Why the Gospel Terrifies Christians | Theocast

Hi, this is John and today on Theocast Justin and I have a conversation about the gospel and how the gospel often is Terrifying and what we mean by that is the implications of it. How powerful is grace and if we're not careful we tend to to add to the gospel.

So that it doesn't sound as crazy as it is. But it is crazy. The grace is that powerful and it can transform us. But yet we seem to keep adding to the gospel. We're gonna talk about this throughout history and the different things like law gospel pietism Reformation and dispensationalism.

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Welcome to Theocast encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ conversations about the Christian life from a reformed and pastoral perspective. Hosted Eric, Justin Perdue pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina and I'm John Moffitt and a pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

And Justin today's a unique day for us. It's the last podcast of the year, but it'll be coming out in 2022. Lord willing I pray it doesn't come out. I pray we're not here to listen to it to post it but if we are we are hoping that it finds you well and encourages you so.

Yeah, that's pretty much all I have for the the introductions. Oh, I will say this by now. Hopefully well for sure we have our new stickers out trust Christ and calm down you get Theocast stickers as well.

So you can go get those. We've got some help with shipping those out. So that's Amazing and our new books are ready. Our other updated. They're not new they're updated and hopefully by this time very soon.

The reform booked will be coming out as well. That's all the announcements I have on everything other than that Justin. We want to save almost all of our time To talk about our subject today because it is one that is clearly we should probably do 10 podcasts on but we're just gonna do.

Well, we've done quite a few. Yeah, it's a greetings from Last year, this is one of those back future moments, I guess. Yeah, no kidding. What up Theocast fam. Good to be chatting with you again. Oh and for those of you on YouTube.

Justin's in his new studio. That's been redone. He doesn't have the new camera.

Yeah, we're using a new camera that'll have a better you'll be able to see a little bit more of the new studio. But yeah, yeah excited to have some new digs here and a little bit better lighting and well.

We'll do some panels and all that good stuff. We'll do a walkthrough of my office in his. It's fun. All right, Justin. Tell us why it's so important that we save all over time of today.

The Reformation, Grace, and Why Christians Add to the Gospel

First of all, I love the episode title. Let's go and say that why the gospel terrifies Christians and It's an important conversation that we're having today you said, you know, we should probably do 10 episodes on it.

We've done a number of episodes really getting at this issue over the course of the last two and a half years together and Most people listen to this podcast know the Protestant Reformation historically occurred 500 years ago.

A little over 500 years ago is when it's formally recognized to have begun and The battle of the Reformation at its heart was a fight for the purity of the gospel was a battle for salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

The Formal battle was in part over sola scriptura the sufficiency of scripture and all these matters but the battle in material at the heart was for the gospel and It's one sense of recovery of the biblical doctrine of assurance and peace with God in Christ on account of what he's done.

Not on account of what we do or could ever do for God. And as we survey 2 ,000 years of church history, it's pretty obvious that there is always a tendency to regress amongst God's people to in some way return back to some form of works righteousness or to revert back to some notion of law-keeping to Synthesize our work and Christ's work in various ways so that this turns into some cooperative effort between us and God.

That would result in our final salvation. And so today's episode is one of a number where we seek to take the gloves off a little bit. We're both I mean truth in advertising. It's end of the year. It's been a very busy year in ministry for John been a busy year in ministry full year for me as well.

We're both Dealing not only with our own frailties, but you know pastoring churches that are comprised of sinners we're sinners and so we're tired and at the same time happy to be able to get on here and get behind the mics and talk about Christ and we're gonna try To not be overly punchy about Jesus in the gospel not aiming to offend anyone and at the same time We're gonna try to give a pretty unfiltered Conversation about this issue and how we tend to throw all kinds of clutter on top of the gospel and Even people who profess to be Christians, I'll go and say this even people who profess to be reformed Christians.

Freak out when the pure as we have a baby like to describe it the pure unfiltered Gospel is heralded over and over and again when we are unashamedly Jesus centered and everything that we say in the church.

People.

