I have posted this article many times before when I was posting on FAF.  RC Sproul does an excellent job of pointing out that even the evangelical church who prides itself in being separate from the Roman church may not really be all that different after all. American evangelicalism is really in a lot of ways like the Roman church minus the priestly vestments and sacraments. RC Sproul tells us why in this article, and brings out what the real issues of the Reformation really were:

http://www.bible-researcher.com/sproul1.html

For those who have left the SDA church, does your new church fit better with the semi-pelagianism of Rome, or does it stand in the best tradition of the Reformation?

Stan

Posted anonymously by: BobJ

Hi Stan

R.C. Sproul wrote an excellent book entitled What is Reformed Theology: understanding the basics. 

I’d like to share a couple quotes here.

pg 68 . . . The dispute between justification by the infusion of Christ’s righteousness and the imputation of his righteousness is no tempest in a teapot.  It makes all the difference in the world whether the ground of my justification rests within me or is accomplished for me. Christ fulfilled the law for me and gained the merit necessary for my justification.  This is the ground not only of my justification, but also of my assurance of salvation.  If I must wait until I cooperate with the righteousness of Christ infused within me, to the degree that I become inherently righteous, I despair of ever attaining salvation.  This is not the gospel or “good news”; it is bad news.

pg 145 . . . Reformed theology sees faith as a result of election.  This is the fundamental difference between conditional election and unconditional election, between all forms of semi-Pelagianism and Augustinianism, between Arminianism and Calvinism.

pg 179 . . . Regeneration precedes faith.

Thank you for posting this article. Praying for you and Marti.
Bob

John 3:16
Stan,
I never read all your articles and things you linked to while you were on FAF.  I am not ashamed to say that as I was to busy studying the Bible.  So today I went to your link.  From what I studied in the Bible and in Starting Point and DiscoveryE, the two courses my church offers to new believers and those interested, is that my church is following in the best tradition of the reformation.  God knew what I needed when He told me to go there.
I am getting adventurous, which I have always been anyway, and beginning to read other Christian writers.
Diana

Posted anonymously by: michael

Wow, that article was fantastic! Thanks for posting it, Stan.

Terrific article, Stan.  I’ve actually read it a few times in the past and never tire of it.  As I read it again, tonight, this paragraph reminded me of the message you so often try to convey here:

At the time of the Reformation, all the reformers agreed on one point: the moral inability of fallen human beings to incline themselves to the things of God; that all people, in order to be saved, are totally dependent, not ninety-nine percent, but one hundred percent dependent upon the monergistic work of regeneration in order to come to faith, and that faith itself is a gift of God. It’s not that we are offered salvation and that we will be born again if we choose to believe. But we can’t even believe until God in his grace and in his mercy first changes the disposition of our souls through his sovereign work of regeneration. In other words, what the reformers all agreed with was, unless a man is born again, he can’t even see the kingdom of God, let alone enter it. Like Jesus says in the sixth chapter of John, “No man can come to me unless it is given to him of the Father” – that the necessary condition for anybody’s faith and anybody’s salvation is regeneration.

Speaking of Sproul, I’m in the middle of reading his classic, The Holiness of God, and it is absolutely fantastic!  Every Christian should read this book.  R.C. Sproul is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.

Bob,

Thanks for posting those quotes from Sproul. He is really one of the most articulate when it comes to systematic theology. He presents Reformed theology in a way that is truly God glorifying.

Diana,

Glad to hear how God is guiding you, and your new adventurous spirit is evident. Thanks for being here.

Michael,

Welcome to 4TG, and don’t be a stranger. I am glad you liked the article. When I first read the article, it solidified my views on Reformed theology, but, I am still inspired by the article when I go back to it.

Aaron,

I am also in the middle of reading Sproul’s book “Holiness of God”. The chapter that has become a classic in that book is the one on Isaiah where he sees the glory of the Lord and states ‘he is a man of unclean lips.’ The first time I read that chapter, I was moved intensely. I realized how unholy I really am, and how much I need a Saviour.

