The guys talk more on uses of the law–and how confusing the first and third use of the law is particularly damaging. Justin also offers thoughts on how some Puritan theology is unhelpful.Resources:Podcast: Law/Gospel Podcast: Are You a Legalist or an AntinomianFREE EBOOK: Safe in Christ – A primer on restGiveaway: “Christ the Lord” by Michael HortonSUPPORT Theocast: https://theocast.org/give/ https://youtu.be/wysSDKhHk6MSemper Reformanda TranscriptsJustin Perdue: Welcome to the Semper Reformanda podcast.Let’s pick back up on that part in particular, the first and third use of the law, and how they’re confused and collapsed. We may talk a little bit more about Paul Washer’s famous sermon as an example of this kind of frightening Christians to death.Jon Moffitt: You can go read his sermon. It’s available online. You will see that a lot of the content is the first use of the law, and there is not a lot of gospel, and there is not a lot of grace in there. If he genuinely thought that those were unbelievers, then he should have concluded with Christ. But I think the way in which he approached it is that he approached it like they are believers, but they’re just not taking their faith seriously. He comes in and uses the first use of the law to get them serious, which is a very Puritanical way of using a sermon.I know I’m gonna get myself in a lot of trouble because I know people love, love, love, love, love Paul Washer. I’m not impugning the man’s motives. The man wants people to love Christ. He wants them to obey Christ. So does John MacArthur. How do you impugn those motives? Those are not bad motives. I’m just saying that I think the way in which they have approached it has been demonstrated in the past as not being the accurate way of doing it biblically. They are not the first to make this mistake.Justin Perdue: No, they’re not. And I’ll just speak very personally. I feel like this is something that I still am recovering from personally. My tendency so often, because of my conscience and the way I’m wired—and I’ve been pretty open about that in the past—I rededicated my life probably 150 times as a younger guy. I just have always been haunted by that idea of not being good enough for God. I think my default posture is to always revert back into this kind of economy of fear and dread—that God is not pleased with me, and there’s something not right between me and God. I think a lot of it has only been undergirded and that flame has only been fanned by preaching like we’re talking about. Because even as I encountered Calvinism, I was encountering this kind of stuff alongside the old good stuff, and it was confusing to me. So when I hear things like this, my immediate response is not, “I love Jesus and he loves me. I am safe and now I want to obey.” It is, “Oh my Lord. I’m afraid for myself.” Then Jesus and God don’t feel safe. The last place I want to go is the “throne of grace” when I sin. It’s just bad.That’s just me personally, brother. And I have to fight that instinct even still and remind myself. That’s why I pray for mercy all the time, that God would take away shame and guilt and fear that I carry around all the time.Jon Moffitt: For every podcast, that’s what we pray.Justin Perdue: I pray that for myself all the time. And I pray for faith.Jon Moffitt: Instead of running into the throne room of grace because mercy is waiting for you, there’s this need to get myself in shape or prepared or ready; it’s a penance type of Christianity. It is very confusing. Listeners that are coming out of a lordship context, they will contact us and they say, “For the first time in my life, I actually feel like a child of God and that I am safe in His arms,” versus wondering, “Have I done enough?” What do you mean? Done what? He’s done enough.Justin Perdue: Amen. No, it’s the greatest news in the world. And this message of lordship salvation, like we said so many times, is at best confusing and at best throws some clutter on top of the gospel. We just don’t want to see that happen because it really does rob the saints of peace. And it hinders us, we would say, in real growth and sanctification. We might get really good at doing the right things and being disciplined in the right ways because we’re afraid, or because we think that somehow this is earning God’s approval, and that he’s like smiling upon us because we’re doing this stuff. But in terms of real growth in love of neighbor and in fighting sin from good motivation, it’s not happening when we have this kind of frame.So don’t collapse the first and third use of the law. Don’t scare Christians into obedience.Jon Moffitt: Can I say one thing, too? If and when you have Christians who are in sin, it’s interesting how you hear Paul use words like, “You who are spiritual, in a spirit of meekness and gentleness, go to such a one and restore them.” Even when Paul is dealing with the Corinthians—he says, “I’m coming to you to preach to you the gospel.” The tenor and tone of a Christian should always be with gentleness and meekness and patience. Even when Paul says in Romans 15, “You who are spiritual, bear with the weakness of those who are in sin.” So anger and frustration and malice and just brashness towards sinning Christians is not the tone that you see from the New Testament.Justin Perdue: I’ll caveat that even more. I do think there’s a time and a place for stern warning to Christians who are living in obstinate, hard-hearted sin. But listen to the words I’m using: it’s stubborn and hard-hearted sin. It’s very much like, and you see it at a couple of points in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, where people are being arrogant and comfortable in your sin, and we are now going to challenge that with the law. That’s clear. That’s not at all what we’re talking about.We’re talking about people who want to obey the Lord, who find themselves having a hard time doing that, and they’re struggling against sin. Has anybody experienced that this week? I have. I am battling my flesh in my inner man. I want to obey yet I feel this very Pauline experience of there’s this other law waging war against me. And we’re talking to those people here where we want to preach Christ and guide one another with the law. But it’s not this fear and dread business and so, in condemnation and the like. That distinction makes all the difference in the world.Let’s talk about Puritans. Like we said as a parting shot from the podcast, the real issue here is not that any historical category of doctrine has been denied, but that the emphasis and the accent has been moved from Christ to the Christian. So at the end of the day, what’s being done in the lordship camp is akin to what was occurring in some of the bad Puritan writing and theology where the sheep are effectively being pointed back to themselves. It’s not that justification is denied. And justification, being the declaration of righteousness from God upon us, it’s the judicial verdict that we are right and just, and we’re in a right relationship with God. Justification is not being denied. It’s just that the emphasis is on something else: it’s on moral transformation, it’s on the renewing of your mind, it’s on obedience, and those kinds of things.This is why I think, as I read