The Free Offer of the Gospel, Common Grace, and Pragmatic Church Growth: Part 5

 

  

“. . . The trouble with Arminianism is that it is illogical.  It retains parts of the Biblical message, but because of its unscriptural theory of free will rejects other parts.” 

Dr. Gordon H. Clark.  What Do Presbyterians Believe?  The Westminster Confession Yesterday and Today.  (Unicoi:  Trinity Foundation, 2001), p. 174.

 

For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will. (Jn. 5:21 NKJV)

 

 

The Free Offer of the Gospel, Common Grace, and Pragmatic Church Growth:  Part 5

 

In a recent podcast, Tucker Carlson, a former news anchor at Fox News who is now an independent political pundit, made the point that in this technological era citizens of the United States of America are treated as commodities to be manipulated by government propaganda and leftist news organizations which work behind the scenes to manipulate the information given to the populace.  Another former reporter, Megan Basham, has exposed the fact that leftist news organizations are also working behind the scenes with Evangelical church denominations, Evangelical colleges and seminaries, and the church growth movement to change the Evangelical message from its commitment to biblical truth to an agenda of this worldly social justice called wokeism or Marxism.

The most prominent church growth advocate in Reformed circles was the late Dr. Tim Keller.  Keller’s views were openly in favor of theistic evolution, Biologos, LGBTQIA+ outreach, social justice, and other accommodations to the Marxist culture of the political left in our nation.  The argument given for doing this is that in order to reach the unchurched in our nation, we must reach them where they are.  The underlying basis for this argument was the unscriptural foundation of common grace, the free offer of the Gospel, the well meant offer, and pragmatic methods of evangelism.

As much as I do not like to appeal to my personal experience, I am old enough to remember a time before megachurches, the internet, artificial intelligence, and the church growth movement.  As a former Pentecostal of the 1980s era, I can recall that Pentecostals and Charismatics were somewhat conflicted over whether the Charismatic movement was a good thing or something bad.  But both sides boasted of the phenomenal growth of the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement worldwide.  The oft repeated appeal of the movement was the explosive growth of the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement in the global south, Africa, and Latin America.  Many of these countries were and are considered third world countries where many of the superstitions of the past continue in the popular culture.  So, the ground was ripe for the psychological manipulation of huge crowds at mass evangelistic campaigns organized by Charismatic preachers who taught the health and wealth gospel.  There was a huge response because the most of the people living in these countries were susceptible to being manipulated because of their extreme poverty and because of health and medical issues and the lack of access to modern healthcare facilities.

The supposed success of the church growth movement as it was adopted and promoted by Charismatics like C. Peter Wagner and Charles Kraft, was soon adopted by formerly holiness Pentecostal churches from the more classical background of the Wesley holiness and entire sanctification theology of the holiness movement of the 19^th century.  In a previous post, I mentioned that I was converted at about age 8 or 9 at a Pentecostal Church of God, (which is headquartered in Cleveland, Tennessee), located in Weaver, Alabama.  That church was thoroughly old school and classical Pentecostal with a hard focus on Christian holiness and holy living.  The minister literally scared the hell out of me that day because he was preaching a fire and brimstone message.  In modern times this kind of preaching is few and far between among Church of God Pentecostal churches, Pentecostal holiness churches, or even Assemblies of God churches.  Most of the Pentecostal movement has moved on from the holiness movement and has adopted a more Charismatic approach to evangelistic preaching.

The popularity of the church growth principles spread to other denominations afterwards, but without the emphasis on the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit or the Pentecostal emphasis on entire sanctification and the empowerment for evangelistic and supernatural service.  (See Acts 1:8; Acts 2:1-4).  Southern Baptists like Rick Warren became widely popular and successful in building megachurches.  Joel Osteen de-emphasized his charismatic theology by transforming the Word of Faith doctrine into a positive thinking ministry much like the late Norman Vincent Peale’s ministry.  Osteen’s church in Houston is supposed the largest megachurch in the United States.

Methodists, Evangelical Free, Lutherans, and Presbyterians all happily jumped on the megachurch pragmatic growth bandwagon because results matter.  However, the end result was not discipleship and a growth in spiritual discipline as promised.  Instead, what ended up happening was a multitude of churches full of apparently baby Christians or blatantly unconverted sinners who just wanted to be part of the entertainment and who wanted their unfelt needs met.  The emphasis of church plants was to downplay theological differences by removing the denominational affiliation from the church sign, having superficial contemporary praise and worship songs, emulating the Charismatics who denigrated denominational divides as well.  The approach of the Charismatics was to attack denominationalism as Pharisaical and legalistic Christianity.

The same approach has been taken by the common grace Presbyterians.  They constantly attack classical Presbyterians and classical Calvinists of the Dutch Reformed variety as legalistic Pharisees, hyper-Calvinists, and navel gazers who are focused only on themselves.  Tim Keller employed this tactic many times in his videos.  Keller formulated his own catechism called the New City Catechism where he downplayed the Calvinist distinctives, the Reformed confessional standards, and the doctrines of sovereign grace like the effectual call, unconditional election and special providence.  Instead, Keller preached like an Arminian using the appeal of the doctrine of common grace, which said that God loves everyone, including the reprobate, but only gave special saving grace to the elect.  In his actual preaching, however, Keller never mentions the difference between special grace and common grace.  He only emphasized common grace while the doctrines of sovereign grace faded into the background.  I should also mention that Keller’s catechism is not part of any reformed doctrinal standard.  The Three Points of Common Grace of 1924 are not the official doctrine of any modern Reformed denomination except the Christian Reformed Church, although most of the Reformed churches act as if common grace is official doctrine.

