15 March 1993
Dr.
John F. MacArthur, Jr.
P.
0. Box 1642
Canyon
Country, CA 91351
Dear brother John
We were concerned to
hear of your wife's serious and traumatic incident (not accident). Your
up-to-date account in FAITH WORKS: The Gospel According to the Apostles
is very heartening. With you, we are very thankful to the Lord that she
is recovering well.
There is no question
as to the extreme hardship you are all undergoing in the long recuperation
process, and the example of your family faith is an edifying testimony to
many. A wonderful deepening of family heart-bonds. I especially
admire your ability to write this book in the midst of it, as I have enough
difficulty in writing one under the most propitious of conditions.
My purpose in writing
to you is not to critique your FAITH WORKS book; I trust other
dispensationalists will have the doctrinal convictions to adequately
accomplish this. In that I care about you as a younger brother in Christ
(near 80 here), and am concerned about your widespread ministry to His Body,
there are some things I would like to touch upon in a kindly and scriptural
manner.
I am not offended,
but there is an error on page 232 of your book that ought to be rectified--at
least for your information. You mention that I advocate "multiple ways
of salvation." I can see how that could have happened, but I am
glad to say that the statement on page 1 of my critique of your book, The
Gospel According to Jesus, is otherwise, as follows:
On the ground that
the author takes (Covenant Israel), he is right concerning Lordship
Salvation. The problem is, he is on the wrong ground; the
dispensation of law! What our brother neither sees nor understands,
and he is by no means alone, is that there are not two ways, but two
distinctly different kinds of salvation. Yet both have the same
blessed source, the finished work of the Cross--both are entered by faith.
However (there goes
the other shoe), I do insist that there are "two distinctly different kinds
of salvation."
Salvation #1
-- The Lord Jesus, as Israel's Messiah and King, preached His "Kingdom
Gospel"--as did John the Baptist before Him, and the disciples with
Him--to the nation of Israel. This was during His
humiliation, prior to the Cross. His believing
disciples (not yet Christian) were in expectation of the long-awaited
Kingdom. After the Cross and just before His ascension, they asked
Him, "Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to
Israel?" (Acts 1:6). Although He did not give them the answer, He
did not correct their query.
The content--the
components of this Kingdom Gospel--are set forth in Israel's New Covenant (Jer.
31; Ezek. 36). That is, the recipients of this Covenant Kingdom Gospel
will have their iniquities forgiven, they will receive a new spirit and a new
heart, they will be indwelt by the Spirit of God who will write the Kingdom
law upon their hearts, by which the Spirit will cause them to keep the Kingdom
ordinances and do them. They will live in the earthly Kingdom forever,
under their Messiah/King--but will not be members of the Body of Christ.
Salvation #2 --
After the Cross, in His new-creation ascension and glorification, the Lord
Jesus Christ, as Saviour, Lord, Head, Bridegroom, and Life, ministered His heavenly
Gospel of the grace of God to Paul, exclusively for His Bride, His
Body, His Church--born at Pentecost.
On page 222 you
equate the salvation of earthly Israel with that of the totally unique and
heavenly Church:
Many
dispensationalists, myself included [and all Covenant theologians] agree
that there is some continuity between OT and NT people of God in that we
share a common salvation purchased by Jesus Christ and appropriated by grace
through faith.
The heavenly Gospel,
from the heavenly Christ to the heavenly Church, is referred to by Paul as
"my Gospel" (Rom. 16:25); the "Gospel of the grace of God"
(Acts 20:24); and "the Gospel of His [glorified] Son" (Rom.
1:9). Paul never refers to his message to the Gentiles as "the
Gospel of the Kingdom."
As Dr. Wm. R. Newell
said:
Take Romans
to Philemon out of the Bible and you are bereft of Christian
doctrine. Take Paul's Epistles out of the Bible, and you cannot find
anything about the Church, for no other Apostle ever mentions the Body of
Christ.
