INCOMPETENT TO
COUNSEL
Miles J. Stanford
The purpose of this paper is to look further into the
Nouthetic (pronounced newthetic) technique of Dr. Jay E. Adams, and to
bring out its similarity to the teaching of Dr. John F. MacArthur.
The counseling program of The Master's College and The
Master's Seminary has been formulated and is directed by Dr. Wayne A. Mack,
longtime associate of Dr. Adams. The title of the new textbook for the MacArthur
counseling program is Introduction to Biblical Counseling (Word 1994, 408 pages),
and was primarily edited and written by the Covenant theologian, Dr. Mack.
We will look at some of Dr. Adams'
nouthetic teaching, upon which the MacArthur program is built. Probably the best known and
most widely used book on Biblical Counseling is Dr. Adams' Competent to Counsel
(Baker 1970, 278 pages). The following should make its error and danger quite clear, as
something to be assiduously avoided.
COVENANT
ORIENTATION -- The initial fact to be examined is what Dr. Adams'
nouthetic theory is based upon, and where it is coming from. That will surely reveal where
it will take you, and what it will do to you--if you don't watch out:
The counselor's work is to confront
unsaved men with the universal offer of the gospel. This offer is genuinely made to every
man, but only God can bring life to dead souls to enable them to believe. He does this
when and where and how he pleases by his Spirit, who regenerates, or gives life leading to
faith (p. 70).
This is the standard Covenant teaching,
that one must be regenerated, born again, in order to believe. The cart before the horse,
taking away the sinner's responsibility to believe. Covenantism can neither get the birth
nor the growth right.
Dr. MacArthur, still claiming to be a
dispensationalist, is guilty of this same Covenant error, which can be seen on pages 67
and 69 of his book titled Faith That Works: the Gospel According to the Apostles:
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 as an awakened spiritual corpse; it is
the new man drawing his first breath [emphases ours].
The late Dr. Samuel Ridout, Plymouth Brethren leader,
commented on this:
"Being born again regenerated,
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and
abideth forever" (1 Pet. 1: 23). The new birth is "by the Word of God."
That it is a sovereign act of God none can question. But the verse forbids us to separate,
as is often done, new birth from faith in the Gospel.
It is being taught that new birth
precedes faith, but here we are told that the Word of God is the instrument in the new
birth. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God"; "the Word
of the Gospel is preached. John 3:3 and 3:16 must ever go together. There is no such
anomaly as a man born again, but who has not yet believed the Gospel.
A corpse is "dead," but the one
separated therefrom is alive. And the Word of God says of those dead (to God) in
trespasses and sins:
"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).
Covenantism erroneously applies to the
Church that which belongs primarily to Israel. All that they touch becomes law-bound,
under the name of Covenant grace. Dr. Adams leaves no question as to that:
Moral judgment is the essence of
counsel in the book of Proverbs. The unique element in the wisdom of that counsel is its
moral orientation. These are commands for the covenant people which enable them to live in
proper covenant relationship to God (p. 85).
Nouthetic counselors frequently hand
out individual portions of the book of Proverbs. One reason why they have found Proverbs
so useful in counseling is that essentially it is a book of good counsel given to covenant
youth. Proverbs was written primarily to promote divine wisdom among God's covenant
people (pp. 97,98) [emphases ours].
In nouthetic counseling the book of
Proverbs play a very significant part because these proverbs give instruction. The system
of counseling advocated in Proverbs is plainly nouthetic. Proverbs assumes the need for
divine wisdom imparted by verbal means: by instruction, by reproof, by rebuke, by
correction, and by applying God's commandments in order to change behavior for one's
benefit (p. 99).
As the neophyte tends to exceed the bounds
of his new theological sphere, Dr. MacArthur often out-covenants Covenantism. In the
Introduction of his non-dispensational book The Gospel According to Jesus (p.
15), he goes so far as to establish the Church upon Judaism:
Several years ago I began to study and
preach through the gospel of Matthew. As I worked through the life and ministry of our
Lord, a clear understanding of the message He proclaimed and the evangelistic method He
used crystallized in my thinking. I came to see Jesus' gospel as the foundation
upon which all NT doctrine stands. Many difficult passages in the Epistles became clearer
when I understood them in that light.
Have you ever known a dispensationalist to
make such a bizarre claim as that? Or any other doctrinally sound believer, for that
matter! Dr. MacArthur interprets Paul in the light of Jesus' Kingdom Gospel to Israel. He
fails to read Paul in light of the glorified Lord Jesus Christ's exclusive doctrine for
His heavenly Body.
