Classic Friday: Getting The Gospel Right (Part 2)

Assurance, Heavy Law Preaching, and the Promise of God

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and today is part two of the mega podcast with R. Scott Clark, Pat Abendroth, Mike Grimes, Justin Perdue, John Moffitt, and your host today, Mike Abendroth.

As you know, if you listened to yesterday's show, all these podcasters got together in a room in Westminster Seminary's classroom, and we were in Escondido all together for the West Cal Conference. And Friday the 13th at five o 'clock, we recorded a large mega podcast.

We each were asked different questions. We kind of chimed in a little bit. We had a live studio audience of about 60 people that we paid to attend. One lady was there. She said she drove from Arizona.

So that was pretty good. And I said, well, who do you look forward to seeing at the conference after our podcast thing? Because the conference started at seven, our deal was at five. And she said, I didn't know there was a conference.

I thought, wow, that's pretty amazing. Anyway, got to meet lots of you listeners that I had never met before face to face. So that was fun. There were other podcasters in the room, Matt and Onik from Back to the Reformation.

They were there. Jay from Renewal Cast was there. And so it was a veritable who's who of podcasters in the room. So hopefully you'll be edified today by the show. Again, my name is Mike Ebendroth. This is part two of Getting the Gospel Right in Westminster Seminary.

Tell us a little bit about heavy handed law only preaching when it comes to assurance driving.

Either to despair or self-righteousness. That's right. You know, they're going to give you the gospel. Most, if they're evangelical, you're going to hear, well, no, you're saved. You're saved by grace alone.

But what ends up happening is, is that they're worried about you being lazy or they're worried about you not doing your part. And, you know, like any other parent that maybe has not been introduced to the gospel, you use fear tactics to manipulate people.

And that word is a very strong word, but it's true. You use fear tactics to manipulate people, than to act righteous. Like as if God's love is not enough to motivate us, we're going to use God's law and the dread of God's law instead.

I'll give you an example. I would love to see someone who's a heavy handed law preacher preach Genesis 3, right after Eve and Adam fall. What obligation does God give them? None. He's describing what he's going to do.

And Eve is realizing, hey, she's looking for something outside of her. Her eyes are not on her. So they don't walk out of the garden thinking, I need to garden well. I need to love my... No, they're looking for the promise of God to be fulfilled.

They're looking for the promise. There was no question of what God was going to do. And so I think you can look at the first gospel mission, which comes from God to Adam and Eve, and their hope is outside of themselves and the assurance of that.

And every gospel message that's going to come after that is not law-based. It can't be law-based. But yeah, I mean, all of us around this table have experienced at one point either preaching, unfortunately, law-heavy sermons, or been under those teaching.

And if you walk away and you think to yourself, I must do this in order for God to do that, you need to ask yourself, why? And if the answer is not for his glory, and not my gain, that's fine. But if it's for me to gain assurance, or it's for me to...

If it has anything to do with about my standing or affections or blessings from God, it's wrong. And that's heavy law preaching. And unfortunately, there's too much of it.

Sure. I think you get a lot of law preaching in places. John touched on this because underneath every holiness movement in the history of the church is the fear that if we tell everyone that literally everything you'll ever need now and in the future to be right in God's sight, for God to look at you and pronounce just, Christ has accomplished it.

If we tell people that, then there will not be appropriate skin in the game and people will not be properly motivated to pursue holiness. That's underneath a lot of it. And we would say, well, if this was a human endeavor, you might be onto something.

That's right. If this was natural, you might be onto something, but this is supernatural. We're talking about union with Christ by faith and having been united with Christ, we will pursue by the Spirit's work in us.

We will pursue conformity unto the law imperfectly,.

But sincerely. Justin, I like what you said about this is a reformation issue as far as recovering assurance. And maybe it would do us all better, serve us well to study Roman Catholic theology a little bit.

