Gospel of Christ vs Gospel of John Piper

IfbReformer · Oct 18, 2007

swaimj said:

IFBReformer, it seems to me that habitual obedience is the proper answer to the question "How much fruit". Habitual obedience is not "no fruit" and it is not perfection. Abraham is the example. Abraham, the spiritual father of all who live by faith, did not exhibit "no friut". Nor did he exhibit perfection, but ultimately, though he failed many times in many of his choices, God worked in his life so that when he faced the major test (willingness to sacrifice his son) he passed it. Obedience was the increasing pattern of his life and obedience was the defining moment of his life. It seems to be that Piper is arguing that salvation cannot merely be theological, it must be practical and it must have a practical result in the life.
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So then you would agree with him that habitual obedience is required to enter heaven. Ok - I guess we will have to agree to disagree. I totally agree that Abraham, based on what we know in the scriptures was a habitually obedient man with only certain moments of failure in his life. We can show other Saints, both Old and New who exhibited habitual obedience in their lives as well.

This is not a debate about whether faith produces works, or whether it is possible for a Christian to live a habitually obedient life. Faith will always produce works in any true believer, and being habitually obedient to God is possible through the power of the Holy Spirit.

However - the real debate is this - is this habitual obedience not only possible, but REQUIRED for salvation? Piper says yes,and I guess according to your comments so do you.

I would then ask you what you do with the Corinthians who "fell asleep"(where killed by God) for abusing communion, what you do with many New Testament passages where Paul is rebuking Christians(not unbelievers) for doing wrong things or living in wrong ways. What about Solomon? Was his life one of habitual obedience? Did'nt he spend most of his days following after his wives(and in the end he may have repented) but his life was certainly nothing like Abrahams.

And How could the Bible call Lot righteous when we see almost nothing from him but failure? His one defining act of faith was leaving Sodom but even then he failed right afterwards with his daughters.

It is a sad but real fact, that there are many believers(both Old and New Testament) who were much less than habitually obedient yet there were still saved because of their faith.

IFBReformer

swaimj · Oct 18, 2007

IFBReformer,
Thanks for your responses and for expressing your concerns. I think that you and I probably agree broadly on this issue. I think that you have a very specific and narrow concern with what Piper is saying and it is possible that it is valid. I have not read for myself what he is teaching and I have not weighed the evidence, so I am going to back off. I don't know enough of this to know if I agree with Piper or not. It is an interesting topic and at some point I will try to investigate it.

russell55 · Oct 18, 2007

IfbReformer said:

Why do people defend the word games Piper uses? You can use "reveal" instead of determine, or "required" instead of "earned or merited" all day long. The end result is the same.
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Because it's not word games. The words Piper choses have meaning different meanings than the ones you were using to sum up what you think he is teaching.

The end result may look the same, but it isn't the same because the reasoning behind it is different.

According to Piper and those who believe as he does, professing Christians who do not have enough good works in their live after they are saved will not go to heaven.
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Because true faith isn't just believing a set of facts. It isn't just professing something to be true. True faith produces good works. Those who have true faith are new creation. New creatures do the good works prepared beforehand for them to do. Professing Christians who haven't done the good works prepared for them show that they aren't really new creatures. They show that while they claim to have faith, they don't have true faith.

According to Piper this is a life of "habitual obedience" with only imperfections that God will cleanse if our life is one of "habitual obedience".
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I agree with this. If someone isn't habitually obedient, then they are habitually disobedient, are they not? Do people who are habitually disobedient have true faith?

The aim of this judgment is for both rewards and to determine who is saved or lost "according to works"? Does this not fly in the face of Justification by faith alone?
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Once again, you've switched words on Piper. He uses declare and you use determine. Big difference. Our works don't determine who is saved or lost (as in being the grounds for the judgment), but they do declare (or show) who is saved or loss. As such they can be the criteria for judgment without being the grounds for that judgment.

Our "imperfections"(sins) are cleansed by the blood of Christ whether we have a life of habitual obedience or not. It is a sad fact, that some Christians yield very little to the Spirit's call to be Holy and follow God's will in their life. Yet they are still saved because it is not according to their works, but all of God's Grace and mercy.
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So you are saying that it is possible for a true believer to live a life of habitual disobedience?

Of course it's all of God's grace and mercy, but God's grace is grace that works within us producing an obedient walk of faith, so much so that our faithful obedience reveals or declares our true state. God's grace plants God's seed within those who are being saved, and that seed produces results. The one graciously born of God does not practice sin (or does not life a life that is habitually disobedient.) Everyone who is a child of God practices righteousness (or lives a life of habitual righteousness). It's this practice of sin or practice of righteousness (or habitual sin or habitual righteousness) that reveals who is a child of God and who is a child of the devil:

Everyone who has been fathered31 by God does not practice sin,32 because33 God’s34 seed35 resides in him, and thus36 he is not able to sin, because he has been fathered by God. By this37 the children of God and the children of the devil are revealed: Everyone who does not practice righteousness – the one who does not love his fellow Christian38 – is not of God. (1 John 3: 9-10 NET)
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BrotherJames · Oct 18, 2007

1 John 2:4 (King James Version)
He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

Someone use this verse? You can't you you're saved and lie, cheat, steal, hate, fornicate, etc. There HAS to be a change, but some people are deeper in sin then others, and might take a little longer. No? (Sorry if I restated facts, I skipped to page 3 :laugh: )

TCGreek · Oct 18, 2007

IfbReformer said:

Actually Piper believes in his own variation of the Protestant doctrine of Justification - in his book Future Grace(along with others) he quotes from Calvin and Luther and other reformers, but he has gone much further in following some of the teachings of Jonathan Edwards which goes further than Calvin and Luther on this.

Its one thing to say that true faith produces love and holiness - I think most Christians would say "Amen" to that. Its quite another to go further with that say that it will produce a "habitual obedience" or a "pattern of life of obedience" where we only have imperfections that need to be cleansed.

Piper has a whole theology built around a human righteousness(that yes is not perfect) but is almost perfect in the sense that it is habitual with blips of failure on the screen. This is not what the reformers taught.

I usually don't quote from mentors of people, but since Piper quotes one his mentors in this book I believe a quote from that mentor is appropriate in this circumstance to see where Piper's theology has come from and where it will lead. One of his mentors, to whom he has attested that he owes a great deal for his thinking in this book, is David Fuller. First consider this quote by Piper in Future Grace about the influence of David Fuller on his theology:

There are other quotes from Daniel Fuller in the book Future Grace, but this one in the introduction is a troubling thought when we consider Daniel Fuller's comments below:

While I am definitely not a Convenant Theologian, I can see the danger of where Daniel Fuller, and by extention John Piper are taking evangelical Christianity. A whole new form of legalism is forming with John Piper's name written all over it.

IFBReformer
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Aren't you confusing Piper's emphasis on the Fruit of Justification for the Root of Justification?

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