The Best The Calvinist Has To Offer…An Empty Bone Dry Cup

The one attack of Satan that reveals and unhinges the reality behind Calvin’s and thus successive Calvinist doctrine is the attack or fiery anfechtungen of faith. Better stated when the conscience is stricken by a question of “do you/I really have saving faith”. Because “the heart of man is desperately wicked…who can know it” this searing trial is one of the greatest attacks from Satan, and Calvin is impotent to help. Oh Calvinist will say, “I would point them to Christ”, but when the attack is combined with “am I elect” the Calvinist always resorts to “do you believe these things (Christ crucified for you) and IF you do, THEN (and only then we might add) you are elect”. Here the poor Calvinist doctrine reveals ALL of its falsehood from the sacraments not really being sacraments to its Gospel not really being a Gospel (in which YOU participate) and that it is as impotent in reaching up into heaven and grasping God as is Islam or any pagan religion. Here it reveals its hidden synergism that is no less synergistic than Arminianism, semi-pelagianism or rank pelagianism. Here it reveals that it does not really believe as it confesses the true and real TOTAL depravity of man. For it offers up the work of faith as the effort one can make to ASSURE one’s self one is elect and thus saved. Thus this fiery dart from the evil one pierces the Calvinist “defense doctrine” like a nuclear missile penetrates a light fog.

This is in utter contradistinction with the true bondage of the will when Luther confessed, “I cannot by my own power or strength believe in my faithful Savior Jesus Christ but am called by the Gospel by the Holy Spirit”, elsewhere, “no man can know he believes”, elsewhere, “he who basis his baptism on his faith is an idolater” and elsewhere “that no true assurance, confidence or comfort can be gained unless the old man is thoroughly dead” (ldh paraphrases). This is, thus, the TRUE bondage of the will of which Luther speaks which is NOT the same as the Calvinist total depravity as we have abundantly shown here.

Thus, the Calvinist cannot truly nor does really GIVE you Christ, He is not in “their sacraments” nor given such, no true absolution, baptism is always forever just out of arms reach like a forever carrot on a stick, no true flesh and blood GIVEN you SHED for you for the forgiveness of your sins. In Calvinism as with all forms of latent Gnosticism Christ’s incarnation doesn’t really come ALL the way down to earth TO and FOR YOU, no “pro me” and with no pro me no Gospel at all, only another gospel, another gospel crafted very cleverly by an angel of light.

Larry

CPU & Internet Connection Back…As It Were…

Imagine a slow turtle picture above.

Sorry for the extended respite. In short we moved and I just now got my cpu back from repair. We are out of town now and have only slow turtle dial up available to us. So I hope to post more, I may have less fun visuals to work with due to excruciating slow up and down load times, but I do hope to post at least more frequently now having both my cpu back and a connection to the internet of sorts.

Yours,

Larry

LUTHER ON FEELING YOUR SINS

As a evangelical, especially a Southern Baptist, I use to be taught and think that “dead in trespasses and sin” meant something more like this; “If I still am sinning repeated sin I must be still dead in sin.”  By sin here most enthusiasts mean “the negative sin list” as opposed to the inward curving.  That’s one redefinition applied there.  And then one wrestles with the whole “am I saved, elect, truly reborn, converted…” ad nausem of the once saved always saved torment.  One begins acting, ironically, like a RC in that now one must figure out, “what constitutes enough can’t get out of sins x, y and z that constitutes that I’m still dead in my sins and trespasses.”  And so one is “off to the races” as the carrot and the stick in the going-no-where hamster wheel religion begins and never stops.

 Luther makes a point about what is “dead in one’s sins”?  He likens it to leprosy in which the flesh is so dead no feeling exists anymore.  And there it is!  This is why the false saint is just like the rank sinner in which neither feel their sins, they are truly DEAD IN sins and trespasses.  Not fake sin or pretend sin, the false saint may “feel these” and so confess these.  But rather to feel even one’s good works as sin is getting closer to actually feeling sin, feeling death, hell and the Law relentlessly condemning one.

