things that are all perish according to human precepts and teachings.

They have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self -made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the adulteness of the flesh.

Where does he say to put the foundation of the Christian life? He says, if you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Set your mind on things that are above, not on things on the earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ and God.

So, hidden with Christ and God. He's saying, this is what the world is telling you to do to govern you.

I'm telling you, you need to rest in your identity in Christ, where your advocate, your

Savior, is seated at the right hand of God and you are hidden away. Meaning that it's this concept that nothing can find you to steal you back.

So, the foundation is always being pressed back in on my assurances in Christ, and that is the foundation.

Just to even go back to Corinthians, when Paul says, I want to make nothing known among you except for Christ and Him crucified.

There is more that comes out of Paul's mouth than just the message of the gospel, but he's talking about a foundation for their faith.

He's like, on a foundation level, this is the most important thing before I say anything else.

Justin Perdue Yeah. In 1 Corinthians 1 and 2, since you're there right now, he does say,

I endeavor to know nothing among you other than Christ and Him crucified. But a few verses earlier than that, he's been talking about the gospel, in particular, the message of Christ crucified and Christ for sinners is the power of God unto salvation.

Then he goes on to say that because of God, we are in Christ who has become to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

So that it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. Paul is very clear there.

We could talk about Ephesians and how Paul starts that letter. We could talk about Romans in the first several chapters.

1 John is replete with stuff in the first couple of chapters and throughout in terms of just the confession of Christ come in the flesh and how when we sin, we have an advocate with the

Father and all these things. Then, of course, Romans. Paul lays out a number of things there, including how he sets up a beautiful argument that he lands there at the end of Romans 3 that God is a righteous judge, everybody's wicked, nobody does good, so we're in trouble.

Now the righteousness of God has been revealed apart from the law, though the law and the prophets bear witness to it.

It is the righteousness of God by faith for all those who believe in Christ. The one that immediately comes to mind for me when we have this conversation is

Galatians. It is the book as has been said by a number of people.

My former mentor in the faith used to say that Galatians is the book in the New Testament with the sharpest elbows because Paul really is in the lane throwing bows.

I think the scandal of that book is not that Paul is blowing up works righteousness because that's not what he's doing.

He is blowing up Jesus plus theology, and it's important that we understand that because it's not that people in the

Galatian context were being told to keep the law and be saved. They were being told to believe in Jesus and be circumcised, believe in Jesus and obey the law in this way.

That is what it really is to be a Christian and to be saved and have peace for the Lord. Paul is so sharp in his language about it.

If you are going to uphold any work of the law, you better keep all of them.

If you're going to uphold a work of the law, then you are cut off from Christ and you've fallen away from grace.

That's what we're trying to say here. We're trying to speak in a pointed way like Paul does in the letter to the

Galatians to defend the exclusivity of Christ as being the way that sinners are saved and counted righteous.

Their sins are paid for and satisfied for, and you can't add anything to Jesus or you compromise the whole thing.

Jon Moffitt And our hearts are so quick. You've been saying it over and over again, Jesus plus. Our hearts are so quick.

We've been having a lot more quotes being posted out there lately. The comments on there, people are really quick to say, but James says faith without works is dead.

People are so quick to want to point to the performance of the individual.

What's interesting to me is that there are a couple of passages in the

Bible that say faith without works is dead. In context, it's very important to understand why

James feels the need to say that, just like 1 John feels the need to say certain things.

Maybe we'll just say it for the members' podcast, but my point is that when you think about that tendency that we have with theocast, it's just heightened for us.

I just feel it all the time. Anytime we put something out there that is Jesus -only, it scares them because what they're afraid of is antinomianism.

Justin Perdue You have to understand that what we are trying to do is really pull everything out of people's hands and say, do not ever trust in anything else.

This is what Paul says to the Galatians, know that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

It is faith alone in Christ. It's not faith in our faith. It's not faith in our faithfulness.

It's faith in Christ. I'm about to get work up, and we're out of time, so I will finish what I'm about to say in the next section.

Jon Moffitt Well, in the business, that's what we call a cliffhanger. I feel like I have a lot more to say too,

Jon. We're going to go now and say some of it in the members' podcast.

If you're listening with us and you are interested to be able to continue this conversation with us and you don't know what the members' podcast is, you can find more information about that at our website, theocast .org.

Jon wants to say something else, it seems. Jon Moffitt I will just tell you, this is like the team meeting for me.

This is where I get to talk to my fellow teammates and say, here's some encouragement and motivation for you.

Those of you that are trying to love people graciously towards Christ, stay tuned, we've got something for you.

Jon Moffitt Great. That's sort of what the members' podcast is, guys, is to be able to talk with those that track with us and are seeing the wonderful peace and rest and joy and freedom that is found in Christ and want others to be able to see and experience this too.

We're having a conversation amongst ourselves to better understand these things and then to hopefully better be able to help other people see and understand this stuff.

Hopefully that makes sense. Make your way on over to the members' podcast and join us for that conversation. We'd love to have you there.

For those of you that may not be able to do that this week, we look forward to speaking with you again next week in this same format.