Covenant Theology vs Neonomianism (Part 2)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

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My name is Mike Abendroth, and today is part two of the interview I had with Aldo Leon.

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Remember, he was on the show when we talked about federal vision. I think there's like 20 ,000 downloads per show on that.

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Well, I was on his show, Gospel on Tap, I think it's called Kingdom Polemics.

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I said Kingdom Prologue before because I had Kline on the brain, and this is part two of when

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I was on his show as we talked about law gospel, sanctification, et cetera. Enjoy the show.

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Here, let me add a thought about the antinomianism thing that I think may make it more sinister

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Antinomianism is multifaceted and varied, but there is one antinomianism that I've seen that is very much a justification thing.

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It's the antinomian that talks about how God accepts me as I am apart from any merits or any works.

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It's almost like the grace is God accepting me simply as I am, and that's not grace.

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Grace is I have demerited things before God, and Christ has merited things.

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He has earned things. I have demerits before God, and Christ merits, and that's how

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I get grace. Sometimes in the antinomianism, there's strands. There is this favor from God that has nothing to do with my demerits and Christ's earning, and it's just God just loves me, and obviously, not everybody's like that, but that can be very much a discombobulated gospel that doesn't bring in the actual merit -demerit conversation, but antinomianism, it's a multi -headed beast, and I think one time,

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I was talking to a guy about this, and I was talking to an antinomian about an antinomian guy, actually, his name is

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Tulian. He's up here, and he burned out of the PCA, and now he's got some church in Jupiter called the

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Sanctuary, where his wife and him are pastoring it, and I was showing one of these guys in our church some of his preaching, and I was like, this guy is such a legalist in his lawlessness, and the person was like, what are you talking about?

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Because every single time he talks about the Christian doing something in the

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Christian life, he says it's offensive to God, it's repulsive to God, and thank

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God that we're saved by grace, and I said, if you really understand the grace of Jesus, and you understand that now everything you do is through the hands of the mediator, the perfections of Jesus have now, they have now defined you, and now my imperfect works are done through the perfect works of Christ, a high view of grace will lead you to see your imperfect works that you do in faith as pleasing to God.

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Calvin talks about this really extensively in one of his sections that I think is brilliant, not because of their intrinsic quality, but because of who you do them in, and so the antinomian sometimes will minimize the gospel, not in its accomplishments, but in the ability of the gospel to define you more than your sinfulness in such a way that you actually can please your father, even though you're giving him construction paper, worthy artistry for him, and so it's a low view of the gospel, which makes everything you do to be offensive.

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Now we know in the covenant of works, that's very much the case, like everything before God, Koron Deo in the covenant of works, is offensive to God, but in the covenant of grace, like I actually can please

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God, not because of the intrinsic quality, but because of the union in grace that I do them in, and that's something that I feel like the antinomian also has a discombobulated view of gospel and grace.

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Does that make sense? Yeah, totally, and basically what you've talked about, and Calvin did discuss that all the time,

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God receives imperfect works of his children, because he receives the children right in Christ, union with Christ.

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I don't know if this is going to be aired with video or not, but right over there, you can see my door, and on my door,

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I have all kinds of pictures drawn by children here at the church, and they're of me in the pulpit, and they're actually awful.

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They're stick figures, they don't look like me, they're not as handsome as I am, they're just awful.

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But why do I say to them, I actually bend down and say, thank you, this is wonderful, and I'm going to put it up right here, give me some tape.

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Why do I do that? Well, the answer is, I accept them, and so therefore, God accepts our works, because he accepts us, and that's really critical.

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You've got Tulian and others, you know, modern, see there you go. My daughter, you can't see it because it's blurry, my daughter made this, it's like a pop -out thing.

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It's horrendous in quality, but I'll take this over, you know, a

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Mercedes Benz, you know what I'm saying? Like, really, like, it's—anyways. Amen. And by the way, if there are people listening who are laypeople, doesn't that free you up to just help other folks in the church, even though you might not be perfect?