Freak out. They get scared by that and there are reasons for that fear and we're gonna try to identify some of those things. We're gonna identify some of the Tendencies that exist in the church and try to peel back the onion a little bit and get underneath this thing.

Why is it this thing called the gospel? Why is grace? Why is faith alone? Why is Jesus being the focus of all the scripture? Why does that stuff scare us as Christians? So John take us away with our first of several talking points.

Yeah, we have a lot. That's why I wanted to get into this quickly. One of the greatest helps for me is when Paul says I am present tense the greatest center I know and Paul probably was the greatest preacher outside of Christ of the gospel.

Paul was not afraid of the power. He was not stingy with grace and he on multiple occasions in multiple letters defended grace and That helps me understand, you know when Justin said we have churches full of sinners In many ways the self-righteous just they don't last very long in a in a church full of grace because grace at his heart Constantly uses the law to show you your need of grace, right?

And so I grew up in the law yeah, right and we we want that because As our confession says when we see the depths of our sin It causes to have a greater dependence upon Christ. It does not justify our sins.

It does not give us freedom to sin so one of the things that I grew up in and I know there's a lot of listeners who are Gradually finding theocast or who've been here for a while that have grown up in a dispensational background and the history of dispensationalism Has its roots in really a very heavy Law preaching a very fire and brimstone preaching which there's nothing wrong with getting heated in a sermon and Really getting passionate about the nature of sin.

Sure and how damaging sin is We can see this often in Scripture that a lot of the prophets got very angry with Israel but when you only preach the law and Then the gospel is only the part of which you must now do which is the cleanup part.

It creates what we call a manipulative side of preaching or life of Christianity on a fear based tactics where even in times theology becomes so Prevalent in the preaching and teaching where you're always using it as a means to govern one's life.

I remember growing up in a youth group where we would watch the original like 1980s 70s, I can't remember what it was, but the the left-behind movies Where you you the fear was you don't want to be. You don't want to be caught not living for Christ when he comes back because you could be one of those people who were left Behind you walk into the church and all the clothes are there.

I mean we always we did that household situation at Halloween and And it's still it still plays out today there are people who are extremely afraid of the return of Christ and being caught As if they aren't ready and God's going to leave them here because they're not taking it serious.

I mean I did a whole video on is the vaccine the mark of the beast and it's Insane the conversation that goes on in that the comment section where people truly do live by fear. Thinking that if Christ comes back and I've either taken the vaccine or I'm not living for whatever reason.

They don't walk by faith. They walk by fear and that's what governs them I mean and I'll throw it back over to you Justin, but the When you think about what this has to do with it's They don't just say you know to live for Jesus.

They didn't give you rules and regulations and from this Fundamentalist movement that started and really it was a lot of dispensationalism that pushed this along. It became more about not drinking not going to movie houses not you listen to certain kind of music.

It became that what you didn't do sure and those who were living this particular Lifestyle were the ones that could have confirmation that when Christ could was came back when the trumpets sound. Then you were ready to meet with him.

And so Preaching became more about warning people about morality than it did Proclaiming the sufficiency of Christ and there's nothing wrong with warning people about their moral life. We'll get into that later.

But if that's all the diet is Then it's completely lopsided from what we've been handed to us in the New Testament and I would even say the Old Testament. Yeah.

The fear-based tactics are Effective in ways though. I would argue that they are very short-sighted. They're manipulative as you even alluded to. I think they work because if you get a room full of people who have tender consciences at all and are familiar at all with the scriptures and The law of God and what God requires and how holy and righteous he is and the reality of final judgment and all these things.

You can work people up into a pretty good frenzy without a lot of difficulty. By just reminding people of these simple truths from the Bible. Again devoid of really any kind of gospel. Because in my mind John I'm I didn't come from that context.

But I'm not all together unacquainted with it, right? To me the gospel simply is there's all this hellfire brimstone judgment stuff, right? Righteousness of God holiness of God. He's a consuming fire all these things.

And it's just taken out of context at points and overemphasize. And the gospel. Really? All that's preached is that Jesus did die for sinners. Yes, but what's demanded of you is you better repent? And it's almost like we're saved by How well we repent.

Or the question is whether you've repented and then you're gonna prove your repentance through a life of abstinence.