You cannot find the
exact meaning of any of the great doctrines, such as Propitiation,
Reconciliation, Justification, Identification, Redemption, or
Sanctification. Nor can you find what is perhaps the most tremendous
fact of every Christian life, that of personal union with the Lord
Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Father in glory.
Paul's Gospel
produces the new-creation man--a man in Christ before the Father, with
Christ living in him (Gal. 2:20). He is baptized into Christ's Body (1
Cor. 12:13), and joined in living union with the ascended Lord Jesus Christ (1
Cor. 6:17; Gal 3:27). He has died unto sin (Rom. 6:11), the law (Gal.
2:19), and the world (Gal. 6:14).
He has been made
"complete in Christ" (Col. 2:10), and is "accepted in the
Beloved" (Eph. 1:6). He is crucified, dead, buried, and ascended
with Christ in the heavenlies (Eph. 2:6), a "citizen of heaven"
(Phil. 3:20), and is "blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly
places in Christ" (Eph. 1:3).
Being in the ascended
Lord Jesus, his life hidden with Christ in God, he has been made nigh by the
Blood of Christ (Col. 3:3; Eph. 2:13). He has "boldness to enter
into the Holiest by the Blood of Jesus" (Heb. 10:19). When Christ
returns to earth to establish His Millennial Kingdom, to both judge Israel
with the "baptism of fire," and afterwards bless them with their
New Covenant, every risen and glorified member of His Body, His Bride, will
attend the Bridegroom/King to rule with Him over the earth.
All of the above
pertains to the Christian--none of which will ever be true of the
recipient of Jesus' Kingdom Gospel--the kingdom Jew.
Dispensationalism
-- What sort of dispensationalist would I be if I failed to acknowledge the
difference the Cross makes between an earthly and heavenly people? Your
failure to make a distinction between these two salvations puts quite a strain
on your insistence that you are a dispensationalist. Let's just grant
that you are, as you say. Not as strict, of course, as Darby, or
Scofield, or Chafer, but evidently more along the latitudinal lines of Dallas,
and the Bock-Blaising Progressive Dispensationalism or, what I have termed,
Neo-Dispensationalism.
But your associations
belie even that. How can you creditably teach and lead others along
dispensational lines when you almost exclusively quote with approval
anti-dispensational Covenant theologians in your books? To say nothing
of joining hands with them in speaking conferences. In your first
Lordship book 29 of them are utilized, while in this present book you present
us with no less than 19 of Covenant's best: Berghof, Brooks, Calvin, Chantry,
Gerstner, Hodge, Hockema, Leighton, Lloyd-Jones, Machan, Manton, Moule,
Murray, Owen, Pink, the Puritans, Ryle, Sproul, and Warfield.
What are people to
think about you? Where is your leadership responsibility regarding your
purported dispensationalism? What if I were to lard my books with
approving quotes from the likes of TV's: Roberts, Swaggart, Robinson, Tilton,
Lee, Hinn, Hagin, or Copeland? Or Fuller's Wagner and Kraft, Biola's
Kwast and Louweres, Moody's Dickason, Trinity's Grudem and Warner, along with
Wimber and Hayford?
Your association with
Jack Hayford may seem ever so innocent and interesting, but you have
responsibility to a tongue-vulnerable Church. You certainly should back
up the stand of your book Charismatic Chaos. I would think by now
you have received an inscribed copy of Hayford's latest book, The Beauty of
Spiritual Language. As you may have noted, it is a strong pitch for
"pseudotongues," and certainly has the potential for enticing many
more into the present-day charismatic chaos that has long plagued and
devastated the Body.
Regeneration
-- Your present book contains another telling indication of your Covenant
orientation. Step by step you are being "Reformed." I
refer to your use of the terms "quicken," and "awakened,"
on pages 67 and 69:
The unsaved are
dead, incapable of any spiritual activity. Until God quickens us, we
have no capacity to respond to Him in faith. Believing is therefore
the first act of an awakened spiritual corpse; it is the new man drawing his
first breath.
