Calvinism Deja Vu - All Over Again
Today, those who have made the leap to embrace Reformed theology or Calvinism are applauded as having come to grips with the “rationality” of Scripture and the worship of God with their altogether reasonable minds. These are the “elite” who are said to hold high regard for Scripture and who disdain emotionalism. (read: emotions on just about any level) On the other hand, as one who believes not only in tongues, but also in healing and the casting out of demons (real ones), I’m thought to have lost my mind and my doctrines are summarily dismissed in the same breath with white-suited television preachers and snake handlers.
This morning as I parsed Colossians 1:2, I wondered to myself, “Just who is the real intellectual?”
In a previous post, I quoted an extremely popular blogger and altogether committed and admitted Reformed guy from his post about Ted Haggard. In his post, he writes:
“Every day I see again how my heart is dark and black and awful and filled with enmity towards God.”
He writes this as a practicing Christian. From what I can gather, he makes no distinction between saint and sinner, at least when it comes to the state of the heart.
In Colossians 1:2, Paul writes to the Christians at Colosse and says:
“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, And Timothy my brother, Unto the holy and faithful brethren in Christ that are in Colosse, Favour unto you and peace from our God and Father.” (Rotherham).
In this verse the word “holy” is the very same Greek word used to describe “holy” in the Holy Spirit in other passages.
The question presented to my mind is how is a “dark and black and awful” heart squared with Christians whom Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, calls “holy” and “faithful?” How rational is it that Christians call “dark, black, and awful” what God calls “holy” and pure? Are we really going to stand up to the Lord Jesus Christ at the end of time and tell Him that He really did not mean what He said?
Why embrace a theology that so cuts against God’s written Word? In Galatians 2:11, Paul states that he resisted Peter “to the face” because he “did not walk uprightly according to the truth of the gospel.” I can’t help but think that Paul would do the very same thing for calling the Christian heart “dark and black and awful.”
I believe the common mistake that you are illustrating is that Christians do not separate the Body from the Spirit. The spirit that is within a born-from-above person is holy, I John 5:18 says anyone who is born of God is not sinning… must be understood to be our Spirits (compare Heb 12:9 which distinguishes the Father of our Flesh with the Father of our Spirits)… and Paul describes in great detail in Romans that sin is part of our body… it is the greatest error in the Reformed position… because of it they deny that anything happens to them in conversion but they are only imputed righteousness (because they still see sin within them)… and therefore are sinners… and because of that never strive to develop their spirits over their bodies as Paul describes in many places “be led by your spirit and not by your flesh”… I do not understand why this is not clear to them scripturally…