SRR 101 John Piper And The Fall of Sola Fide At The Last Judgment Part 3

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I do a podcast. I'm not interested in your podcast. The anathema of God was for those who denied justification by faith alone.

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When that is at stake, we need to be on the battlefield, exposing the error and combating the error.

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We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so, the next few statements that I'm going to make,

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I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.

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We are polemical and polarizing Jesus style. I would first say that to characterize what we do as bashing is itself bashing.

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It's not hate. It's history. It's not bashing. It's the Bible. Jesus said,

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Woe to you when men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way.

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As opposed to, Blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness. It is on.

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We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle. I think what surprised me the most is

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I discovered the origins of his belief on justification. How many reformed orthodox people have been fooled by John Piper.

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What Piper has done over the years is he has managed to work his way into a conversation on justification.

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And at the same time cloak the fact that he actually believes something that's a lot closer to Roman Catholic views on justification than actual reformed views on justification.

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What I discovered was that Piper lately is referring to initial justification by faith alone and then final salvation by faith plus works.

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But what I realized is that he actually believes and has taught that when he says final salvation, he really means final justification.

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When you put that all together, what he's teaching is initial justification by faith alone and then ongoing and final justification by faith plus works.

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And the way he's been able to manage this, and this goes back to something he wrote in 1999 when he was trying to reconcile

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Paul and James. And he said, here's how you reconcile it. Paul is talking about initial justification, which is gaining a right standing with God.

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That's how Piper defines it. And he says, and James is talking about maintaining an ongoing and final right standing with God through faith plus works.

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But notice that he changed his verbiage from justification by faith alone to maintaining an ongoing and final right standing with God through faith plus works.

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But he's already defined justification as gaining a right standing with God.

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And when you realize that that's the word he's substituting there, what he's really saying is initial justification by faith alone, ongoing and final justification by faith plus works, which is pretty much what

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Roman Catholicism teaches. In fact, when you read the Lutheran Roman Catholic Accord on Justification that you can find at the

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Vatican's webpage, their explanation of final justification that takes works into account is almost indistinguishable from what

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Piper has been teaching his entire career. And that is what shocked me. Okay.

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Thank you for joining us today on this very important episode of Semper Reformanda Radio, as we dig into the justification controversy to tackle some of the issues with John Piper's view of final salvation by works.

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My name is Tim Shaughnessy and I have Carlos Montijo with me, who is my regular co -host and the author of the article titled,

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When Protestants Err on the Side of Rome, John Piper, Final Salvation, and the Decline and Fall of Sola Fide at the

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Last Day. Now, what you just heard in the intro was a clip of Timothy F. Kaufman from our episode on Trinity Foundation Radio, episode one with Steve Matthews.

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And we would recommend our listeners to read the articles on the Trinity Foundation that pertain to this issue and listen to that episode of Trinity Foundation Radio for more on this topic.

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It was an honor to be a part of that. And so I want to give a special thanks to Tom Joditis and to Steve Matthews for that.

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And today we're going to touch on some of the points that Timothy Kaufman brought up. And we certainly touched on some of them in the last episode.

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We attempted to show that Piper's view of final salvation is really final justification.

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And we tried to show that it has more in common with Rome's view of justification rather than the

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Protestant, and more importantly, the biblical view of justification. Unfortunately, however, some people, some evangelicals, seem to want to defend

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Piper by saying that he's not teaching a strict Roman Catholic view of justification. But I want to submit that this only highlights their own confusion.

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These people tend to think that unless one articulates Rome's view of justification the same way that Rome articulates their own view of justification, then they can't be committing the

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Galatian heresy. These so -called Protestants don't seem to realize or understand that Rome commits the

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Galatian heresy while not articulating the Judaizers view of justification. Since when did

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Rome advocate circumcision was necessary for justification? So be sure to listen to part two of that series for more on that.

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And let me also just go ahead and give an update from the last episode we did. As many of our listeners know,

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I did reach out to Todd Friel and Phil Johnson. I started a Twitter account. I've never gotten on Twitter, but I started one.

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I've got like four followers. I had like zero followers when I actually tagged them.

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I started a ministry Twitter account. You can follow us at Thorn Crown Ministries.

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You can look for that. I did reach out to them.

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I also sent Todd Friel an email. He replied to me by email and he said that he was going to listen to the episode.

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So I'm grateful for that. I do pray and hope that they will eventually come to terms with what we're trying to point out.

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And that they'll join us on the battlefield to defend the gospel from John Piper who obscures it.

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It's interesting because I listened to the tail end of the last episode where we played the clip of John MacArthur calling out

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N .T. Wright for his errant views on justification. And I think that a lot of people would applaud

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MacArthur for doing that. They would point to MacArthur as an example of someone who's defended the truth, who's called somebody out, and who's really defended the gospel from somebody who would obscure it.

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But I also think that a lot of those same people who would applaud MacArthur for calling out N .T.

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Wright would take issue with what we're doing. Well, as a matter of fact, I know that they would because some of them have.

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They would claim that we're not being careful, that we're not being charitable. They would claim that...some

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would even go as far as to claim that we're in sin, that we're slandering Piper. But what we're doing is really not much different than what

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MacArthur did. And I think probably the main difference, if there is a difference, is that Piper is in our camp.

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He's one of our guys. And what I mean by that is that he's a Calvinist in good standing. He's a very popular and prominent conference speaker who most recently spoke at Together for the

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Gospel in G3. And dare I say that he's a member of the Good Old Boys Club, as some would like to say.

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But the point is that N .T. Wright really isn't associated with the life and ministry of the people within our camp.

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But John Piper is. And, I mean, again, he's speaking at conferences with all of the guys that we read, all of the guys that we listen to.

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And so we place him squarely in our camp. So the question is, are we willing to call out somebody in our own camp?

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And this reminds me of Paul's exhortation to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, verses 26 through 32.

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Let me just go ahead and read that. It reads, Therefore, be alert, remembering that for three years

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I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears. And now

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I commend you to God and the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

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And that's the end of the passage. It would be completely naive for us to think that this couldn't happen to us today.