many Puritans… Now there are some who are really good, just to be clear—John Owen, John Cotton, Thomas Boston—I could keep going. These guys were great, but some of them were not so good. Why? And they can hardly be recognized as heirs of the Reformation because the emphasis is so much on moral transformation and obedience and introspection and holy living. Even though they haven’t denied justification formally, it’s sort of shoved off to the side or it’s pushed into the background, which is exactly what we talk about all the time with respect to pietism, and it’s exactly what we were pointing out today with respect to lordship salvation.I would just say this: in reacting to antinomianism, which is what John MacArthur was doing in writing this book in the first place, what you don’t want to do is drive the sheep back to themselves and away from Jesus. That’s not effective. I think that our forebearers have gotten it right when they understand and have articulated plainly that we have to keep justification and sanctification distinct, even though we agree that sanctification flows out of justification, and we just have to continue to beat that drum with clarity. Also the fact that assurance of salvation has to be grounded in something objective. It can’t be grounded in performance.A couple of quotes here. John Calvin says this from The Institutes: “The grace of God and the certainty of salvation and faith neither arise from nor depend on our obedience.” That’s really good. Then John Cotton—who is an American Puritan, who as a younger man was an Arminian and becomes a Calvinist, and has really, really good thinking and well-developed categories of covenant theology and these various things—says effectively this, paraphrased: “We do not build our justification on our sanctification. Doing so we enter into a covenant of works.” He’s exactly right. When we are building assurance of, of the fact that we are saved on how we’re living, we have effectively entered into a covenant of works. That’s a mic drop statement.Jon Moffitt: At the very heart of what Piper has been confusing with the final justification is that you are building your justification based on your sanctification.Justin Perdue: You’re building your salvation, in some sense, on your sanctification.Jon Moffitt: Right. John Piper is not confessionally Reformed. He does not hold to a covenant of works. He does not understand a law-gospel distinction. He does not hold to the three uses of the law. And these are all categories that we draw from the texts that give us lenses to appropriately interpret the text. We aren’t using these to put them on the text—they come out of it, and then we use them for all of Scripture. For instance, the Trinity is one of these lenses that we pull up out of the text and then we use it to look at every port of Scripture. It prevents you from being a heretic. You want to use those lenses. You want to know what all of Scripture has to say about the Trinity so you don’t make inappropriate conclusions. All we’re saying is that all of Scripture has a lot to say about the law and the gospel, all of Scripture has a lot to say about how to use those. Now use that to interpret every single passage.When it comes to guys like MacArthur and Piper in these particular instances, they aren’t using those categories, and because they aren’t using those categories, they’re collapsing them and they don’t even know it.Justin Perdue: That’s a podcast in and of itself. I know we’ve talked about some of that stuff lately, but covenant theology and law-gospel distinction, for example, are two great illustrations of things that come up out of the text that we then can go back to the text with those frameworks, and it helps us understand the whole Bible. It’s so critical. It’s important.This conversation today, if anything should encourage the listener to continue to grow in our understanding of these kinds of things—the distinction between the law and the gospel, to grow in our understanding of even confessional theology and the definition of what faith is, and to also grow in our understanding of covenant theology and the redemptive historical framework of the Bible—because so many of these errors can be seen pretty quickly and clearly when you have some of these categories in view. That’s really all we’ve done. We’ve read the book and interacted with the material. We’ve got alarm bells going off because it doesn’t seem right.Jon Moffitt: This is the most accurate description. If he didn’t mean to say those things, he had the opportunity in his republication of the most recent one. And I understand things that Justin and I have said in our younger years as pastors, we’ve adjusted there. But you listen to recent sermons of lordship salvation guys, and the books that are being written; they definitely have adjusted their languages, definitely more Reformed and informed, I would say. So they don’t make the same mistakes that they’ve made in the past where it’s flat out Roman Catholicism.So when someone tells me that Lordship salvation is another gospel, dispensationalism used to teach another gospel when they taught two forms of salvation: the old one and the new. But most dispensationalists reject that today. If you listen to the lordship salvation guys, a lot of them do reject a lot of the craziness that was taught back in the day.Justin Perdue: That obedience is faith and these kinds of things. They’ve rejected those things full-stop.Jon Moffitt: I’m glad conversations are being had and we’re moving more and more and more to this direction. Sometimes when I hear someone describe lordship to me, I don’t know what to call that, but historically that’s not lordship salvation, not according to the debate.Justin Perdue: This is just me reacting to this on the fly. I think that really a lot of what this lordship stuff is a lot of Calvinistic Evangelical pietistic thinking.Jon Moffitt: I would say lordship is pietism.Justin Perdue: It’s pietism, which is what the bad Puritans were. They were pietistic. So a lot of this goes back to those same categories that we continue to talk about over and over again.Thank you to the listeners and to all of our members.Jon Moffitt: Jump in the app and talk to us. It’d be a great place to continue. The rule is we are going to practice sanctification in that app. We are going to practice on one another. Think about what you’re saying, give someone the benefit of the doubt, everyone’s in transition, everyone’s thinking through things differently, they come from a different background. The goal is to not be unified for the sake of unity, but the goal is to unify around Christ. Christ draws us in, and that’s where we find our point of unity.Justin Perdue: I would even say that if you guys have thoughtful feedback on episodes, the SR app is a great place to give that. It’s a way better place to give it than the Facebook group just because that’s a broader audience. But for you guys and gals in particular, who are members and part of this ministry, we want to hear your feedback. What it may do is show us that we need to do another episode on lordship and clarify some stuff. Anyway, give us feedback.We love you. We’re grateful for you. We will talk with you again next week.

