July 29, 2022 Show with Dr. David Lawrence on “Discovering Sovereign Grace While in the Church of Christ’s Halls of Academia” (Part 2)

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carwile, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 29th day of July 2022.

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And I am thrilled to have back as a returning guest an utterly fascinating brother by the name of David Lawrence.

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Those of you who listen regularly to the program may remember that we began part one of the discussion we are continuing today on Monday, July 18th, and the discussion was so fascinating to me, and we really only got to the tip of the iceberg even during a two -hour interview, that I wanted to have

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David Lawrence back on the program so that we can continue the discussion on his discovering sovereign grace while in the

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Church of Christ's Hall of Academia, the theological journey of a professor in a prominent

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Church of Christ university. And my guest, Dr. David Lawrence, is a former minister at Milton Avenue Church of Christ in Truman, Arkansas, former minister at Smith Springs Church of Christ in Nashville, Tennessee, and former professor of history at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, one of the

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Church of Christ's most prominent universities. And today he is currently scholar in residence at Stevens Valley Church of Nashville, Tennessee, an independent

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Reformed congregation. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trumpet and Zion Radio, Dr.

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David Lawrence. Thank you, Chris. My pleasure to be with you.

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Why don't you, once again, especially for the sake of our listeners who have not heard part one of this discussion, let our listeners know about Stevens Valley Church of Nashville, Tennessee.

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Well, I can highly recommend it if you're in Nashville or visiting anytime, glad to have you.

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Stevens Valley is a new church. However, the pastor, Jim Bachman, was formerly with Covenant Presbyterian in Nashville and has quite a reputation for being an excellent preacher, excellent pastor.

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He's doing a great job. We have an assistant pastor, Heath Cross, and we have a good set of elders.

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We have a wonderful choir and I think one of the best music directors you find anywhere in David German.

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So anyway, it's a great privilege for me to be a part of the founding of this congregation and to continue as a member and teach a class every

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Sunday morning. Terrific. And I'm sure that I will remember to repeat this later, but let me give you the website for those of you who are either visiting the

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Nashville area, have friends, family, and loved ones who live there, or if you live there yourself, the website is stevensvalley .church

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and Stevens is spelt with a P -H, S -T -E -P -H -E -N -S, valley .church.

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So I hope that if you are in that area, you plan for a visit there.

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And I think it would be good to do a recap, if you will, of some things that we discussed last time for part one of this discussion that those listening the first time may be unfamiliar with.

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For instance, why don't we even just start with a basic summary description of who are these folks and churches known as the

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Church of Christ, and it's typically, not always, but typically on the signage spelt with a small

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C for Church and a capital C for Christ. And to some folks, that's an extremely important issue.

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But if you could, tell us about these churches. All right,

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I would first start, I would say I was not brought up in Church of Christ or in any church.

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I'll just briefly say my first experience as a result of being invited over and over again by a public school teacher was in the

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Disciples of Christ Church, and decided to enter the ministry there. But through the influence of a friend who was a member of the

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Church of Christ, I joined the Church of Christ, and it was the most, at this time,

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I think one of the most legalistic, not the, well, one of the most, but not the most.

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They were moving in that direction because it was a time when Church of Christ was splitting over institutions, as they put it, whether you could support an orphan home or a radio program or have located, support located preachers through a cooperative arrangement.

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Anyway, they were splitting, and I wound up on the more legalistic side and continued to preach for churches in Arkansas.

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You mentioned the one in Truman. I preached before that in Charleston, Arkansas, then moved to Wichita, Kansas, and was there introduced to the most extreme, and I think evil, form of legalism where love just didn't exist.

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And as I become awakened to, not to the truth, but to the evil of legalism,

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I reacted by making sure that every sermon included love, and that's how we are identified, that we love one another.

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That didn't go over very well. Some of the people left, but I stayed there probably too long and then went to a mainline

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Church of Christ. The basic assumptions were the same. They were just not as extreme as in the extremely legalistic church.

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And that was the Northside Church of Christ in Wichita, and then moved to Nashville to take the position as Lipscomb and found myself working with the

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Church of Christ in the east part of town, Smith Springs, as you mentioned. And we looked last week at some of the distinctives of the

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Church of Christ, and they tried to be distinct in everything, thus to separate themselves from anything that they call denominational, and they want to emphasize that we are the one true church.

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My friend, who introduced me to the Church of Christ, later completely left it.

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And I asked him one time, I said, why? His name was Roger. I said, why,

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Roger, did you leave? And he said, people had told me that Church of Christ believed they were the only ones going to heaven, and I didn't believe it.

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But when I found out that that is true, I couldn't stay any longer. And that had an impression, made an impression on me, because I had reached the point that I certainly did not agree with that idea.

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A lot of the doctrines that I now embrace, I believed, but I didn't have the opportunity,

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I would say I didn't have the courage, because obviously preaching some of these things would mean I'd lose my job.

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I'll have to say I was pretty much a coward in that regard, don't mind admitting it. But, for instance,

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I did believe that one who was saved could not lose his salvation, but I didn't have the opportunity to teach that.

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But these things were just building up. I talked about that last week. Various things were building up in the back of my mind that finally all came together.

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Yes, so some of those commonalities that you will find in churches known as the

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Church of Christ, and as I've said before, not only with my recent interview with a

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Church of Christ minister, Kelly Carter, who is the minister of the

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Calgary Church of Christ in Calgary, Alberta, Ontario, Canada, who is on a mission to introduce biblical and historic

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Trinitarianism into the Church of Christ, because that has historically been something that has not been universally agreed upon, and even though, from my understanding, most churches of Christ are

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Trinitarian, it is a matter of disagreement whether one should use that term,

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Trinity, because it's not a term found in the Bible, although obviously we who are

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Trinitarian believe the teaching and the concept is clearly taught in the Scripture. But it is very difficult to pigeonhole churches of Christ, not only because they have always been involved since their inception in disputes and disagreements ranging from friendly, collegiate, in -house disagreement conducted in a brotherly fashion all the way to the other end of the spectrum, very heated and sometimes even hateful, separative and sectarian rhetoric.

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But on top of that, you have churches of Christ over the years, especially after the introduction of the wonderful blessing from God known as the

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Internet, which obviously is used by God mightily and used by Satan, unfortunately, mightily, but I believe that must be a part of the positive progression.

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Many in the churches of Christ have been involved in developing in their own preaching, teaching, and practice, becoming much more grace -centered, much less legalistic, and in fact, unfortunately also becoming some have become much more liberal in a way that even evangelical

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Protestants would view as far too liberal and even in some occasions leftist to the point of apostasy, still wearing the name

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Church of Christ, still identifying with the restoration movement. But some of those commonalities that you may more typically still find are that they believe that baptism by immersion in water is required for the remission of sins, that there is no genuine concept of clergy, and even many

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Baptists would agree with that, and ministers don't wear clerical robes and things to that nature.