The way of life that Dr. MacArthur points
to via Jesus' Kingdom Gospel results in "the law as the rule of life," whereas
the ascended Lord Jesus' present "Gospel of the grace of God" results in
"the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:3).
MOSAIC LAW
-- Similarly, Dr. Adams leaves no question as to the orientation of his counseling:
Structure is the means of moral
living. Lives structured according to the Ten Commandments are by the very nature of the
case also structured to the principles upon which God structured the world.
The life which disciplined disciples
endeavor to live is the same life of discipline and training for eternal holiness that
Christ, the Son, perfectly lived. The disciplined life (a life lived according to God's
commandments) therefore grows out of the same kind of training to which Christ subjected
Himself (p. 190).
Structured, or disciplined living is
living that conforms to God's commandments. Clients and counselors alike should be
satisfied with nothing less than the goal of total structuring according to God's law (p.
155).
The Bible teaches [to whom?] that a
peace of mind which leads to longer and happier living comes from keeping God's
commandments. Thus the goal of nouthetic counseling is set forth plainly in the
Scriptures: to bring men into loving conformity to the law of God (pp. 113,55).
The Covenantists' lust for law blinds them
to Pauline grace for the Christian life. They stop short of heavenly position and grace
for sanctification; hence they are blinded by the very law they would have as their
"rule of life."
The law is a rule of death (2 Cor.
3:7). It is meant to bring one to Christ--Christ glorified, as Saviour and heavenly Head
of the heavenly Body--rather than to Jesus and His pre-Cross Kingdom Gospel to Israel. On that
basis the law blinds and binds the members of the Body of Christ.
"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." "For the law killeth, but the
Spirit giveth life (Rom. 7:6; 2 Cor. 3:6).
Dr. MacArthur is not to be outdone
law-wise when it comes to Dr. Adams' legality:
The law is pertinent for those who
believe in Christ because of its own character, and because of the consequences of obeying
and disobeying, and because its demands are clarified and enforced throughout the rest of
the NT. Its commands are not suggestions to be considered but requirements to be followed.
Those in Christ are no longer under the ultimate penalty, but are not free of its
requirements of righteousness.
The second principle is that the law
is positive as well as negative. Its purpose not only is to prevent both inward and
outward sin, but to promote both inward and outward righteousness (pp. 268,272,287).
Dr. MacArthur promotes the precept rather
than the Person, for the Christian life. The Christian has died to the precept in order
that he may live in, and to, the Person.
"The strength of sin is the
law" (1 Cor. 15:56), hence it is not meant to prevent either inward or outward
sin. That is the exclusive work of the Spirit of Christ. Hear Paul: "This I say
then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." "For
sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under law but under grace" (Gal.
5:16; Rom. 6:14).
Christ is both our inward and
outward righteousness! "But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made
unto us ... righteousness." " ... that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him" (1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 5:21). For the Covenant victim, law precepts
dominate over the new-creation Person.
HABITUATION
-- When it comes to the Christian life, all Covenant theology has to offer is common
ever-day behaviorism, Do, in order to be, i.e., law.
Covenantism seems to miss or avoid the source (two Adams) factor.
Righteousness for them is developed via good behavior, good habits, by means of
keeping the law. All to them is outside in!
Concerning the importance of habits in his
nouthetic counseling, Dr. Adams writes:
One client spoke of having only
"reservoirs of inadequacy." He was correct, because he has been living
inadequately. His past provided little more than a record of inadequate solutions to fall
back upon and draw upon. But the solution to his problem was to begin drawing upon God's
resources of grace.
In this way alone could he begin to
fill his own reservoirs with adequate living. Action based upon faith was his need. As he
begins to live adequately, i.e., according to the commands and promises of God, he would
begin to fill his own reservoirs with adequacy and a sense of humble confidence would grow
(p.134).
By its very nature most discipline is
unpleasant. The chipping away of imperfections is a painful process. "All discipline
for a moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who are trained by
it..." (Heb. 12:11).
The word translated
"trained" comes from the same root as our English term "gymnastics."
The Greek, like the English, means to practice regular, systematic, habitual
practice which makes the work of the Lord natural.
