The Free Offer of the Gospel, Common Grace, and Pragmatic Church Growth: Part 1

“The question very really concerns the attitude of God with respect to the reprobate. We may limit the controversy to this question: what must the preacher of the gospel say of God’s intention with respect to the reprobate? And these, too, may be called by different names, such as: the impenitent, the wicked, the unbelievers, etc., etc.” 

“The answer to this question defines the difference between Dr. Clark and the complainants sharply and precisely.” 

“The complainants answer: the preacher must say that God sincerely seeks the salvation of the reprobate through the preaching of the gospel.” 

“Dr. Clark answers: that is not true, the preacher may never say that in the name of God.”

“And, in the light of Scripture, he should say: God seeks His own glory and justification in preparing the reprobate for their just damnation even through the preaching of the gospel.’”

“It is plain from the above description that the views of the complainants prevailed in the booklet, ‘The Free Offer of the Gospel,’ and in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.”  Herman Hoeksema.

Home / Archive / Volume 49 /1973 / Vol 49 Issue 13.  Standard Bearer.  “The OPC and the ‘Free Offer.’”

The Free Offer of the Gospel, Common Grace, and Pragmatic Church Growth

Part 1

 

What do these three things have in common?  Having studied the issue of the so-called “reformed” doctrine of common grace as it is explained by the Three Points of Common Grace of 1924, I would say that there is a nexus between these three topics.  All three of these doctrinal issues tend to undermine biblical and dogmatic theology as it is deduced from Scripture and summarized in the extended creed of the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechism.

I recently retired from over the road truck driving.  So, being at home on a more consistent basis, I have been looking to join a local church which consistently teaches and preaches the doctrines of sovereign grace.  What I have found instead are many churches that claim to be reformed but are instead what I would describe as RINO reformed churches.  That is, these churches put on a show of being reformed; instead they are Reformed in Name Only or RINO reformed churches.  One of the chief architects of this approach to church growth is the late Tim Keller. 

I write this blog post out of my sincere concern for the deception that is being propagated as “conservative” and “reformed” Christianity in my local area.  Having been involved in the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement for the first ten years of my recovery from backsliding, I was excited to start attending a church that consistently taught Calvinism.  After my divorce in 1999, I moved to the Orlando, Florida area.  I now live in Columbia, South Carolina.  What I found in both locations is that none of the churches that I visited were actually Calvinist or Reformed.  The vast majority of these churches were either focused on the pragmatic church growth model, or they were so much into the well meant offer of the Gospel, the free offer of the Gospel, or the “reformed” doctrine of common grace that for all practical purposes their preaching sounded more like Arminianism than Calvinism.

The most traditional Presbyterian church in my area is First Presbyterian Church of Columbia, South Carolina.  The two previous pastors there were associated with Ligonier Ministries:  Sinclaire Ferguson and Derek Thomas.  The current pastor is Neil Stewart.  The church has a livestream channel on YouTube where you can watch the weekly services:  First Presbyterian Church live.  What I like about the services is that the singing is from the hymnbook and there is a huge pipe organ.  There is actually sacred music there with the emphasis somewhat on the regulative principle of worship, although there is no singing from the Psalter for the most part.  The Associate Reformed Presbyterian churches were originally focused only on singing from the Psalter with no hymnbook; but that changed over time.  In fact, I think I read somewhere that First Presbyterian Church used to be part of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States.  The church left and became part of the ARP after the PCUS voted to ordain women as teaching elders in the 1970s.  Ironically, the ARP does not ordain women as teaching elders; but, they do ordain women to the male only office of the deacon.  The biblical standard for becoming a deacon is to be the husband of one wife; no woman could possibly meet that standard.  (1 Timothy 3:10-12).  Biblical patriarchy is anathema in modern times, apparently.

I could tolerate the deviations to a degree, so I was thinking about joining First Presbyterian Church.  However, it came to my attention that FPC was sponsoring a church plant in Lexington, SC, where I currently reside.  I began to investigate this from a distance, curious as to whether or not this church plant would actually be a presbyterian church? 

Before I go into that, let me mention that there is a fairly large Presbyterian Church in America or PCA, near me.  It is called Lexington Presbyterian Church, which is just off Barr Road in Lexington.  There is a mix of conservative and traditional worship with a few of the contemporary worship songs mixed in.  I have tried to distance myself from compromises with culture, especially anything that smacks of the charismatic experientialism of the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement;  that is because I do not like being emotionally manipulated by music with lyrics that sound more like pablum than solid biblical sacred music and hymnody.  The recently departed pastor at Lexington Presbyterian Church, Chuck Parker, soon revealed to the congregation that he teaches from the Tim Keller model of church growth.  The church building and the congregation is fairly large.  But what tipped me off to something problematic was that Parker was open to the Revoice heresy.  What is that?  Revoice is the compromise with secular ideology that human beings are born with an immutable sexual orientation but that homosexuals are welcome to join the church so long as their behavior is celibate.  This is unbiblical on so many points that I will not go into all of it at this point.  I will only say that the cause of homosexuality is original sin, not an inborn sexual orientation.  Furthermore, the apostle Paul clearly said that Christians are no longer homosexuals.  (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).  As far as I can tell, the PCA has not authoritatively rejected this heresy.  At one point, the PCA even allowed a “celibate” homosexual male to be ordained as a teaching elder in a PCA church in Missouri.  That pastor has since resigned, and his church voted to leave the denomination.  At the time, I wrote an open letter to Pastor Chuck Parker, a letter which I mailed to him at his church and which I posted online at my blog:  An Open Letter to  Pastor Chuck Parker Concerning Homosexual Ministers.

In my next post, I will further particularize and expand on the three points above, beginning with the problems I have with the free offer of the Gospel as it is defined by the semi-Calvinist churches.

[See my remarks about a sermon preached by Dr. Neil Stewart at FPC in November of last year:  A Brief Response to Last Sunday's Election Sermon.]