Jeremy Walker On New Calvinism And Holiness

Before I quote Jeremy Walker I wish to thank the brothers over at The Confessing Baptist for drawing my attention to this much welcomed book.

Also I need to note that Jeremy does not “broad-brush” the whole movement. He clearly states that it is not a monolithic movement. Yet, he is not afraid to identify some dangerous (my word, not his) aspects of some within the movement – which points I am in agreement. From the “engaging culture,” and “being relevant to the culture,” to pragmatism, to a type of “sanctification” that seems to frown upon the moral law (The Ten Commandments), and any preaching that includes the active pursuit of holiness with the moral law as our guide.

Here are some quotes from the book The New Calvinism Considered: A Personal and Pastoral Assessment:

Holiness

The third caution or concern is that many within new Calvinism manifest a troubling approach to holiness. There are two elements here. The first is what I consider to be incipient antinomianism. Antinomianism in this context refers, in essence, to those who do not believe in the abiding validity of the moral law for those who are in Christ Jesus. I call it incipient because it is there in seed form even if it is not yet fully broken out in doctrine or in practice. As so often, the fourth commandment—the matter of the new covenant Sabbath, the Lord’s day—is usually the first point of contact.

…This is where we come back to the fact that some of these are holy men who seem to be able to hold some curious things, even contradictory things, in tension and yet continue to pursue godliness. (I am not singling out D.  A. Carson in the material that follows, nor accusing him of these specifics.) They are not always saying that there is absolutely no law; sometimes it works out more as a neonomianism (like that of Richard Baxter) in which Christ in effect resets the scales and we walk according to a new and more readily attainable standard. Others will discuss, with some nuance, what is sometimes described as a republication or reiteration of the moral law, or elements of it, in the New Testament, considered to be ‘the law of Christ’. But it is becoming a casual and ill-considered mantra, repeated in endless blog discussions and trolled out in countless videos and articles, that we are no longer under law but that we are under grace. For many, what this means—and this is the corollary that is argued over—is that we follow Christ but that is not related to embracing and obeying the Ten Commandments. I suspect that a straw poll of British evangelicalism would suggest that a casual disregard for the Ten Commandments as perpetually binding, based on the woolly sense that the law is bad, and we are under grace, is fairly typical. It was not so long ago that a prominent Baptist like John Ryland Jr. could write of his mentor, Robert Hall Sr., concerning ‘the denial of the law of God as a rule of conduct to believers’ that ‘he ever considered [this sentiment] as so gross a piece of Antinomianism, that he did not suppose any man could embrace it, whose conscience was not seared as with a hot iron.’ I am not suggesting that practical antinomianism is rife, but the basis and standard of our obedience is shifting, and—as it does so—we are seeing and, I fear, will see an increasing number of Christians falling into gross sin, perhaps without any sense of its sinfulness.

The second element is related to this. An ongoing discussion continues about the nature of sanctification. Two men who have engaged in this, and who help to showcase the issue, are Tullian Tchividjian of Cape Coral, Florida, and Kevin DeYoung in Lansing, Michigan. Kevin DeYoung is pushing for the more orthodox perspective, and doing so very helpfully, whereas Tchividjian is concerned that there is not enough grace in that process and suggesting more that we are sanctified by faith. You might well ask, ‘But can you be sanctified without faith? Can you become more like Jesus Christ without faith?’ Of course you cannot, and this should never be denied. This is a process in which we continue to rely upon the grace of God in Christ. It is in union with Jesus Christ in his death to sin and resurrection life that his power works in us. It is on account of our relationship to Christ that the Holy Spirit takes up residence in our hearts, and we are then conformed to the image of God’s Son. This is a gracious relationship grounded in faith. So there is certainly a need for faith if we are to be sanctified, and we depend upon the grace of God every moment in our sanctification. Nevertheless, we are not sanctified by faith (as a sort of preemptive beatific vision) in the same way that we are justified by faith. A false dichotomy is being established between faith and duty or effort and I think that some of this goes back to Piper’s idea that we glorify God by enjoying him forever, that God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in him. (Please note that John Piper speaks very definitely of the need to pursue and attain genuine holiness as a part of our being saved, although he seems to resist any language of duty or gratitude in our response to grace.) Indeed, I have begun to see it argued that it is not possible that God should be glorified unless I am also being immediately satisfied, that if I am not being satisfied then God cannot be glorified. The focus has ended up on self-satisfaction rather than God-glorification. This has become, for some, a test of action, and it is not one that makes the glory of God the chief end of man, but swings the focus to where it does not belong—on the desires and appetites of the creature.