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You have a division, you have the a cappella churches of Christ and you have the instrumental churches of Christ.

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I would imagine that it could be wrong in this, but I believe the a cappella group is larger within that movement, but I could be wrong.

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I think that's true. And even though they would never in a million years describe themselves this way, but they are very typically, if not most often, five -point

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Arminians, and to remind you, they would never call themselves that.

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In fact, most Baptists who are four -point Arminian never would refer to themselves that way either.

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I would say that the old -fashioned, very legalistic

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Church of Christ is really Pelagian. Yeah, there is also that huge difference among themselves, that you have those that not only are

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Pelagian in regard to the nature of man, they do not believe man is conceived in sin and bears the sin of Adam and so on, basically is a clean slate in regard to the morality of their nature.

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Yeah. And you also believe, or should I say, there are some who also believe in a clear

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Pelagian treadmill of works righteousness, not only in some sense attaining salvation, but maintaining salvation.

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Yes. And although the word grace may be used, it is obvious from their theology they are graceless, especially soteriologically.

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Grace is a nice word, and it appears in the hymns, and it's sung, but so many people do not understand what it implies, what it means.

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And I have to repeat here, folks, I am not broad -brushing because I do know, in fact

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I've already said, it's very difficult to pigeonhole Churches of Christ because I have friends in the Church of Christ that do not reflect those hallmarks, if you will, that I have just listed.

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There are some that are very grace -oriented, even if they're not thoroughly Reformed or Calvinistic, and Trinitarian and so on.

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But you also have a claim that they are not creedal or confessional, and I have always made the reply to anyone who claims that, because even many, if not most,

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Baptists claim that anytime you write down what you believe, that's your creed.

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Yes, that becomes a creed, and you can sometimes sing it, and you sometimes pray it, but it's still there.

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But I think, Chris, one of the reasons that you're seeing a good deal of change within Churches of Christ is the fact they are non -creedal.

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They don't have a fixed doctrine that they subscribe to, in the sense it's written down, and consequently people begin to think.

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You mentioned the internet. I think ideas certainly flow along the internet. That has been a major factor. Also, urbanization.

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People tend to live more in the cities. Church of Christ used to be a country phenomenon, and country people isolated, but in the cities they can interact with one another, and so when ideas are exchanged, there is a questioning of the old values and attempt to find out, perhaps more accurately, what

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Scripture teaches. So there's been a tremendous change in the last 10, 15, 20 years within Churches of Christ.

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They've lost members, they have shrunk in size, people have gone elsewhere, but the ones who have remained have tended to move in a direction of understanding more how

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God works in the lives of people. Yes, and let me point out again, as I did the last time, there are similarities that Church of Christ have with Reformed people and Reformed Baptists.

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They typically believe in a plurality of elders, and as far as their similarity with Reformed Baptists, of which

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I am one, they believe in the independence and autonomy of each local congregation.

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They do not believe there is any hierarchical structure of authority outside of the local elders.

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The only higher authority outside the local church is Jesus Christ and the Scriptures, and that would be an agreement that Reformed Baptists would have.

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I know that my Presbyterian brethren, such as yourself, have Presbyteries and Synods and so on.

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So there are similarities. The differences, interestingly, about the polity, as I have found, unlike Reformed Baptists, you will have ministers and evangelists being viewed very often as something entirely different than the office of an elder.

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Whereas most Reformed Christians view the two offices of the church being elder and deacon, many of the

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Churches of Christ will add minister and evangelist. In fact, I can remember years ago when somebody in my family was a member of a

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Church of Christ, a woman who was divorced and dating an atheist,

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I approached the minister about, shouldn't you be disciplining this person?

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And the person said, I can't, I'm just a minister and we don't have any elders right now. So I thought that was an interesting response.

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By the way, I'm not advocating what that woman was doing, but praise be to God that man she was dating, who eventually became her husband, received

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Christ and became a born -again believer. So I just want to make sure I've made that clear in case the individual is listening to our show today.

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So there you have my understanding and experience, because once again, let me remind my listeners that the

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Church of Christ movement has a special place in my heart, because I was a

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Roman Catholic, I was raised Roman Catholic, and the very first church that I heard the

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Scriptures opened and was used of God to develop in me a love for the

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Scriptures, a fascination in the Scriptures, and an eagerness and a zeal to study the

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Scriptures. The very first church was the Church of Christ, where my brother at one time was a member, and I still maintain very treasured friendships from that congregation and from other connected congregations to this day, and I'm talking about this was happening in the late 70s and the 1980s is when

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I began developing these friendships with Church of Christ folk. I eventually got saved in a

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Reformed Baptist church where I was baptized, but I do owe a debt to the

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Church of Christ, and whenever I hear about things like the Doctrines of Grace being discovered in the

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Church of Christ by some men and congregations and other things, such as a stricter adherence and passion for Trinitarianism and so on,

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I get delighted and I get enthusiastic about it. So there's my more than two cents,

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I guess. Well, I totally agree, Chris. There are a large number, I think

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I mentioned this last time, a large number of former Church of Christ members, including my wife and me, and there's general agreement among all of us that we are grateful for two things, and you've mentioned them.

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One, the emphasis on the inspiration of Scripture, the authority of Scripture, the importance of studying

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Scripture. All of us agree on that. And the second thing you mentioned, the friends we have that have been friends for life.

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The gentleman I mentioned last week who died recently, Arch Warren, came from the

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Church of Christ, and he and I talked about how we were grateful for those values. So yes, totally true.

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And one thing I'd like to mention, I don't know how closely affiliated he is with you and I in our soteriology, but it might be good to mention right up front that a man who has become a hero to many in the

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Church of Christ, and of course that is a relative thing because some people who are heroes to some churches of Christ are enemies in others, depending upon what area of teaching they want to hobby horse and become extremely sectarian over.

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But a very prominent name in the Church of Christ has been Rubel Shelley, and according to you, he has become, over the years, much more grace -centered.

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Oh yes, and a good friend of mine and I would like to thank, because we did attend Woodmount Hills for a while where he preaches,

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I have high regard for him, and he worked with us in the ministry that we established in Getty Ministries for a while.

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Let me, if you don't mind, Chris, I'd like to talk a little bit about the basic concepts we're dealing with.

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You talked about Arminianism, we've mentioned Pelagianism, we've mentioned Legalism, and then we've mentioned

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Reformed Theology. I think it boils down to two fundamental concepts, and one of them is my salvation is the result of God and His love and mercy and grace and the finished work of Jesus Christ.