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God accepts you, and therefore, you can just pour yourself out as a 65 -year -old couple to other younger couples in the church, even though you don't have it all figured out, because you're doing it for the name of the

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Lord Jesus, and you're free to worship. You know, Luther, I think, was right when it comes to his use of the law, but modern

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Lutheranism—I've got a quote here from Gerhard O. Ford in Christian Spirituality, Five Views—sanctification is simply the art of getting used to justification.

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It's not something added to justification. Now, we believe that you look back to your justification.

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We believe that you do think about who is the one who justified you, but there are metaphors in the

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Bible for progressive transformation, holiness, renewal, spiritual growth, fruit -bearing, and all these things.

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And so we, both Aldo and I, we're not saying, if you're watching today, that we're against the law for Christians.

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We're also not saying the only thing you need to do is look back to justification, period.

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Yeah, sure, look back, but there are other components. The best way to think about the law is super simple.

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The law is not floating around there abstractly in the ether. The law is a reflection of God and his nature and his character—holy, righteous, just.

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That's Romans 7. That's 1 Timothy 1. And therefore, to the unbeliever, the relationship they have before this

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God is, obey or be damned. Do this or you're going to be damned. Do this and live if you could.

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Of course, they can't because of Adam's fall. Now we're Christians because Jesus kept the law in our place and died for our lawlessness.

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Now our relationship to the lawgiver is different. The law is still the same, but our relationship is different.

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And that's why we talk about the third use of the law. And this is from the hand of Christ because he's our brother, he's our advocate, he's our mediator.

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A mediator stands between God and us. An advocate stands with us before God. And Jesus, he's both of those and more.

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And now we have this. Instead of, to the unbeliever, don't look at a woman with lust or you're damned.

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And that's true. If you look at a woman with lust, it's one sin. That's all it takes to damn you, James 2 .10.

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For the unbeliever, it's do this or else. For the believer, does the law change?

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No. We still aren't to look at a woman with lust, but it's a guide for us.

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It's a norming path for us to go on. God doesn't change, his law doesn't change, but our relationship changes.

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And because of that, now when I say to my son, when he walks out the door, he's going to go on a date,

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I tell him some stuff, and it's for his good and for my glory as a dad. Similarly, we obey

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God out of gratitude, not to stay safe, not to be saved, but because we are, and we want to give him honor and glory.

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He's the father, and we know it's for our good. That's the third use of the law from the hand of Christ.

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Yeah, that sounds very much to Fisher, Boston. That's the

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Merrill, Merrill man. Merrill, yeah, that's right. Going up and down the mountains, I remember that part.

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That writing where they write everything with these characters and question and answer, that's very brilliant.

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One of the things I was going to ask is, we don't need to dissect it very deeply, but we could touch on it a bit.

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What are some modern versions, examples of this?

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Lower, it's funny because Neonomians talk about the law of God a lot, but they actually lower the standard of God's law a lot.

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They make it something that you could climb and attain, as opposed to, like Paul says, the law is a tutor who leads

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Christ, who may be justified by faith. They lower the standard and make it attainable. My kids, when they play games, they can't win the games very often because the rules are too hard.

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What they do in order to win the game, they add all these extra rules so they can win the game.

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Actually, you are having a very low view of law if you're a Neonomian, but what are some versions?

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Obviously, the federal vision is one. My audience knows what that is very well.

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What are some other ones that are out there in the present? Yeah, I think what happens is with this final justification stuff that Piper seems to still be teaching, that's another way where we see, okay, where are works and how valuable are they and where must they be?

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What category? Yeah, I heard Piper say that we are justified by the works of Christ, but we enter heaven by our works.

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Yeah, it's almost like you're back to square one once you're justified and then it's kind of on you.

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It's that quote that's in Shriner's book, how can a person be right with God?

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The stunning Christian answer is sola fide, faith alone. Be sure you hear this carefully and precisely.