Without going into the issue,
this is Covenant teaching that one must be saved in
order to be saved. No personal responsibility involved. Covenant's
Westminster Confession of Faith 10.1 sets forth the teaching:
This effectual call is of
God's free and special grace alone, not from anything
at all foreseen in man; who is altogether passive therein, until, being
quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he is thereby enabled to
answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it.
Just the briefest of thoughts
concerning this. A spiritually dead, corpse-like man is capable of seeing
God's truth, and is held responsible for it. If not, God would not hold
him responsible. A corpse is a separated body; the person ever lives:
"For the wrath of God is
revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who
suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known
about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For
since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power
and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through
what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew
God, they did not honor Him as God" (Rom. 1:18-21).
One-Naturism --
You state on page 120 that "we cannot have two contradictory natures at
the same time." Your teaching that the believer has but one nature
is primarily a Covenant error, all of whom teach it. The Wesleyan
people, instead of eradicating the Adamic nature (old man), as you do, keep
the nature and eradicate the sin.
If you were to hold positional truth
in higher esteem it would help you to understand that Romans 6:1-10 has to do
with position. The indwelling old Adamic man was judicially
crucified, thereby enabling the Holy Spirit to hold it inoperative via our
faith, our reckoning ourselves to have died to it. Freedom from the
power of indwelling sin is not via struggle or rule (law), but by faith in the
finished work of the Cross, in reliance upon the Holy Spirit.
When you replace the Adamic old man
with "vestiges of our sinful flesh" (p. 30), or "graveclothes
of sinful flesh" (P. 117), or "residual fallenness" (p. 134),
it becomes increasingly difficult for the believer to take personal
responsibility for the sins in his life. As a result his confession
becomes impersonal, and begins to wane. In more and more instances 1
John 1: 9 is simply being forsaken.
The result can been seen in the
one-naturism of Bob George--sans confession. It has also developed in
the one-nature Neuer Leben, International movement in Phoenix, soon to be
called Total Life, International. Their conference manual, incidentally,
contains 12 diagrams featured in Charles Solomon's books. It is
considered an "affront to God" to confess sins that He has already
forgiven.
Death
-- Surely you must realize that death does not mean extinction or cessation,
but that it always means separation. Every sinner is spiritually dead,
while at the same time existing and active; he is separated from God.
That is what crucifixion and death mean in Romans Six--separation. But
I, as a new creation in Christ, am positionally separated from him via my
death
to sin at Calvary. It is on that basis I reckon my self dead indeed to sin.
Lordship
Conversion -- Although I consider
your Lordship teaching concerning
initial faith to be an issue, I don't think it is the issue concerning
your
ministry. All I will say about your initial faith-demands is this:
Repentance
-- With
you, I believe in repentance. "Repentance
toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20:21).
Repentance is a change of mind Godward.
When I was saved (September 19, 1940, 4:30 p.m.), by exercising simple
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as a Person, I turned from my sinful self to
Him. The repentance you call for
on page 33 is too inclusivistic, making a result of conversion its necessary
ingredient. If you had only
waited a moment!
Therefore
sinners cannot come to sincere faith apart from a complete
change of heart, a turnaround of the mind and affections and
will. That is repentance (p. 33).
(Emphasis mine.)
Would
you say that was totally true of your conversion, and of all your converts, as
well as all of your church members, and all of your Lordship followers?
I, for one, lost out almost completely there!
Lordship
Sanctification -- I
think the primary issue, the real breakdown of your message, is the
post-conversion application of Lordship to sanctification.
One might refer to that motivation as the adolescent stage of the
Christian life. The Lordship
principle is mainly found in the law realm of the Synoptics.
It is the stage where believers try to do for the Lord; to one degree
or another, it is the Romans Seven struggle.
That is as far as they see, and they tragically think that is the way
the Christian life should be. Anything
short of that is considered to be an unsaved condition; anything beyond,
antinomianism.
