Common Errors in Sanctification (Part 5) (Pietism)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'".

In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Lutherans, Family Background, and Early Christian Formation

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Michael Lee Abendroth here. There's another Abendroth podcasting, Patrick James Abendroth. And you'd think we were Irish Catholic, wouldn't you? Patrick, Michael.

Anyway, we grew up as Lutherans. I don't know if it was ELCA or LCA or something, but we grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. I think at Calvary Lutheran Church. The good news was that we understood through confirmation and all that stuff in classes that Jesus was God, the Bible was God's word, triune nature of God, sin, hell, death, and lots of other things.

And I guess as I look back now, while I think it was a liberal church, and while they never said you must be born again, because why would you if that happened at infant baptism? At least I learned some of the stuff.

Anyway, God used that, I think, probably to steer me from sin. Early on, because I realized there was punishment for sin. And then when I got older, at least I had a framework to understand things, and then the Lord saved me.

I'm thankful for that. You can write me, Mike, at nocompromiseradio .com. 2022, we plan to go to Israel, February 22nd. In spite of all this, will vaccinations be required, et cetera, et cetera, I will tell you that I have 25 slots from Boston to Tel Aviv through Munich.

Pat, I think, has 20 from Omaha to Tel Aviv through Newark. Anyway, I've got 17 deposits now for the $300 deposit. It is first come, first serve. And that means I have eight left. There probably will be a waiting list.

Probably some people will not go. But full refunds through, I think, October. Anyway, we will just hold your money. We'll hold the spot. You can get that information for Bethlehem Bible Church from me, Mike, at nocompromiseradio .com, if you'd like the itinerary, registration forms, et cetera.

I will go unless I have to be vaccinated, and then I probably won't go. So the trip might be canceled, but I think we're far from that because I think Israel's going to want tourists. And I might as well plan, like, we can go, and if we can't, it'll wait one more year.

And that's just the way it goes. But my main point is, if you'd like to go with this group, first of all, if you don't like Bible teaching, it'd be a bad group to go with because there's going to be Bible teaching.

And if you want, like, no fun, this would be a bad group to go with. Anyway, that's all I need to say. I've been going through a series on sanctification and common errors. And I was at my friend John Tucker's church a while ago, the church that he pastors, in Beloit, Ohio, south of Cleveland, an hour and 15 minutes or so.

From when I was there last time, two years ago to now, man, that thing is packed. Lots of people going to churches where there are actual services because they don't want to stay home and do virtual church, which is no church at all.

And I was encouraged by John and the ministry there and the elders. And I did one seminar on common errors in sanctification. We think about sanctification wrongly. And we started off with even a definition of sanctification.

And that was, I think, on show number one. So I think we've done four shows so far, and this is the final show, unless I have more to say, right? So anyway, that's the way it goes here on No Compromise Radio.

Pietism Versus Piety in Sanctification

We're talking about a common error from last time, and that is pietism. Piety, holy living, godly living, wanting to live a pure life in light of who you are in Christ Jesus is good. It is commendable.

It is perfect kind of thinking that you want to honor the Lord. I was reading 2 Peter the other day, and I was reading 2 Peter today as well. And Peter wants the readers not to buy into the false teachers because heterodoxy, bad teaching, will lead to heteropraxy, bad living.

And specifically in 2 Peter, the readers might be tempted to follow the false teachers' lawless living and licentious living, antinomian living, because hey, if Jesus isn't gonna come back, then why bother?

It says here in 2 Peter 3, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish and at peace, and count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you. According to the wisdom given him.

Verse 17, you therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity, amen. We would hardly believe that and teach that. And I want you to live a pious life, a godly life, right? Jesus duplex gratia, that is the double benefit of Jesus, not only for pardon, what we would call justification, but also for power, what we would call sanctification.

You need Jesus for both of those. And of course, the other members of the Trinity, they're working, et cetera, but we just don't wanna say, well, we're gonna have Jesus for pardon, but not for power, you're on your own.