Basically, that's right. Repentance really is from your past life, correct?

You're turning from your former sins and you're not living like that anymore and you're gonna continue to prove that you're legit day after day after day by abstaining from the things that you used to do that used to characterize your life before you you know saw the light and decided to follow Christ or whatever it is and I Think it's easy for me to see how that's effective and at the same time There's no gospel really in that and a last comment before we move on maybe to our next subject.

I Think it's important. We've talked about this in ways before. But it's important that people understand that the roots of dispensationalism like Darby and others who were the fathers of this theology They were actually Very clear in their opposition to the active obedience of Jesus Christ.

By active obedience for those who are unfamiliar with that language when we use that term we are referring to Christ's perfect life and fulfillment of the whole law and Fulfillment of all of the righteous requirements of God in the place of sinners where we talk about the the double imputation piece or like we sing of in Rock of Ages how The water and the blood from the wounded side of Christ they flow that they are of sin the double cure.

They save from wrath which we get that part pretty good like the atonement propitiation side. But they also make us pure the blood and the water the sacrifice of Jesus His perfect life his fulfillment of the law is what is counted to us as our perfection.

Dispensationalism historically has been opposed to that kind of teaching and so in the Dispensational scheme in this kind of hellfire and brimstone scheme the active obedience of Christ the fact that Christ is our righteousness is nowhere to be found and So in that regard Jesus is preached as maybe half a Savior.

He.

Deals with your sins at least in a past sense, but you need to provide righteousness in. What you're doing right. If you nail it to the wall, it's where it goes.

Right, and I would say Dispensationalism by and large. It's not a charlatan movement where they were trying to Manipulate people for the sake of money or or it's not a cult or anything like that at all.

And there are those movements where you see people and they're purely just doing it for the sake of prosperity. Gospel and money. And Dispensationalism is not that at all. No and dispensationalism also has a great history of taking the Bible literally fighting for inerrancy.

But the the struggle became in their concerns for a World that was falling faster and faster in their opinion into lawlessness and sinfulness. There became a reaction That was wholeheartedly good, but not necessarily biblical in that they begin to emphasize the the nature of the law and They didn't necessarily.

Let's put it this way and this will lead us into our next section section Justin. Which I know you want to talk about it's a great Study case of a law gospel confusion. They they assumed that repentance and obedience was the gospel.

That's the good news. Do these things, but they would herald. No. No. No, we're saved by grace alone. We're saved by grace alone, but and this is carried into today. So Justin explained to us what this looks like.

Law and Gospel Confusion

We're gonna talk for a minute about the confusion of the law in the gospel or how the law in the gospel are often Collapsed. What you were just describing in a dispensational framework is how the law is often preached as gospel.

If you do these things at least well enough you'll be saved and Then the gospel is preached as law. It's preached as a kind of covenant of works that we need to do some stuff in order to be in you know, we need to do this or this or this thing in order to be under the gospel or in Christ and That's just all kinds of confused and backwards according to the scriptures one of the things that we rejoice in here at theocast as Reformed and Lutheran brothers and sisters have through history and even people before the Reformation is the distinction between the law and the gospel.

What we mean by that is That in the Old and New Testament, there is law and gospel in each there's law and gospel in the Old Testament. There's law and gospel in the New Testament and That anytime we read in the scriptures of things that are required for us to do in order to be righteous.

That is law. Whenever we read and hear of what Christ has done that God then gives to us in grace That's gospel. To illustrate some of the ways that the gospel and this law and gospel confusion leads to fear amongst well-meaning Well-intentioned Christians, I'll just say this phrase and just let it sit for a second.

We'll talk about The gospel actually contains nothing in it whatsoever For us to do and Now that people have had a couple of seconds that's deafening like people have a few seconds to think that over and I assume in the hearts and minds of many people of A you know, maybe self-proclaimed Reformed ilk or whatever all kinds of things are welling up and you're.

Is it okay to say that right that there's nothing in the gospel? The gospel contains nothing within it whatsoever for us to do or to frame it in other ways the law Demands everything and gives nothing.