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And this did happen. And if you're reading in Revelation, the

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Ephesian elders did judge these false teachers rightly. But it would be naive to think that there couldn't be teachers to arise from among us within our own camp who really are nothing more than fierce wolves because they obscure the gospel.

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Let me go back to the passage. Paul says to, quote, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the

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Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

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So this is also why I'm not really a big fan of conferences. How many people at conferences today are being touted as celebrities and promoted and their ministries are being recommended and their books are being sold and even given away who, dare

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I say, have some questionable theology and some questionable views and are promoting some stuff that we wouldn't necessarily want to promote ourselves or want to get into the church?

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Now, obviously, I think John MacArthur and R .C.

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Sproul, you know, they partnered and together and did conferences. And so I'm not being a complete separatist, but I think at some point we do need to separate from people.

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And just to give you one example, one of my friends from church told me that his son attended a conference recently, and one of the books at the conference that they gave away was from John Piper, who is also a main speaker at the conference.

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But the book is titled Expository Exaltation. And my friend read through the book and pointed out just how problematic it was, because on one page,

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Piper talks about justification, and it seems to be absolutely correct in line with biblical orthodoxy.

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And then on the next page, he's talking about final salvation, and it just completely unravels the doctrine of justification.

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And I really appreciate my friend. His name is David. I really appreciate him for his willingness to cover his own house and taking a stand against errant teaching like this.

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David has been a constant source of encouragement to me personally, and I think he's come a long way, because I think he had a hard time seeing some of the stuff that we were pointing out initially.

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And so, he keeps telling me to be patient. Really, he just keeps telling me to be patient.

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So, I'm trying, David. I'm trying to be patient. But I really appreciate him taking the time to point this out to me.

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And here's the thing. When one comes to realize that Piper can seemingly say all the right things about justification, but they realize that for him, he's redefining justification where God is just 100 % for you, but justification doesn't get you into heaven, then

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I think that it's easy to understand that though he may say the right things sometimes, and use

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Orthodox language and Orthodox terminology, he really means something different than what

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Protestant Orthodoxy teaches. And so, Carlos, I want to hand it over to you.

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As you pointed out in both of our last episodes, to get justification wrong is to get

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Christianity wrong. So, I do want to pull from this book, Expository Exaltation by John Piper in our discussion today.

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But let me go ahead and ask you to lead us into fatal flaw number two. Yeah. So, the reason regarding why we're spending a significant amount of time to this issue is that it is a pervasive problem in evangelicalism, in Protestant churches, in Reformed churches, in Baptist churches.

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And the reason this is so important, Piper is like a quintessential example of this problem of this initial, final salvation and justification.

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And the reason Piper is particularly dangerous is because he tries to be more careful than most about distinguishing his view from Roman Catholicism and other errant views and still appear

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Orthodox. And so, one of the big things is that what we're doing is that if you refute

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Piper and his understanding of final salvation, you refute all of the other views, including

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Federal Vision, New Perspective on Paul, any view, Roman Catholicism, any view that espouses this initial and final stage of salvation or justification.

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These fatal flaws apply to all of those false teachings.

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And so, that's why it's so important for people to pay attention to what we're talking about because it applies to all of that.

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And so, as you mentioned, this second point, some of this is a little bit idiosyncratic to Piper, mainly because he's just inconsistent.

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But it's an important point that nobody seems to be talking about or picking up. And you quoted

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Kaufman for good reason because he pointed this out in his article that he wrote about Piper.

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And so, he basically asked the question, is there such a case as a person receiving present justification and not maintaining right standing with God through good works?

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So, Piper will, of course, claim that the answer is no, but not surprisingly, and this really is not a surprise, his own words betray him once again.

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There's an extended quote from his book called What Jesus Demands from the World. This was back in 2006.

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He says this on page 160. Jesus says that doing the will of God really is necessary for our final entrance into the kingdom of heaven.

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Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of the Father who is in heaven.

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Matthew 7 .21. He says that on the day of judgment, he really will reject people because they are workers of lawlessness.

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Then will I declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Matthew 7 .23.

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He says, get this, he says people will go away into eternal punishment because they really failed to love their fellow believers.

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Quote, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. Matthew 25 .45 -46.

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He continues, there is no doubt that Jesus saw some measure of real, lived out obedience to the will of God as necessary for final salvation.

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Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother. Mark 3 .35. So the second historic answer to the question, how is

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Jesus the path to perfection, has been that he enables us to change. He transforms us so that we really begin to love like he does and thus move forward, move toward perfection that we finally obtain in heaven.

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So he completely contradicts himself. This is part of what I quoted in the thesis of the article that Piper does a very poor job of harmonizing scripture and his own thoughts.

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He plainly contradicts himself and not only that, he says,

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I quote, people will go away into eternal punishment because they really failed to love their fellow believers.

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He's talking about Christians not making it to heaven because they failed to love their believers.

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That is damnable. That's just like Rome. That's what

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Rome says. That's practically the same thing. And again, this is the same, this was back in 2006.

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So, I mean, it's astounding. Again, this is so bad. So Kaufman writes about Piper, he says this,

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Piper's 2006 work was written to instruct Christians on the need to obey Jesus' commands. We agree that Christians are to obey

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Jesus. One rather disconcerting observation, however, is found in demand number 21, in which

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Piper explains that Jesus will send some believers to hell, quote, because they really failed to love their fellow believers.

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We cited this example above, the same example above, to show that Piper means, quote, final salvation, final justification.

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When he speaks of final salvation, we return to it now to demonstrate that Piper's wavering on justification is due partly to Daniel Fuller's tutelage and partly to his own confusion.

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To arrive at his conclusion that Jesus will send some believers to hell, Piper combines

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Matthew 7, 23, depart from me, ye that work iniquity, and Matthew 25, 41 -46, depart from me, ye cursed, inasmuch as ye did not.

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Piper thus shows that Jesus will send some people, quote, away into eternal punishment because they really failed to love their fellow believers.

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The two passages, however, say nothing of the sort. Piper assures us that that could never happen.

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Quote, none who is located by faith in God's invincible favor will fail to have all that is necessary to demonstrate this in life.

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That's page 210 of the same book. If so, then in what way does

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Jesus really send some of our, quote, fellow believers to hell on the last day?

