Repentance, Calvinism and Works

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. 

Copyright 2021, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated us, provided credit is properly given. 

The Heresy of Including Reform in Repentance

The Heresy of Including Reform in Repentance

Like John MacArthur, despite clearly defining grace as the means of salvation and faith as the channel of grace, Todd Friel occasionally crosses the line into salvation by works.

I highly recommend listening to Wretched Radio. God does call on His children to reform their lives. Too many churches fail to call for reform, and communicating the gospel should describe the cost of obeying the gospel. Becoming a Christian does not mean God will heal all your relationships or make your life easy; and Eternal Security does not mean you can ignore your new life in Christ and do whatever you want without chastisement.

Apostate Christian churches have mis-defined repentance in both directions. Historically, churches, dominated by Roman Catholicism, have over-defined repentance by adding reform to it. In our times, New Evangelical churches tend to under-define it or omit it altogether. Many "Reformed" Christians over-emphasize repentance as an over-reaction to the New Evangelical watering down of the gospel. The mis-definitions of repentance makes it difficult to accurately differentiate between the call for non-Christians to repent and the call for God's children to reform.

While we should, therefore, practice grace when an earnest brother occasionally blurs the line, we should also stand for a correct definition of the gospel and point out failures to do so.

Friel crossed the line on Wretched Radio's "Witness Wednesday" episode for 19 June 2019. The conversation begins at 14:50. https://www.wretched.org/06-19-2019/

Friel crossed the line into a gospel of works while explaining the gospel to a young Roman Catholic woman, saying in his conclusion:

Friel: [W]hat do you need do to go to heaven? What would your answer be? 

Woman: Live for Jesus and for God.  

Friel: Yeah, that's right, to repent, and put your trust in Him. To repent, to ask for forgiveness, forsake your sins and put your trust in Jesus Christ. And then you inherit eternal life.

(Note that the woman's answer was about works, and while supplying missing elements, Friel reinforced her error.)

"Forsake your sins" is ambiguous by itself, but a minute before, Friel had described repentance and faith thus:

[Y]ou repent, you recognize that you've sinned against God, you confess your sins to him, then you forsake them instead of living for yourself, you start living for Him, and you put your trust in Jesus Christ as if your life depended on it because frankly it does.

Just as there are sins of omission and sins of commission, there are good works of restraint and good works of commission. Forsaking sins is obeying the Don'ts of the commandments. Living for God is the Do's of the commandments.

What Friel and people like John MacArthur are saying is, "Do good works and then put trust in Christ." They do not say it all the time, but they say it often enough that they need to be called out on it. Making good works a requirement for salvation prevents salvation.

Whether one reforms by obeying God's covenant with Israel or by obeying the Law of Love is irrelevant. In the context of entering into salvation, "works" includes any attempt to be righteous enough to please God. 

The rest of what Friel says is, more or less, consistent with the gospel. It is consistent because we must recognize our sin and deserved condemnation in order to approach God. It is inconsistent because the emphasis is entirely on moral sin; it ignores that "sin" includes holding wrong beliefs.

There are sins we must forsake. For example:

• Worship of false gods
• Rejecting God's standards of sin and righteousness
• Rationalizing our sins 
• Believing we can be righteous enough to be accepted by God
• Believing God will forgive us without a price being paid
• Adding anything to grace and faith -- including reform

These are all matters of heart and mind, not of moral actions. For example, it does no good to give up adultery if you continue to worship the Unitarian god of Oneness Pentecostals or to serve statues and pray to Mary. With time, the fruits of repentance and of God reforming you from within follow. But actions are not included as requirements for salvation.

God sees the sincerity of the heart and the mind. He does not have to wait to see your actions. When you repent (mind and heart) and put faith in God for redemption, God saves you in that instant.

• Repentances does not include its result, reform. 
• Reforming yourself does not cause salvation. 
• Salvation enables repentance to cause reform.

In fact, reforming yourself to achieve salvation blocks salvation because you are attempting to make yourself presentable to God instead of relying on Christ to do that for you.

Preachers like Friel and MacArthur confuse many believers. When they preach salvation through faith alone, and then require works before faith, they contradict themselves and bring heresy into their gospel.


Copyright 2019, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for personal or non-profit use. Please give credit where credit is due.