We have gotten a number of questions regarding Lordship Salvation and the historic, reformed position on it. So, today, that is what Jon and Justin talk about. We talk about concerns over the definition of faith, the collapsing of law and gospel, and confusion on the uses of the law. We interact with John MacArthur’s book, “The Gospel According to Jesus,” as well as Michael Horton’s “Christ the Lord.”Semper Reformanda: The guys talk more on uses of the law–and how confusing the first and third use of the law is particularly damaging. Justin also offers thoughts on how some Puritan theology is unhelpful.Resources:Podcast: Law/Gospel Podcast: Are You a Legalist or an AntinomianFREE EBOOK: Safe in Christ – A primer on restGiveaway: “Christ the Lord” by Michael HortonSUPPORT Theocast: https://theocast.org/give/  https://youtu.be/rpm-qPBEuBgPodcast TranscriptJustin Perdue: Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, we are going to be talking about lordship salvation. Many of you have asked us questions and have even asked us to give the historic Reformed take on lordship salvation—and so that is what we are going to offer in today’s episode. We hope you enjoy the conversation.Today we’re talking about lordship salvation. The title of this episode is A Critique of Lordship Salvation. That’s what we’re going to be doing from a pastoral perspective. Hopefully with grace and clarity, we’re going to raise some concerns that we have, as Reformed guys, with so-called lordship salvation. For many people at the pop level, at least, in the church, a figure that is most often associated with lordship salvation is John MacArthur. This podcast is not a review of John’s book that’s entitled The Gospel According to Jesus, but we will be interacting some with that content and some of the other things that MacArthur has said and written over the last 30 years or so.We will also be referencing Christ the Lord, which was edited by Michael Horton. There were a number of guys that contributed to that volume: Robert Godfrey, Rod Rosenbladt, Kim Riddlebarger, and others had chapters in that book. That’s a response from a Reformed and confessional perspective to the lordship salvation debate that was really, really heated back in the late eighties and the nineties. Inevitably, we’re going to interact with some of that material. This podcast is not a review of that material specifically. We’re going to be talking about lordship salvation in a more broad way.If we were going to define it just very simply for people, lordship salvation is this conversation about the idea that you can make Jesus your Savior but not your Lord—or is it even possible for Jesus to be your Savior, but not your Lord? There’s this distinction that’s introduced between those two things as though he can be one or thought of as one without being the other.And of course, the argument from the lordship salvation side or John MacArthur’s side, and guys and gals who agree with him, is that you cannot make Jesus Savior without also consciously making him Lord of your life. And so we’re interacting with that idea and that language that’s often used about submission to the lordship of Christ; what we understand that are at best confusing things that are said from that camp.Maybe we want to start by outlining the debate as it took place historically just to give people a little bit of context. In the eighties and nineties, there was a debate between John MacArthur and Zane Hodges. Zane Hodges was articulating a kind of theology. His book Absolutely Free articulated this theology that a person is justified by a single act of faith. Now, Hodges is coming at