Sure. Like the Council of Trent, for example. And the condom, the anathematizing of assurance. And so here, maybe I'm going to preach as a Protestant and I sound.

Like a Roman Catholic, even though I say I'm not. Yeah. So Council of Trent, 15, what, 45 to 1563. There's a historian. Right. Well, so close enough. And so, thank you. So Council of Trent, you have session six, canon 24, right?

So the canons of Trent are the doctrines of the Council of Trent, right? So session six, canon 24 says something to this effect, that anyone who says that obedience, fruit, good works, or good works, excuse me, or obedience are fruit of justification received, but are not, here are two words, also serve to preserve and increase that justification, let him be anathema.

I don't think any Protestant out there, any evangelical out there is telling people that they will increase their justification through their good works, but there are a boatload of them who at least imply that you will maintain your right standing with the Lord through your performance.

No, that's right.

And that is Roman Catholic doctrine.

No, there are people saying it just that way, that you, there's a statement, an elder statement that I'm thinking of, a prominent church in the upper Midwest, where the elders say...

And the state that starts with M.

There's a couple of those.

Is Mexico a state?

It rhymes with Innesota. So the elder statement says that we preserve, maintain our justification. It's almost like the Council of Trent wrote that sentence, right? So this is what happens when you lose track of this stuff.

You know, Heidelberg Catechism solves so many of our problems, and Heidelberg is so good on assurance. Question 21, which I just had here, right? It says, you know, what is true faith? It's a certain knowledge, right?

Whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in His Word, but also a hearty trust, which the Holy Spirit works in me by my good works. Is that what it says?

I was about to say, what?

That was kind of tricksy.

Uh-oh, edit button.

You thought the Heidelberg Catechism was reformed, which the Holy Spirit works in me by the gospel that not only to others, but to me also, the forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness, and salvation are freely given, not conditionally given, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ's merits.

Then 86, so somebody's listening to this and they're screaming at their phone, their iPhone, or their Android. They're probably... If they have an Android, they're probably screaming at that for another reason.

So they're screaming at their phone saying, what about Heidelberg 86? Well, what about Heidelberg 86? Since then we are redeemed from all our misery by grace through Christ without any merit of ours. Why should we do good works?

Because Christ. Ding, ding, ding, right? Right, because Christ...

This is getting piping hot right now.

Having redeemed us by His blood, also renews us by His Holy Spirit after His own image, that with our whole life we show ourselves thankful to God for His blessing, and also that He be glorified through us.

Then also that we ourselves may be assured of our faith by the fruits thereof, and by our godly walk, when also others to Christ. So there is a place secondarily, but you start with Christ, you start with the promises, you start with the objective, you don't turn first to yourself.

That's right.

Because you'll never have assurance that way, right?

We can have our assurance bolstered by the good works that we do, but our good works are never the ground of our assurance.

When I look at myself, I don't know how I could be saved, Luther said.

That's right.

When I look to the Lord, I don't know how I could be lost.

I don't know how I cannot be saved.

Yet you do take credit for your own birth.

That's right.

And, but technically speaking, Rome did allow assurance for Paul because of special revelation and for Mary.

It's a supernatural...

Because she's Mary.

Right.

It's a miracle, basically, is what they set it up to be. And it's not a miracle. It's not a second blessing. There are not two classes of Christians and assurances of the essence of faith in itself. We don't always experience it because of our own sin, right?

Our own unbelief. But faith in itself, by definition, entails assurance.

That little book by Burkoff is quite helpful.

Assurance of the faith.

Couple parting shots.

Yeah, just a couple.

Yeah, we're going to wrap up this one.

All right, super quick.

These are related to things we've been talking about. It's important for us to know when we're talking about the law, the law cannot empower sanctification, it can only guide it, right? But what is the power of sanctification?

It is union with Christ. And so the preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments is what will do the job over the course of the Christian's life, needs to be said. And the preaching of Christ never caused anyone to sin.