 But Luther makes a point about this in the Lord’s Supper lest we find ourselves in a given time ‘not feeling our sin’.  Do not despair as the false teachers in the heterodox churches would have you do, rather see ‘not feeling your sin’ as a red warning light and rush to the Sacrament on the naked basis of faith that hears the Word that both says we are dead in sins and trespasses, even if we don’t feel it that day, and then says, “take eat/take drink…FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF YOUR SINS”.  Take it on faith EVEN WHEN, maybe even especially when reason, affections and experience give you no reason, feeling or experience that you are dead in sins and trespasses.  Take that LACK of feeling as the red light to actually go receive forgiveness. 

 This is how faith acts, on the Word alone, to the opposition of reason, feelings and experiences, it HEARS the “Take eat/drink…” and flees the deadness it feels, that is to say the lack of feeling of sins.

 Larry

The Gnostic Lord’s Supper – Zwingli and Calvin

Last night I was reading Sasse’s “We Confess The Sacraments” series before dozing off for the night. In an essay on the Lord’s Supper he is going through the 1 Cor. 10/11 passages of Paul and John 6’s passage regarding the Lord’s Supper showing how both apostles emphatically are saying it is the real and true body and blood of Christ and not just symbols. After going through Paul he goes to John 6 in particular I believe it is verse 55b and on where Jesus is speaking in very direct and plain language of eating and drinking His flesh and blood more than once. The question arises why does John the evangelist use this term “flesh” as opposed to “body” that we find in Paul? “Flesh” is a more dramatic term. One has to keep in mind that John’s penning of his gospel was one of the latest of all the NT books, some 90+ A.D., that and John’s first epistle letter. Thus, why the dramatic term shift from “body” to “flesh”. Furthermore John’s use of the term we translate “eat” in the Greek is not the normal Greek word but a more harsh Greek word that literally means “chew” (I can’t recall the Greek right now). Why this hard and rigid shift? Back to what John was battling more and more arising that the other apostles didn’t nearly as much before they fell asleep, the rising tide of docetism and other forms of Gnosticism whereby this dualism between earthly things and heavenly things is set up (this is inherent in both Calvin and Zwingli’s thoughts and why they could not see what the Scriptures said). Sasse points out John is doing what ALL good confessions do when they arise out of necessity of an arising heresy in the church, the language becomes more direct and clarifying to identify the heresy and condemn it. We see this in the Lutheran confessions in which later out of necessity to clarify and condemn the Zwinglian/Calvinistic heresies on the LS we find them (Lutheran confessions) often adding the terms “the real and true body/blood” to clarify what is meant in contradistinction and condemnation of Zwinglian and Calvinistic “sign/symbol” language. Heresy nearly always comes under the guise of fuzzy language. Rome would say, “we too believe in justification, grace, faith, etc…”, but its not the same as the orthodox confessions spell out. Here John in the writing of his gospel some years later is well aware that the Gnostics would pick up Paul’s language of “body” and use it in a spiritualizing way, just like Zwingli did and Calvin after him (here’s why Luther rightly said “you are of a different spirit”. So John is refuting, not just here but in all his gospel (because his is the richest in speaking of the incarnate flesh as well as 1 John), these Gnostics who would otherwise spiritualize Paul’s term “body”, something Paul NEVER meant, and thus uses the term “sarx” or flesh so that no misunderstanding can be had as to what Jesus meant when He said “if you eat of My flesh and drink My blood…” and identifies that what happens when this is really and truly done is that one receives for real the flesh and blood of Christ, not in a cannibalistic way, but sacramental way whereby at least too tremendous benefits are given: 1. Christ enters one and 2. eternal life is truly given and received and possessed in the present and in the resurrection, “he who eats Me flesh and drinks My blood HAS (eternal) life”. Thus, John the evangelist is making no confusing bones about what Jesus said a meant, in fact he’s choosing terms not before used by Paul to both clarify Paul and refute the heresy of Gnosticism (which is inherent in Zwingli and Calvin). Thus when at Marburg Luther refused the right hand of fellowship to Zwingli and Bucer (Calvin’s predecessor) it was not just “stoggey mean old Luther”, but a refutation of an ancient heresy he clearly saw and was another spirit, a form of Gnosticism. Gnosticism always attempts to get the incarnation in reality and truth out some way, in this case the Lord’s Supper which is ultimately linked to the incarnation itself and the two natures of Christ in union. In the LS if one can get people to the level of it being only sign, symbol and commemoration then one enters into the Gnostic thought because all becomes “contemplative”, which is a high mark of Gnosticism; as opposed to actually, truly and really receiving the very real and true body and blood of Christ. It’s nothing less than another form of getting the incarnation out of the faith and hope of the believer in exchange for a not so subtle, once recognized, contemplative religion – a reflecting on what Christ did past tense but not an actual receiving of what Christ did here and now to the man for the man (the pro me/for me of the Gospel).