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It is outside me, it is beyond me. The other concept is that ultimately at the bottom line,

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I have done that which results in my salvation. Now, if we can kind of group all of those together, in a sense, that becomes the other platform, and we've got two different approaches to Christianity, two different systems here.

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And people sometimes say, well, the problem we have is just we disagree on certain interpretations of certain passages.

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You folks believe in predestination, we don't. You believe that your salvation is secure, you're not going to lose it.

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We believe you can lose it, and so forth. There are all these things. It's not a controversy about the interpretation of certain passages.

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It is a basic and fundamentally different approach, different system. Let me tell you,

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I boil down to just a few principles when I became Reformed, and I ask myself why.

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Well, of course, first, I went through Scripture, my wife did too, and we looked at the various things that we had believed differently on earlier and came to the belief that Reformed Christianity was consistent with biblical teaching.

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It is. I think everything that we believe as Reformed Christians can be supported by the

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Scriptures. But Scriptures are consistent with themselves.

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It all goes together. That means I don't have to pick and choose. I don't have to cherry -pick what

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I'm going to believe and leave other things out. And it is consistent not only with itself and with the

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Bible generally, but Reformed teaching is consistent with human reality.

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I've had people tell me when I explain the doctrines of grace to them, that's my story.

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They can identify with it because people know that they are sinners. They know that they have a problem in their relationship to God.

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And then another thing that's true, and I found the longer I live as a Reformed Christian, the more

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I learn. If you get into the flow, and it's like a river, you're going not upstream, but you're going downstream with the flow.

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And then this is one case where we can say, go with the flow. There's a biblical flow, a trajectory. And if you're in tune with that, you're going to see more and more and more.

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It's going to open up. And I know you've had that experience too. We all have. And that's a great blessing.

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And I feel like as I've taught classes and done some preaching in the last few years and involved in worship,

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I feel like I've learned more in the last few years than I have many years prior to that. And one of the things that I think is so important about Reformed theology is the effect it has on people.

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And I have been privileged to interact with many people, particularly with students.

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And I've just found that there's a profound benefit, blessing.

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And I remember I mentioned last time when I was on the program about one young man. If I did mention it,

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I don't apologize for mentioning it again, because it's a powerful example. I will say his name is Tom.

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And one Wednesday, when my wife was involved in Wednesday night church supper, and I needed to go,

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Tom said, Can I talk to you? And I said, Yes. And he came in my office, and I took the time to do it.

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And my wife waited. And he sat down, he said, You don't know how much this knowledge of the doctrines of grace, the effect it's had on my life.

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And I said, Well, Tom, I'm very glad that it did. I certainly I can understand that. And he said,

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No, no, you really don't understand. And he looked at me. And it was later, he didn't tell me, but later,

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I said, Tom, if you don't mind, would you explain to me why you said that?

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And he said, Yes, I'll tell you. I was on drugs. He said, Probably you noticed that.

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I said, No, I didn't notice that. He said, I came high every day at school.

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And I tried everything. I went through all the programs. I could not give up that habit.

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But when I understood how much God loved me, and understood the security I had in Christ, I couldn't go on that way.

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I gave it up. And he became one of the members of our board at Getty.

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Very successful story, went on to be married and have some children. He's doing quite well.

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I've had other students say it saved my marriage. And just recently, a lady came to Stevens Valley from a

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Methodist church that had problems. But we were eating at a church dinner.

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And she said, Let me tell you, since I have been here, I have a completely different outlook, completely different understanding of Jesus Christ and of my salvation.

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These are stories that can be multiplied. I one time took a video camera and just taped students giving their testimonies.

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It can be multiplied over and over and over again. Because the most important thing throughout the years,

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I'm speaking historically now as a historian back to into the early days of the church, the one thing that was most concerning to Christians was, can

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I be sure that I will go to heaven? Can I be sure of my salvation? And I will say that Arminianism, Pelagianism does not answer that satisfactorily.

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So we have two different approaches. Legalism is just a different system.

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It's not just a different interpretation of passages. And legalism at its roots is going to say we're saved by doing the right thing.

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I remember the preacher back in Springfield that I first attended this conservative

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Church of Christ. And he said one time to me, David, if people will just do the right thing, just do the right thing, they'll be saved.

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And that is the concept of legalism. You just need to do it. And I'll tell you an interesting example.

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A young man, a student came in my office at Lipscomb one time, and he was just smiling.

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And he said, do you know what I did last Saturday night? I said, no,

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I don't know. And he said, I got baptized. Now, I just stopped.

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He expected me, the normal reaction in Church of Christ to baptism is you would run up and hug him, or at least you'd shake his hand and you'd say, congratulations, you've done the right thing.

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And I didn't do that. He looked kind of funny. And I said, let me ask you a question. What role did

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God play in this? And he said, with great pride, not anything.

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Wow. I had nothing to do with it. And that's the thing. It is what man does.

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God is irrelevant to this. God has given a Bible, and you figure out from the Bible what you do, and you do it, and that saves you.

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That is legalism. Yeah. In fact, as my friend Jerry Johnson put it,

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Jerry Johnson, a Reformed apologist who has been involved in some extraordinary video documentaries where the doctrines of sovereign grace are taught and where error is exposed, he has a really phenomenal documentary on Charles Finney, who would be very much like you're describing as far as Pelagian.

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He was Pelagian. And he said something interesting that I'd never heard anybody say before. He said some people who are

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Reformed wrongly call Charles Finney a synergist as many

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Arminians and Roman Catholics and others could rightly be described because it is a synergy of God and man's cooperation in order to achieve salvation.

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And he said, no, no, no. I know that Reformed people rightly identify ourselves as monergists, but Charles Finney was a monergist, he said.

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Not the right kind, but he was a monergist in that man alone had the tools necessary to achieve eternal life.

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Yes, exactly right. And that grace is only there as some kind of a helping hand, but it is not a required thing in the lives of humans.

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Yes. When you started out, I thought, surely he's going to come to the fact that Finney was a monergist, but a monergist in works.

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And Arminians are going to say we are synergists. The problem with that is the attempt to try to bring together the two systems, it really isn't successful in the fact that we're down to the bottom line.

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And what is the bottom line is the one thing is the factor that means you're saved.

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In fact, in fact, if we pick up right where you left off, we have to go to our first break right now. Okay. And we're going to when we come back, we're going to be focusing on the contrast between legalism and grace.

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And if anybody has a question for Dr. David Lawrence, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Give us your first name, at least your city and state and country residence.

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Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away. We'll be right back with David Lawrence after these messages.

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Have you noticed the gap that exists between the Sunday morning sermon and the Sunday school classroom or the small group study?