Thanks all for your input,

Soli Deo Gloria,

Stan

And to add to Aaron’s point above, here is an interesting quote from the article above:

“Luther saw the doctrine of justification as fueled by a deeper theological problem. He writes about this extensively in The Bondage of the Will. When we look at the Reformation and we see the solas of the Reformation – sola Scriptura, sola fide, solus Christus, soli Deo gloria, sola gratia – Luther was convinced that the real issue of the Reformation was the issue of grace; and that underlying the doctrine of solo fide, justification by faith alone, was the prior commitment to sola gratia, the concept of justification by grace alone.

In the Fleming Revell edition of The Bondage of the Will, the translators, J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnston, included a somewhat provocative historical and theological introduction to the book itself. This is from the end of that introduction:

These things need to be pondered by Protestants today. With what right may we call ourselves children of the Reformation? Much modern Protestantism would be neither owned nor even recognised by the pioneer Reformers. The Bondage of the Will fairly sets before us what they believed about the salvation of lost mankind. In the light of it, we are forced to ask whether Protestant Christendom has not tragically sold its birthright between Luther’s day and our own. Has not Protestantism today become more Erasmian than Lutheran? Do we not too often try to minimise and gloss over doctrinal differences for the sake of inter-party peace? Are we innocent of the doctrinal indifferentism with which Luther charged Erasmus? Do we still believe that doctrine matters?1

Historically, it’s a simple matter of fact that Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and all the leading Protestant theologians of the first epoch of the Reformation stood on precisely the same ground here. On other points they had their differences. In asserting the helplessness of man in sin and the sovereignty of God in grace, they were entirely at one. To all of them these doctrines were the very lifeblood of the Christian faith. A modern editor of Luther’s works says this:

Whoever puts this book down without having realized that Evangelical theology stands or falls with the doctrine of the bondage of the will has read it in vain. The doctrine of free justification by faith alone, which became the storm center of so much controversy during the Reformation period, is often regarded as the heart of the Reformers’ theology, but this is not accurate. The truth is that their thinking was really centered upon the contention of Paul, echoed by Augustine and others, that the sinner’s entire salvation is by free and sovereign grace only, and that the doctrine of justification by faith was important to them because it safeguarded the principle of sovereign grace. The sovereignty of grace found expression in their thinking at a more profound level still in the doctrine of monergistic regeneration.2

That is to say, that the faith that receives Christ for justification is itself the free gift of a sovereign God. The principle of sola fide is not rightly understood until it is seen as anchored in the broader principle of sola gratia. What is the source of faith? Is it the God-given means whereby the God-given justification is received, or is it a condition of justification which is left to man to fulfill? Do you hear the difference? Let me put it in simple terms. I heard an evangelist recently say, “If God takes a thousand steps to reach out to you for your redemption, still in the final analysis, you must take the decisive step to be saved.” Consider the statement that has been made by America’s most beloved and leading evangelical of the twentieth century, Billy Graham, who says with great passion, “God does ninety-nine percent of it but you still must do that last one percent.”
-------------------------------------------------

Reading Luther’s work “Bondage of the Will” is a stimulating intellectual exercise, but if you follow his arguments, they indeed appear irrefutable. Luther considered the “Bondage of the Will” his most important work.

If you are going to read the book, I would suggest the Fleming-Revell edition.

Stan

Last night on the White Horse Inn http://www.whitehorseinn.org where you can listen to the replays of the broadcasts, the subject of last night was Charles Finney, and the blatant heresies that he promoted.

Remarkably, Finney is respected today by the evangelical world as being a great evangelist. His influence on American Christianity and Adventism has been quite extensive.

Finney denied the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement, and he was totally Pelagian all the way through. See the above linked article.

Finney was also the influence behind the horrible doctrines which Pentecostalism, fundamentalism, and Adventism teach about salvation. There is no difference between the Ellen White interpretation of the Investigative Judgment, and Finney’s false gospel. Finney believed (like Ellen White), that every time A Christian sinned, they had to confess that sin in order to be restored to salvation. If you committed a sin, you have lost your salvation until you confess that sin.

I remember while posting on another former SDA web site, that I brought up the similarities between Ellen White and Charles Finney; well there was some rather resounding criticism from some folks there who seemed to believe that anything but Adventism is just OK.

Ellen White was a product of her times. It depended on who she was “borrowing” from as to what her theology was.