The guys discuss a theology of the cross versus a theology of glory. And, we consider the point of our sanctification.

Resources:
Episode: Take Up Your Cross

Giveaway: “Recovering Eden” by Zack Eswine

FREE EBOOK: Theocast.org/primer

https://youtu.be/THpB7373Yp8

Semper Reformanda Transcripts

Justin Perdue: Welcome to the Semper Reformanda podcast.

When we were having the conversation back on the regular portion of the podcast, we alluded to several things: one of them being these principles of a theology of the cross versus a theology of glory; it’s very applicable to the conversation about dying with dignity and hope. The reason that people react quite strongly to a statement like that, that what we’re doing in the care of souls is to help people die with dignity and hope in Jesus, people buck that and say, “No. There is a lot more that we need to be doing. We need to be churning out strong, valiant, fearless, uber mature disciples who look and talk a certain way, and don’t struggle in certain ways. And if we’re not doing that, then we’re failing. That’s what we need to be doing as pastors.” Our response to that is some of what we said in the regular show, but I think we want to unpack this more here.

We actually have been told in Scripture that yes, we will grow and yes, we will be conformed into Christ’s image, and in this life we will still be weak. We, in this life, will not have a strength of our own that we can trust him. We will know that God’s strength is sufficient, His grace is sufficient, His power is made perfect in our weakness, His grace and Christ’s work has paid for every failing, and that Christ has us. And we’re going to learn that more and more and more, and be driven more deeply into the gospel, and be driven more deeply into Christ, and we’ll know ourselves to be more dependent as we grow in the faith. You and I don’t grow in our sufficiency as we mature; we actually realize how insufficient we are as we mature, and so we cling to Christ all the more.

If that’s what you mean by being stronger in the faith then I’m all for it, but I don’t think that’s what most people mean. It’s because we have confused these categories of the theology of the cross and the theology of glory. A theology of glory is very much earthbound. It’s focused on this life and strength and power and improvement now—getting glory now. Whereas a theology of the cross actually says something different: that we are weak, needy, frail, and feeble now. Christ has accomplished our salvation and glory is coming, but it’s a pattern now of weakness and suffering and then glory in the next life, not this one. I think the church, having confused this, is pretty obvious in a number of ways. I know you’re going to make an observation that’s more about teaching and stuff.

One observation I would just throw out there: how many really good songs have you heard written about heaven in the last 50 years? Good theological stuff written in the last 50 years. Not much. The fact that so much of our thinking is centered on improvement now… And I’m not talking about prosperity gospel theology here; we’re talking about improvement in our maturity and strength and stamina and discipline and all these things, but it’s so earthbound nonetheless. It just sounds more holy.

Jon Moffitt: Monday, I turned 40. As I get older, I think that I should be getting better, I should be progressing, I should be overcoming my weaknesses and failures. I am often reminded that everything I struggle with, everything that’s wrong, is all going to be made right. My wife and I were driving on our way to dinner last night through the backfields of Tennessee, because that’s where we live. It is beautiful. Just beautiful.

Justin Perdue: It’s the stuff country songs are made of.

Jon Moffitt: I’m just thinking, as we’re driving, that one day, my wife and I

In the church, we care for souls. But what is it that we are doing in that work? It is our conviction that we are helping one another die well–with dignity and hope. That may sound like a strange thing to say, but we are convinced it’s biblical. In this life, we are weak and frail. We experience suffering and pain. Yet, Christ is our hope. And he has secured for us a life that is beyond this one.

Semper Reformanda: The guys discuss a theology of the cross versus a theology of glory. And, we consider the point of our sanctification.

Resources:
Episode: Take Up Your Cross

Giveaway: “Recovering Eden” by Zack Eswine

FREE EBOOK: Theocast.org/primer

https://youtu.be/cl1BAv_PDHU

Podcast Transcript

Justin Perdue: Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, we’re going to be talking about what we are trying to do in the church when we care for people’s souls. A lot of things are said about these things, but it’s our position here that really what we’re effectively doing is helping people die well—helping people die with dignity and with hope, and that hope being in the Lord Jesus Christ. A lot of the things that are said about sanctification, even growth in the Christian life, give us the wrong idea. So we want to try to define some terms and define things appropriately today, as well as think well about our weakness and our frailty in this life, and the hope that Christ has given us in the life that is to come ,and to think well together about the faithfulness of God in the midst of our suffering and pain. We hope that this conversation is encouraging for you.

And then over in the SR podcast today, we’re going to get into some theology of the cross and theology of glory conversations. We hope that you enjoy that conversation as well.

