SRR 113 Josh Harris Abandons His Shipwrecked Faith | Intro to Systematic Theology

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I do a podcast. I'm not interested in your podcast. The anathema of God was for those who denied justification by faith alone.
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When that is at stake, we need to be on the battlefield, exposing the error and combating the error.
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We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so the next few statements that I'm going to make,
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I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.
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We are polemical and polarizing Jesus style. I would first say that to characterize what we do as bashing is itself bashing.
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It's not hate. It's history. It's not bashing. It's the Bible. Jesus said, woe to you when men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way, as opposed to blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
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It is on.
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We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle. Thank you for tuning in to Simple Riff from on the radio.
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This is where the Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety is applied to all of life. And we've got a lot of important topics to discuss today.
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I'm your host, Carlos Montijo, and I'm going to be flying solo this time for this episode.
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Tim Shaughnessy, my usual co -host, wasn't able to make it today.
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We've had a lot going on recently. So I wanted to also thank everyone, our listeners and our readers for your patience.
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We've still had a lot of obstacles and just sickness to be fighting through and vacation and stuff like that.
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So but I'm very eager to get back on and to jump on this topic.
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It's a very important topic to discuss. It's a recent event specifically dealing with Joshua Harris in particular and his his falling away.
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So but before we get to that, I wanted to make a few announcements today. The first is that the
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Trinity Foundation is now on social media so you can follow them on Facebook and Twitter.
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And that's a shout out to Stephen T. Matthews. He's the director of social media for the
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Trinity Foundation. And he is also one of the hosts. He is the host of Radio Lux Lucid on a very, very good podcast on our network, the
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Thorn Crown Network. It's an excellent podcast dealing with a lot of topics like politics, economics from a biblical scripturalist perspective.
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So definitely recommend that you check out his podcast and his articles as well on the scripturalist blog on our blog as well.
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The next big update, sad update is that and I'm reading this from the
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Trinity Foundation's website. Sadly, Richard Bennett, founder of Berean Beacon Ministries, went home to be with his
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Lord and Savior yesterday, which was September 23rd, 2019. This is really sad news to hear, but I'm glad that he's finally at home with the
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Lord. Richard Bennett is the founder of Berean Beacon Ministries, and he was a former
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Roman Catholic priest. He has outstanding material for Catholics.
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Anybody you know as a Catholic, he has excellent, excellent resources and websites for Roman Catholics.
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I'll keep reading the announcement here. It says, arrangements are underway for his memorial service and will be posted on his ministry's website at bereanbeacon .org
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later today or tomorrow. Please pray for Richard's wife, Lynn, as she makes arrangements while she is still battling stage four cancer.
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Update, after the last few years of great physical suffering, Richard passed peacefully in his sleep on Monday, September 23rd, 2019.
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The precious life of Richard Bennett touched so many people in so many ways, and his spiritual legacy will continue well into the 21st century.
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Richard Bennett will be laid to rest Friday, October 4th, 2019, at 1030 a .m.
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Pacific Daylight Savings Time. Burial will take place at the Natchez Cemetery, Cal Lowry Road, and Old Natchez Highway, Natchez, Washington, 98937.
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A memorial service will be held at 1130 at the Tannum Pioneer Church, 8500
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Tannum Road, Yakima, Washington, 98902. Richard Bennett is survived by his loving wife,
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Lynn, and three stepchildren, Solving, Gunner, and Cunnett, and two grandchildren.
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Very sad news to hear. I would have loved to have met him in this life, but hopefully look forward to meeting him in the next.
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He has done a great, great service to the church. He has been a tremendous blessing in his ministry to the church, especially in ministry to Roman Catholics.
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So our heart goes out to the Bennett family, and the prayers go out to them as well.
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And so, speaking of the topic of death, and, and, well, specifically, the recent mass shooting that happened in El Paso, not too long ago.
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This, this issue is, it's not something I really want to get into today.
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We'll probably do a future episode with, with Tim and, and, and talk about that.
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But I, I did want to point to our readers how to, there's an excellent article on the
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Scripturalist blog and, and Thorn Crown Ministries website, thorncrownministries .com, that I highly encourage everyone to check out.
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It was written by Steve Matthews, who I mentioned earlier. He's the host of the Radio Lux Lucid podcast. And the title of the article is called
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Mass Shootings. What are Christians to make of them? And it is an excellent, excellent article dealing with this topic.
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It's a very difficult topic. A lot of different opinions on how to address it and deal with it. But Brother Steve really did an excellent job in, in, in this article.
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So I highly recommend everybody to check that out. And we just stay tuned for,
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Lord willing, a future episode where we can flesh, talk about that specifically in the recent shootings.
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All right, so that's a wrap for the announcements and updates. So now I want to,
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I want to dive into the topic. And I chose, I chose a specific,
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I'm curious if you might, you might have been thrown off a little bit or maybe wondered at the title of this episode.
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You know, it might sound a little redundant. Why, why did
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I decide to name it Joshua Harris? Abandoned his shipwreck faith.
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That sounds a little redundant. But there's a specific reason as to why I said that. And I've been doing some research for a while now regarding what had happened.
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His, his recent announcement of, of leaving the church and, and embracing the
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LGBT community and all of those things. And I've listened to several, several episodes, several podcasts about discussing
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Joshua Harris and, and they've been mostly helpful. But there's some things that have been crucial in the life of Joshua Harris and in his teaching that have not been discussed.
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I have not seen anybody talk about this. And it's, it's partly why I think it's important to, for people who do podcasts or who do news or who, who have a platform to discuss these kinds of issues.
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It's some, I think it's generally very helpful to do some homework first.
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We, we try to do that as much as possible here at, at Thorn Crown Ministries, Thorn Crown Network, Semper Firmanda Radio.
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That's one of the, that's really one of the, like a primary principle that we operate on.
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And we've done this throughout. Even back when we were with the Bible Thumping Wingnut, we tried, we were very diligent about studying
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New Covenant theology and addressing that topic. And also even with like, when
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I wrote a review of the shack, a lot of people were just kind of pointing to other resources and that were pointing to other resources.
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And it wasn't, sometimes the resources, the resources were, were by people who haven't actually read the book.
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So, when I deal with a topic, I do my best to read up on it and, and actually read the material, read the books, and, and give a, give a, hopefully a more qualified, a more fruitful discussion on that.
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And so that's partly what motivated me to, to want to talk about Joshua Harrison, especially because there's a lot of personal, there's not so much, there is a history tied to, to the church that Tim and I met in that we used to attend.
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The leadership there really liked
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Joshua Harrison, Joshua Harrison, his material, because it was a
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Sovereign Grace Ministries church. And that's what Joshua Harrison and C .J. Mahaney, they were like one of the main leaders of that, of that movement or denomination or whatever they call themselves.
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And so this is the, this was pretty significant hearing about this, just given the history that we have and which, when we were going through the issues with, presenting the issues with Tim Keller at this church, they had actually recommended that we read material from Joshua Harrison.
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And that's how I found out about him and, and kind of started to, to, to read more up on him.
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But there's a reason why I gave, going back to the original thing that I mentioned, that there's a reason
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I, I, I mentioned, or I titled the episode in this way, because there were already some serious issues that I found with, with Josh Harris, going back all the way to at least 2010.
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And to my knowledge, you know, I didn't do a bunch of research or homework on the internet to see what people had uncovered about this guy and the, some of the critiques of his views, but he had some very alarming, problematic issues, doctrines that he was teaching in, in his book.