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40:55

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the entire program is

41:02

David Lawrence, a former Church of Christ minister and former professor of history at Lipscomb University, one of the premier universities of the

41:11

Church of Christ in Nashville, Tennessee. He's currently scholar in residence at Stevens Valley Church of Nashville, Tennessee, and we are discovering with him, or should

41:22

I say we are discussing his discovery of sovereign grace while in the

41:28

Church of Christ's halls of academia, the journey of a professor in a prominent Church of Christ university.

41:36

And if you have questions, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

41:43

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Now, let's pick up where you left off.

41:50

I don't remember exactly where you were in your conversation, but if you can recall, let's pick up right where we left off there.

42:00

Okay. Well, we're trying to separate what I think is really two different systems, and one we'll label as legalism and one we label as grace, and I think those are divisions that Paul recognized, particularly in the letter to the

42:16

Galatians. And it's interesting to think about the fact that legalism in Christianity is parallel to legalism in other religions.

42:29

Legalism is legalism, wherever you find it. It's a matter of law. It's a matter that people have to conform to and obey laws that are given to them.

42:37

And so if you go outside of Christianity, you encounter the same thing. And I'm going to make the statement,

42:43

I believe, I am accurate in this, that a system of grace, which is

42:50

Reformed theology, and I think Reformed theology encompasses fully the whole system of grace, is the only happy exception.

43:00

Every other religious system within Christianity and outside it is going to be based on what man does.

43:08

Only Reformed Christianity is based entirely, from beginning to end, upon the grace of the sovereign

43:15

God. So that takes us to the matter of Arminianism, as we brought up before.

43:23

Arminians attempt to combine the two, what they call synergism, that is, the work of both

43:30

God and man working together. And that goes back to the early days. There was, of course, as we say,

43:36

Pelagius. Pelagius started the whole controversy about how are we saved by saying that it's entirely a matter of man.

43:44

You described it, they come into the world as a blank slate, and if we do enough good works, we'll go to heaven, and if we don't, we'll go to hell.

43:54

God never requires of us anything that we cannot do. And Pelagius spread his doctrine throughout

44:01

Britain. He was a monk up in Britain, concerned about the fact that if you teach grace, that people will sin, that it will just be that it's a license to sin.

44:13

Now, in response to that, St. Augustine wrote many books that denounced

44:19

Pelagius and affirmed that man is saved by grace. And he set forth the basic doctrines that, of course, we all know from Calvin.

44:30

But along came John Cassian, and Cassian was the first Arminian, you might say, in the sense that he tried to combine the two systems into one.

44:42

And later, Arminius was a professor in the Low Countries, in Holland, who advanced that idea.

44:51

There's a problem, though. I was discussing that before we had the break, and that is, what is at the bottom line?

44:59

What makes the difference between your salvation and being lost? And there has to be something.

45:07

A question that has often been asked, what if God asks you, why should

45:15

I let you into my heaven? And your response is, well, I obeyed

45:20

Christ. I did this, I did that. That sounds very much like the person that Jesus is talking about. They will say, the last day

45:26

I've done various good works, and I will respond, depart from me, you worker of iniquity. The only answer that one can give that is viable and true is,

45:37

I plead the blood of Christ. I believe in Christ.

45:42

I put my trust in him. There's a bottom line. Now, if we go back to the

45:48

Reformation, the key doctrine of the Reformation as defined by Luther was that we are justified by faith alone.

45:58

That becomes a matter that's non -negotiable throughout the Reformation. Man is justified by grace alone.

46:07

Look to Scripture, look to particularly the letter to the Galatians, by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

46:15

As a matter of fact, there is no thee in that. It is literally, by the work of law shall no flesh be justified.

46:22

In other words, Paul is saying there's nothing you can do to be justified. And I think,

46:28

Chris, that one of the problems with people understanding that as an

46:37

Arminian, they're in the wrong camp, is in justification, to understand what justification is.

46:44

We were talking last time about Al Martin, and Al Martin sent me a series of sermons that he delivered on justification, and he used the

46:54

Westminster Larger Catechism as the basis for it. To understand justification is to understand that's salvation, that's pardon, that is forgiveness of sin.

47:03

Let me just interject here who Al Martin is, because a lot of our listeners...

47:09

Yes. He is one of the most well -known Reformed Baptist preachers and pastors since the resurgence of Calvinistic Baptists in the mid -20th century.

47:26

He is retired from pastoral ministry now, but he is an author and viewed by many across the

47:35

Reformed spectrum, whether you're a Reformed Baptist or Presbyterian, as one of the greatest living preachers of the 20th and 21st centuries.

47:44

And that would even include some non -Reformed fundamentalist

47:50

Baptists who have heard him. Yes. Well, the doctrine of justification is simply this, that God, in a judicial sense, a forensic sense, issues a declaration that we are pardoned of sin.

48:08

It is a once -and -for -all declaration from heaven, from God. Somebody one time said, what can we do to be unjustified?

48:17

Well, no, it is something that doesn't change. If God declares you justified, that's the way it is.

48:23

He's brought forward the judgment into your present, and at the point that you put your faith in Christ, he declares that you're justified.

48:32

Now, that is a work of God, justification by faith alone.

48:37

Going back to Church of Christ, their concept is that at the point of baptism, one is forgiven of sin.

48:47

So they have made the baptism to be justification. That's not the case.

48:53

Nowhere in Scripture do we read that you're justified by baptism. Baptism is a sacrament, is a sign and seal of our salvation.

49:01

It is not an option. It is something that is bound upon all Christians, but it is not the saving act.

49:08

Now, then justification is by faith, and people will say, but we produce the faith.

49:17

God justifies, we produce the faith. No. And there, one needs to look at what

49:23

Paul is saying in Ephesians 2. He said, by grace are you saved through faith.

49:29

This, not of yourselves, is the gift of God. What is the gift of God? Our faith. It's obvious that grace is a gift of God, and the substantive adjective, this, has to refer to the last thing that's said, the antecedent, which is faith.

49:45

Faith is a gift from God, and that's not the only place in Scripture that we read that. So if justification is by faith, and justification is an act of God, and faith is a gift of God, then it's all of God, it's all of grace from beginning to end.

50:02

And the problem I think the Arminians do not see is, at that point, it puts them in the category of legalism, to that extent that the final act that makes one saved is their own act.

50:16

What they have done, they've made a free will choice or something of that sort, or be baptized. Now can

50:22

I ask you, so we immediately address this, especially since there may be those in the

50:29

Church of Christ tearing their hair out right now, they will say, well this guy doesn't know what he's talking about, because as in 1

50:40

Peter chapter 3 verse 21, we clearly read, if you believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, baptism now saves you, not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and then you also have other classic texts in the

51:09

Scripture that, in an isolated reading, may lead one to the opinion that immersion in water is required for salvation.