We’re going to be effectively talking today about the care of souls and what it is that we’re doing in caring for souls in the church. The title of the episode is Dying With Dignity, which really is borrowed from something that John said on a podcast a few months ago about what we’re doing in the church as we watch over and care for people, which is this: we are helping people die with dignity and hope, and effectively we’re helping people die well, trusting in the Lord Jesus, knowing that deliverance has been accepted for them and that our final deliverance is coming because of Christ. And so this is a conversation in some ways about suffering, in some ways about sanctification, and trying to talk about it in a way that’s honest that squares with our experience. Because a lot of times, at least this is my take and I know you agree, that the way that growth and sanctification and even healing—to use some of that therapeutic language—is talked about. I think it gives us the wrong idea of what it’s going to be like.

This conversation today is, we hope, a kind of a reset. And I personally think it’s encouraging. We do not mean in saying this, in anything we’re about to say, we do not mean to sound fatalistic as though life is gonna be terrible and Jesus is going to come back. That’s not what we’re saying. We’re trying to biblically take a balanced posture on what it is the Lord is doing in our lives and what we can expect this life to look like between now and when we die, or between now and when Christ returns.

Jon Moffitt: That’s right. When we use the word dignity, one of the things that came to mind when I first started to give this theology to our church—I was trying to describe to our church. What are we doing every week? What are we trying to accomplish? I always want to be careful not to tear the churches down, but a lot of what I was seeing presented by other churches has given such a bad taste in my mouth, because if that’s the end goal—which is big buildings, big programs, big livestream…

Justin Perdue: Everything bigger and better and higher.

Jon Moffitt: This is pro

The guys discuss parachurch ministries and how they have often contributed to the confusion about what characterizes a strong Christian. Then, we talk more about the necessity of ordinary faithfulness in loving the weak in the church.

Giveaway: “Spurgeon’s Sorrows” by Zack Eswine

FREE EBOOK: theocast.org/primer

Scripture references:
Romans 15:1-4
Galatians 6:1-2
1 Thessalonians 5:14
Ephesians 4:1-3
Hebrews 3:15
John 13:34

SUPPORT Theocast: https://theocast.org/give/

https://youtu.be/_5iVIY3T8Lg

Semper Reformanda Transcripts

Jon Moffitt: Welcome to Semper Reformanda.

Justin Perdue: I’m going to launch us into this by giving a little anecdote from my past with respect to a buddy of mine. It would have been almost 15 years ago that I had this conversation with a friend and he was going here, there, and everywhere doing itinerant ministry with a youth organization. He was speaking regularly. His motivations, I trust, were good and all those things. I remember having a conversation with him where I encouraged him that he would be profited by doing a little bit less of that traveling and speaking stuff, and joining a local church where he can be anchored and rooted, where he can have depth of relationship, where he can encourage others and they can encourage him, and he can just be present. I thought it was going to be better for his  Christian life long-term. His response to me —and again, very sincere, and I assume his motivations are good—was basically, “I’m out doing all this really good ministry and I’m out doing all this good stuff. If I tether myself to a local church, all that’s really going to do is slow me down.” And I looked at him and said, “But brother, even if that’s true, even if you joining a local church slowed you down, as you put it, have you ever considered that in God’s plan and in God’s economy, maybe he has set it up in such a way that he would use you to help other people?” We’ve been so conditioned to think that being strong or being mature is all about our own personal strength, our own personal growth, our own personal fruitfulness—however in the world, we define that—rather than looking to the New Testament to see that really what defines success and maturity and strength are these things that are corporate. They have everything to do with how we’re loving our brothers and sisters, how we’re bearing burdens, and how we’re being gentle and compassionate and seeking to restore those who have fallen. You just can’t do that when you’re living life in isolation and you’re in the itinerant speaking circuit and you’re not in a church. How do you do these things?

Jon Moffitt: Even Paul was an itinerant speaker, in a way, and he himself was cared for and was underneath the leadership of elders, was sent out by them, and had multiple men around him that were caring for him and that he was caring for.

Ravi Zacharias is another great example of a man who, I think, for many, many years openly has not been a part of a church underneath the church leadership and cared for. There’s so much that has been said out there and I don’t want to get into that. The one thing I want to say is I think if he was a part of a good local church that was caring for him, that maybe some of these sins and struggles would have been exposed as Galatians 6:1 says, much earlier than this longevity. I know a lot of people questioned his salvation and all that kind of stuff, and that’s not what this is about, but a man who was doing the work of Christ in isolation is just not the design.

Justin Perdue: Yeah, it’s not the design. For people that give their lives to parachurch ministries that are not also in a local church, that’s not good for them. I agree with that completely. Also, what I think is  sadly, parachurch ministries have really served to do so often is just distract Christians from what really matters. Because peop

How would you describe a strong Christian? If you were to make a list of what characterizes a mature Christian, what would you put on that list? At Theocast, we are convinced that many would not answer these questions the way the apostles would have. As we look to the New Testament, what does it say about those who are strong in the church?

Semper Reformanda: The guys discuss parachurch ministries and how they have often contributed to the confusion about what characterizes a strong Christian. Then, we talk more about the necessity of ordinary faithfulness in loving the weak in the church.