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So Piper, I mean, Kaufman puts the question very poignantly. That's a blatant contradiction to his own theology and Protestant theology, the

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Bible, I mean, it contradicts everything by a long shot. It is, that is horrendous.

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Well, and I think one of the main problems with that is that he completely misunderstands

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Matthew 7, 21 -23. Because he basically says that these people, and he quotes that they're lawless at the end, which he's right, that they are lawless, but that they are the ones who did not do the will of the

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Father, which he takes to be Christian obedience. And as we've pointed out before in this podcast, that is not what

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Matthew 7, 21 -23 is talking about. Especially that's not what it means to do the will of the

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Father. And so we are going to take a little bit of a break in a moment.

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Not yet, but during the break I want to play a sermon clip from John Robbins, who is the former president of the

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Trinity Foundation. And he gives a great exposition of Matthew 7, 21 -23.

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So I just want to play that for people. But Carlos, what do you have to say about that, about Piper getting that verse exactly backwards?

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Yeah, there's a couple of problems with the quote from Piper above that we just quoted.

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So later on we're going to talk about how he actually undermines the glorification of believers with his claim that quote, that Jesus quote, transforms us so that we really begin to love like he does and thus move toward perfection that we finally obtain in heaven.

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So mark those words and we'll come back to them in a later flaw. But like you said, he also completely twists

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Matthew 7, 21 -23 by making believers present their good works on the final judgment in order to attain heaven.

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This is partly why I mentioned earlier that Lordship Salvation is dangerously inconsistent because unfortunately in this area they overlap with Piper.

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Lordship Salvation has the same understanding of Matthew 7, 21 -23 on this point.

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I'm planning to write more about this later on about MacArthur and the Lordship view. But MacArthur also has several sermons and books where he explains that the mark of the true believer here is obedience.

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And the passage is teaching the exact opposite. It's just not what

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Christ is saying at all. So to quote

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Piper again, he says, There is no doubt that Jesus saw some measure of real lived out obedience to the will of God as necessary for final salvation.

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And this is however exactly what Christ condemns on that passage, not advocates.

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He condemns that because he's condemning these professing believers who are presenting their own good works as their hope of attaining heaven on the final judgment.

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It is exactly what Christ is condemning. It's so ironic because if we quoted the passage, verses 22 and 23 say,

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Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name?

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And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.

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So they're quoting their good works to Christ. Christ is condemning them and saying, depart from me.

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And all they did was quote their good works to Christ. Because that's not what gets you into heaven.

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This is lethal. This is why it's a false gospel. This is why it's false teaching. This is lethal.

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This will not get you into heaven, folks. You need to pay attention very carefully. He just said, the very thing that Christ condemns is what

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Piper is advocating. Final judgment. What are you going to do when you show yourself to God?

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Are you going to present all your good works like these religious legalists who had it completely backwards, just like Piper does?

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Or are you going to say, nothing in my hands I bring, only to thy cross

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I cling? Are you going to cling to Christ alone or to your works? Because your works are not going to get you in.

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Right. And the question is, what are you hoping in? Are you hoping in your own inherent righteousness?

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Are you hoping in your own good works? I think of that old hymnal, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

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And so are you going to, I mean, that's going to be my song for that day. I'm not hoping in anything other than the blood of Jesus and His righteousness.

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And so we've already shown extensively throughout the years and through multiple quotes that Piper would have you appeal to your own good works on that final day in order to render a verdict in Christ's courtroom to get you into heaven.

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And that's exactly like you said, Carlos, that's exactly what these people do in this passage.

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And so let's go ahead and highlight, what does it mean to do the will of the Father? Well, this is synonymous with belief.

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And in John 6, 40, it says, And this is the will of Him who sent me, that everyone who sees the

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Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise Him up at the last day.

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So you ask in your article, what is required for heaven? In other words, it is faith alone, and the righteousness of Christ alone.

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So it's really unfortunate that, I mean, Piper gets it precisely backwards.

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And he actually, like you said, he actually advocates that we do the very thing that Christ Himself condemns, because he confuses this with Matthew chapter 25.

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And what's interesting is that Timothy Kaufman points out that the people in Matthew 25, they are separated as sheeps and goats before their works are ever evaluated.

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And so you don't need to prove that you are one of His. He knows who you are.

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But Carlos, I wanted to, so I got this book from my friend,

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David. It is very problematic, but I wanted to read some of it to you and just get your perspective, because I know that this is probably going to eventually come out, and I just wanted to hear your thoughts on this.

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The book is titled, again, Expository Exaltation.

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And on page 242, it reads,

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And then in the next section, he says, Okay, so one of the things that I wanted to highlight is, here he qualifies it by professing believers.

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Because somebody might read this and say, well, what

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Piper really meant was just professing believers, people who say that they have faith, right?

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These would be hypocrites. But what I found to be interesting was that these professing believers, he says it again, could perish if they fail to press on in faith and obedience.

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And so there it is again, whether you want to dismiss it, I mean, these guys have to press on in obedience.

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And so we're not antinomian, we're not saying that a person, so it's conditional.

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And that's what I want to say is that it's conditional. You not perishing is conditional upon you pressing on in obedience as well as faith.

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And there just seems to be this confusion. And the very last sentence in this paragraph, it says,

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So it does seem like he's sort of confusing categories here. Because he's not just talking about professing believers, he's also talking about, he qualifies them as believers at the end of the paragraph.

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And well, let me just ask you, what are your thoughts on this?

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And I sent you the stuff earlier. Yeah, he's very inconsistent.

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And he keeps, you know, that was 2018, that was this last year, right?

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That book was published last year? Yes. Yeah, so, and you know, people might say, well, he's obviously doesn't believe that because look at what he just said, what we just played.

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And it's like, folks, you can download what Jesus demands from the world for free from his website right now.

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He has not revised it, it's still there. And so far as he, unless he revises it or plans to, it's still there.

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And he has revised other books before like Future Grace. Why hasn't he revised this then?

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It's still out there, you can get it right now. Well, the other thing that I wanted to point out is that you need to be able to look past the terminology and the words that he uses, which are very

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Christian and really get down to what does he mean? Let's go ahead and qualify what

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Piper means by a believer. And so even if somebody wants to say, you know, well, he says professing believers, so these may not actually be true believers.

