A Few Thoughts on Holiness and Repentance

Holiness, Repentance, and the Lordship of Christ

Hey, a quick screen flow video here. My office is under construction. It's a mess right now. It's a good mess. New desk, the 18-year-old desk had to go when the desk was designed to hold one CRT. Let's just put it this way.

We have people in our audience that don't know what a CRT is. But anyway, I got a new desk and new monitors. I'm actually recording this from a Thunderbolt monitor. If you know what that is, Apple people know what that is.

And this will not be the permanent setup, but everything else is a disaster right now. But we'll get it all put together eventually and it'll be great. Far more than I deserve, that's for sure. But I wanted to follow up a little bit on the sermons I preached yesterday at PRBC.

I linked to the sermon audio of them on the blog. And I made mention on the blog, and some of you might have not really understood why I made mention of what I did. But I made mention of, oh, we don't want to do that, wanting to make sure that those who are opposed to the Lordship of Christ in salvation made note of my sermons because I very clearly, and without apology, identified their position as abject heresy and a denial of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now, I do not mince words in this matter. I believe that the New Testament mentions false teachers who will teach this very heresy of easy believism, no repentance theology, and warns us against them.

And so I feel like I have to warn just as clearly as anybody else. And I read so much in the New Testament that it's just completely impossible to in any way fit with this perversion of the gospel. I've been preaching through the book of Hebrews, and we're in chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 and the Necessity of Holiness

And so Sunday morning, there on the screen, Hebrews chapter 12, verse 11, for the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields a peaceful fruit of righteousness as to those who have been trained by it, that kind of emphasis in the text that it is absolutely to be expected that when God saves His people, that He then has a purpose and a plan in leading them in holiness, in the very analogies we use for regeneration, taking out a heart of stone, giving a heart of flesh.

Well, what's a heart of flesh going to do? It is going to desire holiness. It's going to desire to follow after the one who has changed it and in whose image this new person has been made. You just, you can't read the New Testament and not see that the Christian life is a life of repentance.

The idea that, well, you know, salvation is, faith is just an intellectual act, is to so decimate and profane the richness of New Testament teaching that it's just, it's just reprehensible that we have men in seminaries in my own city teaching this kind of stuff.

It is just absolutely positively reprehensible given what it results in and given how clearly unbiblical it is. And so when I hit, and I knew this was coming obviously, when I hit verse 14, strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord, when you, when you look at the language that is used, yes, we are, we are to strive for peace, especially within the Christian congregation.

But also the holiness, sanctification, okay, but holiness is an excellent translation of this term. The holiness without which no one will see the Lord. How, how much clearer can it get? How much plainer can the words be?

And yet there are so many today teaching this false gospel that says, well, what you do is you intellectually assent to certain aspects of what Jesus did and you've got your ticket punched, you're on the way to heaven.

Now, if you want to be a good Christian, if you, if you want to get some blessings, you know, sort of sign up for the, the super Christian aspect, then it would be, it would be best to consider these things.

But you don't have to worry about it because that's, that's just, you know, it really, for me, illustrates why we must see the balance of what the New Testament teaches. And that balanced perspective is reformed theology.

Sola Fide, Sola Scriptura, and Tota Scriptura

Because these people think they're protecting Sola Fide. That's, reformers never thought that was Sola Fide, but that's, they think they're protecting Sola Fide. They're not, because since they don't have, they're not reformed, since they don't have the sovereign action of God in salvation itself, they don't have a perfect savior who is able to raise the spiritual life and faith is not the gift of God, the work of the Holy Spirit in someone's heart.

Well, they, they think they're protecting something, but it's just because they don't have a full biblical understanding of what salvation is. They end up falling off into this massive imbalance and into error.

And I understand what's on the other side. I understand the error that's on the other side, the work salvation, I fight against that all the time too. Where's the balance? The balance is in allowing Sola Scriptura and Tota Scriptura to speak to us.

So who can preach Hebrews 12, 14 and Hebrews 10, 14, because Hebrews 10, 14 talks about the perfection of the work of Christ. He perfects all those for whom his sacrifice is made. Amen and hallelujah.

Why Calvinists Can Consistently Preach Both Justification and Holiness

But you see, I would suggest, and I know there's a bunch of people that are going to like this, but I would suggest that the only people who can consistently preach 10, 14 and 12, 14 are us dreaded Calvinists.

Notice I used the term consistently. That's where the issue lies. So check out the sermons, Sunday morning, Sunday night, PRBC, put them on the blog, but especially realize this isn't a real big topic in the church today.

It needs to be. Because if we are striving for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord, not trying to add the work of Christ, but when he changes a heart, I want to be like him. I want to walk as he walked.

If we're striving after holiness in this fashion, our words as we address so many other things will have so much more power. We'll have so much more weight behind. I'm talking to myself. I say these things.

So think about it. Check out the, check out the sermons and thanks for watching.