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Specifically the book, Dug Down Deep. That's the one that I'm going to be covering today in this episode.
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I recently finished reading it. And this, this book is, it's called
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Dug Down Deep, Unearthing What I Believe and Why It Matters. And this was,
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I think, published in 2010. And so, yeah, looks like it was way back in 2010.
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And there's some really alarming stuff in here. I'm going to, I'm going to talk about that and kind of, kind of discuss it.
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And this is what, this is what concerns me when there's so many people that are, that are trying to be quick to discuss things in the
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Christian podcast and without really doing some research. And sometimes the answers that they give, they can be helpful, but they're not, they're, they're almost always incomplete.
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And they're almost always leaving out crucial information that really kind of informs as to why
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Josh is where he is now. And so, I'm going to,
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I'm going to talk about a lot of the, so I read through the book. I made a lot of notes throughout, and I'm going to just kind of bring up some things that, that really stood out to me.
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And so, I've listened to Todd Friel, James White, and a handful of others,
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I think, talking about this. They did say some things that were, that were helpful.
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Some, some, there was an interesting thing that, that I was kind of wrestling with in terms of how, you know, that he is truly an apostate and not just maybe temporarily lapsing.
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If he really did abandon the faith or if he's just kind of lapsing and so, you know, if there's a window of time that we should give.
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But from, from what has been going on with Josh and the announcements he's been making, it doesn't seem like he's coming back.
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So, so let's, let's dive into the book. The book is basically kind of a sort of spiritual journey that, that Josh took.
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It's kind of like his, his, his spiritual upbringing and his, his theological trek to where he got at that point and the changes he made, the adjustments that he made along the way.
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And it's also, at the same time, it's kind of an overview of, of major Christian doctrines.
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It's sort of like a basic overview of, of major Christian doctrines. And so there, he, he reveals a lot.
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He reveals a lot about himself and a lot about what he believes and, and what he teaches in this book.
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It's a, it's, it's why, it's why I read it. And mainly because it's,
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I think, one of the only books if, yeah, it's one of the few books that I have by him. I never,
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I have, my wife actually had, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. But she never, she never read that book, which ironically,
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I, as far as I've been able to tell, I think I would agree with many of the principles in that book about court, courting and, and, you know, a proper biblical view of dating.
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Even though it seems like he's been, he actually recalled that book and now is, I guess, going, he, he doesn't agree with what he said in that book.
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But ironically, I think I would agree with many of, with the principles that he's trying to put forth there.
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But I haven't read it yet, so I won't necessarily comment on that too much. So back to the, this, this, his, his book here,
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The Dug Down Deep. It got a lot of interesting endorsements.
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One of them was by Joni Eareckson Tada. And she's the, I think, a quadriplegic.
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She has, she's on a wheelchair and she has, she's wrestled through a lot of different diseases and, and I think even cancer.
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And so she gave an endorsement. Donald Miller was another one.
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He's the author of Blue Light Jazz. And Todd Friel gave an interesting critique of this guy. I don't know anything about him, but apparently he's a liberal.
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He's a, he's a pretty, he's a pretty liberal writer.
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And here's what he said. He says, So Todd Friel made the interesting point that your friends affect your faith.
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If you have bad company, you will be affected negatively, negatively by that. And he was suggesting that Donald Miller kind of may have pushed
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Josh in the direction that he's now in or, or had a lot to do with. And, and he, he said like this guy, he, he may have known him for a good while.
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And yes, that's, that is what Miller himself says. He's a longtime friend of Josh. And this is, this is back in 2010.
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So it's been, it's, he's known him for a while, obviously. But I don't know much about him, so I can't really comment too much on that.
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And of course it was also endorsed by none other than, none other than John Piper himself.
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And Piper, Keller, a lot of these names, the Gospel Coalition, a lot of these are very popular in Sovereign Grace Ministries churches.
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And that's how I basically learned, discovered all of these guys. It was through the
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Sovereign Grace Ministries church that I used to attend. And so that, they, a lot, these, these birds tend to flock together a lot.
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And another, another, it was also endorsed by J .I. Packer and even
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Mark Dever. Mark Dever, it was endorsed by Lecrae, the rapper, the
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Christian rapper guy, who I, I, we'll probably have to do a future episode on him because I think he's definitely not sound at all.
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But, but anyway, yeah, so he got some, even an, even an endorsement by Ted Slater as well, who is, he's the editor of Boundless .org
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and he apparently works for Focus on the Family. So he got some pretty glowing endorsements for this book.
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It's, it's a very sort of honest, he's very honest in the book. He talks about a lot of his struggles, his sin struggles and kind of things that he went through.
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But I'm going to cover some of the, some, some other points here that I wanted to, to get into.
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So one of the, one of the things that stood out to me as well is that he, he evidently grew up in a, a seeker sensitive, worldly, he says parallel universe of the youth ministry.
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So let me go to that page. Yeah, so that he, he says here,
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I found my sense of identity and community in the parallel universe of the youth ministry. So this, he's actually kind of pointing out the fact that he grew up in a very worldly and not very spiritually minded youth ministry.
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And this is one, something that I've, I've, I've long for, for a good while now,
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I've been convicted about, about youth ministries and children's church and those kinds of things.
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They're basically a breeding ground for prodigals. It's a breeding ground for creating prodigals.
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And it's, it's happened in my own church. They, they don't do children's ministry anymore, but they used to back when they were
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Calvary Chapel. And there's sadly some, some stories, some very sad stories about some of the, some of the parents in the church that whose, whose children grew up and they ended up not wanting to come back to church.
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And a lot of that they, they say was also, they can tell was from the, having this youth ministry and not really taking the, the, not really, rather than equipping parents to disciple their kids and to, and to take, teach them the
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Bible and to take it seriously. Youth ministry can oftentimes, and I think in the vast majority of cases really just destroys their faith, ironically.
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But yeah, so that here on, on page eight, on page eight, he says some interesting, he has an interesting comment here.
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He says, sad to say, I spent more time studying Michael Jackson's dance moves for that drama assignment than I was ever asked to invest in studying about God.
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Of course, it's primarily my own fault. I was doing what I wanted to do. There were other kids in the youth group who were more mature and who grew more spiritually during their youth group stint.
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And I don't doubt the good intentions of my youth pastor. He was trying to strike the balance between getting kids to attend and teaching them.
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Maybe I wouldn't have been interested in youth group if it hadn't been packaged and fun and games in a good hand.
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But I still wish someone had expected more of me, of all of us. Would I have listened?
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I can't know. But I do know that a clear vision of God and the power of his word and the purpose of Jesus life, death and resurrection were lost on me in the midst of all the flash and fun.
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So I think that's an interesting comment there. I think it really sums up a lot of youth ministry.
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That it's more geared towards flash, fun, babysitting and keeping kids' attention without necessarily teaching them and catechizing them.
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And so, that was some interesting comments that he made there regarding that.
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And the book wasn't all bad. He does have some very good things to say in some of the chapters.
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For example, he does affirm that knowledge is good. That truth itself should ground emotion and not vice versa.
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That we should seek truth and not emotional experiences. And he has a very solid bibliology or an understanding of the
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Bible. How to understand Scripture, the inspiration of Scripture. He has a very solid view on that.
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He had a good chapter on that. However, there were years where we had some problems start to creep in.
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So, on page 19 of the book, he talks about being a Christian rather than living the
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Christian life. So, if we go to page 19 here. So, I'm going to read a quote at the end of the page here.
