Comments

Thank you for your blog on the Unpardonable Sin. The Walther book is highly valued. The personal account of struggling with this issue is quite moving in Bunyan's Grace Abounding, and not without empathy and comfort for the troubled conscience. The passage in the Gospels is quite cryptic, and it is possible that we may not now fully understand what is going on in the passage. But certainly, the Pauline corpus is where things are clearer. Rom 8:31-39!

"My conception of how salvation worked was almost like grace was easy to receive on the way in, but God wanted to weed people out. (The dark side of Arminianism.)" You are definitely right about this side of Arminianism. It is really true that many of them believe, in the words of Rod Rosenbladt, you can lose your salvation three times before lunch. I was one of them. God is out to get you and any excuse will do. Also, I've heard many preachers say that, if you have rejected Him before, God is not obligated to save you even if you want it. For them, the desire to be saved is not the same as the drawing of the Spirit. Thus, when you responded to the altar call you had to beg and plead with God for salvation, preferably with tears, until you were assured beyond doubt you were saved. I've also run into the vows issue. I heard one preacher say, taking the story of Jephthah as his text, that it is a serious sin not to fulfill every vow made to God, no matter how silly. I actually know a man who was a little short on cash and needed some new shirts. After asking God to help him find a good deal, he found a stack of flannel work shirts on clearance and bought as many as he could. Out of gratitude he vowed to never wear anything but flannel shirts again, no matter the weather. He kept the vow, too. Thankfully, after a few years, he realized his mistake.

Outis, I'll have to check out the Bunyan. I think I've read excerpts on that in the past. Certain passages in Pilgrim's Progress show a tenderness towards such doubts, but Bunyan also has the part about the man in the iron cage. That section itself was responsible for one of my bouts with this! You're likely right that we may not understand some of these passages fully. I think that goes for many warning passages. Jeremy, that flannel shirt story is hilarious, but fully believable. (Probably not a worst case scenario, either. It would likely keep a man out of many miserable jobs!)

Great post, Rick. I've been there and done that. After my "experience" or realization of forgiveness things were great. Then I made the mistake of starting to attend church. Christians are the worst people to be around, at least those in evan/fundy circles, if you want to enjoy the Gospel. For a year or more I would start each day truly believing I was surely damned, and end the day the same. Afterall, how could a true believer love his sin enough to continue participating in it? I was good at pretending to despise my sin, but deep down I knew that the only reason I WILLFULLY and consciously exercised myself in it was because I liked it. It wasn't until I stumbled across an internet radio show called, "The White Horse Inn" that I began to find the joy I had once had before attending church. The rest is a history nobody but me really cares about. I still do like sin too much for my own good or the good of my neighbor. So, if the Gospel alone is not good enough--without my true and heartfelt sorrow, true repentance, or anything else even God can work in me--then I am surely damned. Unfortunately for many christians who wish otherwise, the Gospel is sufficient for sinners like me. Sinners who don't worship "family values" or whose only political issue is something other than "abortion." Too bad for them that Christ is enough for me, and Christ outside of me and not in me. Thanks again, Kobra

Glad you liked the White Horse Inn. I rode up to the studio with them every Sunday for several years of that show. I was the call screener. The ride home was always fun. The guys were energized. Rod would complain about how his cable TV had 263 channels of Korean evangelists, and Kim would say "SHING! jayah!" and raise his arms in a Y. Someone would inevitably bring up an old desert hermit named Theophan the recluse, and Rod would lose it laughing. Fun times. More on subject, I know you aren't alone in that experience. My problem wasn't so much that people made it worse, as that they had no idea of how to help. They read the Scriptures differently. More subjectively. All they imagined you had to do was read something like the line from Hebrews 6:9, "we are confident of better things in your case" and you were supposed to feel better, because St. Paul had confidence in you. Me? Really? I thought St. Paul was writing to a congregation. If I read the same line to Satan, would he be saved, too? The people who did this meant well. But I would only feel better for an hour or so. The distinction between Law and Gospel is the cure for this kind of thing. I was among Christians who had some clue as to the Gospel, but they didn't know what to do when they found the Law thundering in the New Testament.

Bunyan's "Grace Abounding" is a very great and very weird book. It brings out a lot of personal experiences that led to Pilgrim's Progress, but it proceeds in a strange Calvinist way of thinking that Walther would have make a great lecture out of had he known it. But this recalls something Harriet Beecher Stowe said. In her childhood, Christians with years of religious gloom were Calvinists, while those who grew up in the faith, and just believed (at least historically) without any great struggles were Arminians (behind the formal definitions that was the real divide). And she has the character say that while the religious gloom and sense of damnation did not seem altogether congenial, she noticed that those who had gone through had a more real and vivid religion.

There is a set of tapes where C.S. Lewis describes Bunyan's work. He thinks very highly of Pilgrim's Progress. He says of a certain line that any epic poet would have been proud to have written it. But in another place he says something like, "The pity and terror we feel upon looking into Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners is not that of catharsis, but of looking into a lunatic asylum." Yikes! My own gloomy years were worse under Arminianism, though, I have to say. True, when I picked up my first book on Calvinism, I thought something like, "This looks like it's Scriptural from all the quotes, but if it's true, I'll never be happy again," but I found much of it was something that you got over at a certain point. Someone like Lorraine Boettner or J.I Packer could show you the bright side. Arminian preaching usually seemed light and sunny, but the dark side always showed up later. Usually because you read the Scriptures for yourself and they hadn't shown you how to find the Gospel in them.

The reason that many didn't know how to handle the law in the NT was because many didn't believe that there was law in the NT. For them, anything Jesus said was Gospel. For them "Sell all you have and give it to the poor and then follow me" was Gospel! When you weigh it out, it was much harder to be a Christian than not. Not because some pagan ruler was persecuting you, but because God was loading stuff up on your back. A pity and a shame. Kobra

I agree! That was part of why I titled my chapter in Christ the Lord: The Reformation and the Lordship Controversy "The Law According to Jesus". Because John MacArthur had presented this material as Gospel in his book The Gospel According to Jesus.

Rick, I had completely forgotten about your work in that book--not that it was at all forgettable. On the contrary, it was great stuff! My wife and I have purchased about 5 copies over the last couple of years to give to people coming out from under the teaching of men such as Macarthur. We found a place online selling them for like $10 a pop. Not bad for an out of print work. Thanks for the reminder. Kobra

No worries. I don't assume that everyone knows what I've written, anyway. And that book hasn't been in print for quite a while, to my knowledge. As to the law in the NT point, though, I'm always happy to see that others get it. And there are deeper and deeper levels to see it. I know Lutherans who still get thrown by it. Especially in warning passages. "But that verse says no forgiveness!" So does Exodus 20:7. But there is forgiveness, despite that (1 Tim 1:13, Matthew 12:31a). The Law is spoken as if there is no Gospel possible, and the Gospel is spoken as if the Law is of little consequence.