We want pious living. We want godly living. We want law keeping, not to earn salvation or to keep salvation, but because you're saved. Grace gratitude, third use of the law as a guide, as a norming norm, or a director, a direction we receive from the law, because God in his essence and nature shows us how holy and righteous and just he is, and that we should live a life commensurate with that in terms of how he is reflected in his law.

Well, piety is important. So I just wanna make sure I say that. It is not antinomian thinking to be a person who says pietism is wrong. Pietism, unlike piety, although we have the same root word, piety, if you go back to German Lutheranism, and what they would do is they really wanted a focus and a driving thrust for you to have a devotional oriented life.

Mark Noll says a reoccurring tendency within Christian history to emphasize the more practicalities of Christian life and less the formal structures of theology or church order. That's pietism. And I think that's good.

I've actually had Mark Noll on the show before, and I would disagree with him on certain things, but that is a good definition of pietism. We, of course, want to talk about devotion and morality and godliness and righteousness and ethics, and to do the things that the Bible tells us to do since we're Christians.

There are laws about to be unified, to do all kinds of things. But once we start turning toward the inside of the Christian life and emphasize those more than doctrines about God, for instance, then there's going to be trouble.

Paul, remember in 1 Corinthians 2, to I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, even him crucified. I came to Corinth and you were all messed up and you've got problems with all kinds of issues.

I could have told you other things, but I didn't. I restricted what I was going to say. I had a narrow focus because you not only need Jesus for pardon, but also for power and really the missing element in many churches today.

Functional pietists, they're called seeker sensitive. They're called evangelical churches. They're called Baptist Bible churches. They're called EV free churches, et cetera. And especially, you know, the hipster, reality, excel, excellence, propane, pugnacious, those kinds of churches usually and often are very pietistic.

Jacob Spinner, actually Philip Jacob Spinner, in his book, Pia Isidora, sorry, Pia Desideria, 1675. If you're old enough to me, as me, you'll know who Pia Isidora is. Philip Jacob Spinner was working on something and emphasizing something called heart religion.

And he wanted that to eclipse what we would call what? Head religion. Now that sounds so familiar today. You know, the hardest, you know, the farthest distance in the world is the 12 inches between your brain and your heart.

And, you know, on many ways and areas, I wouldn't agree with that, right? Your heart is your mission control center and to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength in the Old Testament.

Jesus then makes what was implicit in the Old Testament with the word heart and he makes it explicit in the New Testament to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul. What's the next one? Mind and strength.

And if you're not careful, you think, you know, heart and head are completely opposed. They're antithetical and you wouldn't see any kind of connection at all. What Jesus is saying, quoting the Pentateuch, quoting Moses, is, you know, with all your faculties, you should be loving God.

And I understand, yes, I do, that there's a head knowledge that people have and they don't really embrace it with their heart. I get that. But what ends up happening in a local church, I think one eclipses the other.

That is heart religion over head religion. And you'll say things like, you know, well, the doctrine doesn't really matter. It'll finally settle out where the doctrine's not taught. It will be like the liberal Schleiermacher that said, the Trinitarian essence and nature and the Father unbegotten, the Son begotten, and the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son.

And a lot of this kind of talk, and do we look at the one first or the three subsistences, the person's first? Or what about social Trinitarianism? And all these other things. Well, the Trinity, it's not really practical.

Let's just get to the practice. I'm not sure you wanna do that. Matter of fact, I'm positive you don't want to do that. The focus on devotion, the focus on feelings, the focus on self, the focus of how am I trying my best to live the Christian life, Schleiermacher, the feeling of divine dependence.

I guess I could ask you, are you feeling dependent on the divine right now? Are you really feeling, sensing, emoting this idea of I'm surrendered, I'm yielded, and I'm dependent upon the Lord? Well, piety would say, yes, the Lord has not only saved me, pardon, but he has given me the power to say yes to righteousness and no to sin, and the Holy Spirit is sanctifying me.