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He says, Being a Christian means being a person who labors to establish his beliefs, his dreams, his choices, his very view of the world on the truth who
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Jesus is and what he has accomplished. A Christian who cares about truth, who cares about sound doctrine.
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So, this may have just been the wording that was maybe a little bit off. He says, being a
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Christian means being a person who labors to establish with his beliefs.
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So, really he's talking about the Christian life. But being a Christian, you know, what makes a
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Christian is believing the gospel. Not laboring to establish your life according to sound doctrine.
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That comes after, that's sanctification. So, the phrase there, just being a
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Christian, that kind of, you know, maybe that's what he meant. But it kind of raised an eyebrow at first.
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Maybe it would have been clearer if he had said, living the Christian life rather than being a Christian. Because what makes you a
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Christian is not your life. It's your belief in Christ. And so, there's kind of a subtle distinction there that I think it would have been better for him to say, living the
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Christian life. Which sounds like what he meant. Something to consider there.
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So, he does also do a good job of emphasizing the entirety of Scripture.
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Tota Scriptura. That we should consider the whole Bible and not parts and pieces that we like.
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Or that we're only the ones that we can understand and things like that. He does emphasize, he has a good emphasis on, so here he says,
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When Jesus talks about the person who listens to his words, he's referring to more than just the red letters in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
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All Scripture is the Word of God. It's all Jesus speaking to us. So, that was a very solid point that he made there.
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So, he has, but then again, right after that, he does have another sort of troubling phrase here.
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But the hardest work of all is putting the truth into practice. That's what Jesus pinpointed in his story, and it's the focus of the preceding verses in Luke 6.
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Truth requires action. Coming to him, calling him Lord, and knowing his words can never be enough. Church affiliation and a list of beliefs are never enough.
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Doctrine and theology are always meant to be applied to our lives. To shape and reshape not only a statement of faith, but also practical decisions of how we think and act.
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Book knowledge about building on rock has no value if we're still resting on shifting sand.
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So, the phrase here that I was concerned about is, Church affiliation and a list of beliefs are never enough.
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And this was kind of, never enough for what? What is he talking about?
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Is he talking about salvation? Because obviously that, I mean, you know, he's kind of sort of undermining, in a sense, belief.
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A list of beliefs, which is what the gospel is, is a list of propositional truths about Christ and about his death and his resurrection and the fact that he died for our sins.
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So, that is enough. That is enough to make you a Christian. That is enough to save you.
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But he doesn't necessarily make that clear. And so, you can kind of be, you can kind of take away sort of a wrong impression there.
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Again, it seems like he's talking about the Christian life in general. But I just thought that could have been, that could have been a little bit clearer on his part.
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So, he also, he also talks about Pentecostalism and fame.
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And he has some interesting stuff to say about that as well. So, here he makes a, he sort of talks about one of the transitions that he made, a crucial transition that he made in his spiritual journey.
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He says, I had merely gone from theology light, seeker -sensitive evangelicalism, to theology light, experience -driven
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Pentecostalism. So, the first movement, or the first evangelicalism, the theology light part, is where he grew up in that children's church, that youth ministry that was very shallow and superficial.
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He didn't get much out of it. And so, he then says, he talks about how he jumped over to more experience -driven
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Pentecostalism. And it was some interesting stuff about the discussion that he gets into there, and learning how he goes, how he learns the imbalances in both of those movements.
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And so then, he also, he also talks about how he ended up transitioning into more solid grounding on better theology, specifically when he was introduced to C .J.
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Mahaney, who at the time was leading Covenant Life Church in Maryland. And he says this, but he didn't, so he's talking about C .J.
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Mahaney, he didn't reference the popular Christian bestsellers with which I was so impressed. Instead, he quoted men like J .I.
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Packer, Sinclair Ferguson, John Stott, and D .A. Carson. He talked about and quoted long -since -dead pastors and theologians like Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Watson, and John Calvin, as though they were still living personal friends.
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Charles Spurgeon, the 19th century London pastor who's preaching an example of gospel proclamation inspired
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C .J., was his historical hero. John Owen was his tutor on the doctrine of sin.
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So there he kind of gives some background as to what, why he admires or admired
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C .J. so much as he was starting to become a more serious
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Christian. So there was some good stuff there.
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However, so there was something else that concerned me, which was the issue of, and this is not specific to Josh, this is a common,
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I think, misconception. Where people tend to describe physical relationships with Jesus, you know, it's not belief in a creed but trusting in a person, that kind of dichotomy.
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It's a sort of false dichotomy that's very popular in evangelicalism. And he makes a pretty stark dichotomy here.
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On page 30 he says, Which again,
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Jesus equates his teaching with himself. So it's a false dichotomy to say it's not a system. Well yeah, it's a system that Christ taught.
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It's the teaching of Christ that draws you to him. So that's a false dilemma there that he's presenting.
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It's easy to make the mistake of thinking that since theological beliefs shouldn't be our goal, we don't need them at all.
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But this isn't true in knowing Jesus any more than it's true in other relationships. For example,
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I have a 9 year old daughter named Emma, whom I love very much. It is absolutely true that information and facts about my daughter can never take the place of actually knowing her.
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But this doesn't mean that I should avoid knowing about her. An important part of caring for and cultivating a relationship with my little girl involves my willingness to learn about her character and personality.
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Her likes and dislikes. Details about her, the color of her hair, the music she enjoys, her gifts, fears, and dreams are all important to me because she is important to me.
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These truths about her could be empty data, but because they describe a living person whom I love, they enrich and grow my love for her.
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Facts can never take her place, but I can't know her without them. And the problem with this, of course, is that we are not in a flesh and blood relationship with Jesus.
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So making these analogies are very harmful to our understanding of how we relate to Christ.
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Because we have a real relationship with Christ, of course, but it's primarily driven through prayer and the
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Word. And so we don't have a physical relationship with Him where we can hang out with Him and see who
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He, you know, talk and talk to Him just like, interact with Him just like we do with anybody else that's a human.
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And so that makes the relationship considerably different in how we interact with God.
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And so it's primarily should be driven by the Word and by His teaching.
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And so it's similar to the analogy, the popular analogy I've heard by preachers like Ray Comfort.
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They say it's not enough to believe that the parachute will save you. You have to put it on in order for it to save you.
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And that, again, is the problem. And Gordon Clark does a brilliant job of breaking this down and showing the inconsistencies.
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And I think his book on Religion, Reason, and Revelation. So it's a very problematic way of presenting how we believe the gospel because it's all intellectual.
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Believing the gospel is an intellectual act. It's not something that's physical in the sense that you have to put something on physically.
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You simply understand the gospel and then you agree with it. That's all what saving faith entails.
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And so these descriptions of physical relationships with Christ can be very, very problematic because they tend to break down and they don't actually correlate.
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And so that was another concern there. But this was not so much the more of the serious concerns.
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So he does also say some good things again. He talks about how doctrine is essential.
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And so he has here on page 31 he says,
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J. Gresham Machen, who wrote in the early part of the 20th century, helped me better understand all this.
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His explanation of Christian doctrine helped me see how it connects to the living person of Jesus.
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In one of his books, Machen explains that while Christians in the early church wanted to know what Jesus taught, they were primarily concerned with what
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Jesus had done. Quote, The world was to be redeemed, Machen writes, through the proclamation of an event.
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End of quote. Of course, the event he's referring to is Jesus' death by crucifixion and his resurrection from the dead.
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The first Christians knew they had to tell people about this event. But simply telling them wasn't enough. They also had to tell them what the event meant.