It just needs to be stated, right? I mean, you didn't need any help sinning, nor did I. And the preaching of Christ is not going to cause people to sin. So we need to just put that nonsense to bed.

You heard it here. All right.

All right.

Let's pass the hat.

Here we go. You're up.

We need some special music.

How come he's not wearing headphones?

He doesn't believe in it, apparently.

I don't know.

He was trying to be a trendsetter.

How come you're sitting on a seat that's higher, trying to dominate me by your position?

I have a seat cushion, so I'm comfortable.

This kind of sounds like it could be a joke. You know, five Baptists in a Presbyterian walk into a bar.

It is true.

And six walkout Baptists.

And the Presbyterian's a teetotaler.

Oh, that might be the problem.

Sola Fide as the Instrument of Justification

Okay. This is to Scott Clark of The Heidelcast. And we're going to ask you about Sola Fide. What is Sola Fide? Why is it so vital? And thirdly, why does it seem so trendy for Protestants to miss the mark when it comes to Sola Fide?

So first up, what is it? Then what is vital? Why is it vital?

Sola Fide is a Latin expression. So are you ready for some grammar? It's in the ablative case.

This is what you came for tonight.

I'm going to Google that.

Ablative.

Ablative case. So it means it's in the instrumental case. That's what it means, right? Ablative means, in this case, it means instrumental. So Sola Fides is in the subject case. Sola Fide is in the ablative case.

Hey, you just used most of your time. So come on.

Semper Fi.

He doesn't know the answer. So he's just talking about grammar.

Pat's got an attention span of like 27 seconds. So we said it that way to say that faith is the soul, the alone only instrument by which we apprehend Christ and his righteousness. Because in the medieval church, we'd come to say that you apprehend Christ through faith.

Trusting was part of it. But obedience was also part of it. So that they turned, in effect, they turned faith into faithfulness. That's why I gave a Latin lesson, because people don't know this stuff anymore.

So we expressed it that way specifically. We don't, you won't actually see our guys saying Sola Fides, right? Very often. People, you know, occasionally, but rarely. Sola Fides is a different thing. That means faith alone.

That's right.

Right? Here we're talking about the instrument by which we receive Christ and his benefits. So in the Belgic Confession, we say that faith is the only instrument. And I just read Heidelberg 21. Faith is the only instrument.

So that's, we articulated Sola Fides precisely that way for precisely that reason. Martin Luther, as he's struggling through his basically metamorphosis from being a sort of fairly mainstream medieval theologian with the, he got some funky theology even by medieval standards when he was in university.

So he's reading Augustine as he's lecturing through the Psalms and he's turning into a young restless and Augustinian, right? That's the first stage of his theological development. He's realizing I'm not good.

I can't do what I'm being asked to do. I'm dead in sins and trespasses and grace is sovereign. Grace is free. So that's what he grasps. One of the things he, the last thing that he grasped in his development between 1513 and 15, basically 19 or so, is Sola Fide.

And it was through lecturing through Galatians, lecturing through Hebrews, and then lecturing through the Psalms again. And he said in 1519, so looking back on his life, late in his life, in a preface, he said 1519 is when I grasped that and it was after those three lectures.

And he realized faith is, there may be a sense of which faith is a virtue in sanctification, right? As a consequence, but in the act of justification, he figured out, right? That faith is the instrument that is an empty hand that lays hold of Christ because it's Christ that makes faith powerful.

Your faith isn't anything. Christ is everything. And faith is that thing that God has designed, that gift with which he has endowed us that looks away from self and away from sanctification, away from obedience, away from your good works and looks to Christ, lays hold of him, his righteousness, his obedience, his merit, right?

And that's why Sola Fide is so important because he realized that the just shall live by faith, hitherto had meant, people had understood it to mean, the just shall live by faithfulness, by covenant fidelity, right?

And you hear people saying this, right? There are lots of quote-unquote evangelicals out there talking about covenant loyalty, covenant faithfulness...