Giveaway: “Spurgeon’s Sorrows” by Zack Eswine

FREE EBOOK: theocast.org/primer

Scripture references:
Romans 15:1-4
Galatians 6:1-2
1 Thessalonians 5:14
Ephesians 4:1-3
Hebrews 3:15
John 13:34

SUPPORT Theocast: https://theocast.org/give/

https://youtu.be/zLoJL9uT9Ks

Podcast Transcript

Jon Moffitt: Hi, this is Jon. Let me ask you this one question: what is a strong Christian? Is it one who is disciplined? Is it one who has read a thousand books on Christianity? How would you describe a strong Christian according to the Bible? That’s what Justin and I are going to talk about today on Theocast. We might have a little bit of a twist to the question. We’re going to look at it from Romans 15. We hope you enjoy. Stay tuned.

What are the marks of a strong Christian? Often, things that can cripple us and drag us down are things like depression and the dark night of the soul. This conversation is birthed out of a conversation we had at a men’s Bible study and a sermon that I preached recently. We’ll put the sermon in the notes as well.

The conversation we want to have today are the marks of a strong Christian and those marks, if we were to do a survey, it would probably have been fun to do and see what people would have come up with. I’ll throw a couple out, Justin. I’ll let you throw a couple out. Ones that we’ve heard that normally, when we think of someone who is strong, this is someone who for 20 years has been faithfully on their knees for 30 minutes in the morning, an hour in the word, and really just hasn’t missed unless they’ve been sick. The mark of a dedicated, faithful, disciplined Christian—that right there is a strong Christian.

Justin Perdue: For me, whenever I’ve heard people talk about being a strong Christian, the first word that pops into my mind is discipline. It’s a person who is disciplined in their life—and that may be with respect to prayer, Bible reading, but it could be any number of things. It’s a regimented, ordered kind of life. I think a lot of times we think of Christians as being strong when they don’t struggle with particular kinds of sins—the more taboo, public, obvious kinds of sins—they don’t deal with those in the same way that others do, and so therefore they’re strong.

Jon Moffitt: One of the guys described it as there are no extremes—you don’t see an extreme high, you don’t see an extreme low, they’re just steady. Steady Eddie, the guy with the gray hair who just always is: he’s always there and he’s always faithful. That’s the strong Christian. Some of these things are true.

Justin Perdue: Some of these things are good. To be really clear, we’re not saying that discipline, steadiness, and not struggling with certain kinds of obvious sins are bad—all of those things are good.

I’ll just go ahead and say this, Jon, that if you were to take a survey of the top five things that should characterize a Christian, I am relatively confident that most of us would not answer that and would not fill that out the way the apostles would have. As we’re getting to the number one thing that should mark us, it’s pretty obvious in the New Testament and it’s not what we would put first.

Jon Moffitt: No, it is not.

We’re going to look at several passages, but we’

Biblicism might sound like a good thing…but it’s not. Biblicism is a methodology that tends to introduce confusion and mystery into the Scriptures where there isn’t any. It also tends to confuse doctrinal and theological categories such as law/gospel distinction and faith versus works. Jon and Justin consider these things and more in this episode.Semper Reformanda: The guys discuss how biblicism is related to theonomy and unhelpful views on the nation of Israel. And, as a bonus, we get into a little bit of eschatology.Resources:Episode: Is the whole Bible about Jesus? Episode: Is your theological system any good?Series: Covenant Theology seriesBook: “Living in God’s Two Kingdoms” by David VanDrunnenSUPPORT Theocast: https://theocast.org/give/https://youtu.be/Dd-b7t1Ht8APodcast TranscriptJon Moffitt: Hi, this is Jon. Today on Theocast, we are going to be explaining what biblicism is. There’s a lot of theological confusion and categories and systems and theologies that have been birthed out of biblicism. We’re going to explain to you what it is, how to refrain from it, and how to spot it when you see it. Stay tuned.Today is a podcast we probably have been needing to do for a long time and we reference it often.Justin Perdue: We even promised to do a podcast on it multiple times.Jon Moffitt: I know. The real estate on the podcast is very small so we have to be choosy on what we pick.Biblicism is a word. I saw someone use it the other day, saying, “I’m a biblicist.” Someone should tell him not to say that.Justin Perdue: It’s not a badge of honor.Jon Moffitt: It’s a negative thing and we’re going to explain to you why. Someone may think, “Why would ‘Bible’ and ‘-ism’ be a bad thing?” Typically, “-ism” isn’t good. Not always the case; Calvinism isn’t necessarily bad—it has gotten a bad rap—which I just did an introduction to that on Ask Theocast. Check that out.But to stay focused: biblicism. Justin, give us a quick definition of what it is. Then we are going to work through about five or six examples of what happens when you don’t use Scripture properly, or you’re a biblicist, this is what it ends up producing.So what’s a good definition, a simple definition, of a biblicist for our listeners?Justin Perdue: Let me define it in a simple way, and even use pop level accessible language in talking about this. You already alluded to it once when you said a person would describe themself as a Bible person. Another way that you hear this commonly presented is people will say, “no creed but Christ”, or, “no confession but the Bible”. People will say that the only thing that we need to use is Scripture and any kind of framework outside of the Bible, or any tools outside of the Bible are not useful; it’s not faithful or it’s not responsible to use such things to understand the Scripture. And so you end up getting this kind of a situation where people will say that if the text does not say it explicitly, then we cannot preach it and we cannot teach it.Jon Moffitt: Or the reverse is true: “The text explicitly said it, therefore I’m going to preach it.”Justin Perdue: Sure. We’re going to give illustrations of this, like you said, in broad categories