But why be afraid of the words duty and obedience and commandments? Some in this movement are so concerned to talk about grace that it is almost as if an overreaction has occurred against some of these notions of effort and obedience and duty, which are part of what we do as those who enjoy the grace of God in Jesus Christ. The language of Philippians 2:12-13- ‘Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed , not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is god who works in you both to will and do for His good pleasure’- seems to be almost anathema to some, needing to be explained away or worked around.

A concern not not be legalists has driven some back toward antinomianism. I appreciate the concern, and the possibility that some are reacting to against an unnecessary and unscriptural rigidity, but one wearies of hearing, in essence, the same mantra: ‘I used to be a legalist, but I got better.’ We are, it seems, all recovering Pharisees. I rarely hear of anyone boasting that they were a recovering tax collector. On the one hand, much of this criticism defines legalism wrongly (accurately, legalism is the assumption that a man can get right and/or stay right with God by means of his own efforts), or seems to presume that the antidote to legalism is a smidgen of antinomianism, which would fall close to the category of frying pans and fires.

But the Christian is liberated in order to be holy! Principled obedience is not legalism. What is the pattern and framework of my holiness? It is God as he makes himself known in Jesus Christ, Christ being the perfect transcript of what God is like and the perfect embodiment of God’s holiness, a holiness made known in his law, a holiness to which the saints are called, in the pursuit of which they are exhorted to labour, and to the attainment of which they are assured, being predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ.

…Indicatives and imperatives are yoked together. we are redeemed to holiness. Because God is at work in us both to will and to do for his good pleasure, therefore we are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. The will of God is our sanctification, and we are commanded to be holy even as he is holy. Here we must preserve the distinction between justification and sanctification. Our works play no part in our justification: in that matter, God the righteous judge requires and absolute obedience which no sinful man can provide, for the sinner needs a full atonement for sin and the provision of righteousness that is fully acceptable to God, all of which is provided in Christ alone. But as a justified man, the Lord God becomes my Father, and I strive to please him and delight to know  that I can do so in dependence upon Christ and his Spirit. 

…To return to the main point, where this incipient antinomianism makes its entrance, tensions take root. We must resist the conflation of justification and sanctification, and clarify the confusion over the process of sanctification (a concern that we do not evacuate grace and faith from the process of sanctification which too often leaves us with a process that is made to consist in faith alone). The patterns of history suggest that—as you work down and out from the men who seem able to hold these things together while simultaneously pursuing biblical holiness—succeeding generations will fail to hold those elements in tension. The result will be an increasing abandonment of genuine, full-orbed, new covenant holiness. I am not suggesting that this is the intention, but I believe that this will be the result. I recognize that by suggesting that many new Calvinists are in principle antinomians I will be accused of being grossly uncharitable—up goes the cry, ‘How dare you call us antinomian!’ But the very next accusation is likely to be that I am a legalist, so at least we are all square. Again, let me point out that legalism is the pursuit of obedience with the intention of earning acceptance or merit and not the pursuit of obedience in accordance with God’s law as one redeemed by grace. Furthermore, I have seen some insightful comments on this discussion: someone had dared to use the word ‘antinomianism’ to describe the kind of approach outlined above, and it had immediately sparked the usual accusations of a legal spirit in the man who had used the word. It was at this point that someone else who did not believe in the abiding validity of the moral law stepped in with a sensible and sincere response: ‘Why,’ he said, ‘are we getting so angry about the use of the word “antinomian” If they are right, that is precisely what we are. I do not believe that they are right, and so I would deny the label. But if they are right, then that right, that is precisely what we are. I do not believe that they are right, and so I would deny the label. But if they are right, then that is the accurate term for what I believe.’ This is refreshing honesty!*

*Walker, Jeremy (2013-10-29). The New Calvinism Considered: A Personal and Pastoral Assessment (First) (Kindle Locations 733-737, 742-749, 749-763, 776-790,790-802, 807-821, 820,821). Evangelical Press. Kindle Edition.