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They might be, you know, just people who say that they're Christians, but they're really not, right? Well, there's still a problem because what

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Piper qualifies as a true believer is one who believes that they're getting into heaven has something to do with their works.

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And unfortunately, folks, that is a false convert. That is a false believer.

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And if you go back to Galatians, Paul identifies the Galatian heretics as false brothers who snuck in to spy out their freedom.

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He calls them false brothers. And so this is not what a believer, what a true saved believer believes, because this is not the gospel.

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And furthermore, in the very next section, and I want to read this because this is really bad.

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In the very next section, Piper writes, you need to settle this matter in your mind. It will make a huge difference in the urgency with which you preach.

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Consider the implications of the following passages of scripture as you read them and ask,

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Do these passages teach that a real, practical, lived out holiness is the only path that leads to final salvation?

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And then he gives a bunch of passages of scripture. One of them is

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Matthew 7, 22 through 23, which is what we just went over. So Piper would, again, appeal to Matthew 7, 21 through 23 to say that, let me read this again.

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A real, practical, lived out holiness is the only path that leads to final salvation.

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Folks, that is a false gospel. That's a false gospel. And of course, listed among the other verses are his famous, the ones that he harps on all the time.

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2 Thessalonians 2 .13, Hebrews 12 .14, just the same ones that he harps on all the time.

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Hopefully, we're going to get to those other passages of scripture. But let me tell you, none of these passages of scripture teach us that real, practical, lived out holiness is the only path that leads to final salvation.

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Faith alone and Christ alone and the finished work of Christ alone, imputed to you through faith alone, is the only path that leads to eternal life and final salvation.

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That's it. And so we have Piper trying to give people assurance by saying, if you've been justified, you definitely, definitely will be glorified and you definitely will get through that courtroom and you definitely will get into heaven.

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And he tries to give them this assurance. But unfortunately, and this is really, really important.

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This is what everybody needs to hear. This is a false assurance because it rests in a false hope.

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If you hope to get through the courtroom, the Christ courtroom, which by the way, for believers, you're not going to go into a courtroom.

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But if that's your perspective and you hope and you die expecting that you're going to have to present your good works and you hope to present your good works and you're thinking about all the stuff that you've done and you plan on saying, well,

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I've done this and I've done that. You are the person standing in Matthew 7, 21 through 23 who say, did

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I not do this? Did I not cast out devils? Did I not do many mighty works in your name? And unfortunately, if you appeal to that, if you hope in that you are believing in a false gospel and Jesus is going to say to you, depart from me, you worker of lawlessness.

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And that is the real danger that people are in with this. And so it reminds me of our old episodes where we used to play a clip from Paul Washer and the clip went something like this.

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There are many people who do not want to hear the truth because it'll shake up the false hope that they have that they're going into heaven when indeed they're not.

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That is certainly the case here because there's so many people that if that is their hope, then that's a false hope.

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And if that's their hope that they're going into heaven, by which they're going into heaven, there's,

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I mean, Christ is of no advantage to you because you've forfeited the gospel. And so again, when you tell people this, when you say that you will get through the final judgment by your good works and that you have to have an inherent righteousness, that's exact.

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You're giving them a false gospel. You're giving them a false hope because that's what they think gets them into heaven.

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And it's almost like when you're talking to a Roman Catholic, they think that Mary is the co -mediatrix.

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And so they think, well, Mary takes part in my salvation and takes part in me getting into heaven.

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And when you tell people that, that's what they hope in. That's what they hope in, folks. That's a false gospel. So it really, it doesn't matter how much you want to defend this, how much you want to nuance it.

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This is extremely dangerous theology. And what really, I really wish that people would rise up and speak out against this because I'm so, so grateful for my friend,

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David, who sees the problem and is willing to take the stand that he's taking because he read this book and he said, nope.

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So Carlos, did you have anything more that you wanted to add to that? Or did you just want to go on to point number three?

38:47

A couple of things. So we need to make some distinctions because, and we talked about,

38:55

I encourage people to go back and listen to the episodes that we did about Lordship Salvation and Assurance.

39:00

When we had Grace Book Gary on and talked about this stuff because assurance is based partly on works.

39:11

Your assurance is based partly on your works, but it is not of the essence of faith.

39:16

That's the key distinction. So that is why it's okay because in 1

39:23

John it says, this is how you know that you know God by obeying him. That's how we have assurance in this life.

39:31

Full biblical assurance includes works. And so, but that assurance is a self -examination and it's a proving to others, other men, that you are saved.

39:45

That's not going to account for anything when you are at the final judgment.

39:51

That's not what those works are for. That's not going to prove your justification on the final judgment.

39:59

Those are only works that contribute to your assurance, the good works that contribute to your assurance, but that is not of the essence of faith.

40:07

And therefore, works do not play a part in your justification, in your faith.

40:13

And so, the other key thing to keep in mind, and I talk about this in the article, is that when we're talking about this issue, these are key passages in the

40:26

Bible. They are bookend doctrines. They are bookend passages that really test somebody's theology and how consistent it is.

40:35

And so, Matthew 7, James 2, 14, and following Hebrews 14, 12, or Hebrews 12, 14,

40:46

I forget what it is, the holiness without which no one will see God. All of these are bookend doctrines. They are bookend passages that will demonstrate how consistent you are with Scripture.

40:55

And in this point, Piper fails completely. Because it is not your works that are going to get you into heaven, that are you going to pass your final judgment.

41:04

Your final judgment has already been passed by Christ Himself. So, I think a fitting way to end this section is by a slight modification to that famous hymn.

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My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. My hope is built on nothing less and nothing more than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

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Nothing more. Nothing added. Only the blood and only the righteousness of Christ is going to get you into heaven.

41:37

Right, yeah. So, let's do this, man. We want to press on to point number three.

41:43

And we're just going to take a little bit of a break so I can play that sermon clip by John Robbins to cap off this section.

41:51

And we will be right back with fatal flaw number three. In verse 21, he begins, he says,

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Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my

42:09

Father in heaven. In this passage, these three verses are frequently misunderstood passage of Scripture.

