The Works of a Christian As a Defining Line Between True and False Christianity

One of the consistent errors that mark cults is their perversion of salvation to some form of works righteousness. This is true of the largest cult, the Roman Catholic Church, as well as other well-known cults such as the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses, Church of Christ, or any one that we could name. 

That one error is a defining distinction between cults and orthodox Christianity, i. e., biblical Protestantism. 

The error of each of these cults is that they mix justification with sanctification. That is, they make the good works of the professing Christian to be part of his justification before God, whether it is faith plus sacraments, or faith plus love. Always the error involves faith plus something, instead of biblical justification, which is by faith alone. 

This is not to profess the strawman argument used by such groups against Protestants, by which they claim that the denial of a role in justification means that Protestants believe that works do not matter. That accusation is false. With the Bible, Protestants hold that works are the necessary result of saving faith. That is the opposite of what the cults teach. The Protestant talks about works as the necessary result, while the cults make works a necessary component of justification. 

This is what we find in the New Testament. 

Acts 15:9: "He [God] made no distinction between us [Jews] and them [Gentiles], having cleansed their hearts by faith." 

Romans 6:1-6: "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried, therefore, with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we, too, might walk in newness of life." 

Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." 

This is far from an exhaustive list.

The Sovereignty of God over His Enemies

The Bible gives us accounts of several cases in which God interacts with Satan or Satan's demonic minions. For example, we read this story in Job 1:6-12: "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, 'From where have you come?' Satan answered the Lord and said, 'From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.' And the Lord said to Satan, 'Have you considered My servant job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?' Then Satan answered the Lord and said, 'Does Job fear God for no reason? Have You not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has has, and he will curse You to Your face.' And the Lord said to Satan, 'Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.' So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord." 

What we see is that Satan, the commander of the demons, must give answer to God for his activities. This chieftain of wickedness cannot claim for himself even the autonomy with which he tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. We see this in every interaction between the Father or the Son and any of the minions of Hell. Never does a demon act apart from divine permission, even when the woman is possessed by a legion of demons, or approximately six thousand (Mark 5:1-20). Even with such a number, the demons cower before the incarnate divine Son (verses 10-12). They knew that a day will come when He will judge them to their final imprisonment (Luke 8:31). 

In his catechism, question #28, Calvin addressed this subservience from the demons: "What sayest thou as touching the devils and wicked persons? Be they also subject to Him? A: Albeit that God doth not guide them with His Holy Spirit, yet He doth bridle them in such sort that they be not able to stir or move without His permission and appointment; yea, and moreover He doth compel them to execute His will, although it be against their intent and purpose." 

The Fullness of the Revelation of the Faith

In his epistle, Jude, the brother of Jesus, made an interesting comment: "Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 1:3). "Delivered once for all" can mean nothing except that the content of the Christian faith, that is, all of her doctrine, had been fully revealed by the time Jude was forced to warn against false teachers who were striving to corrupt that faith. Paul made the same point to his young protégé in II Timothy 3:15-17). 

The importance of Jude's words here is to shut the door in the faces of pseudo-Christian sects who seek to claim that they have revelations of additional doctrines beyond those given by Jesus and His Apostles. The Mormons have their Book of Mormon and other "scriptures," while Rome makes lofty claims for her "sacred tradition." Both claims are their efforts to cover the manmade doctrines that they confess cannot be found in the Bible. 

Yet, according to Jude, that exclusion is sufficient proof that the doctrinal claims of Rome and the Mormons are precluded from true Christianity exactly because they were not revealed in the New testament once for all. 

There Is No Grace for the Wicked in This Life: Contra "Common Grace"

"For My name's sake, I defer My anger; for the sake of My praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For My sake, for My own sake, I do it, for how should My name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another" -Isaiah 48:9-11

There is a common doctrine among Protestants, even among Reformed protestants, that I reject, that of "common grace." According to its supporters, God loves all and gives grace to all, both elect and reprobate, which enables both to do meritorious good. The primary biblical support for this doctrine is Matthew 5:45, even though that verse doesn't even mention "grace." It says that God is good to all. And of course He is good to all, because God cannot be but good. 

However, Isaiah, in the passage above, tells us that the reprobate continue to be under the judgment of God. The respite they experience now is not a grace to them, but is rather God's restraint of His judgment for the sake of His own glory. The prophet says nothing about God's enabling the wicked to stand off His judgment because of any supposed good in them or love toward them. 

