February 24, 2007

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  Weird Quote from John Piper

   

  Piper says,

   

  “We will never recognize the truth of Jesus until our will is to do God’s will, namely, to love the glory of God above our own. … you will NEVER KNOW THIS ABOUT HIM (and thus never receive him for who he is) UNLESS YOU HAVE A WILL THAT INCLINES to do the will of God. How shall someone know if Jesus’ teaching is of God? A person shall know (according to a literal rendering) “if one is willing to do his (that is, God’s) will.” THE CONDITION OF KNOWING IS WILLING. … a certain kind of willing (or wanting or desiring or inclining or preferring) must precede our receiving Christ … a certain kind of willing must precede our knowing, our recognizing, that Christ is worthy of being received. … you have to want Jesus in order to receive Jesus … YOU HAVE TO WANT YOUR LIFE TO BE SHAPED BY THE WILL OF GOD IN ORDER TO EVEN RECOGNIZE JESUS. (All quotes in this note taken from http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/
  1986/568_Preparing_to_Receive_Christ_Willing_to_Do_the_Will_of_God/)

   

  This is strange. How can someone want to obey God, if they don’t know who the True God is? Or is Piper saying you can know Jehovah, without knowing who Christ is? He does say, “you have to want your life to be shaped by the will of God in order to recongize Jesus”.  I mean, can you want to obey 1/3 of the Trinity — the Father — and not know about the other 1/3 (Christ)? Of course not. I suppose Piper thinks unbelievers already deep down know 1/3 of God already. And then when an unbeliever “gets religion” and starts doing more works, God rewards the unbeliever with the ability to recognise Jesus. So “Christ” is kind of like the bonus that unbelievers get when they start getting self-righteous (establishing a righteousness of their own). The reward for unbelievers when they start to DO SOMETHING (you know, get a little “holier”), is that God will give them the ability to recognize Christ (according to Piper).

   

  Piper says,

   

  1) “You have to want your life to be shaped by the will of God”

  2) “IN ORDER to recognize Jesus”

   

  This is just another way of saying

   

  1) You must establish a righteousness of your own

  BEFORE

  2) God will give you the righteousness of Christ

   

  (Warning — Piper will say that God helps you establish your own righteousness, and then will give you Christ’s righteousness as your reward. He says, “… in order to recognize the divine truth of Jesus’ teaching the rebellion of your will must be overcome so that it wills what God wills”. So he saying, that before you are saved, God will first make you a little holier / more moral (God will improve your affections/desires — your will). And after God has made you a little more righteous, then he will give you Christ’s righteousness. Now, Piper will say that since it is God that makes you a little more righteous, then God is getting all the glory in salvation. But pause and think. Does Christ get all the glory, if he FAILED to fulfill the Law COMPLETELY? If we must FINISH OFF what he failed to do, then is God getting all the glory? Because Piper is saying that we must first be made a little more righteous before God will give us Christ’s righteousness. So that means Christ’s righteousness is NOT ENOUGH, according to Piper. We need to help Christ out, says Piper, by finishing off what he failed to do.)

   

  I’m not making this up! These are the words from John Piper’s mouth

  “We will never recognize the truth of Jesus until our will is to do God’s will…  you will NEVER KNOW THIS ABOUT HIM (and thus never receive him for who he is) UNLESS YOU HAVE A WILL THAT INCLINES to do the will of God”

  Wow. This is equivalent to saying

   

  1) We will not have Christ’s righteousness imputed to us

   

  UNLESS 2) We first establish a righteousness of our own

   

  OK, now everyone will say I am misrepresenting Piper. So I want to post a few more quotes from him. He says,

   

  “Preparing to Receive Christ: Willing to Do the Will of God … you have to want your whole life to be shaped by the will of God in order to even recognize Jesus. … a certain kind of willing must precede our knowing, our recognizing, that Christ is worthy of being received. …  Prepare Your Hearts to Receive the Lord … Prepare your hearts this advent season to receive the Lord for who he really is. Cultivate a love for the glory of God. If you wanted to develop a love for the glory of classical music, you would study it and spend time talking with people who love it, and you would listen and listen and listen.