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And this, Machen explains, is doctrine. So that was an excellent discussion on doctrine.
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That is exactly what doctrine is. It's giving meaning and explanation and tying together the events, some of the events that have unfolded, such as Christ's death, his resurrection, what do those events mean and how do they pertain to us.
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And so that was an excellent discussion regarding that. That was very good. And so he continues quoting
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Machen here. These two elements are always combined in the Christian message, Machen continues. The narration of facts is history.
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The narration of the facts with the meaning of the facts is doctrine. Suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified, dead, and buried.
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That is history. He loved me and gave himself for me. That is doctrine. So that was very good.
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I got a lot out of that discussion. That was very helpful. So there were some other things that stood out.
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So here's one of the first more concerning things that he said.
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And it's on page 32. So here he says,
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So I'm going to read that part again. So that sentence, that's just flat out false.
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Like that is work salvation. And that's very concerning because what rescues us from the wrath of God is trusting in Christ alone.
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Not believing in Christ and living for him. Our lives count for nothing with respect to earning
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God's pardon. Christ has fulfilled that completely. So that right there, already in page 32 of the book.
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And if you see the endorsements, it was endorsed by all these people. And that's why I think we have to be very careful with endorsements.
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Because maybe the authors don't, maybe the endorsers don't read the book very carefully or whatever the case may be.
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But it just, it makes things worse in a way. Because this is a patently false teaching.
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I mean, and it's very similar to what you hear today from men like John Piper.
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Who say that we have to present our inherent righteousness and our good works on the final judgment as forensic evidence in order to be allowed into heaven.
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This is basically the same thing. And so it's extremely concerning. Except here
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Josh Harris is talking about removing the wrath of God. So this is even worse to some extent.
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Because it's just, what saves us from the wrath of God is faith alone and Christ alone.
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That's basic Protestantism 101. So there you already see the problem that Josh is having with articulating even basic Protestantism.
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This is just flat out false, this is more Roman Catholic than Protestant.
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And so that was extremely alarming and it's not even the worst of it, unfortunately.
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And he does continue to say some good things as well. There's just kind of like some good and bad stuff on the way.
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But he does make some good points about knowing God truly, that we can know God truly. He does not express these sort of Vantillian notions of not being able to know
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God truly. In the sense that just because we can't know him exhaustively doesn't mean that we can't know what
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God knows and know God himself truly. And so he doesn't retreat in that sort of weird
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Protestant mysticism, that irrational kind of view that says that we can't know
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God because we can. We absolutely can know God through his word, primarily through his word.
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And he affirms that in the book very clearly. Now, this next part
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I do want to talk about a little bit, because it's an important issue that I've noticed in several...
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It's a very prominent understanding, a way of looking at God. And there's this issue of transcendence and imminence.
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And so Josh talks about that. He talks about that in his book as well.
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It comes up a lot, actually. And so he says something like this.
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He says things like this. He says on page 41, he says, And so here you see him expressing the doctrine of transcendence, which is the belief that God is qualitatively different from us.
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And he even says utterly different. He says God is utterly different from me. And how
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God is not like us. And I'm trying to find his definition of transcendence here.
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So here he says, on page 42, he quotes
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Wayne Grudem. It is not just that we exist and God has always existed, writes Wayne Grudem.
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It is also that God necessarily exists in an infinitely better, stronger, more excellent way.
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The difference between God's being and ours is more than the difference between the sun and a candle.
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More than the difference between the ocean and a raindrop. More than the difference between the Arctic ice cap and a snowflake.
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More than the difference between the universe and the room we are sitting in. God's being is qualitatively different.
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And then Josh continues. The qualitative difference of God is His otherliness, revealed in His divine attributes, is summed up in the word holy.
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And this was interesting. He talks about R .C.
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Sproul here. He says, I used to think of God's holiness only in terms of moral purity. But R .C. Sproul taught me that holiness primarily speaks of God's being separate from His creation and His perfection and power.
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God's holiness means that He is transcendent. That He exceeds all limitations.
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That God is holy means that He is above and beyond us. When the
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Bible calls God holy, writes Sproul, it means primarily that God is transcendentally separate.
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He is so far above and beyond us that He seems almost totally foreign to us.
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Which again is kind of concerning, coming from somebody like Sproul, who is generally a sound, a more sound theologian.
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But here the issue of the transcendence is defined as He exceeds all limitations.
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The reason this is concerning is because God is not utterly different from us.
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That's actually not true. The issue becomes that the way people try to balance this out, the transcendence of God is with the eminence of God.
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Typically what you'll see in some theological books, and I remember reading this in,
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I believe it was 20th Century Theology by Stanley Grenz. Where he uses this frame of reference of transcendence and eminence to kind of describe a lot of movements in church history and historical theology as well.
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So people tend to pair those two as if they were bookend doctrines. That God is utterly different from us, but He is also utterly near to us.
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That's what eminence means. It means that God is near. God is near to us. We don't have to search
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Him out by climbing at the top of the highest mountain or whatever. He is near and He listens.
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He is not detached from us. I'm going to try to see if I can find some of his discussion on eminence.
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I'll read this. On page 45 he says, God is different from you and me.
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He is utterly different, and that is utterly wonderful. There is surprising comfort in the realization that God is so unlike you and me.
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The fact that He's not like us is the reason we can run to Him for rescue. So here he's saying, and then he continues,
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God is not like us. He's strong. He's unchanging. His love is steadfast. He is full of mercy, and He does what we would never do, what we would never imagine.
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He dies for His enemies. Quote, God chose His love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
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Romans 5 .8. And there he's kind of getting more into the issue of eminence.
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So yeah, on page 49 he says this, The incredible reality that the
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God who, quote, inhabits eternity, and who is holy and transcendent, that is, totally separate and different from us, is also the
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God who draws close to men and women who are contrite and humble before Him. God is imminent.
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He is near. Jesus is called Emmanuel, God with us. So here you see, and this is very typical, this is extremely common in sort of evangelical theology, and even
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Protestant theology, even Reformed theology. I remember our church did a study, the study called
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Behold Your God, and it was generally a very good study. It is a good study, but there was, this issue came up as well, and they did a very poor job.
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I think they did a very poor job of explaining this doctrine, that the transcendence of God, you have to be very careful when you're talking about God and how different He is, because if you say that God is utterly different from us, then that completely undermines the doctrine of Imago Dei.
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The fact that we are, not only are we made in the image of God, but it's like,
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I believe it's in 1 Corinthians, it says that man is the image of the invisible God.
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So we are not utterly different from God. That's just a false statement.
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That's not true. We are in fact the creatures that are most like Him, and that is exactly what the
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Imago Dei means. It means that we are, man is the image of God. I'm trying to pull up the verse here, so I can read it exactly.
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And this was something that I really appreciated learning from Clark, who has a much more balanced view of this, because people tend to say that God is so different, and that's why we can't know
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Him, that God is so different, and that's why we can't relate to Him, we can't know Him, we can't understand
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Him, and all of these things. But in reality, that's completely undermining the fact that God made us in His image.
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So 1 Corinthians 11 .7 says, For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God.
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He is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of man. So, not only are we made in the image of God, man is the image of God.
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And that's something that's extremely important to emphasize. And this is how you counteract or you balance the doctrine of transcendence.
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A lot of people think that you balance the doctrine of transcendence with the doctrine of eminence, and that's actually not true.
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And it's usually, when that happens, you end up having an over -exaggerated or an extreme view of transcendence, where you say
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God is utterly different from us, when the Bible is in fact saying that we are the creatures that are most like God, because man is the image of God and glory of God.