The
eighth chapter of your book is titled "The Death Struggle With
Sin." At the outset (p. 123) you quote J.I. Packer, who is typical
of all Covenant theologians:
The
form that sanctification takes is conflict with the indwelling sin that
constantly assaults us. The
conflict, which is lifelong, involves both resistance to sin's assaults and
the counterattack of sanctification, whereby we seek to drain the life out of
this troublesome enemy (Hot Tub Religion, p. 172).
Here
the power and character and source of sin are unknown.
Personal conflict will never overcome sin, and certainly it is futile,
if not foolish, to try to "drain the life out of it." Not even
honest prayer can weaken it. The work of the Cross alone (and it required that) could
break the power of sin, and has already done so.
The
eighth chapter of your book, Saved Without a Doubt, is titled
"Gaining Victory." It is an example of the juvenile
law-oriented believer struggling to deal with symptoms, instead of the
source--sin. But then, if the
source is nothing but a trace of residual sin, there is not much to deal with.
On page 137 you say:
Let's
face it: All of us could be killing more of our personal sins than we are.
The crucial question to ask yourself is, "How do I kill sin in my
life?" Here are some practical steps for establishing a pattern of
victory in your life.
The
way to kill sin in your life is to feed it Scripture. [Which Scripture?]
It's a foolproof poison against the weed of sin (p. 139). Honest prayers are a preservative against sin.
They expose secret sins and weaken prevailing sins (p. 140).
If
you want to engage in a real battle with sin, just set your course day by day,
moment by moment, and step by step on a path of obedience to God's Word.
[Which portion?] At first it will seem hard and progress will seem slow,
but if you stay with it obedience will become habitual (p. 140).
If
you deal confidently and consistently with the sin in your life, you will
experience the effect of righteousness, which Isaiah 32:17 defines as
everlasting assurance and security (p. 141).
All
of this is in the realm of Lordship law--seeking to do something about sin,
struggling to deal directly with symptom-sins.
But that is as futile as the Romans Seven "O wretched man"
struggle, because "the strength of sin is the law" (1 Cor. 15:56).
The middle-grounder does not yet realize that "ye also are become
dead to the law by the body of Christ" (Rom. 7:4).
Hence in his legal struggles and lack of doctrinal knowledge (even if
he does know he does not rest therein), he is unable to reckon himself as
having died unto sin (Rom. 6:11). You
cannot do both--struggle, and reckon by faith!
From
Lordship to Life -- Dear
Ruth Paxson shared what is unknown, or unacceptable, to those in the Lordship
realm. In her monumental Life
on the Highest Plane, she sets forth the scriptural sequence of spiritual
progress: "From Saviour, to Lord, to Life." This
classic is "antinomiously" based upon the position of the
ascended believer (which all are), and includes the two indwelling Adams.
However,
you are not too far behind a true spiritual-growth schedule.
A fine dispensational pastor has, in the past several years, awakened
to the positional (identification) life truths of the Word, via Paul.
He is preaching (not yet sharing) position from his pulpit, and also
among IFCA leaders--and this after 35 years in the ministry, doctorate and
all. But he would not, nor does
he have to, retreat to Lordship for either conversion or sanctification.
In
my first book of some 30 years ago (late start) I listed some outstanding
leaders of the past. They
"averaged 15 years after they entered upon their ministry before they
began to know the Lord Jesus as their Life, ceased trying to work for Him, and
began allowing Him to be their All to do His work (via the Spirit) through
them."
These
individuals were, on the basis of their written testimony: Pierson, Chapman,
Tauler, Goforth, Mueller, Taylor, Watt, Trumbull, Meyer, A. Murray, Havergal,
Guyon, Mabie, Gordon, Hyde, Mantle, McConkey, Deck, Paxson, Stoney, Saphir,
Carmichael, and Hopkins. There
are many more, of course.
I appreciate
what you included concerning Romans Six, etc., in your seventh chapter,
"Free of Sins, Slaves of Righteousness.'' I t is similar to what Dr.
