Sunday, June 17, 2007

Fall to grace: Aftermath, part 3

For the whole story, read this, beginning with Part 1. The condensed version can be found in Part 6. Links to the entire series can be found on the blog sidebar.

As I sorted everything out, there were lots of questions, and even some doubts. I begged Mike for a reading list, to which he responded:

You want a reading list? How about Acts 15, Romans 3-9, Galatians 1-6, Hebrews 7-12


What I was really looking for --- but didn't realize until much later --- was a system to replace the one I was letting go of. Without it, and a community of believers who agreed with me, I felt so alone. It was not an easy thing to feel as if I was pulling up my tent stakes, packing my bags, and getting ready to leave the Reformed camp without knowing where I was headed. I answered:

Ah, Mike...don't take this personally...but this is not at all reassuring! When I was telling [a friend] about your lessons on the Law, she said, "Who is this pastor? What is his family like?" Actually she didn't ask about your family, but I felt suddenly isolated from all of Christendom---as if I'd willy-nilly tossed out hundreds of years of church doctrine just cuz some guy in Texas sent me a few email lessons. What if these Scriptures that seem so obvious to me don't really say what I think they're saying? If it's so obvious, why doesn't the whole world get it? Am I simply fooling myself because I really do want to run amok...because I got bored with things the way they were...because I'm easily duped...

And where do I fit in now? I was teasing [my husband] that I'm in search of a new label. If we're not really Reformed, what are we? So I joked, "I know! We can become Lutheran Pietists! That's what my grandfather was---and Rushdoony despises them and calls them 'pious poops'---so that's good enough reason to become one!" Then I had to point out the obvious problem with that: I had already told [Husband] just about everything I knew about Pietism. It's a little hard to become something you know nothing about...


I cannot conceive of any BIBLICAL argument that could turn you back, so the only thing left is fear of condemnation from others. I DID warn you, didn't I, of the consequences of standing for your freedom? You really have no idea how hot it can get.


Yesterday at church, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was living a double life---and I also had this irrational fear that people would take one look at me and say, "She's different somehow. AHA---she's turned into an antinomian!!" Parts of church blessed me tremendously and parts simply grieved me.


Are you afraid of freedom? The Hebrews were! Many of them wanted to go back to Egypt.


Am I afraid? Mike, I'm afraid of almost everything and freedom is really scary. My mother once read me a German poem about some guy who'd been in shackles in a dungeon for ages...how he finally got his freedom...and how he put the shackles back on himself. It was one of the saddest thing I've ever heard, but I can fully understand it. Shackles are safe, even when we chafe at them. But I don't want them back!

What I want you to do is make sure you understand the biblical
arguments, and then, please, pass along the other questions to me -- in fact, if you get any biblical arguments that shake you, pass them along, too. After you have done this for a while, you will start seeing the repetitive nature of the questions, and the erroneous assumptions behind them. 99% of the arguments are answered by understanding two things: "The law" means the WHOLE law. And there was no such thing in the Bible as a division between "moral" and "ceremonial" law. Just keep going back to these two facts, and your opponents will have NO answers.

That was the hardest part for me to accept also---I mean, everyone
knows the Law is divided into 3 categories!---and once I was fully convinced, the rest of it started to fall into place. Well, I'll start collecting questions for you---if you promise not to say, "I'll answer that one in 20 years, when we finally get to lesson 5,613."

I have mentioned this before, but it seems that Calvinists cannot
conceive of ANY part of their system being wrong without it destroying the entire system. In fact, many Calvinistic apologists make this exact argument. But the 10-C and the "moral law" never did have anything to do with the system! They were just pasted together with it, and made seemingly permanent by the WCF. Rebecca -- as good as it is in some points, the WCF is NOT the word of God, and it is WRONG at several points.

Sigh. I know. And some of the alleged "Biblical proofs" seem quite a stretch indeed. It's always bugged me when people will quote the WCF before even going into what the Bible says. I was never that enamored with the whole thing---like some people who have memorized major portions of it and quote it almost like Scripture.

5 comments:

  1. Rebecca, are you telling your story in chronological order? Did you have all this joy and emotionalism before you had this feeling of not belonging anywhere, this fear of your freedom in Christ, this aloneness? I am right where this particular post is.

    I so understand the extreme fear (for me right now anyway) that I have jumped from one unbiblical position to another. What if I've missed something? And if this is right, why doesn't anyone else believe this way? I'm no one special. Why would God enlighten me, but not others? It would be nice to know that there are more than just a handful of people who believe this way.

