Tuesday, February 26, 2008

John 6 and Related Passages

Just wanted to take a minute to recommend this excellent treatment of John 6 by Richard Coords at Examining Calvinism.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi there,

has anyone of you already blogged about "not saved in the first place" teaching of the Cs?

Sorry don't know where to ask this. Hope this is still ontopic etc.

thanks

kangaroodort said...

Rex,

Click on "perseverance" in the "labels" section. I am doing a series on the most relevant passages regarding apostasy (which is still in progress). I address the "not saved in the first place" teaching" in every post with regards to the particular passage being discussed.

Hope that helps.

God Bless,
Ben

kangaroodort said...

BTW, when you click on the perseverance label scroll down to the bottom and work your way up.

Anonymous said...

In an unrelated note, what do you make of what John Piper said about Arminianism in the Resurgence Conference, that it distorts the gospel and that Christians should separate from denominations whose elders teach an Arminian viewpoint?

http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/1097_distinguishing_the_true_gospel/

Anonymous said...

Hello Tom,

You wrote: “In an unrelated note, what do you make of what John Piper said about Arminianism in the Resurgence Conference, that it distorts the gospel and that Christians should separate from denominations whose elders teach an Arminian viewpoint?”

I took a quick glance at the notes of Piper’s talk. Piper is completely off base if he really wants to separate from denominations whose elders teach Arminianism. Couple reasons for this come immediately to mind. First, **the** gospel is neither calvinism nor Arminianism (and in fact genuine Christians who are both calvinist and Arminian who are preaching the one true gospel **are** preaching the gospel). I cringe whenever I hear someone try to equate their preferred theological system, (in Piper’s case calvinism) or whatever, with the gospel, they are not the same. So Piper is misguided and mistaken in this respect.

Second, from a practical perspective, if Piper actually and seriously suggests this kind of separation among bible believing Christians he is being unnecessarily divisive. And God will not be pleased with this kind of unnecessary divisiveness. Take one example, in the Southern Baptist denomination there is a bit of a struggle going on between calvinists and Arminians. If the calvinists in the Southern Baptist denomination were to follow Piper’s suggestion and separate, it would be utter disaster for that denomination. This would be true in other places as well.

So Piper is off base both theologically (if you want a better presentation of the nature of the gospel, which is neither calvinist nor Arminian, check out D. A. Carson’s comments on the gospel, available on the web titled: “What is the Gospel?; it was excellent, exegetically and theologically superior to Piper, and correct; all genuine christians whose hearts are right will agree with Carson as opposed to Piper) and practically. I pity Piper if he really holds this sentiment. It isn’t from God and its fruit will bear out its falsity.

Robert

Kevin Jackson said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Kevin Jackson said...

Hey Robert - I agree. Piper (and MacArthur) put their deterministic teachings ahead of the gospel. They push C to the point where it's difficult to enjoy their work (of which much is good). Compare that to Francis Schaeffer who also is a C, but I actually enjoy reading his stuff.