51:19

In Acts chapter 238, then Peter said unto them, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the

51:31

Holy Ghost. So how do we, as Reformed Christians and grace -only

51:37

Christians, respond to this? In fact, since we're approaching our midway break right now,

51:45

I'll have you respond to those texts after we return, because I don't want to interrupt you as soon as you start speaking.

51:51

If anybody has a question for Dr. David Lawrence, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

51:59

chrisarnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name, at least, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

52:05

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

52:10

Let's say you are in a Church of Christ and you are starting to question some of the things that you have been taught about salvation.

52:19

You are starting to become more grace -centered in your understanding of salvation and the

52:26

Christian life, and you don't want to identify yourself just at this point because you're still on a journey and you don't want to be ostracized or even excommunicated by your own congregation.

52:42

Well, we can understand you wanting to remain anonymous at this point, but if it's just a general question, please give us your first name, at least, your city and state, and country of residence.

52:53

We'll be right back with David Lawrence after these messages. Attention all men in ministry leadership.

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always mentioning that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Before I return to our fascinating discussion with Dr.

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David Lawrence about his journey as a Church of Christ minister and university professor into sovereign grace, before we return to that discussion, we are going to have a couple of very important announcements.

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Dr.

01:11:24

David Lawrence on his journey as a Church of Christ minister and Church of Christ university professor into sovereign grace.

01:11:35

And before the break, I was quoting a couple of classic texts that you no doubt are fully familiar with.

01:11:47

And those texts are both found in Acts, where we have it being stated by Peter, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the

01:12:11

Holy Spirit. And then we have in 1 Peter 3 21, baptism now saves you, is stated emphatically.

01:12:22

And so how does a grace -centered person who believes that baptism is obviously a sign and a seal, and it's an act of obedience, it's not an option that we be baptized or not, we cannot be frivolous and indifferent and have apathy over it and say, well

01:12:42

I just don't feel like being baptized. How does someone who believes that it's an important ordinance and often called a sacrament, but yet not something that man obeys to cooperate with God in order to save himself?

01:13:03

All right, Griff, I do want to deal with that. Let me say at first, I do believe exactly what

01:13:09

Peter says, 1 Peter 3 21, baptism does also now save you in its context.

01:13:15

And I'm going to talk about that in just a moment. But first, just kind of a parallel situation.

01:13:21

I was preparing my Sunday school class, I work on that throughout the week, and today was reading from Matthew Henry's commentary on the

01:13:31

Bible about a situation that is similar to that, and that is where you've got situations that seem to be conflicting.

01:13:40

In John chapter 12, Jesus is saying, if I be lifted up,

01:13:46

I will draw all men to myself and walk in the light while you have the light. And some of the audience,

01:13:55

Pharisees, reacted by saying, but read in the law that the

01:14:01

Messiah remains forever. And there are many passages that support the idea that Messiah is here forever.

01:14:09

And yet, we have the passages from Isaiah 53. And this is what

01:14:16

Henry said. By the way, if I could put a little plug in for my class, all of our classes at Stevens Valley, including mine, are available on YouTube.

01:14:25

And you can go to it at Stevens Valley Church on a YouTube site and put in my name or the

01:14:32

Geneva class, which is the name of the class, The Gospel of John. And if you do a little navigating, you can get there.

01:14:40

But anyway, here's the quote from Matthew Henry. Why then do they make so strange of the lifting up of the

01:14:49

Son of Man? Note, we often run into great mistakes and then defend them with Scripture arguments by putting those things asunder, which

01:14:58

God in His word has put together, and opposing one truth under pretense of supporting another.

01:15:05

We have heard out of the gospel that which exalts free grace, and we've heard also which enjoins duty.

01:15:12

And we just cordially embrace both and not separate them nor set them at variant.

01:15:18

I thought that is good. And the matter of, for instance, grace and works, man's responsibility to obey

01:15:26

God, it's a matter of understanding, in this case, which comes first. We are saved by grace, and we are saved to good works which

01:15:34

God prepared beforehand that we walk in them. The good works are an expression of our salvation. So let's just come back to the matter of baptism and the 1

01:15:44

Peter 321 passage. Baptism does also now save you. If you look at 1 Peter, he starts out by addressing the elect, and he talks about being born again, and he talks about faith and our salvation by faith.

01:16:00

Well, that is not to be contradictory to what he writes in chapter 3 verse 21. But if you look at the context of 321, it is the idea of how do

01:16:10

I live in the midst of a world that opposes the values of the Christians? And here's where baptism comes in, because it is a sign, and it is a seal.

01:16:20

And baptism gives us an awareness of who we are. We wear that seal understanding we belong to Christ, and he approves of us, and he enables us.

01:16:31

And that seal of baptism, like the comparison to Noah and the ark, the ark could navigate through the flood and through the difficulties of the water, and the people on the ark were saved, as Peter said.

01:16:50

And baptism is the same way. To navigate through the world, we look to our sign and seal.

01:16:58

And in the Acts 238 passage, where Peter said,

01:17:03

Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and you receive the gift of the

01:17:08

Holy Spirit. When I was preaching in the Church of Christ, I stopped there. I didn't go on.

01:17:15

And that's the problem. We need to see the flow and the context of things. The next verse says,

01:17:22

For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, even as many as the

01:17:30

Lord our God shall call to himself. So there's the calling of God, and the point is, yes, we are called by God through faith, and we, coming to faith, are justified, and we, at the sign and seal of that is baptism.

01:17:48

So put it all together. But what Henry is saying is, we sometimes leave something out.

01:17:56

Under the pretense of supporting one, we eliminate another one. I recall a situation where, in the church there,

01:18:05

Smith Springs, in the Church of Christ, we had a number of people who became

01:18:10

Reformed, and one lady had a son in a Church of Christ school. It was an elementary school or high school, and he was given an assignment, and the assignment was to memorize and write on the board, uh, all things work together for good for those who love

01:18:29

God, and she saw this. The mother saw the scripture, and she said, that's not all of it, and she told her son the rest of it, those who are called according to his purpose, and he wrote it all on board, and the teacher went over and erased that last part and said, that's not one of our verses.

01:18:51

So the matter with apparent contradictions in dealing with them is to look at them in context, to deal with all of them, and always to say, all of scripture is inspired.

01:19:03

We don't set aside any of it. Amen. And we have an anonymous listener who has a question.

01:19:10

I think it's an excellent question. Okay. Because I have often brought this text up, or these texts up, when

01:19:20

I'm having conversations with folks in the Church of Christ, when they are on the hobby horse of the necessity of immersion in water for salvation.

01:19:35

The anonymous listener says, some of my closest friends are ministers and members of Church of Christ congregations, and I've never received a satisfactory answer from any of them regarding Acts chapter 10, verses 45 through 47.