The guys discuss how biblicism is related to theonomy and unhelpful views on the nation of Israel. And, as a bonus, we get into a little bit of eschatology.Resources:Episode: Is the whole Bible about Jesus? Episode: Is your theological system any good?Series: Covenant Theology seriesBook: “Living in God’s Two Kingdoms” by David VanDrunnenSUPPORT Theocast: https://theocast.org/give/https://youtu.be/Iipysp_LfogSemper Reformanda TranscriptsJon Moffitt: Hi, this is Jon. Today on Theocast, we are going to be explaining what biblicism is. There’s a lot of theological confusion and categories and systems and theologies that have been birthed out of biblicism. We’re going to explain to you what it is, how to refrain from it, and how to spot it when you see it. Stay tuned.Today is a podcast we probably have been needing to do for a long time and we reference it often.Justin Perdue: We even promised to do a podcast on it multiple times.Jon Moffitt: I know. The real estate on the podcast is very small so we have to be choosy on what we pick.Biblicism is a word. I saw someone use it the other day, saying, “I’m a biblicist.” Someone should tell him not to say that.Justin Perdue: It’s not a badge of honor.Jon Moffitt: It’s a negative thing and we’re going to explain to you why. Someone may think, “Why would ‘Bible’ and ‘-ism’ be a bad thing?” Typically, “-ism” isn’t good. Not always the case; Calvinism isn’t necessarily bad—it has gotten a bad rap—which I just did an introduction to that on Ask Theocast. Check that out.But to stay focused: biblicism. Justin, give us a quick definition of what it is. Then we are going to work through about five or six examples of what happens when you don’t use Scripture properly, or you’re a biblicist, this is what it ends up producing.So what’s a good definition, a simple definition, of a biblicist for our listeners?Justin Perdue: Let me define it in a simple way, and even use pop level accessible language in talking about this. You already alluded to it once when you said a person would describe themself as a Bible person. Another way that you hear this commonly presented is people will say, “no creed but Christ”, or, “no confession but the Bible”. People will say that the only thing that we need to use is Scripture and any kind of framework outside of the Bible, or any tools outside of the Bible are not useful; it’s not faithful or it’s not responsible to use such things to understand the Scripture. And so you end up getting this kind of a situation where people will say that if the text does not say it explicitly, then we cannot preach it and we cannot teach it.Jon Moffitt: Or the reverse is true: “The text explicitly said it, therefore I’m going to preach it.”Justin Perdue: Sure. We’re going to give illustrations of this, like you said, in broad categories and the like.What ends up happening is you make the Bible sound very schizophrenic because you quote chapter and verse in isolation and you don’t interpret that verse within its broader context, even maybe within the book that it’s situated in, let alone within the epoch of redemptive history that it’s situated in, or let alone the entire Bible. And so you

Justin talks about the thing that has most impacted his preaching. Jon and Justin then discuss how important it is to see that every promise of Scripture finds its fulfillment in Jesus.

Resources:
Episode: Is Christ-Centered Preaching Dangerous?
“The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant & His Kingdom” by Samuel Renihan
“Preaching Christ in All of Scripture” by Edmond Clowney
“The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament” by Edmond Clowney

https://youtu.be/QIwtBtf9-EA

Semper Reformanda Transcripts

Justin Perdue: Welcome to Semper Reformanda. Here we are talking with our people, and we want to continue the conversation about whether or not the whole Bible is really about Jesus—and obviously our conviction and our position is that yes, it absolutely is all about Jesus.

We talked about typology, we talked about Biblicism and some other things in the regular episode. We’re just gonna keep this going. I know Jon gave us a couple of things that he wants to discuss in terms of the fallout of not reading the Bible the way that we are advocating.

But before we even go there, I said something in the 32nd intermission between the end of the regular podcast and the start of us recording this one that Jon wanted me to say to everybody. For me, from my perspective, there is nothing more important for preaching than this understanding of the Scriptures. I think that this understanding of the Bible is more transformative for a pastor’s preaching than almost anything else. I know there are some other big theological categories that could be put alongside this in the conversation, but this legitimately Christ-centered, redemptive-historical hermeneutic is so critical to gospel preaching from the entire Bible.

