Wednesday, September 29, 2010

More Theses against godless and impious arminianism.

1. God does not save righteous men. He saves sinful men. It follows that arminian theology forfeits God's salvation insomuch as it boasts of its righteousness as soon as it has discovered conversion. But God did not fashion Christian men so that they could boast before Him. Precisely the opposite.

2. To what shall I liken arminian theology? It is like the people of Israel who, having witnessed the power of God's salvation, proceeded to erect a bovine stump with which to honor his deliverance. So we spit in the face of God when we thrust all of our good deeds in his face and try to sugar them with His Name.

3. Again, to what shall I liken arminian theology? It is as if a bartender tasted antifreeze and concluded that it is good for drink on account of its sweetness. And then everyone died.

4. The Christian is not the righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins. That is the rest of the world. The Christian alone is the wicked man on earth who never does what is right and always sins. Thus he prays," Depart from me Lord Jesus! I am a wicked man!"

5. The scriptures clearly teach that in the LORD ALONE are righteousness and strength (Isaiah 24). The arminian says," In the Lord and me and you are righteousness and strength. For that which God has given is truly mine." But any gift given which contradicts the Word of God is no gift at all. We should be mindful when our hearts and minds are full of righteousness, lest this be a sign of God's wrath. He will not contend with us and allow us to set ourselves up alongside of Him.

6. The better a deed a Christian commits, the more he must pray for forgiveness. He has sinned grievously against the Lord and denied the gospel publicly.

7. For a deed will only be conceived of as right before the LORD if it is done in full love for Him; in fullness of body, soul, mind and heart and strength. This is the Law of God which demands total fulfillment.

8. Partial fulfillment of any commandment of God is not acceptable. For "as dead flies give perfume a bad smell, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor" (Ecc. 10:1). A hint of sin is good enough to corrupt the whole of the work, since God exacts from us a spotless sacrifice.

9. Furthermore, those Christians who prop the gospel up over all of their righteous deeds demonstrate none of the righteousness of which they boast. They speak loudly about all of the great things that a Christian must accomplish, but show us no more than venom and smoke.

10. To what shall I liken being in the presence of an arminian? It is as if an unknowing person stepped onto a patch of lawn to admire its immaculate presentation, only to sink his feet into the liquifying decay of an open grave.

2 comments:

Theophilus said...

Your sixth thesis proves that you do not know of what you speak. It is a dastardly inversion of God's command, which mistakes good for evil. This sort of obsession with God's sovereignty obliterates the clear revelation of God's character and God's intentions for human living, creating a deceiving one-dimensional caricature of God. This is truly an effort to make an image of God. It imagines that we can capture God's nature in a single characteristic, that of sovereignty. Such reductive efforts to describe God make a farce of the breadth of God's revelation of Himself to us.

Emerson Fast said...

The sixth thesis is explained in number 7.

The inversion remains in God's command precisely because "there is no one that doeth good, no not one." The commandments of God do not reveal our righteousness, our potency to do good etc.. they reveal our sin.

The law was not given to bring life.

Really, I fail to see how these theses "capture" God's nature in a single characteristic. Precisely the opposite! They are set up against all of our tendencies to capture God. God's love, God's peace, God's justice, God's revelation, God's sovereingty, His righteousness and faithfulness, His wrath, it is all over and above us. It never becomes ours. His ways are forever higher than our ways. This is all very scriptural.

It is also, I believe, the only way the law of God is upheld. In this manner the Christian says "yes" to the total fulfillment of the whole law, instead of trying to boast in his flimsy attempts at fulfilling it.