   

  Piper is right, than when you want to become good at something in life, you practice it. But I’m not sure why he uses this analogy. Is he saying, that in order to have Christ’s righteousness imputed to us, we need to get righteous first ourselves? That to know about Christ’s righteousness and THE WORK he has done, we must first do some works ourselves?

   

  Let’s keep going. How can you want your “life to be shaped by the will of God in order to even recognize Jesus”? Here Piper seems to be saying 1) You must love God (want to obey Him) BEFORE 2) you know he loves you. Or, to put it another way — he is saying a) You must have appreciation, gratitude and will to obey God out of thanks BEFORE you know b) who Christ is and what He did.

   

  But how can a man love God, if he doesn’t know and understand what Christ has done?

   

  This raises a few questions. Suppose the local doctor’s name is Dr Healer and there is a sick person in town called Mr Dying. Now, must Mr. Dying “want to have his medical life influenced by Dr Healer BEFORE he can recognize who Dr Healer is?”  OK, let’s not stop now. Imagine a little girl, Mary, will be married in 10 years time to a little boy –  John — she has not yet met. Now, can Mary “want to obey John before she can recognize who John is”?  Indeed, the list of analogies are endless. In the last two analogies, the sick person and Mary were ALIVE. And we see how stupid it is to say that Mary MUST want to love/obey her future husband — John — before she can recognize him. How can she love him, when she doesn’t know anything about him?  But remember Mary is ALIVE.

   

  Now, from earthly to spiritual things. Now the sick person is now longer sick. THEY ARE DEAD and are buried! I suppose, Mr Dead must now “want to have his medical life influenced by Dr Healer, before he can recognize who Dr. Healer is”? And remember Mary and John? Well, Mary tragically lost her hearing and sight and all ability to communicate when she contracted a disease. And she still has never met her future husband John. I guess deaf and blind Mary must “love/want to obey John before she can recognize who he is”?. She’s never met John — has NO IDEA what he is like — and she’s blind and dumb and cannot understand anything, but is totally confused. Yet, she MUST love/want to obey a man she knows nothing about, in order to recognize him!

   

   

  Sadly, most Calvinists like Piper. They teach that regeneration is an “infusion of grace” or a “change in dispositions of the heart”. They say that this moral changes occurs in someone BEFORE they have faith. These Calvinists teach that God gives someone good dispositions before faith. In other words, they think holy unbelievers exist !!

   

  Clearly, this view of regeneration leads to all sorts of heresies. For instance, it’s made some Calvinists divide unbelievers into two groups. They say, “Oh, it looks like the Holy Spirit is working in this unbeliever … look at their conviction or sin”. The Calvinist then says there’s another group of unbelievers who “resist the workings of the Holy Spirit in them.”

   

  John Owen thought that regeneration was an “infusion of grace” and a “change in dispositions” that happens before faith. Well, this lead Owen to assert that believers could doubt the gospel !! After all, said Owen, as long as you have “good dispositions of the heart” you are regenerate. He writes,

   

  ” When the saints enter into rest … Faith shall be heightened into vision, as was proved before; which doth not destroy its nature, but cause it to cease as unto its manner of operation towards things invisible. If a man have a weak, small faith in this life, with LITTLE EVIDENCE AND NO ASSURANCE, so that HE DOUBTS OF ALL THINGS, QUESTIONS ALL THINGS, and HATH NO COMFORT from what he doth believe; if afterward, through supplies of grace, he hath a mighty prevailing evidence of the things believed, is filled with comfort and assurance; this is not by a faith or grace of another kind than what he had before…” {http://www.reformed.org/books/owen/vol7/spiritual_006.html}

   

  My response: Owen says that believers can have a faith with “no assurance” (his words) !! The “greatest Puritan” John Owen said believers can have a faith which “doubts all things”!!!

   

  It makes sense that Owen said that someone can doubt the gospel, and still be saved. After all, Owen said that regeneration was a change in dispositions. So, as long as you have a change in dispositions you’re regenerate. Now, that means that someone can doubt the gospel and still be regenerate!!

   

  On the other hand, if you teach that regeneration is a change of mind about the gospel, then anyone who doubts the gospel is not regenerate. If they were regenerate, they would have had the change of mind.

   

  Here are some Scripture that teaches that regeneration is ONLY the Holy Spirit giving someone a change of mind about the gospel.