I’m a part of various groups of pastors in various ways, and I see a lot of email correspondence flying around—and these are seminary graduates, some of them have PhDs—and I’m not trying to throw anybody under the bus but these are educated guys that are aiming to do faithful gospel ministry in their local contexts. They are asking questions of other pastors like, “Hey, guys. I’m wanting to do a series through this book of the Bible, kind of do a fly over it. It’s an Old Testament book. Can somebody just help me figure out how to preach the gospel from this book? I want to do a gospel-centered fly over of this. Can anybody help me think about resources that I can look at?” Of course it’s always good to reach out for help, but it’s sad to me that so many guys come out of seminary and are in pulpits, they are highly educated and very bright people, but they’re legitimately asking questions like, “How do I preach Jesus from Genesis?” Or, “How do I preach Jesus from 1 Kings?”

Jon Moffitt: I think the reason they ask that too is because what they think we mean is, “So here’s the exodus and here’s the data of what happened. Now I need to preach an altar call Jesus of repent and believe.”

Justin Perdue: Or the plan of salvation or something.

Jon Moffitt: Right. And there are even weird connections. I’ve seen people try to preach Jesus from the Old Testament—I’ve never heard this, I made this up—but, “As the children trusted the Lord and walked across the water, we need to trust the Lord and walk across the aisle and give our lives and dedication to the Father.” That’s a bad illustration, but people will do that. They make connections.

Justin Perdue: Or they’ll say, “Even if you’re afraid, you need to trust God and His promises,” which is true but there are a lot of better ways to preach it, like if we’re talking about the exodus.

Jon Moffitt: Again, this has to do with when you go to preach a redemptive-historical understanding of Scripture. This is why I think 2 Corinthians 1:20 is so important, because as I mentioned in the podcast, all the

Is the whole Bible really about Jesus? Here at Theocast, we believe that it is. Jon and Justin consider the pattern of Jesus and the apostles with regard to how they understood the Bible. The guys consider typology and how it is useful in understanding the Scriptures–and biblicism and how it is not helpful.

Semper Reformanda: Justin talks about the thing that has most impacted his preaching. Jon and Justin then discuss how important it is to see that every promise of Scripture finds its fulfillment in Jesus.

Resources:
Episode: Is Christ-Centered Preaching Dangerous?
“The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant & His Kingdom” by Samuel Renihan
“Preaching Christ in All of Scripture” by Edmond Clowney
“The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament” by Edmond Clowney

FREE Ebook: theocast.org/primer

SUPPORT Theocast: https://theocast.org/give/

https://youtu.be/KvOnPDF1P3M

Podcast Transcript

Justin Perdue: Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, we are going to answer the question, “Is the whole Bible really about Jesus?” We don’t like to bury the lead here at Theocast, and so our position is that yes, in fact, the whole Bible is about Christ and what he has accomplished on behalf of sinners in order to save us. We’re going to have this conversation from a couple of different perspectives. We’re going to talk about typology and how that works in the Bible. If you don’t even know what typology is, don’t worry, we’re going to define it and try to explain it for you.

We’re also going to talk about Biblicism and how it is unhelpful to understanding the Scriptures accurately. Again, if you don’t know what Biblicism is, stay tuned. We’re going to try to explain it to you and help you see how it relates to this conversation.

We really hope this is an encouraging and life-giving conversation for you, and that is a conversation that will open up the Scriptures and show you how from Genesis to Revelation, Jesus really is the point of it.

The title of the episode is Is the Whole Bible Really About Jesus? What we want to do today is answer that question. But we’re really just pulling the curtain back here and having a conversation about a couple of different things—and I’m going to try to explain briefly what we mean by these terms and then we’ll just kind of take-off and run with this.

We’re having a conversation today about typology and somewhat also about Biblicism. And so just briefly to define those terms for the listener: when we talk about typology, we are talking about the way that God reveals Himself, the way He reveals redemption—in particular, the way He reveals redemption through Christ in Scripture—where there are things that occur earlier on in biblical revelation, referred to as types, that are significant in and of themselves but they point to something that is greater, different, and ultimate. So those greater, different, ultimate fulfillments of the types are often referred to as antitypes. We’re going to talk about examples of some of that today. But if the Bible is read appropriately in a typological way, we are going to see types and shadows and pointers to Jesus all throughout the Old Testament before Christ even shows up on the scene in the New Testament.

If you think about, for example, the writer to the Hebrews and how he explains the fact that the sacrificial system, and so many of the other things that were revealed to Israel in the law, were ultimately about Christ. They were ultimately shadows and pointers to Jesus and the redemption that would be accomplished through him. That is a biblical example of typology. We’re going to talk about some other biblical examples of typology in this episode. So we’re having that conversation abou