Just as the athlete practices until
his training makes him expert and his athletic accomplishments are "second
nature" to him, so the Christian by practice must become expert in holiness, so
expert that his "second nature" (wrought by the work of the Holy Spirit) is
dominant, natural, easy. As he continues to practice, the habit is etched in more
permanently, holiness becomes easier and he becomes more naturally a Christian (pp.
164,165).
Dr. MacArthur works on the same nouthetic
habituation principle:
Since you are a new man--act like it.
Leave the old habits and old selfishness that belonged [sic] to the old man, and take on
the new man's new habits of selflessness (Tape GC 2146).
Being alive unto God in Christ, we are not
to attempt to "act like it." The Christian life is "for me to live is
Christ." "... for we who live are always bearing about in the body the
dying [not habits] of the Lord Jesus, that the life [not habits] of Jesus might be
made manifest in our body" (Phil. 1:21; 2 Cor. 4: 10).
Nor is it a matter of leaving "the
old habits" and "the old selfishness that belonged to the old man."
We are, by faith, to put off the source, the old Adamic man, not simply his
activities. This is based upon the fact that we died positionally to the old man.
And of course we are not to take on the "new habits of selflessness which belong to
the new man." Christ, our life, is selfless because that is His life and
nature--hence our new-creation life and nature is the same.
PATTERNS
-- "Manufactured in U.S.A!" Dr. Adams' nouthetic counseling would
construct the Christian life via Israel's law. This is attempted by means of diligently
working and practicing until habits are formed into patterns. The following statement by
Dr. Adams is especially saddening:
Holy living involves habit. Patterns
of holiness can be established only by regular, constant practice. Just as Christ learned
obedience, we too must learn obedience by actual practice (p. 162).
Dr. Wm. R. Newell made a statement
concerning Christ's obedience:
Though being a Son, He learned from
the things He suffered, obedience" (Heb. 5:8). As the Eternal Son, the Second Person
of the Deity, One in the counsels of creation itself, the Executor thereof, He needed not
to learn anything!
"He counted not the being on an
equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a
servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, He
humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, yea, even the death of the Cross!"
(Phil. 2:6-8) (Hebrews, Verse by Verse, p. 162).
As Eternal Son in the Godhead, there was
no need for obedience. As the Son of Man He learned obedience in that it was an
altogether new issue. But He did not have to learn to obey! "Then
said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of Me) to do Thy will, O
God" (Heb. 10:7).
That was but a hint in comparison to this:
Jesus learned God's will from God's
Word which He applied to life. He had to learn how to develop biblical patterns by actual
practice in responding to life's problems (p. 162).
One must learn to do God's will
which he has discovered in Scripture. He must practice the good so faithfully that
whenever the occasion to sin arises, naturally, and without deliberation, he knows what to
do and does it with ease and expertise (p. 163).
The image in man was distorted
by the fall. Believers are being renewed in the spirit of their minds. The mind because of
sin had become futile, the understanding had been darkened, the heart had become hard and
callous.
All of these conditions, now, are in
the process of being changed by the Spirit of God. He renews the spirit of the believer's
mind so that the former manner of life, with all its corrupt habits, patterns, and ways
of living, "the old self" or "the old man," may be shed like a
tattered, worn, filthy old garment that one throws away. Christians are called upon to
"put on" instead the new biblical patterns, new ways that truly reflect the God
who created them (P. 218). [Emphases ours].
Sin is pictured as a cruel master who
rules over the sinner. Proverbs says "he died," destroyed by his own sin. He
dies for lack of discipline, because he does not have the kind of structure that only
God's commandments provide. Your only hope is to rule over sin by breaking out of the
pattern that is developed through repentance and a subsequent change of behavior (p. 147).
The client must be shown the need to replace the old
by new patterns. He must be shown that God speaks of sanctification not only in terms of
being "separated from" but also "separated unto." The old man is
"put off," partly, by establishing the "new man." Old habit patterns
are crowded out by new ones (p. 151).
Though habit patterns are hard to
change, change is not impossible. Nouthetic counselors regularly see patterns of 30-40
years' duration altered. What was learned can be unlearned. An old dog can learn new
tricks (p.75).
But, the issue is concerned with the old Adamic life and
nature, not animals. And Dr. MacArthur is not better off in the Christian growth
realm than Dr. Adams:
So, Christians are new creations, but sin
is still a problem because of the old coat of humanness [!]. Ephesians 4:24 tells us to
"put on the new man." The "new man" is a new kind of human behavior,
a new humanness which we must put on to accommodate and fit our new nature. We must put
off our old patterns and practices--all the things of our old life that hang on us--and
put on the clothes of the new man (Tape GC 1928) [Emphasis ours].
