Saved by *Obedience to the Law in My Flesh?

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You know, on social media and on the podcast world and YouTube world, there's this ongoing debate that's happening between myself and Justin and other people that are of the

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Reformed faith. It's like we keep speaking past each other. It's paramount for the future of our churches and the hope of the gospel that we keep the gospel clear and pure.

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Justin Perdue There was a gentleman who was asked one time in an interview a few years ago, is continuing on in goodness, obedience, upright living, etc.,

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is continuing on in goodness a consequence of our salvation or is it the cause of it?

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And this theologian, this pastor's answer to that question was the ambiguous kind of humorous yes.

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In other words, it's both, right? Continuing on in goodness is both consequence and cause of our salvation to which we would respond charitably and humbly.

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That is wrong. Justin Perdue That's right. Justin Perdue That is not biblically true. There are things that we have to hold an appropriate tension in the scripture.

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No argument there, but this is not one of those things. Justin Perdue The gospel according to pietism says you are saved by grace alone through Christ alone.

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Now you better make sure that is true by your performance. That's a great definition of pietism.

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The gospel according to Jesus, I am the one who saved you. I lose none. Now rest in my power to save and spread the light of the kingdom.

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The good news is secured, and then from that Jesus says, here's what

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I want you to do. My burden is light. My yoke is easy. It's the outflow of it. I'll start with this as well.

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It's kind of a ground of where we're arguing from, but John 3 is a great example. What must

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I do to enter the kingdom of heaven? Jesus tells Nicodemus, you have to be born again, which means you can't born yourself again.

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If you have to look to your performance, then you are crediting your salvation to your obedience.

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We are not antinomians, so hear us clearly. Those who have been justified will be sanctified.

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It is a part of the new covenant promise. Those who have received the love of God will give the love of God.

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That is a promise, but it is not the means or the ground of your justification.

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It's not the cause of anything. Justin, how do I know that you're alive? I'm talking to you. I see that you're breathing and you're moving, but you didn't cause that birth.

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You see the evidence of the life that I have, but I didn't do anything to produce life in myself.

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The problem in the minds of so many people is fake Christianity. It's Christianity in name only, and so what we need to do is smoke those people out.

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We're going to do that through the standard of obedience. We almost called this podcast, Obedience Alone, as a play off of faith alone or grace alone.

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The way that some talk, the gospel is assumed of Jesus, but really where we determine who the believers are is through obedience.

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People say, John, are you saying that Christians are not required to obey? I don't like the word required because that's like saying, are you saying human beings are not required to breathe?

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I'm like, that's a weird question. I'm like, what do you mean?

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It just doesn't make sense to me because according to Scripture, if you're in the new covenant and you're alive in the new covenant and you have a new heart, according to Ephesians 2 and Ezekiel and Jeremiah, we will walk in his ways.

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It is always the fruit, the presence of. If the gospel becomes something other than news, and when you add a command on it other than, you need to believe this, but you add a command of any type of into it, it is no longer faith alone.

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I don't care if you want to yell at the top of your lungs, faith alone. I'm like, what did Paul do?

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This objection has been raised from the time the people were just going to abuse grace if you say these things.

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That's been the cry of every holiness movement through the history of the church. How does the apostle Paul respond?

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He does not double down on obedience. He doesn't double down on the law. That's not his emphasis.

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He doubles down on union with Christ, baptism into Christ, and freedom in Christ from the condemnation of the law set free unto righteousness.

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That's how he presents the whole thing and says we've now become obedient from the heart because something's happened.

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Then he's going to go on to talk about the internal war that now exists only for the believer because in your inner man you love

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God's law and you want to do good, but your flesh wages war against that. Then he's going to assure us all that there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

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He's going to talk about life in the Spirit in Romans 8. That to me is the pattern that we need to uphold.

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In Colossians or Ephesians in particular, I'm thinking about those two letters. There's all this language of put off the old man, put on the new man.

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None of that language is condemnatory. He's already affirmed these saints in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. He's written of the gospel to them. In both cases, he's giving a clear vision of the person and work of Christ, especially to the church in Colossae, as the thing that will protect them from false teaching and false practice.

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Then he's going to say, live like this. Remember too, he's writing to mostly a

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Gentile audience who have no context for the law of God, who used to live in all kinds of crazy ways.

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He says, now that you have been united to Christ, you used to be this. Now you're this. Don't live like that anymore.

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Live like this now. Put off that old man that was crucified and nailed to the cross and live now in newness of life in Christ Jesus.

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But somehow we turn that into a threat. That's the problem. Jon Moffitt Because I believe in Christ, I obey.

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Not perfectly by any sense of the word, but the difference, Justin, is that if we're not careful and people are like, you guys are splitting heritage.

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This is a nuanced conversation. Justin Perdue These distinctions make all the difference in the world. Jon Moffitt It does because what ends up happening is if your faith for justification and your faith for sanctification is not in Jesus, then you're going to be on shifting sands.

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Because if your faith is, I got in by Jesus, but I need to maintain by my flesh obedience, you'll never have enough.

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Justin Perdue That actually is what Rome taught. Jon Moffitt That's exactly what Rome taught. End by grace, and you maintain your justification through good works.