    I'm glad to know this handful God has put in my life, but I do wonder why more Christians don't know this. Why are so many in bondage if Christ really came to set the captives free?

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  2. Rebecca quotes me from back in the day: "I cannot conceive of any BIBLICAL argument that could turn you back, so the only thing left is fear of condemnation from others. I DID warn you, didn't I, of the consequences of standing for your freedom? You really have no idea how hot it can get."


    I still hear the same old challenges and questions. Here we are eight years later, and my study has only confirmed my position even more. In fact, Jen has provided by far the most difficult challenges, and in the necessity of going even to deeper study and more detail in order to answer her I became even more convinced than ever before of the truth of what we discovered in our studies together.

    Also -- what I said about how "hot" the opposition can get -- it has only continued to get hotter and hotter. Yet those who challenge my conclusions have still not provided a biblical refutation. Mostly, I just get warmed-over, canned WCF-light.

    I used to have the occasional bout of this fear y'all relate -- but no more. Believe me when I tell you that I have had to deal with levels of opposition that you cannot imagine.

    How long before that fear is completely replaced by confidence that you have the mind of the Lord and that nothing can shake you? I can't say, and I can't promise.

    But I cannot improve on Paul's advice: "Stand firm in the freedom for which Christ has made you free, and do not become entangled again in the yoke of slavery."

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  3. "Did you have all this joy and emotionalism before you had this feeling of not belonging anywhere, this fear of your freedom in Christ, this aloneness?"

    Well, yes --- I did go back and forth a bit. The joy was in realizing in a deeper sense what Christ had done for me...that He had set me free from sin and from the law of sin and death...that His grace was far amazing than I had ever thought! But, even in the midst of an intimacy with Christ that was new and exciting, I would still sometimes waver, lose my focus on Him, and be assailed by doubts.

    I needed the constant reminder to stand firm in my liberty. I also needed to learn to practice walking in the spirit --- the antidote to both legalism and licentiousness.

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  4. Mike: "Jen has provided by far the most difficult challenges, and in the necessity of going even to deeper study and more detail in order to answer her I became even more convinced than ever before of the truth of what we discovered in our studies together."

    I will take that as a compliment, Mike. I think that because I fought you so hard, because I was SO determined to get to the truth, that I will be equally fervent on the other side, once I'm grounded.

    (I think Mike tried to get rid of me a couple times in the middle of the study, but I was so determined to find out the truth of this -- one way or the other -- that I wouldn't let him quit!) :-)

    I am really not wavering. It is my emotions that are wavering. I see something that I used to be in bondage to, and because I loved my bondage, I am still attracted to those things. I was looking up a passage in the Big Red Book for Corrie the other day, and I found myself sitting there reading it, page after page after page, fascinated and wanting to go back. But I knew I couldn't go back to being in bondage again, so I purposefully shut the book and put it on a shelf far away.

    Thanks for the encouragement to stand firm in my liberty, Mike. What I really desire to do is to apply that verse without going to any other extreme. I am beginning to see that one extreme breeds another, and that I am drawn to the extremes. I want to stand strong on Scripture alone and not add anything to it. I don't think I have to worry about taking anything away.

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  5. << Thanks for the encouragement to stand firm in my liberty, Mike. What I really desire to do is to apply that verse without going to any other extreme. I am beginning to see that one extreme breeds another, and that I am drawn to the extremes. I want to stand strong on Scripture alone and not add anything to it. I don't think I have to worry about taking anything away. >>


    Keep reading in GAL. 5, Jen -- and you will find the answer. When Paul says, in vs. 1, "Stand firm in your freedom," he is not talking about license. Over in Romans, in response to such an accusation, he said, "May it never be!"

    Further on in GAL. 5, he says, "You have been called to liberty." Think long and hard about that. Liberty is your calling in Christ, and as you will learn, it encompasses everything.

    But then -- as if anticipating the accusation that liberty is for indulgence -- he adds, "...only do not use your liberty as an occasion to indulge the flesh, but by love serve one another."

    THAT is the "middle way." We are not to go back to the licentiousness of the Gentiles, nor are we to go over to the legalism of the Jews. We are to walk in liberty, and serve one another through love.

    The "one another" commands in "the law of Christ" tell us clearly how to do that, and the Holy Spirit gives us the ability to do so. That's something the old law could never do.

    The law condemned the best we could do. Grace redeems our worst. The law put that great gulf between a holy God and sinful man. Grace reaches across that gulf, cleanses that man, and brings him close to God. Study EPH. 2 again, and this will jump out at you.

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