Born Again, and Proud of It?

From a question on Quora:

Is it a sin to be proud of yourself and others about being "Born Again"?

Yes, it is a sin to be proud of yourself and others for being born again. Pride indicates that you credit yourself with accomplishing something or having some attribute that makes you better than others.

Now, be careful about saying that others are proud of themselves. They could be boasting of what God has done to make conversion more palatable or attractive to those who have not been born again. The apostle Paul boasted about how gentiles had been turning to God in order to make Jews want what God was doing for non-Jews. Or the intent could be to encourage shy people to share the faith. It’s easy to misread others’ motives, and we should always assume the best about people. 

To be born again, you must understand that you are no better than anybody else. In fact, you are under the same judgment as everybody else because “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” There is nothing in your nature that makes you superior to others in God’s eyes. 

No good action you have done can make up for the bad things you have done because we already owe those good actions to our Creator. “My good outweighs my bad” is like saying “I’ll pay June’s rent with what I failed to pay in May;” you still owe May’s rent. 

Being born again is a gift from God. All we can contribute is getting our pride and self-righteous attempts at self-justification out of the way, and in despair, submitting to His offer of redemption and mercy, trusting God 100% and ourselves 0%. 

Did you give spiritual birth to yourself? There is no pride in being born again. God the Son experienced the darkness of separation from the Father and experienced torture and death on the Cross. God gave you conviction of sins, enlightenment of the understanding of the gospel, and faith to trust in Him. God regenerates the soul, endows and seals with the Holy Spirit. God forgives, credits you with Christ’s payment, and credits you with Christ’s righteousness. God adds you to the universal church and predestines you to the resurrection, the transformation of your body, and everlasting life in His glorious presence. Just what do you think you contributed to all of that? 

There is relief over having escaped judgment. There is rejoicing over receiving God’s undeserved favor and the blessings that come with redemption. There is gratitude and a determination to demonstrate that gratitude by reforming, that is, turning away from former sins and learning to do those things that are loving and right. There is a desire to develop knowledge of God, relationship with God, and relationship with His other children. There is concern about those who have not experienced redemption. 

But there is no pride in yourself. Pride in yourself could be just a sign of immaturity. But it could also be a sign that you don’t understand the gospel. Study the scriptures, especially the epistles. Learn. Examine your life. Be certain.

If you are proud, be proud of God. Rejoice in the dignity of being His child and all that being born again entails, but give the glory to the God who did it all.

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Posting this on Quora probably put it in the public domain, and I don't mind its use by individuals or for non-monetary purposes. However, please respect intellectual property and give credit where credit is due.

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.

Saved by Grace but Secured by Self Righteousness

"I believe i am saved from this ungodly world by the grace of God. but to continue in that salvation or saving grace requires effort on my part."

Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Galatians 3:3

If the potter makes a pot for honorable use, does the pot need to take action to remain a pot? If God turns a goat into a sheep, does the sheep need to take action to avoid turning back into a goat? 

Doctrines of piecemeal justification (Catholicism) or perishable justification (Arminians) contradict the very definition of grace. They do not recognize that the new birth changes a believer's very nature.

The new birth

• Changes strangers into members of the household
• Changes citizens of the kingdom of darkness into citizens of the kingdom of light
• Emancipates slave, turning them into free persons
• Changes children of satan into children of God and brethren of Christ
• Gives sight to spiritually blind
• Gives life to those who were spiritually dead
• Gives an inheritance to the disinherited
• Turns the condemned into the glorified

If God turns a lump of coal into a diamond, a little bit of dirt does not turn it back into coal. Diamonds continue to be diamonds because that's what God has remade them into, and diamonds will shine because that's what diamonds do.

Living in insecurity and in fear of your fleshly nature is not God's will for believers. IFF (if and only if) you are a believer, your spirit is a diamond embedded in a fleshly lump of coal. God promises, indeed predestines, that in the resurrection or rapture, He will transform your old coal into a new diamond, too. You cannot break God's promises or defeat His predestination.

Living in insecurity and fear is wrong for believers, but it is right for those who have not received The Gift, as a gift, from the Giver. God does not take away what He has freely given. Neither does He give the gift to those who insult His generosity.

If you received the "gift" of salvation as though it were something that you would have to pay for on the installment plan (Catholic) or would have to earn through other do's and don'ts (Wesleyan), then you may not have received the gift as a gift. Please make sure you receive the gift God's way.