01:19:57

I was wondering if you have ever heard an adequate response in any way, shape, or form to the text which reads, all the circumcised believers who came with Peter were amazed because the gift of the

01:20:10

Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also, for they were hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting

01:20:18

God. Then Peter answered, surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the

01:20:31

Holy Spirit just as we did, can he? And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

01:20:39

Then they asked him to stay on for a few days. This is clear proof positive that these

01:20:46

Gentiles were born again, were regenerate, prior to them receiving the ordinance of baptism.

01:20:52

Have you heard, as I have asked, anybody give an adequate response in the Church of Christ to this?

01:20:59

I have never heard an adequate response to that. Obviously, when you look at it, exactly as you said, they were indeed born again.

01:21:10

They were Christians, and the water was to confirm that, who can forbid water, that these receive the same gifts as we.

01:21:19

Yes, I know there are some things that they don't deal with. Another one that's good,

01:21:27

I think, is the one in Philippians, as you've always obeyed, much more now in my absence,

01:21:37

Paul says, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Again, there's a point where you stop.

01:21:45

I stopped there and didn't go on because if you go on, it says, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do his good pleasure.

01:21:53

The power comes from God, and the outworking of that is in your actions, but you are empowered by God.

01:22:01

Context is so important in dealing with these things. Amen, and we have another question from Cindy in Findlay, Ohio.

01:22:12

Hello, Chris and Dr. Lawrence. I have a friend who believes one must repent and trust

01:22:18

Christ for salvation. She follows Ray Comfort, but also believes one can lose their salvation if they sin.

01:22:28

She believes she does not sin. I've shared much scripture with her. She says, if a

01:22:34

Christian does sin, they need to again repent, but has not addressed my inquiry regarding the following.

01:22:42

Hebrews 10 says, if we continue in sin willingly after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sin.

01:22:51

So my question is this, if they believe that they can lose their salvation and they must repent,

01:22:58

I would assume they be, I would assume, there's a little typo here,

01:23:03

I would assume they must be saved again. I believe she must have meant the right. How would this be accomplished if there is no more sacrifice for sin?

01:23:14

How do they believe they are saved again? Thank you for your response. I hope I am clear. I am enjoying and benefiting from the show.

01:23:22

Yeah, that's an extreme form of sinless perfectionism, which

01:23:28

John Wesley believed was a possibility in theory, but never believed he achieved it.

01:23:34

But that is even more severe than the Church of Christ typically has, because they obviously believe they sin every day and don't lose their salvation because of it, depending upon the severity.

01:23:50

Yeah. But if you could, and by the way, Ray Comfort would not agree with this woman who she claims to follow.

01:23:57

When I say this woman, I don't mean Cindy in Findlay, Ohio. I mean her friend who says she follows

01:24:03

Ray Comfort. Ray Comfort is a theologically sound brother. I don't believe he is a five -point

01:24:08

Calvinist. At least he at one time was not. But he would definitely not agree with this woman that if you sin, you lose your salvation.

01:24:16

That's a pretty broad umbrella, the word sin. But if you could.

01:24:23

Well, the idea of being beyond sin is simply not true.

01:24:29

Obviously, sin that goes on and on and on and we don't deal with it is a problem.

01:24:36

But John writes, if anyone says he does not sin, the truth is not in him. We do sin, and we should confess our sins.

01:24:44

And he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. And I think that should be a part of worship.

01:24:51

It is in Reformed worship, certainly in our congregation. We have a time in which the congregation as a whole acknowledges that we sin.

01:25:00

And then we go to Scripture to receive an assurance of pardon. There is no way that we are able in this life to live apart from sin.

01:25:09

It's just not possible. We're still in the flesh, and we have to fight those battles.

01:25:16

But yet there are a number of people coming up with this doctrine that you can be beyond it. And you don't need to confess your sin.

01:25:24

We've had some people in our congregation who have left because we do have a confession of sin.

01:25:32

And one cannot even join our congregation without acknowledging that fact.

01:25:37

In fact, this is a good time, I think, to bring up something very important that I think we may have ran out of time during part one of our discussion to address this.

01:25:50

The folks in the Church of Christ who believe you can lose your salvation even if you are truly saved are very correct when they are abhorred by and radically reject and oppose the heresy that is very common in especially modern -day evangelicalism.

01:26:14

That is, someone can believe they are saved and are told they are saved without question, that they are certainly saved just because of a past experience of going forward at an altar call, an invitation.

01:26:34

They may have raised their hand when they were six years old at Bible camp and accepted

01:26:40

Jesus into their heart, as the phrase goes. And that person, in many circles of evangelicalism, are told, you are a

01:26:50

Christian for the rest of your life. And if that person becomes a serial killer—I'm using an extreme example here—people who know that person in those circles will say, well, it's a tragedy that he became a serial killer, but at least we know he'll be going to heaven when he dies.

01:27:08

That is an unbiblical and wicked teaching, and we agree with the Church of Christ that it is antithetical to what the

01:27:16

Bible teaches. But the fact that we believe works are necessary as Reformed Christians, they're not necessary for a sinner to become saved or remain saved, they are necessary evidence of what

01:27:31

God has already done, am I right? Absolutely right. They confirm our salvation.

01:27:39

They follow our salvation. Our heart is changed. We need to understand that we were sinners.

01:27:46

We came into this world as sinners. The sin of Adam is imputed to us, and it is when

01:27:52

God works in our heart in a process which Jesus described as the new birth. He told Nicodemus, except a man be born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven, understand it.

01:28:02

That has to happen, that change in the heart, and that change in the heart leads to genuine trust in Jesus Christ.

01:28:10

And that trust is evidenced and manifested in the life that a person lives.

01:28:16

So to say, well, I'm saved because I went forward, or I'm saved because I got baptized, I'm saved because I held up my hand, without that genuine work in the heart is futile.

01:28:29

It's not salvation at all, and we don't teach that. But when a person has indeed put his trust in Christ and is evidencing that by, not by perfect works, of course, that'll never happen.

01:28:41

It's just said people are going to sin. But if that happens, that his life generally reflects

01:28:48

Christ, he can rest assured, and there's a basis of assurance. You know, I have said, and I want you to tell me whether you think this is an appropriate analogy.

01:28:59

I have told people who believe in a Pelagian works righteousness treadmill, although they would never call it that, obviously, but they believe that works in some way cooperate with their salvation and also cooperate with them remaining saved.

01:29:17

I have said to them, if you see a child who is a wonderful, obedient child to his or her parents, you see them mowing the lawn, you see them running errands for their parents, you see them helping the parents clean the home, keeping it orderly and neat, you see that child obeying the rules of the household, not perfectly, of course, but with regularity, and at the mark of that child's life is an obedient child to his parents.