You can find Charles Finney’s books sold in many book stores such as Calvary Chapel’s, but you will be hard pressed to find any books by RC Sproul sold in these same stores, in fact you will not find any of Sproul’s books in that store.

Finney’s books are a clear denial of the gospel and the Christian faith.

Stan

Posted anonymously by: BobJ

Hi Stan

Thank you for the good comments on Charles Finney.

Human centered religion requires some sort of performance examination to determine whether the person is worthy of salvation.  If our salvation depends on our performance, then Ellen White and Charles Finney are right--commit a sin and we’re lost until we confess.  This is why my Cedar Lake Academy Bible class reference book used a graph showing both imputed and imparted righteousness.  The graph showed that as sinners we are responsible for everything under the line--for perfectly maintaining imparted righteousness until we at last become perfect in the flesh and can stand before God without Christ as Mediator.  This is a fatal perversion of the gospel, yet Ellen repeatedly leads us into this error. 

The new testament motif can be described as a circle representing Christ.  We are either inside the circle or outside the circle.  Once we by faith accept Christ and move inside the circle (even faith is a gift!) we are “in Christ” we enter his rest and enjoy confidence in his completed work for us.  We no longer fear God’s judgment because we are hidden in Christ.  He is more than adequate for this task.

It’s a little hard for us coming from human centered religion to accept that we can be secure in Christ.  We cling to the concept that we may wish to abandon Christ later--change our minds, perhaps. 

The reformers rejected the Catholic view of justification which includes being “made righteous” as the basis for justification.  The reformers would have immediately rejected the Adventist view as well.  The reformers said we are “declared righteousness” because we are in Christ.  One view leads to despair, the other to freedom and rest. 

There is no middle ground here.  The man who got thrown out of the wedding feast really thought he’d be OK with some of his own righteousness (his own clothes) in the judgment.  The graph in my academy book showed that for Adventists it is ALL our own righteousness at the end!  Ellen hammers this home by insisting that Adventists must stand before God without Christ. 

May God help us.

I’ve appreciated R C Sproul and other reform theologians, because they have helped me begin to understand how we can be secure in Christ, and how we truly enter into his rest, and how as believers we do not enter into judgment because we are hidden in Christ. 

Bob

Thanks Bob for your accurate summary. How well I remember my Academy Bible classes trying desperately to reconcile the mess associated with justification and sanctification.

There was none of my instructors in SDA schools who really understood the pure gospel of grace.

Ellen White and Adventism fell victim to Wesleyan and Finney influences, as many others have done.

If you get a chance, listen to the White Horse Inn presentation from last Sunday night. You will see where Adventism really originated from, and roots that can be traced to American revivialism.

Stan

Posted anonymously by: John Douglas

re Whitehorse Inn
It was interesting that Finney’s teaching resulted in ‘burned over’ areas - a spiritual wasteland and out of this wasteland came Adventism, Mormonism and other odd and aberrant movements.

JONVIL

Stan, thanks for pointing to this week’s White Horse Inn...I’m listening to it now and will post some of the quotes from the program.  To download and listen to this program, click here.  Additionally, Michael Horton has written two articles which accompany this program: The Legacy of Charles Finney and Pelagianism.

It is notable that Charles Finney, a lawyer, had what he called a revelation from God as the impetus for beginning his ministry.  He shunned formal theological training and instead struck out on his own, independently arriving at his understanding of theology as he went along.  So often his ideas directly contradicted what scholars had learned over centuries of careful Bible study.

For example, he discounted the Reformation doctrines in one fell swoop, considering the Westminster Confession to be a “paper pope”.  Instead of embracing the doctrines of God’s sovereignty, the substitutionary atonement, original sin, and unconditional election which place God at the center of the universe, Finney taught that man is at the center, and is wholly able to redeem himself by following Jesus’s example.  Instead of relying on the blood of Jesus in the substitutionary atonement, Finney said that man was bound to follow Jesus’s example as a means for living a blameless life.  He argued that if Jesus could perfectly obey the law, we should be able to as well.  Sound familiar?  It should, because this is exactly what the early Adventists taught.  This idea resurfaces again and again in the writings of Ellen White, as this example demonstrates:

[quote author="Ellen White"]
“When it is in the heart to obey God, when efforts are put forth to this end, Jesus accepts this disposition and effort as man’s best service, and He makes up for the deficiency with His own divine merit” (My Life Today, pg. 250).