Allegiance. Allegiance.

Allegiance, right? So you get this from the New Perspective on Paul, you get this from the Federal Vision, you get this from lots of evangelical nomists, some of whom one day sound like Protestants, and the next day they sound like Roman Catholics because they don't know this distinction.

That's so true.

Right? And so there are some guys, and you guys know who I'm talking about. You're reading this guy, it's like, wow, that's really good. And then you pick up the next thing, it's like, oh, that's really bad.

That's horrible. Well, why is it so bad? Why can't... Right? Either you can ride a bicycle or you can't. Why do you keep falling off? What's wrong with you? Because you've never actually learned the doctrine of justification, Sola Fide.

What faith is in the act of justification.

Right?

So that's why that's so important. And so when you read Paul talking about faith, Galatians 3, 28, for example, it's why Paul added alone to his translation, because he said, I have to add alone. The Roman Catholic said, you can't do that.

You can't add the word alone. And Luther said, I certainly can. Right? You guys can't read Greek. I can read Greek. You people are Pope donkeys. He called them.

Something like that.

He said some other things that we don't want to say to you.

In this particular passage, he calls them Popstaisel. He calls them Pope donkeys. Right? I can read Greek. And I'm telling you that the way to get into German, what Paul is saying here is to add the word alone in our translation so that we understand what Paul is actually saying there.

So in our Belgian confession, right, which is an actual Reformed confession, the Reformed Christians hold, we actually included the word alone in our definition of faith and in our translation. So when it quotes Galatians or Romans 3, 28 there, it uses alone.

So that's our official translation.

And even if you wanted to go about it a little bit different way, as a recovering biblicist, Romans 4, 5, he justifies the ungodly. So if we're ungodly, when we're justified, faith must not be virtuous.

So Pelagius said, well, ungodly means you've just started believing, but you're not very sanctified. That's what they did. And so that becomes, to some degree, the medieval way of getting at that. But you're right.

You're exactly right that what Paul is saying is what you just said, that God justifies, not the sanctified. So remember, for a thousand years, the church said you're justified because and to the degree you are sanctified.

And you can never have assurance because you're never sanctified enough. It's by grace and cooperation with grace. You have to understand that. They all said by grace and cooperation with grace. Trent says by grace and cooperation with grace.

So when we say they teach justification by works, that's an inference. We're right about that, but that's not the language they use. So that's why sola fide is so important. And that's an acid test when you're talking with people.

Oh, I love Jesus. Great. What did Jesus do for you? Well, he made it possible for me to do my part. Right? Well, you've just turned him into a facilitator and you've made him, we actually say this in the Belgic, you've made him but half a savior.

That's right.

Scott, talk to us a little bit about repentance. So it's faith alone. Obviously, the Bible teaches repentance and sometimes you'll see Peter tell people to repent. How do we work through repentance if it's sola fide?

Yeah.

So repentance is, in a sense, the fruit of belief. Unbelievers don't repent.

That's right. Right.

Right. So now you have to distinguish here between the pedagogical order and the theological order. So pedagogically, when we're talking to people, we preach the law to them and we say, look, this is the greatness of your sin and misery.

You're in deep doo-doo before God. Right? God is angry with you every day. You're under the wrath of God.

Is that German?

Yes.

That's how John says it.

That's in the ablative.

It would technically, it would be in the dative, but that's okay.

It's donkey German.

Yeah.

It's very late Latin. Late Latin.

Yeah.

So you are in a lot of trouble before God and you're under wrath. Right? And so we say to people, you need to repent. You need to reckon with the greatness of your sin and misery. So again, the Heidelberg Catechism says, what things do you need to know in order to experience this comfort that we talk about in question one?

Three things. First, the greatness of my sin and misery. Second, how I'm redeemed from all my sins and misery. Third, how I'm to be thankful to God for such redemption. There's a whole Christian life and the whole Christian faith right there.