Chafer included in his Systematic Theology, what is in the Scofield
Reference Bible Notes, and that which is all through the voluminous
writings of John Darby and his fellow Brethren--such as Kelly, Stoney, Coates,
Mackintosh, Bellett, Chapman, Grant, Wigram, and many other of those giants of
the faith. The only difference is
that the ministry of all of the above was based upon position,
including the two indwelling Adams, with no Lordship as a condition for
either conversion or sanctification.
Others
mention Romans Six, position in Christ, etc., but their ministries are not
based upon these truths--such as Gothard, who includes identification but his
work is non-dispensationally law-oriented; and David Wilkerson, who has taken
on the identification truths while maintaining a chaotic charismatic ministry.
Then there are some of the demon caster-outers, such as Neil Anderson,
late of Biola, and Fred Dickason, long of Moody, who profess identification
while exorcising "demons" from members of the Body of Christ.
If you are
going to progress (grow) beyond Jesus' Kingdom Gospel to earthly Israel, you
are going to have to enter into the heavenly Gospel of the Grace of God that
He gave to Paul from glory. That
is neither found in the OT, nor the Synoptics (including the Sermon on the
Mount and the so-called Lord's Prayer), but primarily in the Pauline
Epistles--all of them.
There is
nothing that the Lord Jesus set forth in the Sermon on the Mount that he did
not give on a higher spiritual level through Paul to the Church--the
difference between earth and the flesh, as over against heaven and the
re-Created spirit. He is not
honored by our lingering on the earthly Kingdom level. "Set your
affection on things above, not on things on the earth" (Col.
3:2).
Abide above!
You
cannot turn to your Covenant compeers for this. They don't have it and, what is more, they won't have it--nor
will they have you. I believe
that the reason why Covenant Theology stops short of position, and heavenly
grace for sanctification, is that they are blinded by the very law they
would have as their "rule of life"! It is rather a rule of
death (2 Cor. 3:7). The law is
meant
to bring one to Christ--Christ glorified as heavenly Head to the heavenly
Body--not to Jesus and His pre-Cross Kingdom Gospel to Israel. On that
basis the law blinds and binds the member of the Body of Christ.
You
can continue to love and honor God's holy and righteous law, without being
under it, or trying to keep it. You
don't have to fear antinomianism or lawlessness. How can you be under, or have that written upon your heart,
which you have died to at Calvary?
"But
now we are delivered from the law, having died to that in which we were
held, that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the
letter" (Rom. 7:6). "For
the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life" (2 Cor. 3:6).
"That
the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us [not by struggles, or
certain steps], who walk ... after the Spirit" (Rom. 8:4).
Now
that should satisfy any law-lover! What
is the ministry of the indwelling Spirit to a member of the heavenly Body of
Christ? It is certainly not law-that
He will write on the heart of the Kingdom Jew.
It is Christ!--crucified, buried, risen, ascended, and glorified.
He is Head and Life of the Church, which is, individually, of His very
flesh and bones (Eph. 5:30), one spirit with Him, of His very human-divine
life and nature (Col. 3:4).
"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).
"This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the
lust of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16).
Now
to get back to the blindness of the law upon the "Covenanters."
(Never did see that rabbit!)
"But
if the ministration of death, written and engraved in stones, was glorious, so
that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for
the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away [at the Cross],
how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be more glorious?" (2 Cor.
3:7,8).
The
Holy Spirit's ministration in the believer is the glorified Lord Jesus Christ.
"But
their minds were blinded; for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken
away in the reading of the old testament; which veil is done away in Christ.
But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart.
Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken
away" (2 Cor. 3:14-16).
If
we have turned to the Lord, the blindness of the law is taken away so that we
may be free to gaze upon the Source of grace and truth.
You cannot be occupied with Moses and his law and, at the same time, be
occupied with the risen and glorified Lord Jesus Christ.
"If
[since] ye, then, be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,
where Christ [and you] sitteth on the right hand of God.
Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Col.
3:1-3).
"Now
the Lord is that Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is
liberty" (2 Cor. 3:17).
The
Lord is in the Glory, and the Spirit's ministration is to focus the believer,
soul and spirit, upon Him. To
walk in the Spirit is to be centered in Christ glorified, in fellowship and
worship.
"But
we all [that's us] with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of
the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory [progressive
growth] even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor. 3:18).
"For
God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shone in our
hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6).
And
how is that glorious image developed in us and manifested as our Christian
life? Simply via the fruit of the
Spirit, which is the manifestation of the characteristics of the Lord Jesus'
human-divine life. Against that life there is no law--nothing is necessary but
faith, and it is all spiritually natural, effortless outflow via the Spirit.
To try to produce that fruit would be like hanging baubles on a
Christmas tree.
That
is why I shocked and outraged you, John, by maintaining that the Christian
life does not require legal obedience and submission.
All that is required is loving fellowship and worship with the Father
and the Son--in spirit, positionally, abiding There in the Holiest before the
Throne.
Surely
you would not denigrate these truths as "all the follies that have ever
defiled dispensationalism," as "blatant antinomianism," and
"something that should be abandoned"!
You
are burdened about the carnal condition of the Church, much of which you would
blame upon the faithful dispensationalist, Dr. Chafer.
It is a shame that you treat him in such a contumelious manner.
His doctrinal contribution to the Body of Christ is something that few
will ever touch. You are not
alone in your concern for the Church. The
Lord has His thousands out here who are just as insightful and heart-heavy as
you are.
His
beloved Bride must be shown deference, and treated royally as bespeaks her
heavenly position. She must not
be held back to an earthly level by Lordship, and the bondage and blindness of
the least bit of law. She needs
to be escorted to her glorified position in her Bridegroom, now.
Anything less than that simply contributes to her present
delinquency--a dereliction mainly due to deficient leadership.
"Stand
fast, therefore, in the [heavenly] liberty with which Christ [at Calvary] hath
made us free, and be not entangled again with the [Lordship] yoke of
bondage" (Gal. 5:1).
I'll close with an uplifting word from William Kelly, scholarly editor of John
Darby's works:
You
and I who believe are "in Him," seen and accepted before our
Father, "in the Beloved." "As is the earthly, such are
they also that are heavenly." The full image of it we have not
yet, it is true. That will be
completely ours in the day of His rapturous coming.
But the thing we are!
Do
you and I know what it is to look into those heavens, where the eternal Son of
the Father sits in glory all His own, and see and recognize in Him what we are
before the Father--"As He is," even in this world?
Can
we say quite confidently, each for himself, "Yes, we are identified
with Him who is our Life before the face of the Father; as He is, in whom no
spot was ever found, nor can be, after the Father's own heart wholly"?
That is to be in Christ, a new creation.
Our rule of life is to walk in Him via His Spirit, as being
what we really are: citizens of heaven, pilgrims and strangers upon earth.
All
the rest the Cross has ended for us. We
have died with the Lord Jesus out of the old Adamic position; our old Adamic
man was crucified with Him on the Cross.
He is still in us, indeed, but in us a foreign element; and we are
not in him before our Father, nor identified therein in anywise, but in
Christ where He is.
Can
we own this, reckon upon this, and yet seek to get on in a world that
crucified the Lord Jesus, a world to which we are dead, and whose prince and
god is Satan, and friendship with which is enmity against God?
Can we take the law with others, where our Father has shown us such
heavenly grace? Not I,
"for I, through the law, have died to the law, that I might live unto
God" (Gal. 2:19).
I
have been very hard on you, John, and I don't blame you if you should not be
inclined to respond. But if you
should (no colleagues, please), I intend to share what you have to say with
those who receive this open letter. Although
I probably have to some degree, I have sought not to misrepresent you in any
way--a difficult endeavor.
Yours
for His glorified best.
Resting in Him,
Miles