And my response is an outworking of who I am in Christ, in my union with him, and I'd like to live a holy life. And I'm able to live a holy life now. And God says, I'm living a holy life. That is to say, let me rephrase that.

I'm working in you. I, the Lord God, am sanctifying you. But when we do this individual holiness, and that is the focus, that's the primary thing, that is the emphasis, that's called pietism. Do you hear sermons about who Jesus is and what he's done, or do you hear sermons about you and what you need to do and how you need to live up to these things?

It's a self-focus or it's a Christ-focus. That's really the issue. And of course, when you go to the Lord's Supper, you can see that played out. We always need to be reminded that salvation is outside of us, extra nos.

That is to say, we don't earn salvation. We don't come up with it. And we, with our legal temperament, our legal disposition, even as Christians, want to add works, want to add these things. That's why I think this final justification debate is perfect for people's legal temperament.

I mean, why do people want that? Why do people want piety eclipsed by pietism? Well, at least I can, if I do these things, right? If I get Don Whitney's book on spiritual disciplines and R. Ken Hughes' book on disciplines of a godly man, and there are things in there that I can do, now I feel like I'm godly.

Well, I guess I can do those things and have a good attitude about it. And I can do those things and have a bad attitude about it, a wrong attitude, anything but delighting in the Lord God out of gratitude, but I still checked it off the list.

I just need lists. I mean, think about the churches that you go to, and it is, especially with those who have sermon outlines and notes that they pass out to the congregation. I guess, okay, if you want to do it, it's not a sin.

I try to get all my students not to do that when they're preaching. And congregations, I think if you want to have that for a class on Wednesday night or a Sunday night, I don't know, Sunday school or something, I guess.

I mean, there's not a law against it. But if I was in charge. When I look at those notes, I just say, pietism, pietism, and then they've got like takeaways with a bunch more law that you can do and a bunch more, this is how I need to do things.

And this is how sanctification works in my mind, this kind of synergistic sanctification, which is something I don't agree with. One writer said, the degree that we focus on our own spirituality and spiritual ability to please God is the degree that we exhaust ourselves by trying to draw from our own natural resources.

Having begun by the spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Galatians 3, verse three. I mean, we're all built for works, are we not? In one sense, before the fall, it was a good thing. After the fall, it's not a good thing.

And we have to realize that we did not make ourselves acceptable to God. That was the work of Christ. And we can't keep ourselves acceptable to God by our devotions in the morning and our Bible reading and other things.

I'm for piety. That includes, you know what, you got a Bible, you should read it. I try to read it every day. I turn on, then when I get dressed, after I've read the Bible in the morning, I then turn on my ESV, and then they read John to me or whatever as I'm listening and getting ready.

You have to just be careful about piety, thinking that's good, which is the right thing. And then pietism, you know, I've got to get myself ready or keep myself ready and keep myself in God's good graces as I do things.

And of course, one of the problems with pietism is there's a law gospel blurring, or there's just a law given. They either blur the gospel with the law, there's no distinction there, or they just focus on law, what's required of you.

And if I think about the paradigm, if I think about it, thought about it enough, do you ever do your phone and you're talking to Siri and she's dictating things, and then it says, says, instead of says, says, and then she actually transcribes it based on what you say, but you said it in such a Nebraska Galilee fashion that it comes out wrong.

What do you do? How are you doing? What's going on with your life? I remember back in the old days, it was Devo. Remember the band Devo for De-Evolution? They're from Akron, Ohio, by the way. If memory serves me, I just was so close to Akron, and I was supposed to be going to the Football Hall of Fame at Canton there, but I didn't get it.

I needed a ride and just didn't make it happen. Although I went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a couple of years ago and saw Johnny Cash's boots. Maybe they should have been Nancy Sinatra's boots, but that's another story.

