Monday, February 17, 2014

The Four Spiritual Laws and Four Biblical Observations


We have long held to the belief that Bill Bright’s Four Spiritual Laws (FSL) exemplifies the self-contradictory false-gospels that dominate the Christian marketplace. A brief moment of sober, biblical reflection on these “laws” is revealing:



LAW ONE:  God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.

God hated Esau (Romans 9:13). God hates “the workers of iniquity” and “him that loveth violence” (Psalm 5:5, 11:5). God loves his people BEFORE they ever love him (I John 4:19). The bible describes this love as an everlasting love. (Jeremiah 31:3) It follows that neither Esau nor those intended by “the wicked” and “him that loveth violence” were included in this everlasting love of God. The logical consequence of this observation is that it is completely inappropriate and unscriptural to approach any random member of humanity and provide assurance that God loves them and has a wonderful plan for their life. We see no such practice employed by the apostles in their gospel ministry. This false assertion turns a blind eye to the aforementioned passages of scripture. It is therefore an abject misrepresentation of the Christian faith that should be fully rejected by all all bible believing Christians.

LAW TWO:  Man is sinful and separated from God.  Therefore, he cannot know and experience God's love and plan for his life.

We have already biblically demonstrated that God does not love everybody, so any house that is subsequently constructed on that foundation is likewise unstable. We would ask the reader to take note of the statement that man “cannot know and experience God’s love and plan for his life.” We will revisit this statement later in our analysis...

LAW THREE: Jesus Christ is God's only provision for man's sin. Through Him you can know and experience God's love and plan for your life.

Here we see that the FLS's characterize the atoning work of Christ as potential and universal. This claim is at odds with the bible’s testimony that the atonement is effectual (John 10:28) and particular (John 10:11,26). In so doing it suggests that Jesus was one who made men savable rather than one who actually saved his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21) by one offering (Romans 5:19) which perfected His people before the throne of God (Hebrews 10:14) in an utterly unassailable work (Romans 8:31-39).

LAW FOUR:  We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God's love and plan for our lives.

Law Two asserted that man “CANNOT know and experience God’s love and plan for his life.” Now, in crisp contrast, Law Four states that one CAN “individually receive Christ as savior and Lord” and as a result one "CAN know and experience God’s love and plan for our lives. Let’s set those two assertions directly atop one another to draw out the problem in a way that is hard to misunderstand:
“[Man] CANNOT know and experience God’s love and plan for his life.” (L2)
“[Man] CAN know and experience God’s love and plan for our lives.” (L4)
That is a bald logical contradiction. The bible’s testimony is that man in his natural state is incapable of receiving spiritual truth (I Corinthians 2:14) because he is dead in trespasses and in sins (Ephesians 2:1) and enmity with God (Romans 8:7). It is for this reason that the Lord Jesus Christ taught, “Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3) FSL insists that if one will believe, then they will be born again as a result. Jesus Christ taught that one must be born again in order to believe.  (John 8:47)

FINALLY


In summary, the Four Spiritual Laws are a false gospel that promotes...
  1. The universal love of God for all of humanity contrary to the scriptures (Romans 9:13).
  2. A potential and universal atonement contrary to the scriptures (John 10:11,26,28).
  3. Fallen man's ability to receive spiritual truth contrary the scriptures (I Corinthians 2:14).
  4. Fallen man's ability to receive spiritual truth contrary to to its own claims (Law Two).  
To be perfectly clear, we do not doubt the sincerity of those of God's sheep who have "received" or "believed" this false gospel. Neither do we doubt that many of them are heaven-bound based on the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on their behalf, in spite of their lack of understanding of the mechanics of their eternal salvation. But we regard those sheep as like unto Apollos who was in need of having the way of God explained to him more completely (Acts 18:26).



4 comments:

  1. Back in the 1970's that tract was nicknamed "the four spiritual flaws".
    It seems the Church is brought back to the same arguments and books. PB's were right to reprint Joseph Hussey, and John Gill. And it seems the Arminians are republishing Andrew Fuller. Thank you for standing up for the truth.

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    1. DG: Back in the 1970's that tract was nicknamed "the four spiritual flaws".

      TETH: I hadn't heard that one, but it is spot-on.

      DG: It seems the Church is brought back to the same arguments and books. PB's were right to reprint Joseph Hussey, and John Gill.

      TETH: These men were certainly far more sound that those who are regarded as the heavy-weight theologians in our day. Gill's commentary on the bible is arguably the best ever written, IMO, and yet we PBs would still take brother Gill to task on a few topics :)

      DG: And it seems the Arminians are republishing Andrew Fuller.

      TETH: Yes, and it seems that many of them call themselves Calvinists these days.

      DG: Thank you for standing up for the truth.

      TETH: Thank you for taking time to interaction with the blog. God bless.

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  2. Please answer these questions.
    1. WHOM DOES GOD LOVE TODAY
    2. HOW DO I KNOW THAT GOD LOVES ME OR HATES ME?
    3.WHAT DOES DEUT.29:29 MEAN?
    WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO OFFER AS REDEMPTION?
    FRANCIS.

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    1. TETH: First off, sorry for the slow reply, I only just now noticed your comment from July 20, 2018. Let me provide answers to your questions.

      FRANCIS: Whom does God love today?

      TETH: God loves the people he chose to save in the covenant of election which was established before the foundation of the world. This is established in passages such as…

      “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.” (Ephesians 1:4-6)

      “The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” (Jeremiah 31:3)

      FRANCIS: How do I know that God loves me or hates me?

      TETH: Do you love God? “We love him because he first loved us.” (I John 4:19)

      FRANCIS: What does Deuteronomy 29:29 mean?

      TETH: Consider this…

      “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God” – these secret things are things about God’s eternal plan which are unrevealed to us. They may take the form of “why did my mother die when I was young?” or other questions dealing with things that have come to pass for which there is no definitive explanation.

      “but those things which are revealed” – which further proves the previous statement designs unrevealed things as it is set in contrast with those things.

      “belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.” – which designs the things revealed to us in the word of God such as the precepts and principles of righteous living (like the 10 commandments) or the proper doctrine of salvation by sovereign grace, which are no longer secret, since they are found in the scriptures. While they may be misunderstood by the naïve or those who have failed to study the word of God, they cannot be said to be “unrevealed” given that the bible plainly codifies and memorializes them.

      FRANCIS: What do you have to offer as redemption?

      TETH: I have nothing to offer as redemption. Jesus Christ is the redeemer. And the bible says that he “obtained eternal redemption for us” (Hebrews 9:12) by which it designs the redemption of his covenant people.

      May God bless our studies and understanding of his word,
      TETH

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