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It's extremely important to keep that in mind. You balance the doctrine of transcendence with the doctrine of the
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Imago Dei, that we are the creatures that mostly, more closely, most resemble
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God. So, we are not in fact that far away from God in that sense, because we are the image of God, that man and woman is the image of God.
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And so, that's just an important point to keep in mind there. This is so common, you know, it's common with so many systematic theologies, and it's unfortunate because it's really not correct to say that.
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The fact that God is near, yes, that is true, God is eminent as well, but it doesn't, in fact, it's not the counterpoint, it's not the bookend balance doctrine of transcendence.
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So, just wanted to throw that out there, because it is very common. That's a very common misunderstanding of transcendence.
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Even Sproul, apparently, went a little too far in that area. So, the next thing
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I wanted to bring up is, Josh quotes the
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Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd -Jones, and I had heard,
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I thought I had remembered listening to some criticisms about the book, that it had some problematic teachings, and it's a book for children,
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I think. Yeah, it's meant to be a book for children. And I don't remember where, I'll have to try to dig up the resource.
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It might have been Theology Gals or something like that, that was pointing out some serious issues in that book.
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But he quotes the book pertaining to basically a description of what the
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Bible is and isn't. And so, he quotes Lloyd -Jones saying this,
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Sally Lloyd -Jones, not Martin Lloyd -Jones, she says this, but the Bible isn't mainly about you and what you should be doing.
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And then later on she says, No, the Bible isn't a book of rules or a book of heroes. The Bible is most of all a story.
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So, she's trying to emphasize, obviously, that it's not primarily a rule book, which is kind of hard to reconcile that with the 613 commands of the
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Bible in the Old Testament, and with the numerous commands in the New Testament as well, and at the end of just about every letter.
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The Bible is definitely a rule book. I mean, it's not just a rule book, but it is definitely substantially a rule book.
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I mean, it talks a whole bunch about law, and you can't even begin to understand grace without the law.
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So, that's not really, I don't think that's a good way of describing the
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Bible itself. And so, it's kind of interesting because Josh himself almost seems to contradict that very, the very view that the
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Bible is not a rule book, because later on, it's on page 66, he says this,
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The Bible has limited value as merely an esoteric, spiritually inspiring book of ancient wisdom.
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It was given to be obeyed and lived. So, that would mean that it is a rule book after all.
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And so, he continues, Josiah let the word of God reform him. He ripped his robes, a visual symbol that said,
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I'm the one who needs to change. He didn't twist God's words to fit his agenda. He let God's words reshape his life.
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So, there he kind of seems to almost contradict himself by quoting
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Sally Lowe Jones, and he does, however, at the end of the chapter, on page 72, attempt to reconcile this.
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He says, The Bible, it's not a list of rules and guidelines that we must follow perfectly in order to earn our way into God's favor.
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The Bible is the story of what he has done. It's the story of how every man -made effort at salvation fails, and only the grace of God can rescue and redeem sinners.
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Too often we read the Bible the way A .J. Jacobs did when he attempted to spend a year, quote, living biblically.
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We read it and look for all the things we have to do, and while there are things God commands us to do, we first need to read the
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Bible looking at all he has done for us. It's the story of his champion, his son, who came to die for us.
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And I guess, I guess I can see what he's saying there, but it doesn't, it's a little bit,
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I think it's very misleading to say that the Bible is not a rule book, because it is, a substantial amount of the
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Bible is all about rules, and about obeying, and about the punishment for obeying or disobeying
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God. So, I don't think you can sort of write that off as just saying it's not really a rule book.
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And even though I understand that he's saying, you know, that it's, the fact that it is a rule book, the primary focus of the
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Bible is the fact that you are utterly incompetent on your own to earn your salvation.
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You simply cannot do it at all. And you need a savior, that's the whole reason we need Christ, and so on and so forth.
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But that, I think, is also very, it could be, it has done a lot of damage in the church to under -emphasize the role of the law in every aspect of the
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Christian, of Christianity, in the church, in the gospel, in a lot of, it relates to just about everything, every major doctrine in the
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Bible, God's justice, etc., etc. So, moving on to the next topic here that I wanted to, this was a little bit more of a sad irony.
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The reason I say that is because Josh actually talks about apostasy to some extent, that's some length in the book as well.
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And on page 67 he says this, Jeremiah 36 .24 states,
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It's a chilling picture of blatant disregard for God and His word. And the contrast between Josiah and his son
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Jehoiakim couldn't be more clear. Josiah tore his robes, Jehoiakim cut up the words of God.
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Josiah was penitent, Jehoiakim was cold -hearted. Josiah reformed his life after hearing God's words.
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Jehoiakim burned God's words. The young woman sitting in my office was burning God's word as she heard it and refused to obey it.
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And this is pretty sad because you can almost say this applies to Josh in both senses now.
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He used to have a longing and a desire to obey
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God, resembled by Josiah, and then now he's just the complete opposite, on the opposite end of this as Jehoiakim, with the description of cutting up the words of God and being cold -hearted.
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And even the description he gives of the young woman that he was counseling, sitting in his office, who was burning
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God's word as she heard it and refused to obey. It's pretty, it's kind of unnerving to see that contrast that he now officially would basically apply to himself as an apostate.
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But he says, The most common way people cut and burn
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God's word is to strip it of the qualities it claims for itself. And that is actually a good point.
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That is true. That is very true. But pretty disturbing to see how that applies to him now.
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And there's some other issues that come up that we're getting through the end of this here.
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There was a very prominent and a very important issue that's tied to this work salvation concept.
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He also talks about faith and repentance throughout the book.
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And specifically on page 136, he says this,
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The Bible teaches that we must respond to the gospel in repentance and faith. Acts 3 .19
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Most of us understand the faith part. We trust that what Jesus did was for us and we entrust our lives to him.
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But we often overlook the repentance part. To repent means to turn away from something, to renounce it.
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Genuine repentance involves a sorrow over sin as an offense against God. So there you see how he's basically giving a very clear works definition of repentance.
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And that's very problematic because he's saying that repentance is basically necessary for salvation.
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And it's a more Lordship view. It's more of a Lordship view of salvation.
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It really gets into the shaky ground of defining repentance as an outward reaction or an outward response that can get people into a lot of trouble.
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And this is where you see a lot of the problems with the Lordship salvation view that MacArthur and those who agree with him do.
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And he continues a little further down. He says, Repentance and faith are inseparable, two sides of the same coin.
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When people are genuinely converted, they don't simply turn away from sin and bad behavior.
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They turn toward the person of Jesus Christ and his Lordship. So there you see that phrase, when people are genuinely converted, they don't simply turn away from sin and bad behavior.
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And you never fully turn away from sin and bad behavior as a Christian, even as a
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Christian. And so it's very dangerous to define repentance this way.
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And making it, you know, because he's giving the traditional definition of conversion as repentance and faith.
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And so he's defining repentance as turning away from sin, which is what a lot, which is what the vast overwhelming majority of evangelicalism teaches.
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And it's just, it's wrong. It's just flat wrong. And I'm grateful to Clark's work on this as well.
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Gordon Clark's work on, he has a, I highly recommend you, if you haven't read his book, What is
58:25
Saving Faith? It's an excellent treatment of this subject. And the fact that repentance is simply a change of mind, that's all it is.
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It's not a turning away from sin. It's not a work. It's not turning from bad behavior and from sin.
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Like that's, that's, that's impossible, even for a Christian to do in this life fully.