It is no wonder Adventism grew so quickly–Finney had prepared the soil well, burned over as it was.

Listen to what Finney wrote about the Reformed doctrines as found in the Westminster Confession and Catechisms:

[quote author="Charles Finney"]
“That the instrument framed by that assembly (the Westminster Confession and Catechisms) should in the nineteenth century be regarded as the standard of the church, or of any intelligent branch of it, is not only amazing, but I must say it is highly ridiculous.  It is as absurd in theology as it would be in any other branch of science–it is better to have a living than a dead pope.”

Answering the question, “Does a Christian cease to be a Christian whenever he commits a sin?”, Finney says this:

[quote author="Charles Finney"]
“Whenever he sins, he must for the time being cease to be holy.  That’s self evident!  Whenever he sins, he must be condemned–he must incur the penalty of the law of God.  If it be said that the precept is still binding upon him but that with respect to the Christian, the penalty is set aside, I reply that to abrogate the penalty is to repeal the precept, for a precept without penalty is no law!  The Christian, therefore, is justified no longer than he obeys, and must be condemned when he disobeys, or antinomianism is true.  In these respects, then, the sinning Christian and the unconverted sinner are upon precisely the same ground.”

Notice how Finney discards the fundamental Christian doctrine of the substitutionary atonement, a doctrine that is still denied in both historic and liberal Adventist circles today.

Later in the program, the pastor of the Crystal Cathedral, Robert Schuller, is quoted.  What makes this quote interesting is that Schuller was once a minister in a Reformed church and apparently had even memorized the Heidelburg Catechism.

[quote author="Robert Schuller"]
“I don’t think anything has been done in the name of Christ and under the banner of Christianity that has proven more destructive to human personality–and hence counterproductive to the evangelistic enterprise–than the unchristian strategy of attempting to make people aware of their lost and sinful condition. Classical Reformed theology has erred in its insistence that theology be God-centered, not man-centered.”

Some continue to beat the drum loudly for Adventism being the worst form of evil on the theological landscape today, but the roots of Adventism spring forth from the revivalism of the nineteenth century, and by no means is Adventism the only fruit on this tree.  Since unbiblical teaching exists throughout the Christian church, we must exercise caution in issuing blanket condemnations of one group while holding up others who may be building on the very same doctrinal foundation.

Greg

Thanks Greg for taking the time to post summary statements from that program.

Also, I am glad you linked to the one place site:

http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/The_White_Horse_Inn/archives.asp?bcd=2007-8-5

This way it makes it easier for us to find the white horse inn broadcasts. For those of you who have never heard these broadcasts, you are missing the very finest in theological discussions. If you think that discussing theology is boring, well, more than likely, you haven’t listened to the White Horse Inn.

I would be interested to hear feedback from those who have listened to the shows, and let us know what you think?

Stan

Here is a quote from RC Sproul on Charles Finney and Pelagianism:

“In the nineteenth century, there was a preacher who became very popular in America, who wrote a book on theology, coming out of his own training in law, in which he made no bones about his Pelagianism. He rejected not only Augustinianism, but he also rejected semi-Pelagianism and stood clearly on the subject of unvarnished Pelagianism, saying in no uncertain terms, without any ambiguity, that there was no Fall and that there is no such thing as original sin. This man went on to attack viciously the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement of Christ, and in addition to that, to repudiate as clearly and as loudly as he could the doctrine of justification by faith alone by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. This man’s basic thesis was, we don’t need the imputation of the righteousness of Christ because we have the capacity in and of ourselves to become righteous. His name: Charles Finney, one of America’s most revered evangelists. Now, if Luther was correct in saying that sola fide is the article upon which the Church stands or falls, if what the reformers were saying is that justification by faith alone is an essential truth of Christianity, who also argued that the substitutionary atonement is an essential truth of Christianity; if they’re correct in their assessment that those doctrines are essential truths of Christianity, the only conclusion we can come to is that Charles Finney was not a Christian. I read his writings and I say, “I don’t see how any Christian person could write this.” And yet, he is in the Hall of Fame of Evangelical Christianity in America. He is the patron saint of twentieth-century Evangelicalism. And he is not semi-Pelagian; he is unvarnished in his Pelagianism.”
-------------------------------------------------

If Charles Finney is the patron saint of American evangelism, then this explains why there are so many muddled views in evangelical circles today.

