November 21st: The New Calvinism

Speaker: Chris Laws

The resurgence of interest in Calvinism, accompanied by the abandoning of the Christian’s calling to leave the world, is a ‘re-run’ of Israel’s repeated failings.

Doctrine of Sanctification
The key to understanding New Calvinism. One of first BCF proof texts, John 17.17 “Sanctify them through thy truth.”
1. Sanctification primarily means separation, to be set apart from.
Temple not for everyday living but set apart for worship. No ordinary building.
Levites set apart for Temple duties. Utensils.
Separating from ordinary usage for sacred usage.
Sanctify, sanctification, sanctuary, sacred, saint come from same Gk word.
Definition of a Christian is a saint; someone set aside for sacred service. Hence someone holy.
2. Sanctify = to purify. Only what is pure can be offered to God.
Christ’s first prayer is for His disciples’ sanctification.
Jn 17.16-19 “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth...As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. The world hath hated them, because they are not of the world.”
3. Sanctification is leaving world’s ways, being separate from its sin.
Disciples would face great opposition. Lose jobs, lives.

The Church and the World
Gen 3.15 “I will put enmity between thee [Satan] and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed”.
Immediately after the Fall, God announced a battle that would not end.
Seed of Satan vs the seed of the woman. Satan’s kingdom against Christ’s kingdom.
Israelites
The Israelites delivered from Egypt, and taken to the promised land, Canaan.
Conquerors but didn’t want to be different.
1 Sam 8.19-20 “We will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations.”
Wanted their nation and religion to be like the other nations.
Recurring problem throughout their history.
*Solomon built the Temple and set up pure worship.
*20 years after Solomon dies, king Asa “took away the altars of the strange gods, and the high places, and broke down the images, and cut down the groves” (2 Chron 14.3).
*Next king, Jehoshaphat had to do the same: “he took away the high places and groves out of Israel” (2 Chron 17.6).
*17 years later, Joash had to do the same (2 Chron 24).
*Then Hezekiah had to re-open the Temple – closed down (2 Chron 29).
*Then Josiah; we read he had broke down the altars and the groves, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel (2 Chron 34).
God repeatedly warned them until finally Assyrians captivity.
They never grasped this, and God finally rejected them.

New Calvinism
Man’s fascination with Bible Truth from time to time
In Reformation days, justification by faith alone – new thinking to unsaved.
50 years ago Francis Schaeffer’s Christian explanation of the decline of Western civilization.
1000s unsaved young people fascinated by his biblical reasoning.
Today, Calvinism is popular among unsaved youngsters.
John Piper is the most prominent leader, an avowed Calvinist, and an eloquent preacher.
But charismatic beliefs. He claims to have heard God speak audibly.
Strongly pro heavy rock music ‘worship’ – says it is revival.
Thinks the youngsters experience the nearness of God, not like the cold detached old-school Calvinists. The Passion Conference.
Uses puritan doctrine to attract young people to a worldly lifestyle.
The idea is to be like the world so as to be able to reach them.
NC deliberately encourages being like worldlings to win them for Christ.
In 2007 Don Carson established the Gospel Coalition.
Aims: to bring all evangelicals together, promote the social gospel (liberal), worldly evangelism, contemporary worship.
Proclamation Trust founded by St Helen’s Bishopsgate.

Parallel with Israel
UK churches are doing the same thing. The battle that started in Gen 3.15 continues to rage today.
The battle is on against our churches. Be informed.
Features of Israel’s Problem
1. Didn’t like being different
They didn’t want to be different. Nor do we.
2. Decided they could keep true religion and have colourful pagan ceremonies.
Syncretism – having two religions at the same time.
You would have thought they would see the problem – pagan religions so offensive, even child sacrifice
Christians today fail to see how offensive the world’s ways are to God.
Scripture calls it spiritual adultery. “You adulterers and adulteresses, know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity against God?” (James 4.4)
Like a married man with divided loyalties.
“I’ll love both God and His teaching and the world and its music.” God angry.
NC combines Bible truth with worldliness.
Never say, “It’s good teaching, so it’s OK.” Exactly what Israel did.
3. They kept slipping back into idolatry.
Repeated reformations did not solve the problem – they didn’t see the issue for long.
Be warned. Worldliness exerts an influence like a mistress. Many UK pastors are slipping slowly into it.
It is adultery in God’s eyes.
4. Fatal – led to their destruction
Israel never did keep paganism out. It always deceived them.
God cast off Israel and withdrew from them.
God will eventually withdraw from NC churches.
“The carnal mind is enmity against God…they that are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom 8.7-8).
The Passion Conference. Filth and purity don’t mix well. Pure water always ruined by filth.
Worldliness always destroys churches and the power of the Gospel.

100 years ago in the West, every Christian knew “the friendship of the world is enmity with God” (James 4.4).
Every new convert instinctively knows that. At conversion we: leave the old life; new life to please the Lord, holiness.
NC ruins young converts – ‘don’t leave the world’s side; be like them to win them’.
Don’t become like a worldling again to avoid being different, unpopular.
Don’t do what so many churches and pastors are doing.
Be different, separate from the world’s ways in obedience to Christ.

Calvin and Puritans
Remarkable youngster, always studying. “He ate little, slept hardly a third of the night…He repeated each morning on waking all that he had learned the day before…”
By age 22 some called him the most learned man in Europe.
Weak, naturally shy, converted at ~22. Pale youth changed into a bold witness for Christ, unafraid of death.
Within no time his friends made him flee Paris for his life.
Let him down out of a window on bed sheets as the police were knocking at the door.
But he continued to preach the Gospel despite the danger – heart for the lost.
Courageous, disciplined, serious. Calvin preached in Geneva 7am every day.
Puritans the great preachers and teachers of Calvinism in the 16th & 17th Cs, noted for great purity of life.
Great Calvinistic confessions of faith – 1643 Westminster, 1689 Baptist.
Follow their example, not NC.