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And so it's, this bleeds into a lot of, he has a very distinctly Lordship, salvation, understanding of repentance.
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And it's very problematic. And it's problematic in the overwhelming majority of churches, evangelical churches that teach that, you know, repentance is a turning away from sin.
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Because it's, it's really not. And it's, it's very problematic to say that because it's basically you're making repentance a work.
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And now you're saying, well, works are required for self, for, to be saved.
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And later on in the book, Josh gets even, even more explicit when he's talking about repentance.
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On page 168, he says, Martin Luther said that the whole life of believers should be repentance.
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Repentance isn't just for getting saved. So there he's clearly telling you that he's talking about you need to repent in order to be saved in the first place.
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It should be, he continues, it should be a normal, even daily part of the Christian's life.
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We are going to sin in a multitude of ways every day. Repentance is simply agreeing with God about sin, turning away from it, and accepting the redeeming grace of God through the cross.
01:00:06
So there, you see again, it's, it's, it's, it's just not consistent. It's very inconsistent to say that you're, it's a turning away from sin, and yet you still need to do that as a
01:00:19
Christian. And so it's very problematic. Again, so you can't, you can't make that a requirement for being saved.
01:00:30
The only requirement for salvation is believing in Christ and Christ alone. Repentance is, the conviction and sorrow for sin can come, it can come before or after that.
01:00:45
It typically does. In many situations, people start feeling the conviction of sin, and God uses that and leads them to, but that's typically also, this is also typically preceding regeneration because you don't even begin to understand the gravity and the weight of your sin and how much of an offense it is to God until, typically until God first regenerates you.
01:01:13
So that's, that basically comes after the fact, and it's not a requirement for you to turn away from your sin, from bad behavior, as Josh puts it, in order to be saved.
01:01:25
That's just not accurate. That's very problematic. And in the last chapter of the book, on page 227, he also says,
01:01:32
The Bible tells us that only those who trusted in Jesus Christ, who turned from sin and believed in Him, will be in God's presence.
01:01:41
So there, again, you have to be, that's just false. You should not be, that sounds like, that sounds like a work that's required for believers, for people to do in order to get right with God.
01:01:56
And that's just not the case. So he doesn't, he doesn't do a very good, and this again tends to be typical of popular evangelicalism, but it's just coming, he's supposed to be coming from a more
01:02:07
Reformed perspective, but this really does resemble more of a lordship understanding, a lordship salvation view, which is, again, there's so many problems with that, and we never fully finish talking about that.
01:02:24
We sort of, we sort of moved on to other things, but I do, I still very much want to come back to that, and we've had some feedback and some requests on continuing to talk about lordship salvation and assurance and all of those related doctrines to faith and repentance and all of those things, how they relate and understanding them in light of what the
01:02:47
Bible teaches consistently. I do still, hopefully, Lord willing, in the future, plan to talk about those things in more detail.
01:02:56
But to kind of go back to some of the good things that Josh does say in the book, he does,
01:03:04
I like, he gave a very good definition of what a Christian is on page 39.
01:03:10
He quotes Sinclair Ferguson, actually no, I'm sorry, he quotes
01:03:15
J .F. Packer, he says, What is a Christian? asked J .F. Packer. The question can be answered in many ways, but the richest answer
01:03:22
I know is that a Christian is one who has God as Father. And Sinclair Ferguson writes,
01:03:29
You cannot open the pages of the New Testament without realizing that one of the things that makes it so new in every way is that here men and women call
01:03:38
God Father. This conviction that we can speak to the maker of the universe in such intimate terms lies at the heart of the
01:03:44
Christian faith. So I thought that was actually a really good way of summing up what it is to be a
01:03:52
Christian. That is an excellent way to put it. Because when you become a Christian, you become adopted into the household of God.
01:03:59
And that is, you receive a new legal status as a son of God, as a joint heir with Christ, and all of the benefits that come with that.
01:04:09
So I thought that was very good. So now jumping over to the bad again.
01:04:17
So he quotes Grudem on sanctification. And I remember reading this in Grudem's Systematic Theology, but he says, on page 49,
01:04:27
Josh says, The questions surrounding how Christians deal with sin, obey God, and become more holy all relate to something that scripture calls sanctification.
01:04:35
That is the ongoing process of change that begins the moment a person is saved and continues until that person's last breath.
01:04:42
Sanctification is the journey of becoming holy, becoming like God. Wayne Grudem defines sanctification as a progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives.
01:04:56
And so that's a little problematic because it's not really our work in the same sense that it's
01:05:03
God's work because it's primarily God's work. And yes, we do have to play a part in our sanctification because what the things that we do are either conducive to sanctification or conducive to sin.
01:05:16
And so if we don't do certain things, we won't be sanctified. And if we do certain things, we will be sanctified, such as going to church and attending sound biblical preaching and praying and reading the
01:05:29
Bible. All of those things increase our sanctification because they are means by which we receive the
01:05:34
Word of God and the truth of God. And that's what actually sanctifies us, not the work itself, not the actual work of reading the
01:05:41
Bible. But it's the means in the sense that the Spirit uses that to edify and to build us up and to sanctify us and conform us into Christ, which is really pretty much
01:05:52
God's work. It's primarily, fundamentally God's work because it's
01:05:58
His Spirit driving us. It's His Spirit that's edifying us and sanctifying us. And it's the truth of God that is also sanctifying us.
01:06:06
And we are merely doing things that are conducive to that. So we do have to play a part, but it's not a synergistic enterprise.
01:06:19
That's not a good way to describe it. So then one last, a couple of final things here.
01:06:28
He also gives a pretty full treatment of the flesh.
01:06:34
And some of it was pretty good. But what really struck me was that he actually teaches that in the book that the flesh, he makes a complete distinction and separation from the flesh and the body.
01:06:58
And I thought that was interesting. He says, so on page 156, he says, this is the flesh.
01:07:06
He's kind of Jabba the Hutt meets WWE wrestler. The flesh represents the sinful, corrupted desires of our hearts.
01:07:14
It's not a reference to our bodies. Our bodies are created by God and are good.
01:07:20
And though my cartoon can't do this justice, the flesh isn't something outside us or just a part of us.
01:07:26
It's who we are apart from Christ. The flesh represents our sinful cravings to live for ourselves and disobey
01:07:31
God's laws and commands. So here you see him, he says, it's not a reference to our bodies.
01:07:39
Our bodies are created by God and are good. So he's saying that our bodies are good, which actually undermines the doctrine of radical depravity.
01:07:51
Because radical depravity says that there is no part of us that is not corrupted by sin. And so here, again, it's a basic sort of misunderstanding of something so basic to the
01:08:05
Christian life. And it's concerning that it doesn't seem like people have pointed this out or brought this out, especially not now when they're talking about his apostasy, because they tend to talk a lot about his other book,
01:08:23
I Kissed Satan Goodbye. But this is where he's really laying out what he believes. And here this is very clearly undermining and going against the doctrine of total depravity.
01:08:34
There is no part of us, including our bodies, that is not corrupted by sin and therefore bad.
01:08:40
Our bodies are not good. And the Bible says that. It's our vile bodies. And Paul even says in chapter 7,
01:09:05
That's another problem that Josh and a lot of people,
01:09:12
I've heard a lot of people make this mistake as well, like John MacArthur. And I want to talk about this more fully in a future episode dealing with Romans 7 and things like that.
01:09:22
But the flesh is fundamentally the body. It is the only part of us that is yet to be redeemed.