So how do you, from where do you know the greatness of your sin and misery? Out of the law of God. So when we call people to repent, we're preaching the law. And so you go to Acts 17, for example, that Paul preaches the law to the Athenian philosophical society.

And then he preaches the gospel of the resurrection, right? The objective accomplishment of redemption and the vindication of Jesus. And he calls people to faith. So repentance is absolutely necessary.

Anybody who has an impenitent faith has a false faith. Don't tell me you believe if you're impenitent. If I come to you and say, listen, brother, it's been somebody's come to me with some serious allegations and evidence that you're having an affair with your secretary.

Right. This is a conversation. You boys have probably had this kind of conversation. I had this conversation with a man who'd been an elder in the church. It was a long time ago. Right. Many years ago, far, far away.

And I went to this guy and he said, brother, you need to repent. And he told me to pound sand. Right now. And I told him that if you're impenitent, you're under the wrath of God.

That's right.

We ended up having to read a sentence of excommunication for him. Right. Because he demonstrated that he was impenitent. So I'm not talking about a faith that is. But repentance is not faith. Faith is looking towards Christ.

Repentance is about your sin, recognizing your sin. Right. But faith is turning away from yourself and embracing Christ. But you're not justified because you're you're penitent. You're justified by grace alone through faith alone, not through repentance or penance.

But a true faith is penitent. That's a that is a consequent condition, a consequent of being given new life to faith and union with Christ.

That's right.

Just right. And Scott, you were talking earlier about how faith is the instrument. That's important clarification. Sometimes because people we say we're saved by faith, what we mean, we're saved by Christ and we receive what Christ has done through faith.

And that distinction really does matter because like you said, it Christ is everything. He's our righteousness. He's the satisfaction for our sins. Faith is simply the vehicle through which we receive the merits of Christ.

And that matters a ton for our assurance and our peace before the Lord, because a lot of times, even if we talk about faith, many people will rise up and say, well, how much faith? Yeah, I mean, which we say any.

So the minute people start talking about the quality of your faith, that's right. They have lost the narrative.

That's right.

So the medieval church said that you have to have a faith formed by love. Which is not what Paul says. Paul says faith working through love. That's the consequence of true faith, working through love.

That's why Calvin said, right on that passage, he said, when we come to this passage, when we come to justification, we don't talk about love or good works. Right. Jesus love, Jesus good works, but not ours.

That's right.

Right. Relative to justification. So the medieval church said in Rome taught a faith that's formed by love and love was code for obedience. So that your obedience was making faith what it is. That's not true.

Christ is what makes your faith what it is.

That's right.

Because faith lays hold of him. He is the object.

Yeah.

That's the power of it. Faith is just an empty hand. That's all it is. It doesn't do any, there's nothing in faith. There's no intrinsic power in faith. Oh, I have a really strong faith.

Yeah.

Well, tell me about that. When you're on the bed in the hospital and they got tubes and beep, beep, beep.

Right.

Tell me about your faith and your sweat. You got the cold sweat because you know, you're about to die and you don't want to die and you're scared.

Right.

Now tell me about the quality of your faith and I'll talk to you about the quality of your savior.

Amen.

That's right.

And when that was happening to me and I talked to Clark, what did he say to me when I was in the hospital? Thought I was going to die. Are you evangelizing the nurses? How is your Bible memory?

How's your quiet time?

Right.

He said to me.

Really quiet.

Jesus loves you.

That's right.

And Jesus has you and there's no condemnation in those for those in Christ Jesus and you're going to be fine.

I got an illustration. None of us got here from our perspective states based upon faith. It took a plane, right? We put faith in that plane, but it was the object of the plane that carried us here. And I think that's part of what we have to remember is that the gospel is, it's the object of Christ and his work that we put our faith in that object, not just faith alone.

Machen said faith is only as good as its object.

That's right.

