I love Wretched Radio. I never miss an episode. Today, Todd took a stand that requires a response. It is a fundamental issue.
Repentance, Misdefined, Is Works
Todd Friel, Ray Comfort, and John MacArthur conflate repentance and reform. In today's podcast, Todd defended including repentance in the gospel. That is fine until they explain repentance as turning away from or ceasing from sins. Todd's reasoned today that repenting is "not works" because not doing something cannot be works. This is a flawed definition and an illogical excuse.
Before continuing, I want to point out that, in the Witness Wednesday episodes, Todd asserts his definition of repentance only a minority of the time, and when he does, he does not camp on it.
Repentance versus Reform
John the Baptist clearly distinguished between repentance and the fruits of repentance. He challenged people who claimed to have a change of mind and heart toward sin, yet failed to demonstrate that change in their actions. Our word for fruits of repentance is 'reform'.
The tight causal relationship between repentance and reform makes it easy to conflate them. However, 'metanoia', the change of mind and heart called repentance, is a cause. Reform is an effect and evidence of repentance's sincerity.
Moreover, the natural man cannot reform without God's enabling work of regeneration. So, while repentance is involved in the process of salvation, and genuine repentance motivates reform, reform cannot be part of that process.
Restraint, an Element of Works
To justify turning from sin as a requirement of the gospel, Todd quoted Ray's explanation that not doing something cannot be a work. Thus, they admit that they define repentance as including reform.
Just as there are sins of commission and sins of omission, there are works of commission and works of restraint. "Not doing something," therefore, is indeed "works."
Ray and Todd frequently make use of the Ten Commandments. Five, and arguably six, of the ten are Thou-shalt-not's. What is obedience to those commandments if not works of restraint? If obeying the Ten Commandments is "works," then refraining from sins as part of "repentance" is an offering of righteousness to God in exchange for salvation.
Arminians say you must refrain from certain sins to maintain salvation. Calvinists say you must refrain from sins to enter salvation. It's like the extremes of both have wrapped around the back and met each other.
Calvinist Repentance
From a Calvinist's perspective, the natural man's spirit is dead, inanimate, nonfunctional, dead-dead. God must regenerate him, that is, must animate his spirit before he can have faith. Therefore, if God has already saved a man, then all of what God commands of Christians becomes presentable in the gospel. Under Calvinism, faith plus works is a result of salvation, not a cause, so commanding good works or restraint from sin is orthodox... under Calvinism.
But if commanding works is applicable to the convert, who has already been saved so that he can believe, then why would Todd defend preaching repentance-reform? Why must he deny that his definition of repentance is works? His agreement that it would be heretical to preach works refutes his belief in Calvinism.
A Moderate Calvinist View
A Moderate Calvinist sees problems with the Calvinist definition of spiritual death. How can a dead spirit be accountable for things it was not even conscious of, aware of, and in power over? How can a dead spirit suffer in Hades? How can a dead spirit go to Hades without regeneration that is reserved for Christians?
A Moderate Calvinist also sees a contradiction between the Calvinist order of salvation processes and the explicit New Testament teaching that God uses faith as the means through which He works the grace of salvation.
A Moderate Calvinist would define spiritual death as analogous to physical death, which is separation of the spirit from the body. Spiritual death is separation from God with an accompanying cognitive disability with respect to spiritual things, resulting from bondage to sin. The "dead" spirit, then, has awareness and influence over decisions and can be held accountable for sins. The order of salvation would be a bracing or healing of the cognitive disability and a conviction of sin, followed by receiving the gift of faith, followed by salvation by grace through faith.
In other words, since spiritually dead means separation from God and not dead-dead, God does not need to regenerate the spirit before granting the gift of faith. Commanding the unsaved to perform works, then, mixes grace with wages and faith with works, leaving the "convert" unconverted.
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