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All right, when people write that, I'm listening now carefully and precisely. Piper, he says write with God by faith alone, not attain heaven by faith alone.

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There are other conditions for attaining heaven, but no others for entering a right relationship to God.

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In fact, one must already be in a right relationship with God by faith alone in order to meet the other conditions.

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Yeah, that sounds medieval Catholic. It is, and all of a sudden you think, okay, if I could just get this straight, it will help me.

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Ground and evidence. The ground before I stand before God has to be perfect.

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I'm in front of a thrice holy God. Then there's evidence. Then there's a consequence. Then there are other things that come later, and therefore

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I have to be very, very careful. Who is the only person who's ever met a condition of working in order to get to heaven?

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Well, it has to be the Lord Jesus. He alone meets those qualifications. So my question to Piper would be, how much do

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I need? What's the amount? What kind of sincerity must I have? And the answer is going to be whatever the

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Christian celebrity says. Yeah, and you know, I think I heard

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Scott Clark a long time ago talk about condign merit versus congruent merits, and the thing is, condign merit, as far as I understand, it actually has the value that it's supposed to have.

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Congruent merit, it doesn't actually have the standard of perfection, but you impute perfection to something that's not.

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So for example, this actually is 100 % great. That's condign merit.

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This is a 70%, but I'm going to give it, I'm going to treat it as if it's 100 % great, though it's not.

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And so what I think I hear some of like the neo -nomians say, obviously no one merits heaven by their works because no works actually are perfect.

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But it's the whole congruent thing where it's like God looks at your 70 % and he imputes it the value of 100%.

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And the kind of righteousness that is acceptable before God according to the not changed standard of the covenant works in the garden, you do this or else you will die, it's only condign merit, and that's the merit of Christ.

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And that's, there's, people are very clever in the way they phrase, yeah, it's not perfect, but God treats it as perfect, you know?

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And that goes back to like, I think, who's that guy, Ockham? William Ockham or those philosophers, there's always some ideology, you know, philosophy in the back door of a lot of like these things.

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Even like with the Catholic view of justification, you have Aristotle and his view of substance and whatnot.

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And so, yeah, that's, the Piper one is one, the Federal Vision one is one.

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I think the Lordship Salvation conversation certainly, if Piper loads up,

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I heard, this is your words, if Piper loads up works on the back end like the

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Federal Visionists will do as well, let's be fair, Piper is at least inconsistent.

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Federal Visionists and their system are very consistent all over the place with their conditionality. But in the

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Lordship Salvation, they seem to load it up on the front end. So the idea, like you talked about earlier, it's like, you must surrender your all to Christ in order to enter into, you know, a saving relationship with him.

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And it's like this mixture of conditionality and reception on the front end.

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And, you know, it's funny because like, how on earth, how much surrender, how much submission, how much giving your all, like, do you,

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I mean, when does like the bell ring on the front end when you're coming to Christ?

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And, you know, like, it's kind of like, I think I heard one time, I heard someone in, this is when

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I was in the Master's Seminary over there in Grace, I literally heard someone preach the Rich Young Ruler message as if it was an actual call to be the instrument of conversion.

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Like the person responding to Jesus and giving away his stuff was the actual call to be the actual instrument by which this

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Rich Young Ruler would receive their justification. So some loaded up on the front end, some loaded up on the back end.

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I have this quote here from these smart men, I don't know, they wrote this in the 1640s, you can guess who they are, you know, rhymes with wine, you know, known as the divines.

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Okay, in their section on saving faith, they say the principal acts of saving faith are surrendering, submitting, giving.

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I'm reading it wrong, right? I'm reading it wrong. I do it a lot of time, I'll read a

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Bible verse and I'll read it the way it's being corrupted. And people be like, no, I'm just checking, are receiving and resting upon Christ alone for justification and sanctification and eternal life by virtue of the covenant of grace.

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That is very much an empty instrument receiving something as the instrument, not this front end loaded up instrument or this back end loaded up instrument.