The new man is not a "new kind of
behavior"; rather, it is our new-creation life, that naturally manifests a new
kind of behavior. All behavior has a life-source: the indwelling first Adam for that which
is sinful, the Last Adam for that which is righteous.
By reckoning upon our death to the
old, and our life in the New (Rom. 6:11), the old man is practically "put off,"
and the new Man is practically "put on''--both, as we "walk in the Spirit."
NOUTHETIC
CHILD-TRAINING -- It would seem that Dr. Adams is no more competent at
counseling children than he is adults:
What must be done when a child lies,
talks back, or fails to come home on time? One good way to determine fair consistent
answers to such questions is to draw up a code of conduct. On a sheet, consisting of four
columns, each column is headed by the words "Crime," Punishment," By
whom", "When."
Each box in the code of conduct chart
may be filled in according to the specific problem of individual situations. For example,
lying is a crime that can be punished by washing the mouth out with soap, apologizing, and
rectifying the situation by telling the truth! (When soap is used, if the child is old
enough, he is first required to do research on soaps by writing to the manufacturing
company to make sure that the use of the chosen soap is harmless [even Lifebuoy?!] (p.
188,189).
SEXUAL
IMMORALITY -- Nor does Dr. Adams do any better counseling in the realm of
sexual sin:
In all Scripture there is only one
God-given solution to the problem of sexual desire: "It is better to marry than to
burn" (1 Cor. 7:9). Marriage is God's answer to immorality: "because of
immoralities let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband"
(1 Cor. 7:2). The old sinful pattern must be broken and replaced by the new godly one (p.
35).
The good doctor should heed the context,
instead of forcing his point. Heed Paul: "Now I say unto the unmarried and to the
widows, it is good for them that they remain as I. But if they have not control over
themselves let them marry ..." (1 Cor. 7:8).
God's answer to sin, whether sexual or
otherwise, as a single or otherwise, is to reckon oneself to have died unto sin, and to be
alive unto God in Christ. On that basis one is to "walk in the Spirit, and ye
shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16).
PSEUDO
COUNSELING -- There are a number of predominant types of Christian
counseling today, none of which deal with the true source of sin in the believer's life.
They are subjective, seeking to work from the outside in--and hence are ineffective.
1 -- Psychotherapy
-- This method mixes three parts secular psychology with one part Scripture, seeking to
"adjust" and Christianize the old Adamic life.
2 -- 12-STEP
-- This extensive and never-ending program centers upon the Adamic life, i.e., self
dealing with self.
3 -- Biblical
Counseling -- This counseling seeks to center in the Scriptures, but is
primarily non-dispensational, and Covenant-oriented. It "legalizes" the client,
and does not deal with the Adamic life, which Covenantism "eradicates."
4 -- Charismatic
-- This mode is totally subjective. It deals with Satan and alleged indwelling
"demons," instead of the old Adamic man--the true source of sin in the
counselee.
None of the above function on the basis of
the believer's position--that of being dead to sin and alive unto God in Christ
Jesus. As per the following example:
Dear brother Stanford:
You might be interested and encouraged to
know that, back in 1986, my wife and I graduated from the Narramore Christian Counseling
Course, received a Certificate in Pastoral Counseling which was equivalent, if not more
valuable, than a degree in Psychology, in my opinion.
Later we tried to use the principles
taught in pastoral counseling, but found them, for the most part, to be fruitless and with
very little effect upon counselees.
After that, we attended the Bill Gothard
Courses and got a different perspective on Pastoral Counseling. It wasn't much better than
the Narramore Course.
Around 1975, I somehow came upon a copy of
your book, The Principle of Position. Therein we discovered the real error we had
made, as well as most so-called counseling pastors, and others.
As long as they focus on the subjective,
instead of the objective and positional, they will never really help their
counselees, in my opinion. I began to teach my counselees what I call "Possessing
Your Possessions," which is about identical with your material.
Immediately, my success rate jumped from
about ten percent to around ninety percent, and the ten percent that I wasn't successful
with really didn't want to get over their problems. They enjoyed them, if the truth were
really known, in my opinion.
Sincerely, in Christ,
(signed)
Be warned, all ye biblical counselors: to
minister other than the truth of one's position in the glorified Lord Jesus Christ,
is to be incompetent to counsel!
THINK POSITION!
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