God is no schizophrenic, both loving and hating (see Psalm 5:5 and Psalm 11:5) the reprobate simultaneously. He is not trying to save with one hand those whom He has reprobated with the other. That would be to deny both the rationality and simplicity of God. His mind is single, to set aside the reprobate for His hatred and judgment for eternity. At the same time, His true love and grace to the elect includes His restraint of the wickedness of the reprobate, not for the sake of the reprobate, but for the sake of their elect neighbors.

The Holiness of God

"God has no mixture of evil in Him. Sin has no mixture of good; it is the spirit and quintessence of evil; it turns good into evil; it has deflowered the virgin soul, made it red with guilt, and black with filth; it is called an accursed thing. No wonder, therefore, that God hates sin, being so unlike to Him, nay, so contrary to Him. It strikes at His holiness; it does all it can to spite God. If sin could help it, God should be God no longer" (Puritan Thomas Watson, "Body of Divinity"). 

Americans, even professed evangelicals, poo-poo the concept of sin. It is just a mistake or lapse, not a big issue. We are able to tell ourselves that because we have suppressed our awareness of what sin is. 

However, as summarized by Watson above, in his commentary on Question 4 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, sin is a serious matter to God. All sin and any sin. That is because sin is not merely a mistake or lapse, but is, rather, an assault on God's crown and holiness. It is a choice to act contrarily to His command and His nature. It is an attempt to make man sovereign by de-Godding the only true God. 

We see this in the original temptation of Satan to Adam and Eve: "You will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5). "Knowing," here, does not mean "knowing about." Adam and Eve already knew about good and evil, because God had warned them of the consequences of disobedience, especially in the eating from the tree. Rather, "knowing" in this context is used for "determining." Satan is tempting the first couple with the illusion of autonomy from the crown rights of God, including the right to define sin, i. e., of determining good and evil for His creatures. 

When we take this view of sin, that it is the attempt to dethrone the Creator, then we can understand why its judgment is so severe. Sin is an act of treason against God! 

God Blinds the Eyes

"He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts,

Lest they see with their eyes and understand with their hearts and turn, 

And I would heal them." 

-John 12:40 

In this verse (quoted from Isaiah 6:10), Jesus is responding to the unbelief of the Jewish audience which heard His words and saw His miracles, yet refused to believe. He describes the sad sentence on them, not for their unbelief, but as the reason for their unbelief: God had blinded them. In theology, we call this reprobation. 

Paul describes the same principle: "So then, He has mercy on whomever He wills [i. e., election], and He hardens whomever He wills" (Romans 9:18). 

No principle displays the absolute sovereignty more forthrightly than this one, which is why it may be the most hated doctrine in Scripture, even among self-described Calvinists. It completely eliminates the spiritual autonomy of men, striking at the fallen heart of the unbeliever, and even pricking the remaining pride in the believer. Yet Scripture reveals it, so that we are compelled to believe it. 

Faithful Prayer in a Sinful World

"You can never believe greater or better things than God can do for you. Even sin itself, which is the great (and really the only) evil; it is His enemy as much as yours: and you may be sure He would not have suffered its being in the world if He had not a power to correct and curb it, yea, and to destroy it, too, at His pleasure: take hold of His sovereign strength, and your work is done." 

-Puritan Elisha Coles, "A Practical Discourse of God's Sovereignty" 

It is easy for a Christian to be discouraged from prayer, because of the wickedness and suffering we see in the world. Do such things not show that God has no control over this world? How, then, can I trust Him to answer my prayers? This is a variant of the argument from evil used by atheists. How can your God exist, they challenge, if this world contains so much evil? 

That is because the unbeliever can draw no hope from the promises of God: "We know that, for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose" (Romans8:28). The Apostle Paul suffered far more than most modern Christians will ever know, beatings, imprisonments, and finally execution. Yet this same man put his hope in the awareness that God, far from being helpless, is the divine sovereign over all that happens, making it of eternal benefit to the one who experiences such things in this life. And that is what Coles describes in the quote at the top. The presence of evil and suffering in this world is only at the sufferance of a sovereign God, not a sign of His indifference or powerlessness. Furthermore, He uses such things to shape us into His servants, prepared to do His will both in this world and in the next.