01:30:01

Would you say that that child has become that those parents' child?

01:30:11

Did that child earn the right to be a son or daughter of those parents by what he has done or what she has done?

01:30:18

Or is that an evidence that he or she loves their parents? And that I think is,

01:30:27

I have used as an analogy, as far as people who think that we need to become children of God by earning it, and we remain children of God by continuing to earn it, rather than it's just an evidence, as Jesus said, a good tree bears good fruit and a bad tree bears bad fruit.

01:30:50

So that's a very serious distinction, isn't it? Yes, it is.

01:30:55

I mean, it's a matter of eternity when you, you know, there are many in the churches of Christ who

01:31:01

I would consider my brothers and sisters, but when you reach the extreme stage of being a full -blown

01:31:08

Pelagian, of believing that grace is not required, or perhaps is just a little nudge for you to not only become saved, but to remain saved, there you're talking about damning teaching, aren't you?

01:31:24

That's the point that I'm trying to get at. That's a totally different approach, a different system entirely.

01:31:33

And I think we've got all these variations between Pelagians and Arminians, but the point is, at the bottom line,

01:31:42

I go back to what I said earlier, what is the deciding factor in who

01:31:48

I am? And if that deciding factor is faith in Christ, trust in Christ, that is manifested by a life that corresponds to that, that is a basis for confidence.

01:32:00

I want to use an example here, again, to distinguish between legalism and salvation by grace.

01:32:10

The preacher at this church in Springfield, Missouri, East Sunshine Church of Christ, I said earlier,

01:32:18

I took notes on this sermon, and I was fascinated by it. He said, here are some two sentences, and you decide which is true and which is not.

01:32:29

One, first example, you must believe and live right to be saved. Second example,

01:32:35

God loves and accepts everyone just as they are. Well, I looked at that, and I thought, well, of course, they're both false.

01:32:42

And he went on to say, neither one of them is true. You must believe and live right to be saved is legalism.

01:32:50

But God loves and accepts everyone just as they are, that's relativism, that's antinomianism, that's extreme liberalism.

01:32:57

And he said, the third answer is the gospel. Not a fear of punishment, but an expectation of reward, not based on our own merit or righteousness, but entirely on the work of Christ.

01:33:10

Now, bear in mind, this is by a Church of Christ preacher. He said, the gospel gives us a different motivation to live.

01:33:17

And I added, not a license to sin. The gospel is good news, not good advice, announcing that we have been rescued or saved, good news about what has been done by Jesus Christ to put right our lives.

01:33:32

It is the good news that God has accomplished our salvation for us through Christ in order to bring us into a right relationship with him, and eventually to destroy all results of sin.

01:33:42

And he went on to say, that was the problem of the Jews, Roman sin. They were ignorant of God's righteousness, and they went about to establish their own righteousness, which was a righteousness of works, and obviously trying to make themselves right by their own works.

01:33:59

And he went on to say, Paul's answer to legalism and relativism, neither one will answer the other.

01:34:06

Legalism is not the answer for relativism, and vice versa. He said, both come from the same root.

01:34:11

This is important. They create a God of their own creation, a justification of their own making.

01:34:19

That's the problem with any system that has man making the ultimate decision.

01:34:25

And he says, legalism says, follow rules, follow rules, and give yourself a merit badge.

01:34:31

And relativism dismisses all the rules. And God invites us into a depth of grace that results in joy from the fact that God has saved you, and acceptance not from who you are, but who

01:34:45

Jesus is. That's what those were very good thoughts. Again, that's the Church of Christ. Amen, amen.

01:34:53

Cindy, who wrote to us earlier from Findlay, Ohio, has something that she wants clarified, because I guess we missed answering this aspect of what she wrote.

01:35:06

She says, I have shared all those scriptures with her from 1 John. My question is, if they think they could lose their salvation, and there is no more sacrifice for sin, how do they think they are saved again?

01:35:23

Well, that passage from Hebrews is, of course, a difficult one to deal with. There is no more sacrifice for sin.

01:35:30

And what God has done, he's done once and for all. You can't look to any other than Christ.

01:35:38

Now, I think one of the points in Hebrews 6 is, if grace has done all that it can do, and you still have lost your salvation, you're not saved after grace has done all it could do, there's nothing else.

01:35:53

There's no other way. There's no other sacrifice for sin.

01:36:01

And one thing that is fascinating to me is that very frequently, and I have to remind myself to be careful about how

01:36:16

I phrase things, because the Church of Christ, and I'm speaking of the Restorationist movement of the 19th century when

01:36:23

I say that, because both my guests and I believe we are in the Church of Christ, but not in the

01:36:30

Restorationist movement that was led by Thomas and Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone.

01:36:38

But a frequently taught concept is that a person who loses their salvation can be saved again, but for some reason they do not require a second baptism.

01:36:52

Have you ever heard that explained? Well, sometimes an individual, in my experience, an individual will say, well,

01:37:00

I really need to be baptized all over again, I sinned. So that's not required, but they sometimes do it.

01:37:06

But the passage in Hebrews that you're talking about says that there remains no further sacrifice, there's no opportunity if that's the case.

01:37:20

And yet the doctrine of the Church of Christ is you can come back by repenting of your sin and making acknowledgment of it.

01:37:29

And that means coming back from a state where you have lost the salvation that you once had.

01:37:37

And our position is that's impossible. You can't lose salvation, it's a gift from God, and Jesus promises that his sheep will be saved, and that all that the

01:37:50

Father gives him he will save. And that's the result of Christ's efforts. You would be denying that Christ actually succeeded in what he intended to do if that were possible.

01:38:00

It isn't possible that a true Christian loses his salvation. So if one goes into sin, no, they don't need to be baptized again.

01:38:10

Certainly they should repent of it, and Christians do sin, and Christians do sin grievously. But the way is open, and I think what

01:38:19

Peter meant to say in 1 Peter 3 .9 is God is not willing that any of his people would perish, but all of his people would come to salvation.

01:38:27

And he draws them back because they are his sheep. He will go after them and find them. Now we're going to go to a final break right now.

01:38:34

It's going to be brief, more brief than the other breaks. But I want to ask you a question that you can answer when we return.

01:38:42

Something occurred to me years ago when I was reading books by various authors within the

01:38:51

Church of Christ, and it dawned on me, and I could be wrong, but I think this is the only group of people of whom

01:39:02

I am aware. And of course I got to remember, I'm not broad -brushing here, that not everybody is in unison over these things.

01:39:11

But it's the only group from which there are teachers that I am aware who believe that you could love

01:39:19

God with all your heart and still enter into an eternity in hell because you have misunderstood how to obey the teaching and command to be baptized.