01:09:29
And that is why we still sin. We still sin because our bodies have not been redeemed yet.
01:09:36
And our spirits are regenerated. Our spirits are redeemed. So we are good on that camp.
01:09:45
The spirit is good. The body is still bad. And that is why we still sin. Because when we receive a new glorified body, we will no longer sin.
01:09:53
And the only reason we still sin today is because we are still in our unredeemed bodies.
01:09:59
Corrupted bodies by sin. And so that's very problematic, again, to say the least.
01:10:04
Especially with how you understand sanctification and mortifying the flesh. If you have to mortify your flesh, that implies, that itself implies that it's bad.
01:10:15
And that you have to restrain it. And restrain it from sin. But again, it's the problem of making these distinctions that are not
01:10:24
Biblical and separating them way too much from the physical body itself. And so, the next couple of things here, he talks about He also talks about confronting false teaching towards the end of the book.
01:10:38
In page 222, he quotes 2 Timothy 2 .23 -26, which says
01:11:05
So he continues, Josh says And here's the other one.
01:11:41
So, this is failing to take into account the whole counsel of God.
01:11:49
Because, you know, he says You would expect him to say, nuke the heretics and don't worry about civilian casualties.
01:11:56
Well, of course, Paul would never say that. He would never say, nuke them and don't worry about casualties. That's kind of ridiculous.
01:12:03
But, Paul does say that he wishes that the Judaizers would emasculate themselves.
01:12:11
And I would ask, I mean, that's just a common I would ask you, do you think that's a nice thing to say?
01:12:19
And he's saying, to correct people with gentleness. And it's like, that's not, Paul, the apostles did not
01:12:25
Jesus himself did not always correct people with gentleness. So, in fact, Jesus fiercely condemned religious hypocrites like the
01:12:35
Pharisees and things like, and people like that. So, and Paul, again, with the Judaizers, he said he wishes that they would emasculate themselves.
01:12:42
That's not a nice thing to say to someone. That's a very serious and strong indictment against them.
01:12:48
And so, and even in, again, in Galatians, he says, Peter, Paul says,
01:12:55
Anybody who preaches a gospel contrary to the one that they have received from them is anathema.
01:13:04
And the word anathema means eternally condemned. It means finally condemned. So, that's not a nice thing to say to someone.
01:13:13
You know, that's, I think it's, this is very problematic. So, this is part of the fundamental conviction that Josh has in the final chapter called
01:13:24
Humble Orthodoxy. And it was one of the chapters that the pastor of the church that we were at, when we were talking about Keller, assigned to us, he had given us to read.
01:13:36
And regarding how to deal with opposition and things like that. But again, the situation that Paul is dealing with in 2
01:13:46
Timothy does not apply to all scenarios. It does not apply to people like the Judaizers and wolves.
01:13:52
The wolves need to be exposed and they need to be fiercely condemned and kicked out of the church.
01:13:59
That's utterly clear in the Bible. So, that does not apply in every circumstance.
01:14:07
And even when, you know, Paul confronts Peter, he withstood him to his face and he gave him a sharp rebuke.
01:14:16
It was not gentle. And it needed to be sharp because the gospel was at stake.
01:14:22
And so, Titus 1 .9, you know, also says,
01:14:38
So, that word, sometimes translated, convict, refute, in the
01:14:49
Greek, it's Elenken, which means, literally means, to reprove, to rebuke, to expose, to show to be guilty.
01:15:00
So, that's a strong word. And it's very clearly, there are very clear scenarios in the
01:15:07
Bible, like when Jesus confronts the Pharisees and Paul confronting Peter. And false teachers, that way, that it's just not, that's not, what he's saying here is a very gross oversimplification of how to deal with opposition.
01:15:29
And it's interesting because he also quotes Tim Keller when he's talking about sin on page 224.
01:15:38
He says, In his book, The Reason for God, Tim Keller says that all sin is attempting to find a sense of identity and meaning apart from God.
01:15:49
Quote, So, according to the Bible, he writes, the primary way to define sin is not just the doing of bad things, but the making of good things into ultimate things.
01:15:57
So, and I point this out because we've talked about Keller before, and I still need to finish my article about Keller.
01:16:06
But, this is a big problem with, so, you would think that a
01:16:12
Presbyterian, which is what Tim Keller is, would just use the catechisms to define what sin is because they're very clearly defined there.
01:16:23
I mean, it couldn't be any clearer. The Westminster Shorter Catechism says that sin is any lack of conformity to or a transgression of the law of God.
01:16:34
That's a very clear definition. And Keller, instead of basing himself on that, bases himself in psychologizing and victimizing the sinner and his sin.
01:16:47
And so, he says that all sin is attempting to find a sense of identity and meaning apart from God.
01:16:56
And he goes on and he talks about how even making right theology an ultimate thing can be a bad thing.
01:17:08
And he's talking about pride and demonizing people. And it's like, well, the problem there is pride.
01:17:15
Theology is a main thing. That's utterly important.
01:17:20
Theology is having a right understanding of Christ. That is the difference between hell and heaven.
01:17:28
So, it's just kind of falsely dichotomizing. And this is a big problem that Keller has, especially with how he psychologizes sin.
01:17:40
He victimizes the sinner by saying it's an attempt to find a sense of identity, when in reality, sin is simply breaking
01:17:48
God's law. It's any lack of conformity. It's a sin of omitting
01:17:53
God's commands, positive commands, or committing what
01:18:00
God forbids. So, I mean, it's very simple, but these people tend to overcomplicate and infuse false teaching into these basic doctrines.
01:18:14
And to give Josh some credit, he does say on page 225,
01:18:21
The solution to arrogant orthodoxy is not less orthodoxy, it's more. If we truly know and embrace orthodoxy, it should humble us.
01:18:31
When we know the truth about God, His power, His greatness, His holiness, His mercy, it doesn't leave us boasting, it leaves us amazed.
01:18:39
It doesn't lead to a preoccupation with being right, but to amazement that we've been rescued. And that is true.
01:18:47
Because when people often talk about this, they'll say, Oh, well, knowledge makes you arrogant, so then what are you saying?
01:18:54
Are you saying we should stop learning? We should try to become stupid for Christ? That doesn't make any sense.
01:19:00
You need to grow. The Bible explicitly says throughout all of the Bible, To grow in the knowledge and grace of our
01:19:07
Lord and Savior Christ Jesus. That we should be infants in evil, but in understanding, we should be mature.
01:19:15
And so those are very clear commands in the Bible. That knowledge is not a bad thing, it's a good thing.
01:19:21
And if something is getting in the way of that, it's usually another sin. It's pride. That's the issue.
01:19:27
The issue is pride. It's not knowing something. It's not the knowledge itself. But this brings me to the final issue that really is kind of the nail in the coffin.
01:19:46
I've tried to give a more comprehensive review of Josh's background, and kind of to show, leading up to why
01:20:00
I come back to the title that I said, that Josh Harris abandons his shipwrecked faith.
01:20:06
And you can see, he clearly has, back in at least 2010, some serious problems in his understanding of basic Christian doctrines, like works and faith, repentance and faith, what salvation entails, what it is.
01:20:25
All of those things, going back to page 32, where he says that only those who have believed in Jesus Christ and lived for him will be rescued from the wrath of God.
01:20:39
That is just a flat -out false statement that should have been corrected.
01:20:46
His pastors, CJ, the elders at the church, somebody should have pointed this out to him.
01:20:53
And it's sad that it doesn't seem like it ever was. And this brings me to the final nail in the coffin, where he talks about grace alone.