The True Pro Me Versus The False Teachers Pro Me

What does the “pro me” mean?  Of course this is somewhat easy to answer in Lutheran theology, it is the essence of the Gospel or Good News.  It is thus truly GOOD NEWS when it comes TO you and FOR you, as opposed to some other guy or gal “over there”.  It may be seen like this by way of an earthly analogy, if Bob down the street wins the multi-million dollar lottery that is good news objectively and in general, but it is only truly GOOD NEWS TO and FOR Bob, not me or you.  But if you or I win that same lottery then the general good news does in fact become GOOD NEWS TO and FOR me and you.  I think we can all see the difference here as it is fairly obvious.  The pro me is kind of the subjective side of the equation if we can carefully use the term “subjective” with the “pro me” rightly and not wrongly as in other heterodox confessions.

 Thus it is critical where the “pro me” is found.  It is critical that the pro me be grounded objectively in something utterly, completely and entirely objective, sure and certain.

 I was reading a definition over on http://lutheranwiktionary.org/tiki-index.php about Arminianism.  In the definition we read, “Although Arminianism arose in reaction against Calvinism, they share much in common. Both have a low view of the Holy Sacraments and emphasize subjectivity–personal election in the case of Calvinism, personal decision in the case of Arminianism. Both incline toward legalism–for the Calvinist, to ensure that he is persevering in his election; for the Arminian, to exercise his free will with the assistance of God’s grace.”  Right there it struck me, “There it is the Calvinistic and Arminian “pro me”, per se.  Rather than in the sacraments where the Gospel comes to and for me personally, am really washed and forgiven of sin, really and truly receive that very body and very blood that was given for my forgiveness of sin for real not symbolically, the Calvinist and Arminian “pro me”, due to, I would say, NO view of the holy sacraments as opposed to a “low view”, goes and directs men’s souls elsewhere (as do all forms of theologies of glory that avoid the Cross).  For all men individually must know “what about me”, its nice about “that guy over there” but what about me.  And lest we forget “that guy over there” is thinking the exact same thing, “that’s fine about that guy over there…but what about me”.  There is no theoretical “guy over there” that is not concerned with his own “pro me”.  All sinners must be concerned at ground zero with “pro me”.  It is only AFTER the “pro me” of the Gospel becomes really and truly “for me” that the “for me” worry is dissipated and a man is free to sacrifice his life for the neighbor.  All other pursuit of “good works” is folly, pagan and rank unbelief.

Thus, we find that the Calvinistic “pro me”, how I know I am saved personally as opposed to that guy over there, is in the PERSONAL election and for the Arminian it is not much different in that the “pro me” is in the PERSONAL decision.  Of course both of these are a fools errand since the Gospel is given in neither and thus this theology of glory “pro me” begets what it always begets a drudgery and slogging along of outward “good works” to , to ensure that one is persevering in his election (Calvinistic) or , to ensure that one does not fall away from salvation (Arminian).  There is no Word or better Gospel Word given in this kind of “election” or “exercise of the free will”, in fact just the opposite, condemnation.  If one insists on looking inward to one’s heart one will find eventually the truth of one’s heart and see in reality nothing but death, condemnation and hell…for that is the state of the fallen heart.  No wonder no sure and certainty of salvation can be garnered by looking at this heart.  No wonder that starring into a dark tunnel all that is seen is darkness.  The light is extra nos, outside of us, in the Gospel, every bit of it, in the sacraments.  This sacrament (the Lord’s Supper) is the Gospel, said Luther.  And so it is for it gives what it says and it gives it TO you/me and FOR you/me and the object for FAITH to cling to is what it says it is, the very body and blood of Jesus Christ.  Faith clings to NOTHING else than Christ alone, any other clinging is false faith and not real faith.  Faith does not cling to signs and symbols, THAT would be the very definition of idolatry!