It's an exacting taskmaster the gospel law. There's everything to do. Correct the gospel on the flip side Demands nothing but gives everything again, people hear that and they're like Don't know but what about the demands of the gospel?

What about you know, what Jesus demands of the world? I mean I can hear people right now. And again, we would come in and say We're happy to talk about what God demands of the world and what Jesus demands of the world.

We delight in God's law and we're happy to use it lawfully. But we need to call it that we need to call it law and then be very clear on the fact that the gospel is Completely and only about what Jesus Christ has done.

It's not at all about anything that we have done could do and Therefore Simply we to use the language of our confession we trust we accept we receive we rest in Jesus Christ.

For.

Justification sanctification and eternal life All by merit by virtue of the covenant of grace, right? That's good news. And that's what saving faith is. And so this I'll turn it right back over to you.

I'm sure you want to comment on this in a second John, but yeah This long gospel confusion illustrate is illustrated in a number of ways and a number of streams of thought that are common in the evangelical church today.

One that we've talked about at points is the Lordship salvation stream the Lordship salvation camp where We've done episodes on this we could refer the listener to those but one of the things that occurs in that form of thinking in that kind of theology is a collapsing of law and gospel where we see The the law and the gospel confused we also see a redefinition of even saving faith where Obedience or a desire to obey those kinds of things are woven into the definition of what saving faith even is.

That's a concern and We see people told that they need to do certain things in order to prove their legitimacy so that they can then Actually say that they're in the Lord Jesus Christ and we would just humbly rebut that and say yeah that That's putting a bunch of qualifiers on the gospel.

That's putting a bunch of law on top of the gospel and collapsing the law of the gospel in a way that Makes it sound like we have something to contribute and the gospel does in fact require some works from us In order to be legitimately in Christ.

Hmm, that's good. Yeah, this is can be confusing. I mean even in second second Thessalonians 1 when when Paul says when you be He says for those who do not obey the gospel and you could say right there that hey.

Well, Justin you you just said there's nothing to be done. It's. It's only it's only news. So you're wrong and that that's probably the only verse that's often used and The the thing I want to help you John.

I was typing you a message. What verse were you citing a second Thessalonians 1 8? Yeah, and When when you when you go back and you look at all what all scripture has to say. You learn very quickly that the good news.

The gospel is proclamation of a past event. Right, so it is not the potential. It's the proclamation of the past so you have to understand we're not it's not potential but past. This is why it's it's important when we say you have to define the difference between the law because the law has all potential.

The law is a set of rules if obeyed then you earn righteousness before God. So the law always presents potential but the gospel always tells you of the past it is the declaration that Christ sufficiently.

Not only lived your life that you could not live and as the second Adam. But then paid for your sin. Which you could not pay for and that's been declared and part of that good news is all of this is yours.

If you believe all of this comes to you if you believe and belief is not an act. It's a gift granted. We know this from from Ephesians. What does he say right to not by works less than he mentioned both.

So he says by faith through grace, which is a gift of God. So when Paul says they did not obey the gospel I do believe what he means is in contrast because he's talking about the nature of those who've rejected the gospel.

He means those who have heard of the good news and believed that's what it means.

To clarify and Use scripture. To interpret scripture. You mentioned 2nd Thessalonians 1 8. The reason I asked you to clarify what verse you're talking about is that phrase of obeying the gospel? It recurs in the book of Romans as well.

Romans 10 16 Paul uses that same language of but they have not all obeyed the gospel but in Romans 1 5 and Romans 1626 Paul will use the language of the obedience of faith. So I Think it's very simple.

And I know you agree John. Biblically when we're talking about what does it mean to obey the gospel again this phrase that occurs like twice in the New Testament. Well to obey the gospel is nothing other than the obedience of faith.

It's to trust Christ. And so whenever we hear that we ought not wig out because as soon as we hear the word obedience We immediately think law we immediately think this. Well. That means I need to do a bunch of stuff in order to prove my legitimacy.

I need to do a bunch of stuff in order to be right with God. No to obey the gospel simply means to trust in Jesus. To receive from him. To receive. Accept rest in Jesus again. Fourteen point two from our confession.