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And whenever you guys hear the whole covenant faithfulness and living faith and surrendering faith and all that stuff, that's like buzzwords and code words for like this neonominism stuff.

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So be careful. So true. I had to quicken up my London Baptist confession to see if you were misquoting your confession.

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And it said here, principal acts of saving faith have immediate relation to Christ, accepting, receiving and resting upon him alone for justification, sanctification and eternal life.

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So I said this in my article, although I wrote a few articles about this for the

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Heidel blog. It was Packer who wrote in his book, A Quest for Godliness about Puritans in a chapter on justification, said something very insightful.

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He said, the unbeliever receives the good news proclaimed about Christ's life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, soon return, etc.

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And he's called to respond to the good news. And what are his responses? And there are two categories of responses in church histories during the

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Reformation. One was a volitional response. The other was a fiduciary response.

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And he said it was the Arminians that had the volitionary, willful response of surrender, submit, yield.

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I'll add a couple of new ones. Have allegiance, living faith, you could say, treasure, desire.

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That was Arminian. And the reformers went away from that. They went into fiduciary.

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You can think about your bank as a fiduciary institution. And they said the response was faith that had knowledge, you understand who

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God is, assent, agreement, you agree, and then a trust. And it wasn't, therefore, about the quality of the faith, because a knowledge, assent, and trust, even though weak, even though sin -tainted, even though not the best, has the right object, because it's looking away from faith, the person, and unto the right object.

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That's why it's the non -meritorious instrument. And so I've been trying to tell people the language of the confessions, accept, receive, rest, trust.

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These are fiduciary categories, not volitional, because the volitional categories make me think this.

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How much surrender must I have? How much submission must I have? How much treasuring must

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I have? And the answer would have to be a perfect and complete treasuring in order to do that.

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But faith, since it's a receiving instrument, non -meritorious, it can be a little faith.

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I'm not saying it's a faith that says like Zane Hodges and Ryrie and Kakoras and those guys, it's just knowledge and that's it.

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Just take God at his word, that's it. I'm not saying that. I am saying that Jesus is prophet, priest, and king.

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And if you want his priestly office, you can't say I don't want his kingly office. I'm not saying we separate prophet, priest, and king.

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I am saying that the way you receive the benefits of the prophet, priest, and king is through faith and faith alone because it looks outside for quality, not inside for quality.

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Yeah, yeah, that's good stuff. And I think that people need to keep in mind that the volitional stuff is not separated from faith.

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It's simply not collapsed into the faith as instrument. So a lot of times when we say this kind of stuff, like the

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Wilsonite defenders, like they'll go around, they'll find these verses about faith and obedience and a faith that's not alone.

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And it's like, if you notice something about that language, it's saying that faith is connected to volitional consequences.

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Faith causes volitional, by faith Abraham obeyed. There you go. The receptive instrument and then the volitional response.

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But the connection to volitional responses or affectional responses does not make the instrument itself that.

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So by faith, I love God, but faith is not loving

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God, right? By faith, I surrender, but faith is not surrender.

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A lot of what these guys do is they find a Bible verse that they proof text it very flippantly, like Romans 1 kind of verses, the obedience of faith.

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And there you go. Faith is obedience. And like, okay, we'll just look at grammar, Greek grammar and objective, subjective, genitive and all that stuff.

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And there's a way to explain that. That doesn't say that faith is obedience or faith is affection.

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So the volitional language that you'll find attached to faith doesn't collapse those volitional consequences to faith itself.

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That's important because when you collapse them, all of a sudden, the thing about faith alone, apart from any sort of law keeping, whether it's volitional law keeping, like a

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MacArthur would say, or affectional law keeping, like a Piper would say, it's an instrument that is fitting with the grace that it's receiving, right?

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So the instrument is of such that it is fitting with grace alone and Christ alone.

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So faith alone and the nature of faith and it being not separated from entirely, but distinct from the volitional consequences, it is a way that that instrument actually is fitting to the grace that it's apprehending.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church, firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.