42:18

At first glance, Christ seems to be teaching salvation by works. He contrasts those who say,

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Lord, Lord, but do not work with those who he says do the will of my

42:33

Father in heaven. That's the superficial reading of this passage.

42:39

That's what it seems to say. The 1994 catechism of the

42:44

Roman Catholic Church cites this very verse to support its view that, and I quote from the catechism of the

42:53

Catholic Church, each one of us should hope with the grace of God to persevere to the end and to obtain the joy of heaven as God's eternal reward for the good works accomplished with the grace of Christ.

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That's a quote from the Catholic catechism, 1994. Even some non -Catholics have the same understanding of this passage.

43:20

They refer to Christ's message as a message of works here. But if you look at that passage a little bit more closely, as we intend to do this morning, perhaps we'll see something slightly different.

43:33

It appears to say, it appears to contrast here in this verse, people who say,

43:40

Lord, Lord, but do not obey or do not do any works with those who do the will of my

43:48

Father in heaven. And the warning is that Christ offers or appears to be here is that not everyone who says these words, not everyone who acknowledges

43:58

Christ as Lord will go to heaven, but only those who actually do the will of my

44:04

Father in heaven. And that, of course, seems to contradict other passages of Scripture in which simple belief, simple faith is offered as the way of salvation.

44:21

He mentions doing in verse 21 here. If you contrast that with Acts 16, 31, for example, where the statement is, believe on the

44:32

Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Or you contrast it with Romans chapter three, verse 28.

44:41

A man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.

44:47

And Romans four or five to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly.

44:59

His faith is counted for righteousness. So there seems to be perhaps a difficulty in understanding what

45:08

Christ is saying in verse 21, but I trust it won't last long. But we are faced with the immediate question here, is

45:16

Christ teaching legalism? And I'm using legalism in the strict sense. Is he teaching salvation by obedience to law or salvation by works?

45:27

Is that what he's teaching? If so, then we have a problem with other passages of Scripture which teach that salvation is through faith alone.

45:39

But there's still that nagging question. What does verse 21 mean? Christ had said back in verse 21, not everyone who says to me,

45:51

Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my

45:56

Father in heaven. What does the phrase doing the Father's will mean if it doesn't mean works?

46:06

What does this phrase mean if it doesn't mean works? It certainly appears to be works.

46:12

He who does the will rather than he who says. Well, Christ used the phrase and similar phrases as a synonym for belief.

46:26

Look at John 640. This is the will of him who sent me that everyone who sees the sun and believes on him may have everlasting life.

46:37

That's the will of the Father. John 6, 28 and 29. Then they said to him, what shall we do that we may work the works of God?

46:51

Jesus answered and said to them, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he sent.

47:00

This is the work of God that you believe in him whom he sent.

47:07

At another point when Jesus's mother and brothers were desiring to see him, he ignores them.

47:18

Matthew 12, 50 says, whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.

47:28

He's not suggesting that they didn't do the Father's will and that they did no works. But whoever believes in him is my mother and my brother and my sister.

47:43

Alright, we are back with Fatal Flaw number three and Carlos, I think just for the sake of time,

47:49

I took a lot of time going over some of this because I was reading from the new book that I got from Piper, which

47:56

I do not recommend to anybody. I do disagree with some of the concepts of final salvation, so stay away from it.

48:07

But Fatal Flaw number three, this is a pretty long section and I think that it would probably be helpful if you just lead us into it.

48:16

The title is The Analytic Justification of the

48:22

Believer. And what you contrast is the Protestant view of forensic synthetic justification with Rome's view of analytic justification.

48:33

And you basically point out that Piper errs on the side of Rome. So why don't you lead us into this?

48:41

Yeah, so this is a bit of a historical theology issue here because this is what divided

48:51

Protestants and Roman Catholics on justification. And Piper contradicts the very heart of the very definition of the

49:05

Protestant understanding of justification. Because we're not just talking about forensic justification, we're also talking about synthetic justification.

49:14

Meaning that it is not our personal righteousness because we have none. You know,

49:21

Romans three, there are several passages that talk about us not having any personal righteousness apart from the

49:29

Spirit of God. But it's Christ's righteousness which is outside of us, it's foreign, it's extranos.

49:36

That's the Latin phrase for it. It is alien and that is the foreign righteousness that is imputed to us.

49:44

It's exclusively the righteousness of Christ that makes us just and makes us worthy of entering heaven.

49:52

Rome, however, has a view called analytic justification which is essentially synonymous with subjective justification.

50:01

Meaning that in the words of the Council of Trent, we are not only reputed but are truly called and are just.

50:10

Receiving justice within us, each one according to his own measure. This obviously requires inherent righteousness and good works at the last judgment.

50:19

And this is the very thing that Piper affirms. I quote again, love and obedience, inherent righteousness is required for heaven.

50:29

So you can see here these differences are black and white.

50:37

The Protestant understanding of synthetic justification is that it is not one iota of our own righteousness justifies us.

50:47

And so this includes the final judgment because that's what justification is talking about.

50:53

It's the eschatological judgment brought forward the moment you believe.

50:59

You are finally justified the moment you believe. And you will no longer come into judgment which is what

51:08

Christ said in John 5 .24. He shall not come into judgment. There is no more judgment for believers with respect to attaining heaven, acquiring heaven, meriting heaven, gaining heaven.

51:21

We already have eternal life. John 3 .16, he who believes shall have everlasting life right now.

51:31

Right now. It's not a matter of waiting to be tried to see if we have enough good works.

51:40

So there's a lot of good quotes that I provide. There's a good quote by R .C. Sproul. So I encourage people again to look at the article and read it carefully.

51:49

James Buchanan, again who we mentioned earlier, the Scottish Presbyterian, in his book on justification says, that justification is a legal or forensic term and is used in Scripture to denote the acceptance of anyone as righteous in the sight of God.

52:06

So what does this mean? This means that whenever God justifies a sinner, he legally pardons him and reckons him righteous.

52:16

So that there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the

52:22

Spirit. That's Romans 8 .1. There is therefore now no condemnation. There is no final judgment awaiting you to see if you had enough love and obedience and good works to see if you went away into eternal punishment instead of eternal life because you failed to have enough works to amount to anything in the final judgment.

