MAN-CENTERED, LAW-CENTERED, or CHRIST-CENTERED?

MAN-CENTERED?, LAW-CENTERED?

OR

CHRIST-CENTERED?

Miles J. Stanford

CHARISMATIC ARMINIANISM -- MAN-CENTERED

CAUSE -- The error, the excess, the abject failure of Charismatic Arminianism can be summed up in one reversed principle: "Not Thy will, but mine be done." The Arminian founds his religion upon the theory of free will, i.e., his will. Thus the cause of the charismatic confusion and chaos is--sovereign man!

ELECTION -- Humanism can be clearly seen in the Arminian's "election." He claims that God chooses, or elects, those whom He foreknows will of their own volition, choose His Son. Hence the sinner's free-will choice of the Saviour, not God's eternal choice of the sinner, is the basis of the charismatic's election.

CONVERSION -- The Arminian does not believe man's depravity is total, but he does admit that some assistance is needed from God in order for him to choose the Saviour. To this end he invented the non-biblical "sufficient grace." This is said to remove the effects of the Fall to the extent that the sinner can exercise his free will in order to be saved.

SECURITY -- Since the Arminian's election and conversion are founded upon his free will, he can never have the benefit of eternal security--he can never be sure! Hence his constant reliance upon new (same old) ecstatic experiences, and repeated trips to the altar for yet another salvation experience.

THE TRUE BAPTISM -- The Arminian admits that the Holy Spirit indwells, or at least comes upon, those who choose the Saviour. But because the true baptism by the Spirit is non-experiential--a matter of faith in the Word--it is never enough for the experience-oriented charismatic. For him, faith without fireworks is dead!

THE CHARISMATIC BAPTISM -- This self-induced experience of fleshly feelings is sought by the Arminian for the following reasons: (a) Instead of founding his salvation upon justification (God's work for us in Christ), he bases his all upon sanctification (God's work in us by the Holy Spirit). The charismatic baptism in the Holy Spirit is the end, and Christ but the means to that end. (b) The true baptism by the Spirit being non-experiential, he considers it to be insufficient. (c) Therefore, he feels he must have a sensual, sanctifying baptism in order to live the Christian life and be fitted for heaven; he requires a "second blessing," a false baptism of enablement.

FICTITIOUS FAITH -- The charismatic Arminian claims that his subsequent baptism is received by faith; but faith, for him, is always a matter of feelings and works. In order to receive his baptism there are a number of "conditions" (works) that first must be fulfilled. To mention but a few, he must appropriate all that God has for him; he must yield himself completely; he must rid himself of all known sin. The effort, the agonizing, and the psychological pressure that he undergoes in seeking to meet these conditions are the very things that produce this nerve-fostered, self-satisfying "baptism" of feeling and sound.

TONGUES -- Because he must be holy in order to maintain his Christian life and have a semblance of assurance, he claims that this "baptism of fire" fills him with the "Holy Ghost," makes him righteous, and empowers him for service. His experience is the result of an over-wrought nervous system, which is evidenced by the ecstatic feelings and out-of-control chattering of the vocal chords. The climax is his all-important "gift of tongues."

Here is the vortex and substance of his faith--the hypnotic, hysterical, nerve-shattering experience of irrational feeling and noise. He has arrived! He is in the center of Charismatic Christianity. Yes, he has arrived, while at best barely begun--he has no real assurance of salvation, nor eternal security. His Christianity is contingent upon his free will, his obedience, his good works, his experiences; but there is neither reality nor security there--and he knows it. But how can he forsake that which feels so good?

HEALING HOAX -- The stress and strain of all this striving and insecurity, to say nothing of the unnatural toll upon his already over-wrought nervous system, soon bring on emotional illness and often breakdown. Psychosomatic symptoms make the charismatic a pawn in the hands of his fellow-charismatics--the egocentric, money-mad, nerve-manipulating "healers."

"DEMONISM" -- Since God to the Arminian is less than sovereign, Satan soon takes on that attribute in his thinking. Ere long this would-be "warrior" is reduced to a pathetic, harried victim of his own inflamed imagination--he is overwhelmed by sin, events, objects, people-controlled, and manipulated by "demons." God, his "Jesus," and the "Holy Ghost" become to him smaller and smaller, weaker and weaker; while Satan and his clouds of evil spirits become larger and larger, stronger and stronger.

BEWARE! -- "You can help these poor duped ones by intercession, by example (your own growth, security, and rest in the Lord Jesus Christ), and by assiduous avoidance. Fraternization only strengthens them in and subjects you to their errors. They cannot hear a word you say; their all-consuming intent is to get you into their "baptism."

"Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but heir own body, and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the innocent" (Rom. 16:17,18).

COVENANT CALVINISM -- MOSES-CENTERED

CAUSE -- Covenant Calvinism is at the opposite extreme of the theological spectrum from Charismatic Arminianism. To the Calvinist, God is absolutely sovereign, and unregenerate man is absolutely dead in sin.

CONVERSION -- The Calvinist reasons that since man is totally lost and dead in his sins he cannot possibly have any part in his conversion, unless God first regenerates him and gives him the necessary faith to believe.

LORDSHIP SALVATION -- To add to the legal confusion, the Calvinist insists that the sinner must submit to His Lordship in order to accept the Saviour. Law to begin with, law to continue with.

SECURITY? -- The Calvinist abhors as "pernicious" and "perverse" the term "eternal security," insisting upon the highly indicative term, "the perseverance of the saints"--which is no assurance of security at all, leaving him no better off than the apprehensive Arminian.