All right. Scott, there's only one left to go. I wonder who you're going to ask. You guys are doing great. Hang in there. We have things to give you. If you make it to the end, if you persevere, if you endure until the end, you'll be justified with Pactam gifts.

For the Pactam. And there's a little more.

There's no more questions.

That's a special, that's a special one-off.

There's a little more swag up front here.

Yeah, that's a different one.

That's something there.

All right. Pat Abendroth and Mike Grimes of the Pactam podcast. We're asking you about covenant theology. What is covenant theology? What isn't covenant theology? Who is afraid of covenant theology? And why?

Who's afraid of the big bad?

Who wrote this? I just read the questions.

That's right.

I report. You decide. And finally, why is covenant theology so important?

And add one just on your own.

And tell us about the continuity of the covenant of grace.

I knew it. I was a betting man.

This is Westminster Seminary, California. Just invite Abraham into your heart and everything will be good.

Abraham is not Moses.

He's not standing at the door. I promise you.

I just wanna know what was the best credo baptism service you've ever experienced in recent days?

It was yours. I was in Omaha in December.

Right?

I saw Scott and his wife walk in. I thought, awesome. I hope they sit within the splash zone.

It was particularly splashy that Sunday.

Yeah, we were sitting right where reformed people should, way in the back.

In the back.

Back against the wall.

Back row against the wall.

Well, don't cut yourself short. We got time.

You know what? On the lighter side, it is so much fun to do something like this because even though we have theological differences, all of us do, what unites us is in fact justification by grace alone through faith alone on account of the finished work of Christ alone.

And in so many ways, we share a sweeter fellowship than we do with people sometimes in our own circles because it's just a wonderful thing. It's why we're friends. So I praise God for that.

That's why I go and worship with Pat because he preaches the gospel.

Amen.

And the law.

And the law. And I put up with the praise song.

Hey, come on. I mean, come on, Mike.

That's it.

Shoot back, Mike. Shoot back.

Now, to Mike's defense, Scott did say also the last time he was at Omaha Bible Church, he said, you do it about as good as you can.

That's right. Technically, I said As good as it can be done.

As good as you can do, it's not really counting.

As well as it can be done.

As well as it can be done.

Okay, fair.

I've been in Nashville, but they have a cooking band. I mean, if you're going to have a band, community Bible Church, right?

Yeah, but my church doesn't. We just have a guitar.

All right.

All right.

What is covenant theology? Mike, you want to cover this one?

Go for it.

All right.

I'm here for kicks and giggles, all right?

I want to say covenant theology is the biblical way to interpret the Bible.

Come on.

It is.

That's right.

Drop a mic right there.

It sounds arrogant, but it's the biblical way to interpret the Bible because we have an inspired interpretation of the Bible. And we have an inspired interpretation of all of human history, and it's in Romans 5.

Right.

So if you follow me there in Romans 5, 12 and following, the apostle Paul, remember, under divine inspiration, explains all of human history. And he does it through federal headship. Remember, that comes from the Latin word for covenant.

So we have covenant headship in Romans chapter 5. We have the first Adam. And if I can borrow from 1 Corinthians 15, we have the last Adam. So all of human history, as far as God's dealing with humanity, it's through covenantal headship.

And so Adam was supposed to obey. That word is in Romans 5. It's describing Christ, but Adam was to obey so he would be justified, right? And not just himself, he was to be justified and all of his, to use the old language, all of his posterity, all the people he represented.

So that's federal headship. That's covenantal headship. And then we know that he didn't. We know that he, I used to say, you know, crash the train or something like that, but we have a train conductor in our church.

We had bus drivers for a while too. So I would say, you know, he drove the bus into the ditch. I can't do that either. Anyway, we know how it went. The fall happened and it led not to justification for all he represented, but it led to condemnation.

And then we have Jesus who obeyed. He did this, right? He obeyed in Romans chapter five, it says, and it leads to justification for all he represents. It's federal headship. And so covenant of works, we call it for a label or shorthand.