Devo is a band. I saw Devo in Omaha, Nebraska, probably 1981 or two-ish, something like that, 1980. I can't remember. I think they were on Saturday Night Live and then Fridays, and then Mark Mothersbaugh, the lead singer, took off his yellow suit and threw it into the congregation, I was gonna say, into the audience, and I grabbed the pants and kept them for a long time.

I don't know why I threw them away. Probably because when I was a child, I thought like a child. Anyway, when I got here to New England, they had a thing called Word of Life, and they still have it. And Word of Life, I think, is where Dawson Trotman, the leader of the Navigators, had drowned up there at Schroon Lake.

And they had a little saying, no Devo, no breakfast. So you have to read your Bible before you have breakfast. Are we not men? They went downhill after Whip It. Whip It was a dumb song. It went mainstream.

I didn't like it. I liked the first album. Anyway, no Devo, no breakfast kind of thing. And all this focus on personal progress in my holy living and pure living and structured living with really just a passing comment about the triune God and the person and work of the Lord Jesus.

The just shall live by faith. That is in the object, the Lord Jesus. The just shall not live by faithfulness. And I think maybe that'd be a good way to begin to think in your mind, what's the difference between piety, the just shall live by faith, and Jesus, the risen Savior, and pietism, the just shall live by faithfulness and what I need to do.

For the 15th time, I'm not against holy living. I'm not against, you know what, a good convicting time when you're reading something. I read today, like I said, in 2 Peter, and take care that you're not carried away with the air of lawless people and lose your own stability and grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus.

I thought, you know what, that's what I wanna do. I do not wanna get carried away by people who say, well, you know what, there's no third use of the law and antinomian living and other things. I wanna be careful.

But I also wanna make sure that I'm not focused on myself as primary. Does that make sense? The just shall live by faithfulness or the just shall live by faith. That's really the issue. My name's Mike Ebendroth.

This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. I am all for piety, but I'm against pietism. Oh, you know what, I'm gonna say this. I think one of the key factors in pietism is small groups. Hmm. Is there anything wrong with a small group?

No. If it leads away from corporate worship and somehow thinks that the corporate worship is secondary to and subordinate to the home group, the small group, where you have more individualism, then there's gonna be a problem.

You know what, I get all my needs met at the home group. I get all my fellowship done at the small group. I get my, really, the pastor's not really teaching me much on Sunday morning. He's after unbelievers and practical things.

So I get my feeding, self-feeding, and I get my feeding at the home group. That's a bad way to go about it. I'm glad you want your feeding. I'm glad you want your nourishment. But to do it that way, that seems very odd to me.

Beware of pietism. Even though I used to be a Lutheran, even though I used to be a German, I think I still am a German. The next error in common sanctification, and I'm gonna have to make this fast, it's asceticism.

Think Amish, think Mennonites, think monks, think getting away from the world, and that will take care of everything. And we're just gonna be away from things and people and do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, which all refer to things destined to perish with using in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men.

These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence. There's no value if you're gonna have your spiritual life, going to have your spiritual life, simply I'm not going to do that.

I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't do this, I don't do that, I don't do that, and therefore I'm good. And many people who come from licentious lifestyles then get saved, maybe sometimes they think that way, but then as they grow, they're going to realize that asceticism, getting away from the world, I'm gonna have my standing before God based on what I don't do.

Isn't right. I mean, even if you said, you know, and I know you wouldn't say this, but if you said homeschooling is the savior. See, I'd never say it, but maybe you'd think that. These days, it's basically become with some exceptions.

It's gonna become, excuse me, impossible to put your kids in public school based on what they're gonna be teaching. And you know, there's gonna be a single lady or whatever, and I'm gonna get all that.

Maybe you've got a public school with a Christian teacher or something. I know some Christian people here at the church that teach at public schools. But overall, I think it's gonna be very, very difficult.

We just wanna be careful that we don't then think, well, based on what we do, that's how we're going to do X, Y, and Z. Well, running out of time, maybe we'll do some more next time. We'll see. My name's Mike Abendroth.

This is No Compromise Radio Ministry.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.