The late Dr. John Murray, highly respected Covenant theologian, wrote:

Let us not take refuge in our sloth or encouragement in our lust from the abused doctrine of the security of the believer. But let us appreciate the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints and recognize that we may entertain the faith of our security in Christ only as we persevere in faith and holiness to the end. (Redemption Accomplished and Applied, p. 155)

Under this legal stricture the Calvinist has no assurance of eternal security prior to his very end!

LAW -- The Calvinist is anti-dispensational, which causes him to err concerning the law. He is unable to keep the law in its scriptural realm (pre-Cross; post-Rapture), but seeks to use it as the Christian's "rule of life."

Dr. John R. Stott -- "We are set free from the law as a way of acceptance (justification). It is as a ground of justification that the law no longer binds [it never did!]. But as a standard of conduct (sanctification) the law is still binding." (Man Made New, p. 43)

THE LIFE OF GROWTH -- CHRIST-CENTERED

CAUSE -- The growing, Christ-centered believer knows the Father in His sovereignty, and understands His divine purpose for him: predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son (Rom. 8:29).

EFFECT -- His life is based upon the Father's pure grace and His perfect will. He is thankful that he is a "vessel of mercy," and that it is God who works in him both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Rom. 9:23; Phil. 2:13).

ELECTION -- The dependent believer acknowledges that the Father is the sole source of his election, and not his own will. "According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him, in love having predestinated us unto the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will" (Eph. 1:4,5).

CONVERSION -- In the Word he sees that God the Father sovereignly chose and then called him to salvation, that God the Holy Spirit prepared and drew him in such a manner that he responded to this calling and received God the Son willingly and responsibly. "In whom [Christ] ye trusted, after ye heard the Word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise" (Eph. 1:13).

SECURITY -- This believer rests eternally secure in the risen Lord Jesus Christ on the foundation of His finished work on the Cross and His faithful presence on his behalf at the right hand of God the Father. He rejoices that his life is safely "hidden with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3).

"ONE BAPTISM" -- The resting believer is assured by the Word that at conversion the Holy Spirit came to indwell him, never to depart (John 14:16), while at the same time He baptized him into the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13). He is satisfied with this one all-inclusive baptism by the Spirit, and needs no other. "One Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph. 4:5). Believer's water baptism by immersion is but an illustration of, a testimony to, this one and only spiritual baptism.

"DEAD TO THE LAW" --The Pauline dispensational view of Scripture enables the life-centered believer to rightly divide the Word of truth to the extent that he knows the place and purpose of God's law.

He honors that law the Holy Spirit applied as a means of convicting him of sin, which prepared him for receiving the Saviour. "By the law is the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20).
When converted he was positioned in the ascended Lord Jesus; he was not only identified with His risen life, but with His Calvary death unto sin as well (Rom. 6:3). In that death both the Lord Jesus and the believer died to the law. "The law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth." "Ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ." "Now we are delivered from the law, having died to that in which we were held" (Rom. 7:1,4,6). By co-crucifixion we were delivered from the dominion of the law.
The law's just penalty--"the soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezek. 18:4)--was fulfilled by the believer's death with Christ. "For I, through the law, am dead to the law, that I might live unto God" (Gal. 2:19). Thus God's holy law is upheld, honored, and its claims fully met. It has no more jurisdiction over the dead and risen believer; he is now "married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead" (Rom. 7:4).

THE CROSS -- It is by the work of the Cross that the Spirit deals with Adamic sin in the believer, not by law. When the growing believer struggles against the power of sin he finally learns the futility of his efforts, as set forth in Romans Seven. Then he sees that in the Lord Jesus he died unto sin's dominion (Rom. 6:7).

As he learns to reckon himself to have died unto sin and the law (Rom. 6: 11), he begins to rely upon the Holy Spirit to apply that finished work of the Cross to the old Adamic man within. He is thereby progressively liberated from the power of sin and the law, and has ever-increasing freedom to grow in the life that is Christ (2 Cor. 4: 11).

THE CHRIST-LIFE -- As for the NT "law of Christ," and the commands and exhortations that apply to the believer, his reliance is upon the Holy Spirit for their fulfillment in his life. "All the law is fulfilled in one word: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit" (Gal. 5:14; Rom. 5:5). The Word guides and instructs him as to his dependence upon, his walk in, the Spirit. "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Rom. 8:2).

The growing believer realizes that "the law is not made for a righteous man but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners" (1 Tim. 1:9). He learns to abide above in the Lord Jesus at the right hand of the Father, far above and beyond the law's dominion. His life, the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, is manifested by the "fruit of the Spirit," not by the works of the law. "The law is not of faith"; it was never meant to produce this fruit, which is Life! (Gal. 3:12).

It is true that in the mind of the Father we are always over Jordan. But though here in the wilderness the joys of heaven are ours--like the grapes of Eschol--the reality of being over is not known until by faith we accept it as having died and risen with Christ; and that therefore heaven is our position, we know it to be our place, and that this side is not our place, and we know that it is not.

The more you are with the Lord in spirit on the other side, the less disappointed you will be here, for when you are there you import new joys and new hopes into this old world, from an entirely new one, and you therefore in every way surpass the inhabitants of this judged world. May this be more and more your happy song. --J.B. Stoney

"Christ is the Head of the Body, the Church; who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have the pre-eminence" (Col. 1:18).

MJStanford

Best viewed in Explorer 6+ or Netscape 6+, 1024x768 screen display, 16 bit color or higher, and JavaScript on

(Materials by Miles J. Stanford are republished here under exclusive permission from the author.)