01:39:36

A Reformed person, for instance, says that those who truly love

01:39:42

God are going to be obedient to him, and they're not going to be perfectly obedient. Their lives will be marked by sin and repentance.

01:39:55

But a misunderstanding of baptism is not going to send them to hell, and yet in the

01:40:03

Church of Christ, it's the only place I've ever developed an understanding from them that you could love

01:40:10

God with all your heart, but you're wrong on that issue, you're going to hell. And if you could comment on that when we return.

01:40:16

This is our final break, folks, so if you have a question, send it in immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:40:22

Chris, arnzen at gmail .com, chrisarnzen at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

01:40:31

We'll be right back with David Lawrence right away. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here, excited to announce that my longtime friend,

01:40:52

Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading to Washington, D .C. for the

01:40:57

G3 Ministries regional conference on the theme, Just Thinking About the Bible. The conference will be held

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01:41:15

Just Thinking podcast. To register, visit g3min .org, that's g3min .org,

01:41:22

and click on events. Your registration will include a ticket to the Museum of the Bible nearby the conference venue in Washington, D .C.

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So join me and Chris Arnzen September 15th through the 17th in Washington, D .C. for the

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01:51:58

Welcome back and Dr. David Lawrence, before the break I said in reading a number of different Church of Christ authors over the years,

01:52:07

I came to the conclusion that a very prominent teaching, although it would may not be actually said in these specific words, but it's something that could be deduced from the teaching of many in the

01:52:22

Church of Christ, is that you could love Jesus with your whole heart, mind, and soul, but you have an incorrect understanding of baptism and that alone will send you to hell.

01:52:33

And that is a foreign understanding to Reform theology. In fact,

01:52:39

I don't know of any other sect or denomination within Christianity where that would be a logical conclusion, but in the

01:52:46

Church of Christ they seem to be the only one that could say, yes, you could love

01:52:51

God in every way, but if you don't get baptized in their understanding of biblical correctness, you're going to hell.

01:52:59

Yes, that is egregious, it's outrageous. I can give you an example, I could probably give you several examples, one from somebody in our family who had been a believer, he'd been baptized,

01:53:13

I think he was a Baptist, but he lived a life that was indeed consistent with Christ and his

01:53:21

Christian teaching, but he had not been baptized for the remission of sins, with that having been said and his affirming that.

01:53:32

So shortly before he died, his son, who was a preacher, and others talked him into being baptized for the remission of sins.

01:53:42

And when I mentioned to the son, I talked with him years ago, and he said he was saved, he was a

01:53:49

Christian, he didn't believe in Christ, and I don't see the need for this, and his point was, well, he wasn't baptized for the remission of sins.

01:53:58

The conclusion, he was going to hell, and shortly before he died, he was baptized. Well, that is a very good example of legalism, and I was just thinking during the break of the way

01:54:11

Paul creates a dichotomy in the letter to the

01:54:17

Galatians. He has faith versus works, he has spirit versus flesh, he has freedom versus slavery.

01:54:26

So let's take the scenario of a person who loves God with all of his heart. Why does he love

01:54:32

God with all of his heart? Because God has been at work, the Holy Spirit has been working his life to create faith, and the

01:54:40

Holy Spirit has led him into a life where he commits himself to loving

01:54:45

God, and that's freedom, by the way. So that corresponds to what

01:54:51

Paul is talking about, faith, spirit, freedom. On the other hand, when we talk about legalism, works, flesh, slavery, look at it.

01:54:59

We're saved by works, so it doesn't make any difference whether we love God or not if the works are not perfect, as we have defined it, and there are those who reserve to themselves the right to define it, and it is a fleshly thing, and by flesh

01:55:15

I mean material. This is something that is physical, and the emphasis in legalism is on the physical part of it, and baptism is that.

01:55:24

And then what they would not admit, but it's true, it becomes slavery because those who are in charge can dictate what one must do to do the right works.

01:55:35

And so it's a terrible situation, but it's a good example of the horrors and the heresy of legalism.

01:55:46

In fact, I have heard, and it's not second -hand knowledge from my own ears or in my own ears,

01:55:54

I've heard at least five different Church of Christ ministers tell me when I've had conversations with them.

01:56:02

So you're saying that somebody is just wrong on the area of baptism. They could be obedient to Christ in every other way and love

01:56:10

Christ, but they will be banished from heaven and sent to hell because they had a misunderstanding of baptism.

01:56:17

And the answer has been, well, I guess there would be an exception possibly if they were driving to the church to get baptized and were killed in an automobile accident.

01:56:29

I'm not kidding you, that is what I have actually heard from at least five different ministers in the

01:56:35

Church of Christ. So if I've heard that at least five different times, it must be a commonly uttered phrase.

01:56:41

That's charitable. Allow that exception. Oh, I used to teach the same thing, tell people who were obviously living a

01:56:52

Christian life, but you're not saved because you haven't been baptized. And I'd look back on that with a degree of shame at this point.

01:57:01

When I was hearing from my brother, my older brother Andrew, who was at the time attending a

01:57:09

Baptist church, when I was telling him that I was visiting my other brother's church where he was attending the

01:57:16

Church of Christ, my older brother Andy said, they're Roman Catholics.

01:57:22

And I was like, what are you talking about? There's nothing that resembles Roman Catholicism when you go there. There's no statues, there's no priest with a clerical collar, there's no ceremony and incense and all that.

01:57:35

And he said, no, it's basically the same thing when it comes to a constant fear that no matter who you are, no matter how faithful you are as a

01:57:45

Christian, you can go to hell at any moment. And it's a ceremony -based salvation in regard to baptism in the

01:57:54

Lord's Supper. And I have to admit, I think my brother had a valid point there. What do you think?

01:58:00

Yes, definitely. And I seized on the word fear, and I mentioned the word slavery earlier.

01:58:07

And if I may, there's a passage in Hebrews 12 that to me illustrates this difference between a legalistic system and the system of grace, because legalism always involves fear.

01:58:20

It always involves slavery. This passage, for you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of the trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them, for they could not endure the order that was given.

01:58:44

Even if a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said,

01:58:51

I tremble with fear. And you can just hear in that, the feeling of legalism, the results of it.

01:58:59

But he goes on to say, you have come to Mount Zion, and here you see grace, to the city of the living

01:59:05

God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

01:59:23

So the contrast is there. Amen. Well, we're out of time, and I want to make sure our listeners have your website,

01:59:30

Stevens Valley Church, I'm sorry, stevensvalley .church. That's S -T -E -P -H -E -N -S, valley .church.

01:59:39

Thank you so much, Dr. David Lawrence. I look forward to your frequent return to Iron Trumpet Zion Radio. And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater