Our topic, modern evangelicalism's perversion of the gospel. And I'm just gonna read Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. It's very important that we get the gospel right. It's very, very important. I was, me and my wife, in the off season, we'll take these little miniature vacations to the beach, and I was talking to a Southern Baptist, a lady raised in the Southern Baptist Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and she had to be probably 68, 70. She was born in that church, you know, she was, attended that church, and she married a Roman Catholic. And her Southern Baptist pastor married her to a Roman Catholic, knowing that she was going to be raising her children in the Roman Catholic Church because, at least back in those days, they required, if you married a Roman Catholic, you had to raise your children in a Roman Catholic Church. And she said, there's no difference between evangelicalism and Roman Catholicism. And I said, well, I beg to differ with her. But she'd been attending church her whole life. and thought there was no difference. She said, well, there's minor differences in worship. Yeah, they've got statues and stuff, but, you know, we both teach salvation. And, you know, she saw no difference whatsoever. It's sad to say that's fairly common. Now, I know there's churches that are evangelical that are much more solid, like John MacArthur, for example, who would preach justification by faith. But you'd be surprised how many evangelicals don't know the gospel. And it's because they're taught a false gospel. the false gospel of Arminianism and of course this idea that becoming a Christian it means asking Jesus to come and live in your heart. So we're going to look at that. And we'll have to look at Romanism a little bit just for background. In our day, many professing Christians have no idea what the term justification means, what the atonement means, I mean, if you want to know about Christian salvation, you need to know what is vicarious atonement, what is justification by faith alone, and then, of course, the meaning of faith. What does it mean to believe in Christ? Now, the thing nice about justification by faith alone is if you study that, it teaches you the doctrine of the atonement, and it teaches you the meaning of faith. So we're trying to focus on justification here. But evangelicals, I was a charismatic evangelical And I never even heard of justification by faith until I became Reformed. I didn't even know what it was. So, it's an important topic. And already many professing Christians have no idea what the term justification means, and are so hostile, indifferent, and apathetic when it comes to Christian theology, that much of this ignorance is willful. It's deliberate. And I even encountered some of this when I was in the RPCNA, you know, doctrine's not important, people are important. I was actually told that by a minister in the RPCNA. Doctrine's not important, people's important. Well, sanctification is connected to doctrine. So practical living is connected to doctrine, and if you don't believe that, you don't know what you're talking about. The church's present attitude must radically change if there is to be a reformation and revival in our land. Now even though many professing Christians could care less about Paul's hair-splitting theological distinctions and dense theological arguments, read the book of Romans, read the book of Galatians on justification and salvation, where he's extremely detailed, and that's what amazes me is, oh, doctrine's not important. Have you read the Bible? It's full of doctrine. Have you read Paul? Before he talks about sanctification, he usually spends a great deal of time talking about doctrine. Of course, sanctification is itself doctrine. We must always remember that true Christianity cannot exist without these precious truths. Therefore, we must understand them and embrace them and hold to them firmly the rest of our lives and apply them to our lives. I like, here's a statement of J.I. Packard, and this is in his introduction to the classic work by James Buchanan, The Doctrine of Justification, an outline of its history in the church and its exposition from scripture. published in the 1800s and reprinted in 1961. Quote, the doctrine of justification by faith is like Atlas. It bears a world on its shoulders. The entire evangelical knowledge of saving grace, when Protestants let the thought of justification drop out of their minds, the true knowledge of salvation drops out with it. and cannot be restored till the truth of justification is back in its proper place. When Atlas falls, everything that rested on its shoulders comes crashing down, too." And I believe that's the case we have today with modern evangelicalism, and you'll learn my reasoning as we proceed. we're gonna see that much of what is called evangelical in our day is not evangelical at all in the proper biblical sense of the term. When it comes to the doctrine of salvation, much of evangelical has more in common with Romanism than traditional Protestantism, the Protestantism of Luther, Knox, and Calvin. With all this in mind, we need to briefly examine Romanism before we consider the problems with evangelicalism because they're closely related. With Roman Catholicism, salvation is a process that occurs in you. Grace is infused into you, and as you cooperate with grace and become more better over time, you earn your justification. Now, evangelicalism's obviously not that blatant, but we'll see it has much in common. You can go to an evangelical conference and hear all about prophecy. and it's usually terrible teaching on prophecy, end time stuff, and then at the end of it you'll hear, accept Jesus into your heart as your personal savior. Well that's not the gospel, and we're going to see why. Let's look first at the Roman Catholic doctrine. The great error of the Romanist doctrine on justification is to combine a professing Christian's inward holiness Sanctification or personal obedience with the merits of Christ as the ground of justification. And you'll see that's the same thing with a federal vision. Very similar. Here's a few statements. Here's the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church. It came out in 1994. It's the most recent. Justification detaches man from sin, which contradicts the love of God. and purifies his heart of sin. Justification falls upon God's merciful initiative of offering forgiveness. It reconciles man with God. It frees from the enslavement of sin, and it heals." Well, no, it's a declaration in the heavenly court. It's not sanctification, and that clearly combines sanctification with justification, which we'll learn about in a moment. Here's another one. This is from the Council of Trent, 6th Session, Canon 9 and 12. If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, let him be anathema. That means let him be accursed. If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ's sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, let him be anathema. Here's another one, Council of Trent, 6th Session, Canon Now, remember, this is in response to Luther and Calvin. This is the counter-Reformation document, the Council of Trent. And this is where we can say the Roman Catholic Church is clearly apostate. If anyone saith after the grace of justification has been received, to every penitent sinner the guiltless remitted, and that the debt of eternal punishment is blotted out, and such wise that there remains not any debt of temporal punishment to be discharged either in this world or in the next in purgatory, Before the entrance into the kingdom of heaven, can be open to him, let him be anathema." Council Transition Session, Cana 30. The Roman Catholic doctrine of justification is a combination of the errors of the patristic fathers, who I think were influenced by the doctrine of the Pharisees. The speculations of the Aristotelian influence medieval scholastic theologians as well. The doctrine was fully developed at the Council of Trent, 1543 to 1563, in reaction to the Great Reformation doctrine of justification by faith alone. So we can say that at Trent, the Roman Catholic Church slammed the door shut on the true gospel of Christ. It is an apostate church, a heretical church, that should be treated as no different than a cult, contrary to Doug Wilson, who thinks it's a true church. And you can see why Doug Wilson and the Federal Visionists would want to say it's a true church, because their doctrine is almost identical. It's actually a little more deceitful, but it's very similar. That you're saved by faith and by the works that flow from faith, or faithfulness, faith and faithfulness. Now Doug Wilson would deny that, but he's advocated that for over 10 years, well over 10 years. The Second Vatican Council 1965 and the recent Roman Catholic Catechism 1994 both clearly affirmed Trent. So since Trent, the Roman Church is truly a synagogue of Satan. The Pope They're cardinals, bishops, priests, they're all antichrists, enemies of the gospel. The 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church says, justification is converted baptism, the sacrament of faith. It conforms us to the righteousness of God who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy. Did you hear that? It's not an imputation of righteousness. You become inwardly righteous. And as you become inwardly righteous, you become justified by God. It's a confounding of justification, which is a forensic declaration of righteousness by God the Father based on Christ's righteousness. It confounds that with your personal righteousness wrought in you by the power of the Holy Spirit, which is part of sanctification and has nothing to do with justification whatsoever. So in their view, justification is defined as inward or subjective. It's a process. So grace is infused into man and people are justified only after becoming righteous. It is considered a subjective experience or an internal renovation and renewal of man. So Roman Catholic theologians and catechisms teach that justification only occurs after a long process of the Holy Spirit working in a man eventually transforming him into a juster, righteous person, who with the merits of Christ, as well as Mary and the saints, who have supposedly achieved more merit than they really need, is finally accepted with God. And if you don't quite get there, if you still have some venial sins with you, you burn those off in purgatory, which is a place of tortures to burn off sin after death. which is not in the Bible at all. It's based on a misreading of something I think in 2 Maccabees or something. Now Romanism is perhaps the most clever, subtle form of works righteousness salvation ever invented by man because the papal church does not explicitly teach in any of their canonical statements that men are saved by works of the law. Instead they are, and this is true of the Federal Vision as well, it's very subtle. Instead they argue that men are saved by grace and faith that is infused by God into man that enables him to be personally transformed into a righteous person over time. Now, if you study the Federal Vision heresy, Doug Wilson, Steve Schlissel, Norman Shepard, Peter Lightheart, James Jordan and those fellows, they teach something very similar. You have to have faith and the faithfulness that flows from faith, and so they say you're saved by grace through faith, but it takes place in man. You see, it's very similar to Romanism. Because in their view, God gets the process going and continues the process in man, they attribute man's personal righteousness or the works of law solely to grace, even though it clearly is a divine human synergism. A process in man in which man cooperates with the work of God. Same with the federal vision. A devout Roman Catholic could say, justification by faith means I cannot save myself, but as grace is infused into me by God and I cooperate with this transforming grace by following all the canons and decrees of the Roman Catholic Church, I can eventually become righteous enough to be acceptable in God's sight. Now, what happened with Martin Luther, as you well know, is Luther was honest with himself. And you look at the Sermon on the Mount, and you look at how Christ dealt with the Pharisees and the Jews who believed in worse righteousness, the law has an eternal aspect. It applies not simply to your deeds, but your thoughts and your words. It's not that hard to go 30, 40 years and not commit adultery. I'm talking about the physical act. But go 30, 40 years and not have an improper thought about another woman. And that's non-existent. among men. So you have to understand the internal aspect of the law. Once you do, all these concepts of earning, earning your way into heaven, or working your way into heaven, or becoming righteous enough for God to just declare you righteous is absolute nonsense. Roman Catholic theologians teach that justification is converted baptism, which in their view, in their view men are regenerated. They agree with the federal vision, or I should say the federal vision agrees with them. And then here's, they believe that sends up to that point are deleted and the inward process of becoming inwardly just or righteous by the power of mercy begins. Romanists refer to what happens in baptism as initial or first ground of justification. It begins the lengthy process that may not even be completed until after death and purgatory. That results in a person's second justification. And that's another thing that has a lot in common with the federal vision. They'll say, yeah, well, you're justified in baptism, but there's a second justification, which in their view is more important, which happens on the day of judgment. So here's what Charles Hodge says, and he's not bad. He's great. Quote. As life expels death, as light banishes darkness, so the entrance of this new divine life into the soul expels sin, that of sinful habits, and brings forth the fruits of righteousness. Works done after regeneration have real merit, meritum condigni, and are the ground of the second justification. The first justification consisting in making the soul inherently just by the infusion of righteousness. According to this view, we are not justified by works done before regeneration, but we are justified for gracious works, that is, for works which spring from the principle of divine life infused in the heart. The whole ground of our acceptance with God is thus made to be what we are and what we do." End of quote. He's describing Romanism. And if you ask Norman Shepard, or if you ask one of the federal visionists, how come they don't believe in justification by works, they say, well, these works are caused by the Holy Spirit, so we can't take credit for them, therefore it's not salvation by works, you see. So they're agreeing, essentially, with the Roman Catholic position. Now the bottom line is that the biblical Christian looks solely to Christ and his perfect work to save him, while the Roman Catholic looks to Jesus to help him save himself. So the Roman Catholic Church and Pharisaical Judaism are very similar. Now Pharisaical Judaism doesn't have the crass idol worship, although they do worship the Talmud, the law, they're kissing the scrolls and everything, but they're very similar. For the Protestant, godliness, personal holiness, and a life of good works follows justification. but for the Roman Catholic baptism and submission to the papal church brings a long journey that may or not lead to justification. In the end it all boils down to Romanists, a Romanist's hard work at cooperating with infused grace. In this system, it is this system that drove Martin Luther to despair because he knew, he was honest with himself, he knew his subjective righteousness never met with God's standard of perfect righteousness. He fasted, he prayed, he beat him, he flagellated himself, he did everything he possibly could to be holy, and he knew that he was still a sinner. He was honest with himself, in other words. And this view is very similar to the Federal Vision, by the way. So, there's two major problems with Romanism, and we'll deal with this quick because I want to get to Evangelicalism. The first regards their confounding of justification with sanctification, and the second deals with their implicit denial of the sufficiency and perfection of Christ's sacrificial death. They merge justification with sanctification, same problem of the federal vision, and when you do that, you believe in salvation by works. You say you don't, you say, well, the Holy Spirit causes me to do this, but it's still something you do and it's still subjective. So let's just note, what is the biblical, we're gonna look very quickly at a biblical definition of justification. It's gonna help you if you know this, I'm sure you do, but this'll help you. Number one, this is the biblical view, the Protestant view, the scriptural view. Justification is objective. It takes place outside the center in the heavenly court. Justification does not directly change the inner life of man. On the other hand, sanctification is subjective. It takes place in the center and renders the center more holy over time. See the difference? One's in man, one's objective. So the gospel is not, accept Jesus into your heart. That has more in common with Roman Catholicism than the biblical gospel, which is, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Lay hold of Christ by the instrument of faith. Number two, justification is an act of God the Father. God renders a verdict regarding the one who believes in Christ. Romans 8.33, it is God who justifies. Sanctification is a work of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 5.18, and do not be drunk with wine in which is dissipation, but be filled, present passive imperative, keep on being filled with the Spirit. So what is the solution to being drunk or being a drug addict? Stop what you're doing and be filled with the Holy Spirit and do fruits of faith. Justification is instantaneous. God declares the believing sinner righteous in a moment of time, the moment you believe in Christ. John 5, 24. Most assuredly, or truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. It's not a process. Justification's not a process. It's not piecemeal. It takes place only once, then it is complete. There's no such thing as being more and more justified. There are no degrees of acceptance with God. To be justified is to be wholly justified. You're either saved or you're not saved. You're either justified or you're not justified. Now the Christian grows in holiness and more and more conforms to the character of Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit applies God's word to his heart. The old sin nature is progressively subdued, but it is never entirely eradicated in this life. Sanctification is progressive, it is imperfect, and it is not completed until death, and that is why Jesus has us pray for our sins to be forgiven every day. I'm gonna ask questions about this when we're done, so I hope you're paying attention back there. Four. Justification removes the guilt of sin and clothes the believer with Christ's perfect righteousness, thus entitling him to eternal life in God's own family. Sanctification progressively removes the pollution of sin subdues the power of sin and increasingly enables the believer to live in conformity with the word of God. Once again, one's objective, one's subjective. One's a process that takes place in the center, one's not a process. Three, I mean, excuse me, five. Justification is an act of God obtained by or through faith. Romans 3.30, there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. So faith is not the ground or cause of justification, but the instrument by which the believer receives justification. Okay, this is another problem with Romanism and with the federal vision. Faith is simple. Faith is purely instrumental. It grasps the perfect redemption achieved by Christ. When you talk about faith as faithful obedience or faith is faith working through love, which is the Roman Catholic way of saying it, faithful obedience or the obedience of faith, which is what the Federal Visionists like to say. Now, yes, faith leads to obedience. Faith leads to being faithful. That's true. But don't mix works with faith. It's simple. It is the sole instrument by which you lay hold of what Christ has achieved. And the moment you mix works with that or say, well, faith means works, which is what the federal visionists do, or faith means faithful obedience, we could say faith leads to that. These things are fruits of faith, but they're not the same thing as faith. And that's the era of Romanism, and that's the era of the federal vision. Faith is the gift of God which lays hold of and receives what Christ has accomplished. The believer's salvation and justification are totally a work of God. Sanctification requires faith and flows from Christ's death and justification, but it is a process in which the justified sinner cooperates and contributes. You've got to study the Word. You've got to pray. You've got to attend the public means of grace. And if you don't, you're gonna backslide. And if you don't, you're not gonna grow. It's dependent on a process in which you cooperate. Do you got a problem in your life with some sinful area? Write down the passages that deal with that problem and memorize them. Put them in your pocket. And then when you're tempted, read it. Or recite it to yourself. It's a process. You have to cooperate. You have to work at it. Yes, the Holy Spirit enables you to obey, but it's something you have to cooperate with. Sanctification involves obedience to God's law and good works. In justification, there is not one iota of human merit, good works, or law keeping involved except Christ's perfect righteousness. Okay, sanctification. We're not, Paul says it over and over and over again, we're not justified by keeping the law. No one is justified by God's law. However, Paul teaches that the law, the moral law, is God's standard for sanctification. Don't commit adultery. Don't commit murder. And we're talking about the comprehensive sense of those commandments. The Ten Commandments is a summary of the moral law. You have to study other portions of Scripture to know all the details. Justification involves the invitation of Christ's perfect righteousness to the believer who personally is still a sinner. And I should have wrote this passage down, but I think it's Romans 5. God justifies the ungodly. God doesn't justify people when they become perfect. He justifies people who are sinners. Sanctification involves the infusion of righteousness by the Holy Spirit's direct work on the heart in regeneration and a continuing work of enlightening the mind and applying truth to the heart. John 17, 17, sanctify them by truth. Your word is truth. Peter, desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby. How are you sanctified? The word of God. If you're not reading your Bible and you're not studying good Christian stuff, don't be surprised if you stagnate and get depressed and have a lousy life. You're responsible to work at it. And like I said, if you've got a problem in a certain area, everybody has different problems. Those are the passages that you need to write down and memorize and apply them to your life if you're tempted. The other great error of Romanism with regard to justification is their view that Jesus' work of redemption is not sufficient for our full salvation. They believe that Christ only rendered a partial satisfaction for sin. The papal church tells their deluded followers that they need to add on to what Jesus has done. So they have the mass repeated week after week. He must reach up to God through prayer, fasting, attending masses, rosaries, prayers, vows of chastity, poverty, the confessional, and all these other good works. Penance, as the Roman Catholic catechism teach, involves the confession of one's sins to a priest, and then doing certain prayers and good works is the only manner that sins committed after baptism can be forgiven. I was raised a Roman Catholic, and when I was young, my parents were very dedicated. Every Saturday, we'd go to confession, so we'd be prepared for taking the Eucharist on Sunday morning. Confession Saturday, Eucharist on Sunday. And you confess your sins to the priest, Father, forgive me for I have sinned, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then he'll tell you, say, three our fathers, four Hail Marys, three apostles creates, he'll give you a thing to do that's supposed to be your penance. But once it has been established from scripture that Jesus made a perfect, complete satisfaction for sin, all the human inventors of potpourri, the sacrifice of the mass, purgatory, confession to a priest, indulgences, meritorious pilgrimage, donations, etc. are at once overthrown. Why? Well, what does the Bible say? The Savior's death removed all guilt and every penalty. Romans 5.21, 8.1, 32-34, Hebrews 10.14, Psalm 103.12, Isaiah 44.22, etc. He achieved reconciliation with God. Romans 5.10, 2 Corinthians 5.18. There's no such thing as a partial reconciliation. He eliminates the guilt. That's the theological word expiation. The guilt of sin is removed. That enables reconciliation, which means God's no longer angry at you because of your sin. God is reconciled. You are reconciled with God. That leads to justification and adoption into God's own family. Why? Jesus paid the ransom in price in full, Galatians 3.13, Romans 7.4 and 6, Hebrews 9.12, Revelation 5.9, Isaiah 53.6, 1 Peter 2.24. He completely propitiated God's wrath against the elect sinner, Romans 3.25, Hebrews 2.17. Okay, so that's just a very brief overview of Romanism. Now, the reason I bring it up, because I don't think anybody's gonna be tempted to join the Roman Catholic Church unless you follow James Jordan and the Federal Visionists. Those people, some of them are becoming Roman Catholics. And I know people who have, that have followed James Jordan into the Roman Catholic Church. But we need to see the similarities of Arminianism, Arminian evangelicalism, and of course the Federal Vision with Romanism. Now the chief problem with evangelicalism is first and foremost Arminianism. Arminianism in its doctrine of justification by faith is a radical departure from scripture as well as the Orthodox Lutheran Calvinistic teaching. Now Lutherans following, not Luther, but Melanchthon became Arminian and corrupt. I think Wisconsin might not be that way, but they're very corrupt, so you can't trust Lutherans anymore. But Luther was rock-solid on justification and rock-solid on the five points of Calvinism. Arminianism actually is much more common for Roman Catholic doctrine than it does historic Protestantism. Now, as we critique Arminianism, and I'm talking about, it's the foundation of modern evangelicalism, and this is this idea that Christ died for everybody without exception, he died for Adolf Hitler and Stalin and everybody who goes to hell, and that it's up to you and your autonomous free will to choose Christ, and therefore, according to Arminianism, you're saved because of your act of the will, you're saved because of faith, not through faith as a gift. See the difference? with the biblical doctrine of the gospel, with biblical Calvinism, faith is a gift of God that you receive in regeneration, and it's rooted in, it's based upon Christ's perfect work at the cross in the empty tomb. The application of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, which gives you the gift of faith and repentance, flows from the cross and empty tomb. Therefore, if you teach that Christ died for everyone without exception, then everyone without exception would be saved. Because the reason you receive regeneration in faith is because you were united to Christ in his death and resurrection. Arminianism doesn't teach that. They teach that Christ died for everybody without exception, and you activate that because of your faith. In other words, it's your autonomous free will that makes a difference between you and the person who goes to hell. It's not sovereign grace. And that is a very bad doctrine, folks. That's not the gospel. So I want to make some comments about the traditional evangelical Arminianism, which today actually is much worse than their original heretical forefathers. The Remonstrants, this is where the We get the five points of Calvinism and where the Arminianism comes from. And let me just tell you, in the early part of the 17th century, Arminius introduced a new system of doctrine in the Reformed churches of Holland, which was formally condemned by the Senate of Dort, which sat from November 1618 to May 1619. Against the decisions of that Senate, the advocates of the new doctrine presented a remonstrance and hence they were first called remonstrants. But in years after, their more common designation has been Arminians, based because of Arminius. Arminianism is a much lower form of doctrine than Lutheranism. In all points, including under anthropology and soteriology, the doctrine of salvation, the doctrine of man, it is a much more serious departure from the system of Augustinianism which is really Calvinism, in all its ages, which had been the life of the church. Now, why do I bring this up? Because modern evangelicalism is Arminian. They follow Arminius. They follow the heresies of Arminius, which were adopted by people like Charles Wesley and John Wesley, and became the core of Methodism, and became adopted by a lot of almost all Originally Baptists were Calvinistic, but now virtually all Baptists, except a very small remnant, which we call Reformed Baptists, they're all Arminian. So the Remonstrants, the Arminians, introduced the completely unscriptural idea that after the fall, men, with a little assistance from God, have the ability to be converted to Christ and choose spiritual good. In other words, man is not dead in trespasses and sins, man is merely sick. And with a little help from the Holy Spirit, you have that ability to choose Christ. And everybody gets this help of the Holy Spirit, but not all people choose Christ. So it's really up to you whether you're saved or not. All men, we're told, have been given a sufficient measure of divine grace to choose Jesus, and thus salvation ultimately boils down to a choice of man's free will. Like Romanism, the Arminian has a place for grace, but the chief ingredient in man's redemption is man's free will. Men are saved because of their faith and not through faith as a divine gift received in regeneration. Thus, Arminianism, like Roman Catholicism, is synergistic in its view of salvation. What does synergistic mean? It means it's a process where God does something and you do something. That's how you're saved. Monergism, which is Augustinianism and Calvinism, God gets all the glory. God gets all the credit. Yes, you cooperate in sanctification, but you do not cooperate in justification. Yes, you have to believe, but the faith you receive is a gift of God in regeneration. They also hold that under the gospel, the demands of the law are not perfectly met by a surety, that is a substitute, but are simply lowered to a level of evangelical obedience. Now I'm talking about traditional, the original Arminianism, which all modern evangelicalism grew out of. As Robert Trill, the Covenanter, says, quote, they hold that Christ died to merit this of the Father, that is, that we might be justified upon easier terms under the gospel than those of the law of innocency. Instead of justification by perfect obedience, we are now to be justified by our own evangelical righteousness made up of faith, repentance, and sincere obedience. That's traditional Arminianism. And this doctrine, not only turns faith and repentance into meritorious works, but also impinges on the holiness of God by picturing Him as satisfied with something less than ethical perfection. Once you understand God's nature and character, that God is absolutely righteous, holy, just, thrice holy God, He cannot dwell with sinners. He cannot cooperate with sin. He cannot tolerate sin. Once you understand that, then you understand why Christ had to die on the cross and why Christ had to render a perfect obedience to the law. Because none of us can. None of us will. We're dependent solely on Christ. His sacrificial death to remove the guilt and penalty of sin, His perfect righteousness, His perfect keeping of the law, imputed or reckoned to our account, that is how we go to heaven. And we apprehend that solely by faith. That is not what Arminian teaches. Arminianism doesn't teach that. Scripture does not teach that God lowered his requirements based on the contrary, but on the contrary makes it perfectly clear that moral laws are not positivistic but are based on God's own nature and character. God could no more lower his moral standards than could he deny his own nature. Thus Jehovah requires perfect sinless perfection. Consequently, Paul presents the biblical doctrine of justification as the brilliant and the only solution to the problem of how a wholly righteous God can remain just or righteous while justifying men who in themselves are not perfectly righteous but are still sinful. Romans 3.26. And once you understand that, it should strengthen your faith. We're not saved because we're righteous. We're saved, we're sinners. Now we have a responsibility to lead holy lives once we're justified as fruits of faith, but we don't earn our salvation at all. God supplies the righteousness that we need in his only begotten Son. Jesus not only paid our penalty for falling on the cross, but during his life he perfectly obeyed the Father as the second Adam, fulfilling what is called the covenant of works, the perfect requirement of keeping the moral law in exhaustive detail from birth until death. Our sins are imputed to him on the cross and his perfect personal righteousness, his sinless obedience is reckoned to our account. On the basis of what the Savior did, we are declared righteous in the heavenly court. Now another very common perversion of the doctrine of salvation among evangelicals on our day is to completely neglect the biblical teaching regarding forensic justification in favor of teaching salvation as a subjective experience within man. Now I told you I attended church faithfully for three years in an evangelical church and did not know the gospel at all until I read it in a book by B.B. Warfield. And I never heard the true gospel preached at all until I attended a Reformed church. I didn't know what justification by faith was. I didn't know what the righteousness of God was or the righteousness of Christ. I thought that to be saved you ask Jesus to come and live in your heart. That's what I thought. And that's not the gospel. And this has affected the way the gospel is preached. There's been a shift away from preaching the holiness of God and the requirement of God's law toward the terminology of inviting Jesus to come into our heart, or of accepting Jesus as our personal Savior. The Bible teaches that Christ's work of redemption for His people is objective. It's a very unique religion. There's nothing like it in the world. It's totally unique. We're saved by something that Jesus did in history, on Earth, 2,000 years ago. It really happened. He came to earth, he was born of a virgin, he lived a sinless life, he submitted to the Father's will, he died his atoning sacrifice on the cross, a vicarious sacrifice for his people, and he rose from the dead for our justification, and we are declared righteous solely through faith in him. Jesus had to satisfy the requirements of the law with regard to precept and penalty. Okay, precept, Adam had to obey, before the fall, Adam had to obey God perfectly in order to be given eternal life. We would say glorified life, where Adam could no longer fall, where Adam did not have the possibility of sinning, Adam did not have the possibility of dying. If he had never sinned, a point would have come where God would have declared him righteous and he would have inherited eternal life. Well, we can't do that because we're all filthy, rotten sinners and we sin every day. But Jesus did it. He actually did live a whole life without any sin. This fulfillment took place outside the center in history in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. This message, which is the very essence of the gospel, is ignored in favor of an emphasis on the personal choice of the autonomous man, who by his choice initiates an existential encounter with the Savior within. Ask Jesus to come into your heart. Ask him to live in your heart. I was taught that for three years. I heard it every week, but I never heard the gospel. The gospel is reduced from the objective work of Christ obtained by faith to sovereign man allowing Jesus to dwell in his heart. They're two very different things. Now the expressions, accept Christ as your personal Savior and let Jesus come into your heart, are not found in scripture and were never used by Christ, the apostles, or the evangelists in the book of Acts. It's not in the epistles. Now in Revelation 3.20, Christ said, behold, I stand at the door and knock and if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him and he with me. And this passage is sometimes used to justify this expression. Let Jesus come and dwell in your heart. But the context of the passage, however, clearly indicates that Christ was not speaking to unbelievers, but to a backslidden church. Christ, therefore, is not saying, let me come into your heart, but hear and obey and reestablish proper fellowship with me. Repent of your sins. They're already professing Christians, they're already part of a church, and they fell into sin. And Christ is saying, look, listen to my voice, obey me, and restore proper fellowship. And that would apply to any Christian who backslides. Knock off the sin. Repent. Get back in line with sanctification. Christ is coming into fellowship with the saints. He is not standing at the door of the spiritually dead sinner asking him to exercise his unrenewed will, which is impossible anyway. The idea that the unrenewed sinner has the power to believe in Christ of his own free will is like preaching to a graveyard and expecting them to come out of the grave and embrace Christ. They're dead, Paul says in Ephesians chapter two very clearly. Now another passage used to justify modern evangelical methods, which I think is a better passage, is John 1.12. Listen to this. But as many as received him, and I've heard that receive Christ, To them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name. So what does it mean to receive Christ? What does it mean? We don't define that, we let John define it, who wrote this. What does John say? If you study the Gospel of John, one does not find Christ and the apostles inviting people to receive Jesus into their heart. In the Gospel of John, receiving Christ is synonymous with believing in Christ. Jesus said, John 5, 43 and 46 to 47, I have come in my father's name and you do not receive me. Four, if you believe Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? So what does it mean to receive Christ in the gospel of John? Believe in Christ. Believe in the testimony of scripture regarding Christ. A Buddhist can say, I believe in Christ and say, I accept Christ. So can a Hindu. So can a Roman Catholic. But it means believing in Christ as he is revealed in the sacred scriptures, as he is defined in the scriptures, fully God. He's 100% God. He's 100% man without sin. born of a virgin in Bethlehem, did real miracles throughout his life, never sinned even once, died, he was prosecuted and died under the Romans, Pontius Pilate. He died on the cross as a sacrifice for sin. He was in the grave for three days. And then he rose from the dead, literally, bodily, he ascended into heaven. We believe in Christ as he is revealed in the scriptures. Now, why do I say that? Because you can talk to, I've talked to Hindus and Buddhists and Romanists and all kinds of people. Oh yeah, I believe in Christ or I've received Christ. I receive him. But they don't believe in him at all because they, like a modernist, would define Christ as just a good teacher. Very humble guy. Love people. But they don't believe in Christ as he's revealed in the scriptures. That's very important. The only way to receive Christ is to believe in Him, and to receive Christ is to believe the words which He speaks and the scriptural testimony regarding Him. Believing in Christ means trusting in Christ's person, character, work, and word. One believes that Christ can carry out His promises. He came to save to the uttermost. Receiving Christ is not a formula. in which man sovereignly controls the Lord of Lords and King over Kings, but has a wholehearted trust in the divine human mediator, Jesus Christ, and His perfect, sufficient, redemptive work." So I don't mind you saying, receive Christ as your Savior, as your Lord and Savior, as long as you define it as it's defined in the Scriptures. But I know, I was evangelical. I attended evangelical churches faithfully. I went to conferences. I attended every week. I never missed a service. And I'd hear all kinds of crummy doctrine and crummy sermons. And then at the end of it, they'd always say, well, accept Christ into your heart or receive Jesus into your heart. I didn't know what the gospel was. And this poor lady I talked to, this Southern Baptist, had no idea what the gospel was. And she thought there was no difference between Roman Catholics and Protestants or Roman Catholics and Baptists. and she married a Roman Catholic, and she raised all her kids Roman Catholic. So she's not saved, her husband's not saved, and none of her children are saved because of an error. That's a very serious error, isn't it? Shouldn't we get this right? Shouldn't we make sure we can explain these things, and know these things, and explain them to our children? While in the Gospel of John, people are never exhorted to receive Jesus as their personal Savior, the verb pistou, to believe, occurs 98 times. 98 times! In evangelism, the Holy Spirit's emphasis should be our emphasis. Once again, there's nothing wrong with the phrase receive Christ as long as we define it biblically. It means to believe in Christ as He is revealed in the Scriptures. You have to believe in the person of Christ, He's not just simply some Jewish teacher. He's God and man in one person who came to earth from heaven, was born of a virgin in Bethlehem, the Incarnation, lived a perfect sinless life There's only 33 and a half years lived on the entire planet since the beginning of time that is acceptable in God's sight, and that's the life of Christ. He obeyed the law in exhaustive detail. He earned eternal life. He kept the precept. but he also paid the penalty. Not for himself, he was without spot or blemish. A lamb without spot or blemish. He never sinned, he never did anything wrong in thought, word, or deed. He lived a perfect, sinless life. And he died as a substitutionary sacrifice because he didn't have any guilt. So why did he die? To pay for our guilt, the guilt of his people, the elect. Now the biblical passages which refer to the indwelling of Christ and the individual believer, are never used in the context of an evangelistic formula but are always used in the context of Christian sanctification and assurance. Remember we said sanctification is a subjective process in man. Paul says, but you are not in the flesh but in the spirit if indeed the spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ he is not of his and if Christ is in you the body is If Christ is not in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness, Romans 8, 9-10. The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ because the exalted Savior imparts Him in and with the Comforter, John 14, 16-20. Yeah, we do have a subjective experience. We do have an existential experience with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. Why? That's a fruit, that's a result, of the efficacious nature of Christ's death and resurrection. Romans chapter 6 and 7, union with Christ in his death and resurrection is why you are sanctified. It's why you receive justification. Excuse me, it's not justification, it's why you receive regeneration and initial sanctification and progressive sanctification in your life. The power of the Holy Spirit is imparted due to the efficacy of Jesus' death and resurrection. And this is a fatal flaw of Arminianism which Evangelicalism teaches. If Christ died for you, then you will be sanctified. you will have the Holy Spirit. If Christ died and rose for you, you will be holy. If Christ died and rose for you, the Bible teaches, you will persevere to the very end. So if Christ died for you and rose for you, you cannot go to hell. So they, like Roman Catholicism, they deny the perfection and efficacy of Jesus' death in order to exalt the will of man. And that is not the gospel. Modern evangelicalism is not teaching the gospel. We'll wrap this up quickly here. I know it's going on. Here's another one. Paul says, 2 Corinthians 13, 5, Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Prove yourselves. Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you unless you are disqualified? There is an essential unity in the three persons of the Godhead. Thus Christ, according to his divine nature, dwells in his people by his Spirit. The purpose of the Spirit, the presence of the Spirit, is the presence of Jesus, of Christ. This is not a mere figurative expression, as when we say we have a friend in our heart, but a real truth. The Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, is in the people of God, collectively and individually, the ever-present source of the new kind of life. The only way that we can have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is not to ask Jesus to come into our heart. Any Hindu, Buddhist, or Roman Catholic can do that. But we rather, we must believe in Christ according to the scriptures, only then are we united to Christ by his spirit. Inviting Jesus into the heart sounds nice, but it has nothing to do with scripture, and it's very, very different than believing in Jesus. So why do you have the spirit in your heart? Why are you being sanctified progressively by the Holy Spirit who lives in you? Remember Paul, how dare you fornicate? How dare you join your body with a harlot when you have the Holy Spirit inside of you? How disgusting is that? We have the Holy Spirit in us because we believe in Jesus Christ and we've been justified by him. That's why we have the Spirit, not because we invited him in of our autonomous free will. The shift in modern preaching and personal evangelism from justification by faith alone to the terminology of inviting Jesus into the heart or accepting him as a personal savior is very dangerous because it substitutes a subjective encounter in the place of Christ's objective work obtained solely by faith. This message is strikingly similar to Roman Catholicism, which teaches that we are saved by an infused grace, which is also a subjective experience. Consequently, the use of sloppy, unbiblical terminology has led many Protestants down the road toward Rome without them even being aware of it. It also explains the great popularity of the charismatic movement, which stresses a personal experience over objective truth. Although evangelicals probably do not intend to confound justification with sanctification in their presentation of what they believe the gospel is, nevertheless, they make no distinction between an imputed righteousness that is reckoned to your account and an infused righteousness within you by the Holy Spirit or an objective declaration of justification and a subjective experience in our hearts. Once again, this is the central air of Roman Catholicism. And that's why the average evangelical has no problem with Roman Catholicism today. And that's why the average federal visionist doesn't have that big of a problem with Roman Catholicism, because they believe something very similar. The ignorance of doctrine and the use of unscriptural terminology by evangelicals has led many evangelical leaders and laymen to ask, what is so bad about Roman Catholicism? My Roman Catholic friends have accepted Jesus and asked him to come into their heart. Aren't they Christians just like me? The truth is not that Romanists are moving closer to a biblical doctrine of salvation, but that evangelicals have been moving closer to Rome. It is true that a number of Roman Catholics have become charismatics and adopted some of the modern evangelical slogans and terms, but they have not embraced the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone, by the imputed righteousness of Christ. They haven't accepted that at all. This sinful tendency is to forget the objective gospel and move toward a man-centered subjectivism. Jesus said, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves, Matthew 7, 15. So, have we done some theological hair splitting? Well, yeah, sure. This is all taught in scripture. It's all extremely important. And when I heard that poor lady, who's been a Southern Baptist. She was raised a Southern Baptist. She was married to a Roman Catholic by a Southern Baptist minister who was a minister for over 40 years. And why did he marry them? Because he didn't think there was any difference between their gospel and his gospel. Now, I know there's some Southern Baptist churches that are much better than others, but that just shocked me. Oh, there's no difference between Roman Catholics and us. We're the same. We all believe in salvation by Christ. No, we don't. Arminianism is a damnable heresy. The federal vision is a damnable heresy. And modern evangelicalism with their Arminianism and their idea that faith is something that you generate yourself with a little help from God is heresy, damnable heresy. So I hope this helps us as a good way of reviewing the gospel. This should be precious to you. If it's not, you're probably not a Christian. In fact, I could say if it's not precious to you at all, then you're not a Christian. This is the gospel. This is important. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your gospel. We confess, Lord, that we do not appreciate you as we ought. We do not appreciate your word as we ought. We do not appreciate your dear son as we ought. Fill us with your Holy Spirit. Increase our faith. Increase our love and devotion toward your son and what he has accomplished, for it's something we could never do. We don't deserve heaven, we deserve hell. But due to your grace and mercy, you sent your son into the world to die for rotten sinners like us. And due to the efficacy, the power of his death and resurrection, the Holy Spirit is sent into our hearts to open our blind eyes, to raise our hearts from the dead, and then to draw us to your dear son. We give you all the glory, we give you all the credit, for our faith and our salvation. It's due solely to Christ. We thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.