52:46

It contradicts the fundamental message of the Bible. Synthetic justification is final, irreversible, definitive, and extends even to the last judgment.

53:02

That is the Protestant understanding of justification. Piper's understanding of justification by faith alone and final salvation at the last judgment with works involved is not the historic

53:14

Protestant understanding of justification at all. But it is the understanding, obviously, of people like Federal Visionists, Roman Catholics, New Perspective on Paul, etc.

53:30

This is basic Bible stuff. The believer has already been legally and eternally pardoned on the cross of Christ.

53:42

This is 1 Peter 2 .24.

53:54

Why else did Christ proclaim that it is finished? If it's done, it's done.

54:00

There's nothing left to do. The judgment is over. It's done. The veil was rent.

54:07

We now have full access to the throne of grace. The throne of grace, not judgment. It's basic Bible teaching.

54:17

Again, Piper mentions hardly none of these verses. He doesn't account for them because they don't fit in his system.

54:23

They clearly don't fit. They don't make sense in his system. I appreciated the quote that you gave from Jonathan Limbaugh, who you said rightly explains that justification is

54:33

God's final judgment. Then he quotes, as Wilfred Jost writes, there is no second decision after justification.

54:47

One of the things that I really appreciate that you did, Carlos, is you have quoted

54:54

Reformed Protestants heavily. You've quoted the catechism.

55:03

You didn't just quote the Westminster, right? You quoted the Dutch. Heidelberg.

55:10

Belgic. One of the things that Piper says is that his view is right in line with the entire…

55:19

He says it's the mainstream. How does he say it? He says, my answer is the answer of the entire mainstream of the

55:28

Reformed tradition. Really, not just Calvinists would talk this way. Many others would as well. Wrong.

55:35

Obviously, man, that is just not true because you are quoting the confessions and you're quoting

55:42

Protestants who just completely contradict what

55:51

Piper is teaching. Yeah. To give a little explanation, this is why it's called the analytic justification of the believer because it's not the synthetic justification of Christ's righteousness imputed to us that gets us into heaven.

56:09

It's your own analytic justification that requires personal good works. That's what it means to be analytic.

56:18

In order to be reckoned righteous in the sight of God according to the analytic view, you have to be actually or inherently righteous.

56:27

That's why it requires personal holiness and good works. That's what the Roman Catholic Church teaches. That's exactly what

56:33

Piper teaches. It's a personal, inherent, and experiential righteousness through the cooperation of good works, which is exactly what

56:41

Piper teaches. It really doesn't matter at all that Piper says, well, all of these good works are by the grace of God and he works through you.

56:52

He's the decisive worker. He's the one who enables you to do these things.

56:57

You can't really do any of these good works apart from him. He gives credit to God for his ability to do these good works because, again, that is exactly what

57:08

Rome teaches. That's why they can say it's all by grace. This is exactly what

57:13

Timothy Kaufman pointed out. These arbitrary distinctions, when people try to make that distinction,

57:21

I've had people say, well, yeah, but I couldn't do any of these good works unless it was by the grace of God. Okay, well, you're still hoping in your good works, and that's a huge problem.

57:32

Rome basically says the same thing. Yeah, and Piper affirms forensic righteousness.

57:40

He affirms it, and I quote him affirming it. He has an article called,

57:47

What Do You Believe About Justification By Faith Alone? And he says, This reality of forensic righteousness, which is imputed to us on the first act of saving faith, as the seed of subsequent preserving faith, is different from transformative sanctification, which is imparted by the work of the

58:01

Holy Spirit through faith in future grace. That's an article from 2006. So he affirms it, but, again, he contradicts it.

58:10

He's a both -and kind of guy. And the Bible is exclusive.

58:15

These are mutually exclusive categories. You can't have both. It's one or the other. You can't have analytic and synthetic righteousness.

58:24

That's a contradiction. Well, and it's not just one or the other. When you adopt the other, you…

58:31

Abandon the former. Yeah, you abandon the gospel when you adopt the other view. And so he affirms it, but he contradicts it because, according to him, believers cannot be forensically justified now.

58:47

They can't be because they have to wait until final judgment to present their good works, face the evaluation, the trial, the forensic trial and judgment of God, to see if they are deemed worthy of heaven.

59:04

So, and here's another quote from Piper. He uses legal language.

59:10

Note, again, the legal language of the believers admittance to heaven after they first demonstrate their analytic righteousness publicly in the judgment hall of Christ, in Piper's own words.

59:21

Our deeds will reveal who enters the age to come, and our deeds will reveal the measure of our reward in the age to come.

59:28

It sounds to many like a contradiction of salvation by grace through faith. Ephesians 2 .8 -9 says,

59:34

By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

59:40

Salvation is not of works. That is, works do not earn salvation. Works do not put

59:45

God in our debt that He must pay wages. That would contradict grace. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through our

59:54

Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 6 .23 Grace gives us salvation as a free gift to be received by faith, not earned by works.

01:00:03

That sounds all good and well, but he keeps going. How then can I say that the judgment of believers will not only be the public declaration of the measure of our reward in the kingdom of God according to our deeds?

01:00:17

If he had stopped there, that would be the Protestant Orthodox understanding of justification.

01:00:23

But he continues. But will also be the public declaration of our salvation, our entering the kingdom according to our deeds.

01:00:33

The answer in a couple sentences is that our deeds will be the public evidence brought forth in Christ's courtroom to demonstrate that our faith is real.

01:00:43

And our deeds will be the public evidence brought forth to demonstrate the varying measures of our obedience of faith.

01:00:51

In other words, salvation is by faith and rewards are by faith, but the evidence of invisible faith in the judgment hall of Christ will be a transformed life.

01:01:02

Our deeds are not the basis of our salvation, they are the evidence of our salvation. They are not foundation, they are demonstration.

01:01:10

We quoted that earlier, but I'm quoting it to give it its fuller context. So, this is literally describing

01:01:18

Rome's analytic justification. Because again, he claims that the deeds of believers, quote, will be the public evidence brought forth in Christ's courtroom to demonstrate that our faith is real.

01:01:30

The evidence of invisible faith in the judgment hall of Christ will be a transformed life.

01:01:36

In Christ's courtroom. Yeah. These deeds are legally demonstrated in his courtroom.