01:21:09
And that is on page 228. Yeah, on page 228, he says this.
01:21:20
So he's talking about how we will react to everybody else in heaven once we, as Christians, die, we're in heaven, and we're having these conversations with people around us, with the believers around us.
01:21:36
And he says, At the end of every conversation, we'll agree that when we were back on the old earth, we really had no idea how unmerited that grace really is.
01:21:46
We called it grace, but we didn't really think it was totally grace. We thought we'd added just a tad of something good, that we had earned just a bit.
01:21:55
We'll realize to our shame that to differing degrees, we trusted in our intellect, our morality, the rightness of our doctrine and our religious performance, when all along it was completely grace.
01:22:08
So here you see, this is just flat out disturbing, that it is a patently, blatantly undermining of sola gratia.
01:22:23
That is one of the main solas, that was one of the five solas of the
01:22:28
Reformation, that is by grace alone. We are saved by grace alone. And here, what does
01:22:35
Josh say? He says, When we were back on the old earth, as believers, we really had no idea how unmerited that grace really is.
01:22:45
We called it grace, but we didn't really think it was totally grace. We thought we'd added just a tad of something good, that we had earned just a bit.
01:22:54
So what is he saying here? He's literally saying that Christians are so inherently legalistic and incapable, therefore, of believing that they were saved by grace and grace alone.
01:23:14
That Christians, even after they're regenerated, even after they're filled with and indwelt by God's Spirit and receive a new heart, he's saying that we are still so inherently and inescapably, unavoidably legalistic that we denied being saved by grace alone, and that we actually contributed to our salvation to some extent.
01:23:39
He says, We thought we'd added just a tad of something good, that we had earned just a bit.
01:23:45
We'll realize to our shame that to differing degrees, we trusted in our intellect, our morality, the rightness of our doctrine, and our religious performance when all along it was completely grace.
01:23:56
So, he's saying that there's people in heaven who don't believe, that basically everybody in heaven does not believe in grace alone.
01:24:07
Because as Christians, we are so fundamentally, inherently, inescapably legalistic that it is impossible for us to think that we were fully saved by grace alone, and that we had added something.
01:24:23
And he kind of touches on, he apparently touches on Keller here with the rightness of our doctrine, that we thought that we were saved because of the rightness of our doctrine and our morality, our religious performance, and it's like, well, first of all, we are saved by our right understanding of the gospel.
01:24:39
That is what saves us. You can't be saved by the... The Mormon Christ does not save you. So, saying that is problematic in itself.
01:24:50
But what alarms me is that nobody seems to have brought this up.
01:24:57
Nobody's talking about this. And that's what is... This is why I wanted to talk about it and to kind of put this out, because it doesn't seem...
01:25:07
You know, Josh made a statement in his message, in his
01:25:13
Instagram, where he's making the announcement of leaving
01:25:20
Christianity, and he's saying, by all measures that I know, I am not a
01:25:26
Christian. And, well, that's just the problem. Sadly, I don't...
01:25:32
It doesn't seem like Josh ever really understood what it means to be a
01:25:37
Christian and how you become a Christian. How can you say...
01:25:43
How can you say that there's no possible way? You can't deny grace alone and still be saved.
01:25:52
That's impossible. And it's not psychologically or impossible for a
01:25:57
Christian to believe that. I believe that. You should believe that as well.
01:26:03
If you're a Christian, if you're a true believer, you believe that as well. You do not think that you contribute to your salvation in any way.
01:26:13
This is such basic Protestant doctrine, grace alone, that he is denying, that Josh is denying in this very book.
01:26:24
And it seems like nobody pointed this out to him. And it's sad, because now you're seeing this really bearing the bitter fruit of when you don't rightly understand law and gospel, which is this is really what it is.
01:26:36
It's a fundamental failure to distinguish between law and gospel, and repentance and faith, and grace alone, and works, and all of these things and how they tie together.
01:26:48
It doesn't seem like Josh ever fully understood this properly. I mean, this is just... This is really terrible.
01:26:56
And I think Josh was basically abandoning a faith that already was shipwrecked.
01:27:05
Because if you can't reconcile these basic doctrines, these are basic Christianity 101.
01:27:13
If you can't make sense of this, then you're not a Christian. You're not saved.
01:27:19
You don't have a right understanding of Christ and of salvation. So I hope this is beneficial for people.
01:27:24
I know a lot of people in the church are asking questions about this, because apostasy can be a very unnerving thing.
01:27:32
It seems unexpected. But of course, it's never an overnight thing. This was not an overnight thing.
01:27:38
And hopefully you're seeing that even more now as I've gone through this book and shown just how bad and how false his understanding,
01:27:51
Josh's understanding of even basic Christian doctrines are, was. And so this is what
01:27:57
I think the problem fundamentally is or was with Josh. It is with Josh.
01:28:03
He did not ever fully grasp the distinction between law and gospel. And so I'll leave that to you all to meditate on and to think about.
01:28:14
I know we talked about a lot of things today. And I want to close it with a question from the
01:28:22
Heidelberg Catechism. Question 26. What believest thou when thou sayest, I believe in God the
01:28:27
Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth? Answer. That the Eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who of nothing made heaven and earth with all that is in them, who likewise upholds and governs the same by His eternal counsel and providence, is for the sake of Christ His Son, my
01:28:44
God and Father, on whom I rely so entirely that I have no doubt but He will provide me with all things necessary for soul and body and further that He will make whatever evils
01:29:01
He sends upon me in this valley of tears turn out to my advantage for He is able to do it, being
01:29:06
Almighty God and willing, being a faithful Father. So I'll end with that to show that again the
01:29:16
Reformed understanding, the basic Protestant understanding of salvation is recognizing that we are utterly incapable of contributing in any way whatsoever to our salvation.
01:29:34
That is the exact opposite of what Josh is saying. He's saying we are so inherently and fundamentally legalistic that we can't avoid but think that we had something to do with our salvation, that we contributed, literally contributed some works to our salvation.
01:29:51
And again it's just a backwards, it's so backwards that there's no I can't see why
01:29:59
Josh would, based on that, he could not have possibly have been a true
01:30:07
Christian. I mean you cannot fail to make a distinction so fundamental as law and gospel.
01:30:14
That is the very heart of the gospel. And so I hope this was helpful and beneficial and hopefully we'll pick it up next time with the other hosts of the show and continue to carry on about these vital doctrines, especially as they relate to issues like John Piper and those kinds of things.
01:30:37
We still need to finish that up and continue the discussion with Lordship Salvation and all of those things.
01:30:44
And I almost forgot to mention, but I tweeted about this a while back, back in July.
01:30:55
And I provided a picture of the quote that I read from, page 228 of the book.
01:31:03
And I tweeted this out, saying, Very sad but not entirely surprising regarding at Harris Josh.
01:31:11
I've had concerns after reading Doug Down Deep where he claims all Christians are too inherently legalistic and hypocritical to believe in grace alone, yet still go to heaven.
01:31:22
And I provide a page of that quote so you can see it for yourself and see that it's sad that he apparently did not understand what it was to be a
01:31:31
Christian. And basically condemning, attributing motives and condemning every single person, whoever calls himself a believer, as being so fundamentally hypocritical and legalistic that they're incapable of believing in grace alone.
01:31:46
That's really a huge slap in the face to everybody who's a believer, a true believer, a sincere believer.
01:31:55
So, hopefully that gave you a lot to chew on and we'll keep carrying on the discussion in the near future, hopefully with the other hosts of the show.