Which is the conclusion of the gospel because the good news part of the good news is that you were condemned. You could not produce righteousness. Christ produced righteousness. Took on your condemnation and part of that good news is he did this.

So that you could be reconciled to God here's the key note by faith so. That's the obedience part. Yes now right and it's it's hard for us. Sometimes when we don't look at all the scripture, but Justin I think the confusion this is the next section we want to go into.

Pietism, Prove-Yourself Theology, and Assurance

The confusion is. Throughout the years is a word called pietism and pietism. There's that word. Mm-hmm pietism. I'll let you give us an introduction on that and then I'll comment on it. But pietism is what happens when the law and the gospel gets collapsed and we don't know how to read.

We don't know how to read scripture. The lenses are blurred. And so when we go to see certain passages They get confusing and then all of a sudden we have to prove our faith instead of accepting the faith.

So just to talk to us a little bit about what is pietism by the way for those of you that haven't read. We have a book called rest and Justin has a great introduction in there on what pietism is I would encourage everyone to go read it.

It's for free. Let's go to our website theocast .org slash primer.

If you are new to theocast We have a free ebook available for you called faith versus faithfulness a primer on rest. And if you've struggled with legalism a lack of assurance or simply want to know what it means to live by faith alone We wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a reformed confessional perspective.

You can get your free copy at theocast .org. Slash primer.

And plug for our forthcoming book called reformed. I'm gonna have a chapter in there on confessionalism. And I'm gonna give an even more expanded Treatment to pietism and confessionalism for those who are interested in in that book that we hope is coming out.

Maybe first quarter next year. So All that by way of you know plugs and advertisement. Let me get to the heart of the matter here pietism. Let me back up pause button rewind piety. Let's talk about that really quickly.

I think it's always good to do this. Piety is a good thing. So we are all for piety here at theocast. Piety is effectively God-wrought righteousness. It is the work of God's Spirit in us as we trust in Christ.

So we want to talk in those ways a lot and affirm and exhort people toward piety. That is the work of the Lord in them as we partake of the means of grace and live life in the church trusting in Jesus so piety is good.

Pietism historically is an overemphasis on few things the Inside the interior as we like to say of the Christian life, right? So the the affections the desires the obedience the performance of the believer.

There's an overemphasis on those things there is also an overemphasis on Transformation of life in a pietistic framework. This could be aimed at the individual. Almost exclusively. Individuals transformation of life and maybe the society through the individual or in a more liberal environment.

It might be just aimed broadly at the society. So conservatives and liberals can be pietistic and again if you're interested in that if that's kind of a mind blow for you. Then I would recommend our forthcoming book and just continue to listen to some of our content here.

We're gonna be talking about these things. I'm sure over the course of months and years so pietism overemphasis on the interior the Christian life also an overemphasis on Transformation and so what that results in John and I'm happy to kick it back over to you for a minute.

And then I might riff a little bit more is. It results in this thing where we preach the gospel, you know, we preach Jesus crucified for sinners. We might even preach well the righteousness of Christ for sinners.

So that's wonderful and we're all for that. But then somehow some way the thing circles back in on us at the end of the day you know the real wedge is driven down on the Christian not on Christ and. So you leave a sermon or a service or whatever in a pietistic context with a bunch of marching orders and the emphasis has been on the ways that you're failing to do as you should and the ways that you need to go then do better and You at times rightly can be confused as to where your security and your assurance come from.

Because of this we like to say this John and I want you to riff on this song. We like to describe pietism as a kind of prove-yourself theology. Yeah, so what you're being exhorted to do all the time.

It's like yes, Jesus. Yes, Jesus. Amen, Jesus. We love you know, Jesus. Jesus precious Jesus. Absolutely, you know, he died for us. He is our righteousness. But then you need to go improve your legit.

Through your disciplines and your obedience or your desire to obey or your affections you fill in the blank. Through the transformation of your life go prove you're legitimate and as we always say you can't do it like that.

You can't reverse-engineer this thing streams only flow downhill. They don't flow uphill. Sanctification flows out of justification not the other way around. That's right John go.