01:01:44

So, there's a logical progression here from the first fatal flaw, that because he's making it a forensic legal judgment, that's justification.

01:01:59

That's a final justification. And now, he's making it explicit that good works, personal righteousness, analytic righteousness and justification is required for entering heaven.

01:02:13

Yep. Let me read this section from this book, the same one that I've been reading.

01:02:22

Because this is really just sad. He writes, Next, let's make sure that we are on the same page concerning justification by faith alone.

01:02:33

Few things are more important for the preacher's life and preaching than to be clear about the reality of justification by faith alone and its biblical relationship to sanctification.

01:02:44

Every congregation needs to be clear about justification by faith and every congregation needs to be clear about how justification relates to a life of faith and holiness.

01:02:56

This is one of the great aims of preaching, to keep the congregation clear about such things.

01:03:04

So, right there, folks. For all of those who are saying that Piper's not being clear when he's preaching, y 'all are just not giving the man credit.

01:03:15

Because he is being clear. He says it three times that every congregation needs to be clear about justification by faith.

01:03:25

And I think the key to understanding this is the false dichotomy that he puts between justification and getting into heaven.

01:03:35

He continues, Now, I have said nothing above about the necessity of holiness and final salvation implies that we are justified on the ground of faith plus works.

01:03:48

We are justified on the ground of Christ alone through the means of faith alone, apart from works.

01:03:55

Quote, By the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. Close quote,

01:04:01

Romans 5 .19 Again, quote, We hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

01:04:10

Close quote, Romans 3 .28 And so, he continues, he quotes

01:04:17

Ephesians 2 .8 -10 And then he continues, he says, Here Paul makes wonderfully clear how works are related to our first experience of salvation.

01:04:29

Notice he says our first experience. Because in everything, folks, everything that Piper just said,

01:04:36

I want to give him a hearty amen. Amen, John Piper. Because everything he said was right.

01:04:46

Until you come to realize that when he's talking about justification, he is only talking about getting into a relationship with God where God is now 100 % for you.

01:05:00

Let me continue on the next page. Because, you know, it's like you said, Carlos, if he would have just stopped there, it's like, just stop.

01:05:07

Just stop. Should have stopped. Stop talking. Should have stopped. If he would have just stopped there, it would have been okay.

01:05:15

He says, in the next paragraph, he says, We have seen that the works of this new creation are essential for final salvation because faith apart from works is dead.

01:05:30

James chapter 2 verses 26. This was something that I addressed in my article with Tim Coffman that was published on the

01:05:38

Trinity Foundation. He appeals to James chapter 2 to support his view that works are necessary for final salvation or essential for final salvation.

01:05:51

Because, quote, faith apart from works is dead. And this is so damning because as you said,

01:05:58

Carlos, these are book and passages of scripture. These are book and doctrines. If you get these passages wrong, you are going to be deceived by Rome.

01:06:08

You are going to be deceived. Yeah, it's lethal. That is not what James chapter 2 is talking about.

01:06:14

So Piper is taking James chapter 2, which in its context is talking about evidencing your faith as a means of showing your faith to other people.

01:06:26

Because, again, as I read last week, he says, What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?

01:06:35

And so that demonstration is before man because we can't see the inner heart.

01:06:42

This is astonishing because even after we wrote our article in 2018, the catalyst to the whole controversy was that article that Piper published on September 25th, 2017, in which he essentially said the same thing, that we are not saved by faith alone.

01:07:08

Sola Fide does not apply to us getting into heaven. And after that, we wrote our article, we've tackled this, and now he's come out with a new book saying the exact same thing.

01:07:21

It's not changed. And so I think it's comical when people want to send me his clarification video because in one of our earlier episodes, when we first tackled this,

01:07:33

I said, We don't need Piper to clarify. We need him to recant this position.

01:07:39

And it was funny because then after that, he came out with a clarification video. And really what he's done is he's doubled down.

01:07:46

He's tried to obscure the error of his teaching.

01:07:56

That's really when a heretic... It's so interesting, man. People really need to get this. When a heretic brings clarity to their view, it is always, always, always to try to bring it into conformity with the correct view without abandoning their heretical view.

01:08:18

It is to obscure the error. And you see this because what they should do is they should recant, shut their mouth, and repent before God.

01:08:31

And that's not what they do. What they do is say, Well, I was right, and you guys misunderstood. And that's exactly what

01:08:37

Piper did in that video. He said, If you haven't been educated on this... We're not educated on this.

01:08:47

And so we just don't know what we're talking about because we're simpletons. It's your fault.

01:08:53

You're not understanding. This is too complicated. It's not complicated. This is the gospel.

01:08:59

Anybody can get it. Jesus is enough. Believe in Jesus, his righteousness. Him, not you.

01:09:08

Jesus. That's it. Believe in his finished work.

01:09:14

Believe in his death, burial, and resurrection. Don't believe in yourself. Don't hope in your own goodness.

01:09:21

Don't hope that you... I hope I have an inherent righteousness. What is that? That's a false gospel.

01:09:27

Yeah, that's a good point. That's actually a good point you brought up earlier. That even if Piper was affirming, which he does.

01:09:38

He contradicts himself. But he does affirm that because God is the decisive worker, you will have good works present at the last judgment.

01:09:48

Even if he does affirm that, that still bases your eternal standing on the final judgment on your works.

01:09:58

It doesn't make any sense. That doesn't give you any assurance.

01:10:04

Because you still have to bring something to the table. Even if God is a decisive worker and he'll make sure that it'll happen.

01:10:13

Even if he had never said anything else about fellow believers will go into eternal punishment because they failed to love their fellow believers.

01:10:26

Even if he had never said that, this view is still dangerously false.

01:10:31

Because you still have to bring something to the table at final judgment. You have to bear enough fruit.

01:10:37

You have to show something to show that you are worthy of entering heaven. Which is at odds with the scripture.

01:10:45

Plainly at odds with the scripture and with the historic protestant reformation. And so in the article,

01:10:53

I want to quote this in the article. This is kind of summing up what we've been talking about.

01:11:01

Piper contradicts himself by claiming that quote, God is already 100 % for us.