Keller used common grace as well to justify moving his focus from personal conversion to a more group oriented theology of social justice, theistic evolution, and forging pragmatic Christian community over and above Gospel focused evangelism.  Another compromise made by Keller was to stop focusing on sanctification as a process and instead to preach only justification by faith alone.  The Westminster standards, in contrast, focused on a preaching of the three uses of the moral law of God and then preaching the Gospel.  The pedagogical use of the moral law was supposed to show the sinner that he or she was lost and without any hope of keeping God’s law perfectly or of meriting or earning any forgiveness for their sins.  Of course, Keller did mention this pedagogical use of the law at times in order to emphasize justification by faith alone.  But because sanctification was not emphasized, Keller’s view, much like the Escondido, California version of Westminster theology, was much more closely related to a once saved always saved Baptist version of the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints.

The Presbyterian denominations today by and large do not preach the holiness of God or that the assurance of salvation can be lost without any change in the habits of the converted believer.  The one exception would be the Ligonier Ministries, but even here the doctrines of the free offer of the Gospel and common grace prevails.  The free offer teaches that God desires to save everyone but has not decreed to save everyone head for head.  This is a blatantly contradictory proposition.  If God truly desired or wished to save everyone, then surely God would have decreed to save everyone head for head; He would have unconditionally elected everyone;  He would have given everyone special saving grace or the effectual call.  In other words, common grace and the doctrine of the well meant offer or free offer of the Gospel teaches that God’s will is twofold.  In one aspect, God is powerless to save anyone, just like the Arminians!  In the other aspect, God’s will is not frustrated, and He saves those whom He has predetermined in eternity to save.  This is violation of the law of contradiction.  In other words, just as I cannot both go to lunch and not got to lunch.  Obviously, if God is Almighty and can do whatever He pleases, then whatever God has decreed to come to pass is what God desires and wills to do.  God has only one will.  The command to repent and believe the Gospel is the prescriptive will of God, not an emotional appeal based on some fake offer of salvation to those who are predestined to reprobation.

When the Scriptures say that God does not desire that anyone should perish, those passages are always directed either to the Old Testament congregation or nation of Israel or to the New Testament church.  None of those passages are directed to the pagan nations or to anyone outside of the church.  (See: 2 Peter 3:21 NKJV, and Ezekiel 33:11).  Even then, God does desire that some of the Israelites would perish:

". . .indeed, therefore, I will stretch out My hand against you, and give you as plunder to the nations; I will cut you off from the peoples, and I will cause you to perish from the countries; I will destroy you, and you shall know that I am the LORD." (Ezekiel 25:7 NKJV).

The warning passages apply to everyone without exception, yet on the elect are preserved from apostasy by God.  (See Romans 11).  Those of us who oppose common grace and the free offer are not hyper-Calvinists.  Even the Prostestant Reformed Churches in America advocate for the promiscuous preaching of the general call of the Gospel to everyone without exception.  This is not hyper-Calvinism at all.  The difference is between what doctrines are taught and emphasized.  Classical Calvinism teaches that God hates the wicked and the reprobate, not that God loves everyone in general, but that He has a special love for the elect.  In fact, in providential time on earth, even the elect are under God’s wrath temporarily until they are effectually called, though God does love them from all eternity.  (See Romans 9:11-13).

The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying: "Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you. (Jeremiah 31:3 NKJV).

In his commentary on Westminster Confession of Faith, Dr. Gordon H. Clark says:

Someone may be tempted to say that although God undoubtedly calls the elect, he does not call them only, as the Confession says.  Does not God call everybody?  The answer to this question is to be found by searching the Scriptures.  John 12:39, 40 says, “They could not believe, because Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.”  In Romans 11:7 we read, “Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.”  Since God does all that he pleases (Psalm 135:6), and since his causative power is omnipotent, it follows that he has not called the lost, but the elect only.

Of course, ministers and evangelists call people too.  That is, they preach the Gospel publicly.  But the effective call, the call that actually produces the proper response, comes from God alone.

Clark.  What Do Presbyterians Believe?, p. 114.

Only by rejecting biblical logic, biblical and propositional revelation, can anyone preach Arminianism and the compromises of the neo-reformed churches.  Are some of these people truly converted and effectually called by God?  Certainly some of them can be.  I myself was converted under Pentecostal holiness preaching in the mid 1960s.  But should we be compromising with Arminianism or the church growth movement?  I don’t think so.  In fact, many of the megachurches today have little to no difference with outright theological liberalism and leftist immorality.  Tim Keller’s evangelism is a good example of that.  He openly promoted the idea that homosexuals cannot be changed by God and that we should just accept them as celibate Christians.  But the Bible says that celibacy is a gift of God, not a moral imperative given to immutable homosexuals.

I could go on.  However, I will take a break here and continue this series in Part 6. 

You can read my previous posts on The Free Offer of the Gospel, Common Grace, and Pragmatic Church Growth here:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.