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Justin Perdue That's right. Jon Moffitt I mean, that's Session 6, Canon 24 of the Council of Trent. Justin Perdue I'll just mention this. According to the history,

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Justin, when you think about revivalism, and it kind of created this easy believism, and we're

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Christian by name only, and there's no evidence of it. There were three movements that have formulated out of that over the last 50 years, and those would be

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Christian hedonism. Responding to easy believism, right? Justin Perdue I would even say 40 years, maybe 30 to 40 years.

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Christian hedonism, for those of you that may not know Desiring God, that book, you read a lot of it.

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There's the sovereignty of God and salvation in there, but then towards the latter part of the book, all of a sudden, there's a focus on if you do not love

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God above anything else, then you should question your salvation. There is a sustainability, which is a total influence by Andrew Fuller, but this is the two -tiered justification, two -tiered salvation, where you're in right relationship with God by faith alone, but to get into heaven, one must perform.

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Again, it's a category of confusion, and it matters. I'm going to say it this way.

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The light of the kingdom is becoming dimmer and dimmer because Christians, instead of exploding, sharing the light of what they have received, they're more concerned about making sure their light is on by performance.

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It's really sad because instead of seeking first the kingdom of God because we have found our residence within the king, we're trying to seek first our entrance into the kingdom, and it's completely a flip.

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Another one of these is lordship salvation. We have talked about this. You can go listen to our episodes, but lordship salvation is definitely geared at the person who says,

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I am a Christian, but I won't make Jesus Lord of my life. I'm not going to get into that, but just an observation.

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The last one would be federal vision. They're looking at a dumbed -down version of the church. It's watered down.

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We're not taking things serious. We're not taking obedience serious. We're not taking fidelity to the covenant serious.

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Again, all of these are adding in a required righteousness in order to enter into the final rest of Christ on the day of his return.

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That is a two -tier step that is adding to the gospel, and it's dangerous at different levels.

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I need to be careful here. Some of these, I think, are confusing. They're not another gospel.

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I think it's confusing it when it comes to lordship salvation and some of what Piper says. The reason

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I make these observations is the reason why Justin and I are fighting for this, and this is Reformation week. If you lose this, you are dead in your sins.

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It's very clear we have to get the gospel clear. This is why we do these types of podcasts.

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If we don't have the gospel clear, then nothing else matters. Nothing. Justin Perdue That's true.

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What's the antidote to the fact that there are plenty of false professions out there, that nominalism is a and revivalism has borne bad fruit?

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Our response, taking our cue from the Apostle Paul and other writers in the

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New Testament, is that we double down on union with Christ by faith. We preach the gospel with as much clarity as possible.

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We preach a robust gospel. We don't just preach portions of it. We preach atonement.

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We preach satisfaction being made for sins by Christ, received by faith. We preach the imputation of the righteousness and the holiness of Christ, that his perfect life in full obedience to the law is counted to us as our obedience and as our righteousness.

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It is as though we were as perfectly obedient as he was in our place. We preach that.

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Then, of course, we preach the triumphant resurrection, where he is raised victorious. He's triumphant over the evil one.

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He's triumphant over hell. He leads out with him a host of captives. He ascends to the right hand of God the

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Father, and he's coming back. His resurrection was a validation of everything he did, and it guarantees our resurrection.

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We receive all of this by faith, and we keep preaching that. Then we're clear on the law, and so we preach the law and all of its uses.

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We preach it first in its holiness with its standard of perfection to crush us all and remind us all that none of us can do this and merit

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God's favor to drive us anew to Christ. Then we preach the law as a guide. It shows us good and bad in its second use and restrains our corruption.

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In its third use, it guides our living in Jesus, and we preach the law that way. That's the response to be, but guys, doesn't it matter how we live?

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Yes, we preach the law, but we don't preach the law as threatening to the Christian because Christ has removed its teeth, and we're not under the law.

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We're under grace. Then, finally, we live life in the covenant community of the church, where we sit under and participate in the means of grace, primarily the

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Word and sacraments, but then we also are in a context where church discipline is practiced as a restorative instrument, as an instrument of God's loving discipline to keep his people.

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Without all of this, I understand why people wig out over nominalism and fake professions, but if all of this is being done and all of this is held together as this beautiful cohesive whole, we're on the right track.

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The Lord's given us what we need. We don't need to go elsewhere outside of the Scriptures and outside of a confessional tradition to find it.

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We have the tools we need. Any final thought from you, bro, before we transition? Justin Perdue 30 -second final thought from me.

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It's so important when Paul says there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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According to John 20, how do we know that we're in Christ Jesus? I write these things about Jesus that you might believe, and in believing, have eternal life.

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It has to be faith. Then I love this when Jesus says dealing with someone who's not agreeing with God about their sin in church discipline.

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What is the final step? Put them outside the body of Christ and treat them as what? An unbeliever.

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What do we do with an unbeliever or a tax collector? We preach the gospel to them. We crush them with the law, and then we preach the gospel.

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That's right. I always find it interesting that if you truly believe someone is an unbeliever because there's no evidence of their faith, calling them to require obedience does not change their heart.

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Bro, when I say crush them with the law, I don't mean try harder. I don't mean say to them, obey better.

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I mean, you cannot do this. You are wicked beyond your wildest dreams, and your corruption runs deeper than you've ever imagined.

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You are in desperate need of atonement and absolution and forgiveness and righteousness, and Christ is it.

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The law should be busted right across the kneecaps, and they should sit there and go, I have no way to walk.