01:11:06

Yet still subjects believers to a final judgment where they could be denied entrance to heaven due to a lack of personal holiness.

01:11:15

Or quote, because they really failed to love their fellow believers. Even when he further contradicts himself by claiming that the latter will never happen.

01:11:25

Piper nevertheless impugns the justice of God by advocating a form of double jeopardy.

01:11:30

In which he adds a second judgment of believers on top of the judgment that Christ already satisfied on their behalf on the cross.

01:11:41

As do all legalistic systems that advocate an initial and final justification or salvation.

01:11:49

Piper cannot legally eat his justified cake now and still have it at the last judgment.

01:11:55

You can't have it both ways. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Yeah, you can't. Those are mutually exclusive.

01:12:03

Either you're justified now and it extends to the final judgment. Or you're not truly justified now.

01:12:09

You have to wait till final judgment to be finally justified by presenting your good works.

01:12:15

You can't have it both ways. It's not both and. It's exclusively the righteousness of Christ alone.

01:12:23

There's a really good quote here by Jonathan Linebaugh. He says this,

01:12:31

Justification is God's final judgment. Did you already read this? No, I read the first sentence.

01:12:40

As Wilfred Jost already writes, There is no second decision after justification.

01:12:46

In the language of the Reformation, the sole and sufficient basis for our justification before God's eschatological tribunal is

01:12:55

Jesus Christ, solus Christus, freely given, sola gratia, to sinners in the word, sola verbo, that creates the faith, sola fide, to which

01:13:07

Christ is present. In Jesus, God's future word has invaded the present in such a way that by faith, we know the future.

01:13:17

Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies, who justified.

01:13:24

Who is to condemn? It is Christ who died. That's Romans 8, 33 and 34. That is the

01:13:30

Protestant understanding of justification. That is not Piper's understanding.

01:13:38

So, again, it's impossible to have it both ways. You can't have it both ways. And, you know, this really, we're coming at the end of the section now.

01:13:51

But, again, people, take a look at this article. There's a lot of good quotes here.

01:13:58

We're not going to be able to read them all. But I was going to close it with this to finish up the section.

01:14:06

So, you know, Paul almost directly rebukes

01:14:13

Piper when he's rebuking the bewitched Galatians. He says this, Did you receive the

01:14:19

Spirit by works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish, having begun in the

01:14:24

Spirit? Are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain?

01:14:33

That was Galatians 3 to 2 through 4. And for that, I give kudos to Pastor Hines, who made that excellent point on his podcast.

01:14:44

So I encourage people to check out his critiques of Piper as well on his podcast,

01:14:50

The Protestant Witness. Yeah, we really, really, really appreciate Pastor Hines and all the work that he does.

01:14:58

Well, you know what, Carlos? I think that's a really good place to finish it out for this episode.

01:15:05

Did you have anything else that you wanted to add before we check out? Yeah, you know,

01:15:11

I'm really eager to talk about the next set of flaws, because we're really now getting into territory that people just do not seem to be addressing.

01:15:23

And these first three fatal flaws, as you can see, each one of these is already bad enough on their own to condemn his view.

01:15:35

It's bad enough because he's talking about justification, inescapably talking about justification, requiring analytic righteousness of good works and personal holiness.

01:15:48

So I just hope people, Piper is just an example that we're using, because this really applies to the most damaging and pervasive heresies plaguing the church today about initial and final salvation and justification.

01:16:06

This is how you deal with it. This is how you expose it. And I encourage people to stay tuned as we get into even more.

01:16:14

We're going to dive even deeper to the next three fatal flaws that are really going to unravel just how bad and how badly at odds these views are with Scripture.

01:16:29

Yeah, so hang in there with us, guys. And, you know, Carlos, one thing that I was thinking is,

01:16:36

I really have to get it through my head that we don't have to feel bad for what we're doing.

01:16:43

We don't have to feel, and I guess that would be my encouragement to other people out there who are facing the same uphill battle, is you don't have to feel like you're wrecking the party.

01:16:58

You don't have to feel bad for exposing the truth and defending God's Word and defending the gospel.

01:17:06

We do believe that this will have a lasting effect. We hope that Piper's view and Piper's theology goes into the ash heap of history.

01:17:21

But what we're doing, we're hoping will have a lasting effect. And again, all of this is, as we said before,

01:17:29

Carlos, you know, Paul said, we did not yield submission even for an hour. And he was talking about the false teaching that had crept in.

01:17:37

We did not yield submission even for an hour. So that the truth might continue with you.

01:17:44

And another thing that Paul says, he says, whatever these men were, it makes no difference to me. God shows no partiality.

01:17:52

And so, whatever status Piper has, it really makes no difference.

01:17:57

The greater the position, the more responsibility that you have. And we've already pointed this out, that the more damage can be done.

01:18:04

And so, our prayer in this is that people like Phil Johnson, John MacArthur, these guys would part ways with Piper and that they would call him out.

01:18:18

And what's so interesting, Carlos, is like these guys who are orthodox and who are solid right now, this may not affect them.

01:18:29

So if they don't call it out, it may not affect them. They're going to carry on believing what they believe, and it's not going to have really an effect on them.

01:18:39

What will happen, and I guarantee that this will happen, because church history, this is exactly what happens in church history, is it infiltrates the minds and hearts of the next generation, of those people who may not have the discernment to wade through these things.

01:19:03

They get caught up with it, and this is how false teaching spreads to the next generation.

01:19:09

And what we're going to have is we're going to have, I think, churches fall away into a false gospel.

01:19:18

People might think that I'm being dramatic. I'm not being dramatic. I mean, if you study the

01:19:24

Federal Vision heresy, if you study the New Perspective on Paul heresy, this is nothing new.

01:19:32

This is plaguing the church. This is the current justification controversy.

01:19:37

So we implore our listeners to fight with us. Fight for the gospel.

01:19:44

As Tom Giuditis rightly said, when the gospel is at stake, we need to take to the battlefield.

01:19:51

This is the battle cry. We don't want to give an uncertain sound. Our hope and our prayer is that prominent men that we respect, we respect these guys.

01:20:01

We don't agree with them on everything, but we respect them. Our hope and our prayer is that they would join us, and that they would dig into this and take a second look at Piper.