   

  “the dead SHALL HEAR THE VOICE of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.” Jn 5:25

   

  Paul says: “for in Christ Jesus I begot you THROUGH THE GOSPEL” 1 Cor 4:15-17

   

  “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, BY THE WORD of God.” 1 Pet 1:23

   

   

   

  Now, there is so much confusion out there about what in means to have Christ “in you”. Most Calvinists seem to think that their “christ” or “holy spirit” witnesses to their spirits APART FROM THE BIBLE. The Puritans thought that God “called” them to the ministry OUTSIDE THE BIBLE. But the Holy Spirit does not utter a single syllable outside the Scriptures.

   

  In fact, since the Holy Spirit and Christ are 100% God, they are equally present everywhere. This means that when the Bible says Christ “abides” in a believer, it means that the THOUGHTS of a person have become Christ like. It also means that God the Holy Spirit CONVICTS our consciences that the Bible is true.

   

  The problem with the Pharisees is that did “not have His WORD ABIDING ” in them. Jn 5:38

   

  For believers, is “THROUGH FAITH Christ may dwell in your hearts” Eph 3:17

   

  Let’s move onto sanctification. To sanctify means to set apart. Believers are commanded to think thoughts that are true and not false. They are to set apart their mind for the task of deducing more and more truth. Also, they are to physically labor. They are to set apart time and energy for work to support their family and other believers.

   

  Now, what about love, joy, and peace in believing? Do all believers have these? Yes, these are “the fruits of the Spirit.” But how does the Spirit make a believer joyful? Is it through a warm-fuzzy feeling in their stomach? Is it through speaking nonsense (in “tongues”)?

   

  No. The only reason a believer loves God is because they intellectually know that he has justified them by Christ’s work. “We love Him because He first loved us.”

   

  And how do they know Christ died and obeyed the Law for them? By Scripture. So we see that believers deduce their election from the Scripture (the Scripture says that all who believe are elect, I believe, therefore I am elect.) And the moment someone knows they are justified from all things, they will REJOICE.

   

  Thus, when a believer says “Praise God”, it is solely because that believer knows by the Scripture that all who believe are justified and since they believe, they conclude “I am justified”.

   

  This means that love, peace and joy do NOT come from prayer, or taking communion. Instead believers pray BECAUSE they know in their minds they are justified. And believers take communion BECAUSE they know Christ their propitiation.

   

  ALL sanctification occurs BY THE WORD

   

  “sanctify them BY THE TRUTH”, Jn 17.

   

  “sanctified, BY FAITH that is toward Me.” Acts 26:18

   

  “as newborn babes desire the pure soul-nourishing milk [THE BIBLE], that you may GROW BY IT” 1 Pet 2:2

   

  The reason most Calvinists doubt their salvation is because they do not understand the doctrines of regeneration or sanctification. They are looking for mystical “motions” of their “holy spirit” in themselves. They say that a “mere assent to the gospel” is not saving faith. So they are always wondering if they have saving faith.

   

  I was talking to a man the other day who said “we cannot describe what saving faith is in words.” This man — as long as he holds this to this damnable heresy — cannot have assurance (knowledge) of salvation.

   

  Think about it. In order to know we are saved, we need to know that we have the “equally precious faith” of the apostles. Now, if saving faith is “beyond words” that means that the apostles could not have described their faith in the Scripture. And if the faith of the apostles is “beyond words” we can NEVER know whether or not we have the same faith as they did. If saving faith is “beyond words” we cannot even know any other believers. After all, another believer would never be able to describe their belief (if it’s beyond words)!!

   

  In the Scripture, saving faith is simply believing/assenting to the propositions that

   

  1) the God-man Jesus Christ lay down His life for the sheep (died according to the Scriptures) and

   

  2) Christ obeyed the Law and imputes His righteousness to all who believe.

   

  If that is saving faith, then a believer can NEVER doubt their salvation. They will know BY THE WORD that “the one abiding in the doctrine of Christ HAS THE FATHER AND THE SON” (2 Jn 9) and that “everyone that BELIEVES that Jesus is the Christ is BORN OF GOD.” (1 Jn 5:1)

   

  Full assurance of salvation is the privilege of every believer.

   

  Reference

   

  http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/1986/
  568_Preparing_to_Receive_Christ_Willing_to_Do_the_Will_of_God

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