On the White Horse Inn, Shane Rosenthal did some polling, and found that an estimated 70 percent of pastors do not believe that Justiciation by faith alone is an important doctrine.

So it is not only Adventists who are confused, but a large portion of the rest of the church that is confused on the doctrines of grace.

Stan

Posted anonymously by: John Douglas

For a guy in the process of escaping, this is not good news!

JONVIL

John,

This is exactly our concern.  Some people have reduced the Adventist church to the worst possible form of evil, making the rest of the “orthodox” Christian church look good by comparison.  But at a fundamental level, the theology of Adventism is very similar to that of many so-called evangelical churches.  Man-centered religion is prevalent through the evangelical world, and the Adventist church simply represents a special case of this.

There are good churches built on sound biblical teaching, however.  You might look at Mark Dever’s 9Marks Church Search, for example.  This database includes church which subscribe to Pastor Dever’s nine marks of a Christian church:

1.  Expositional Preaching
This is preaching which expounds what Scripture says in a particular passage, carefully explaining its meaning and applying it to the congregation. It is a commitment to hearing God’s Word and to recovering the centrality of it in our worship.

2.  Biblical Theology
Paul charges Titus to “teach what is in accord with sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1). Our concern should be not only with how we are taught, but with what we are taught. Biblical theology is a commitment to know the God of the Bible as He has revealed Himself in Scripture.

3.  Biblical Understanding of the Good News
The gospel is the heart of Christianity.  But the good news is not that God wants to meet people’s felt needs or help them develop a healthier self-image. We have sinfully rebelled against our Creator and Judge.  Yet He has graciously sent His Son to die the death we deserved for our sin, and He has credited Christ’s acquittal to those who repent of their sins and believe in Jesus’ death and resurrection. That is the good news.

4.  Biblical Understanding of Conversion
The spiritual change each person needs is so radical, so near the root of us, that only God can do it. We need God to convert us. Conversion need not be an emotionally heated experience, but it must evidence itself in godly fruit if it is to be what the Bible regards as a true conversion.

5.  Biblical Understanding of Evangelism
How someone shares the gospel is closely related to how he understands the gospel. To present it as an additive that gives non-Christians something they naturally want (i.e. joy or peace) is to present a half-truth, which elicits false conversions. The whole truth is that our deepest need is spiritual life, and that new life only comes by repenting of our sins and believing in Jesus. We present the gospel openly, and leave the converting to God.

6.  Biblical Understanding of Membership
Membership should reflect a living commitment to a local church in attendance, giving, prayer and service; otherwise it is meaningless, worthless, and even dangerous. We should not allow people to keep their membership in our churches for sentimental reasons or lack of attention. To be a member is knowingly to be traveling together as aliens and strangers in this world as we head to our heavenly home.

7.  Biblical Church Discipline
Church discipline gives parameters to church membership. The idea seems negative to people today — “didn’t our Lord forbid judging?” But if we cannot say how a Christian should not live, how can we say how he or she should live? Each local church actually has a biblical responsibility to judge the life and teaching of its leaders, and even of its members, particularly insofar as either could compromise the church’s witness to the gospel.

8.  Promotion of Christian Discipleship and Growth
A pervasive concern with church growth exists today — not simply with growing numbers, but with growing members. Though many Christians measure other things, the only certain observable sign of growth is a life of increasing holiness, rooted in Christian self-denial. These concepts are nearly extinct in the modern church. Recovering true discipleship for today would build the church and promote a clearer witness to the world.

9.  Biblical Understanding of Leadership
What eighteenth-century Baptists and Presbyterians often agreed upon was that there should be a plurality of elders in each local church. This plurality of elders is not only biblical, but practical – it has the immense benefit of rounding out the pastor’s gifts to ensure the proper shepherding of God’s church.

Source here.

Greg