Yeah, man, this is the one where we get the most objection. People call us antinomian and all kinds of things. So we're gonna take our time and do our best here and probably answer most of the objections in this Emperor Fremont a podcast.

For those who are interested we will save the objections for SR because I want to talk about Jesus before we're done with this.

This is this is probably where theocast got its boost. It's got its like people started paying attention to what we were saying because you know we were one of many men we we will never take credit for anything because Justin and I have never said anything New unless it was sinful and even that you know, there's nothing new under the Sun.

We are only pulling up, you know the carpet off of the hardwood floors. We're dusting off the books and pulling them off the shelf from theology that has been handed down to us from our brothers and sisters before and we we got Distracted by the new and shiny we got distracted by Fear and doubt and all of a sudden what the gospel was meant to be which is our hope and driving factor for everything that We do.

Become cluttered by things that worked right? So fear worked for a while and then there then you have you have all these different mechanisms of things that work well. Pietism Can be seen in any in any denomination and almost in any religion that's out there.

I mean we look at Joel stain and someone would say that well, that's not a very pietistic. What are you talking about? It's very pietistic.

Yeah.

Because your blessings from God are based upon your performance and really your attitude. Good attitude means good blessing bad attitude means no blessing and it's always one. It's it's basically one plus one equals two your obedience plus God's promises.

Equals assurance. Mm-hmm, and that's not how it works. This that gives you a reason to boast that means You can say I know I'm a Christian because of my actions.

Well.

There's a massive problem with this in that there are a lot of Christians who did things that are Horrendous, and they're not justified. They're not okay. They shouldn't have done them, but they didn't Disprove their loyalty or they didn't disprove their faith before Christ Because their sin got the better of them, which is what the New Testament warns us can happen.

I mean James even literally says in chapter 1 that your own desires can lead you away and Cause you to fall into temptation. Yeah, and then he says don't blame God for this, but he doesn't question their salvation.

Justin what's interesting about the New Testament is that Paul is very clear and Peter and Hebrews that your faith in the gospel is The starting point. You can't put anything underneath faith as the foundation.

Faith is the foundation that everything else is built upon and then upon that We can see as our faith is strengthened. We will see as Peter says 2nd Peter 1 3 He says add to your faith these things. What's the foundation.

It's always faith in Christ as a matter of fact in Verse 9. He says if these qualities are not yours and increasing you have forgotten that you have been cleansed from your former sins. He goes back to the foundation.

Pietism does the exact opposite. Yes, pietism adds faith to the foundation. The foundation is really your actions your attitude and Your desires. And then they say oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And faith or maybe I agree that or maybe a way I might frame it is the foundation is this kind of Mixture this concoction of faith and your obedience. That's a better way of your Christian life, right?

That's right and it's it's interesting like you gave that equation of The one plus one equals two like if I've got to have a sum total of two to be assured.

My.

Obedience one plus the one of God's promises equals to my assurance. I think you said rightly well if that's true that provides room for boasting which the New Testament Contradicts that notion we got nothing to boast in Christ alone the other thing I'd say to that is if one plus one equals two.

What about those of us who are very aware that that we don't have a full one? To chalk up in that obedience column like I'm it's right. I'm at bet. You know, maybe on my best day. I'm I'm it, you know a half or at a third or a fourth.

It's like well, you know like a one point twenty point two five plus one equals one point two five on this on the assurance Scale, you know, and I don't have any you know, that's the issue and this is why I mean we get email after email after voicemail after voicemail from people who are Wrestling mightily with assurance and they're like I don't have any I just don't know that.

That I'm in the Lord Jesus and we talk to these individuals and I mean I have a church full of them. I'm one of them John I mean for goodness sakes right like where we constantly are questioning our legitimacy because we know the corruption that remains within us this would be a lot simpler if Perfection was attainable in this life or if at the moment of regeneration We just didn't have the corruption of the flesh anymore.

This would be pretty easy. But because of the already not yet peace because of the fact that there still is remaining corruption in our flesh yet. We are a new creation. Yeah, right. We literally are utterly unique in the scope of all the world because we're born again by the Spirit of God.