Hi, this is the Birdwell Heights Presbyterian Church Pulpit Supplemental, and today I wanted to read another section of John Otis's excellent book called Danger in the Camp, An Analysis and Refutation of the Heresies of the Federal Vision. It's a great book, and it's one that I highly recommend to people who want to understand, you know, what is all this stuff about the federal vision? What does it mean? And the word heretic and heresy Are often thrown around a lot without a whole lot of thought given to what they mean and John Otis has a really useful Introduction here that I think is really really good about what is heresy? What what is heresy? You don't just want to throw that term around. If you disagree with someone about something, you don't want to just throw them under the bus with the word heresy. That is a very important term. It's a biblical term. We'll look at the passages where it occurs in scripture here in a moment. But I think that Otis's analysis here of the idea of heresy and that the federal vision is a heresy. In fact, it's a whole matrix of heresies about almost everything. The stuff that I've read, I have a whole bookshelf of Federal Vision stuff. Of Federal Vision books. I've not read all of them. Actually, there was a guy who was an elder. Actually, I think that he just went on to glory. at another church in our Prester here with the great minister I'm friends with and He knew that I was I've been studying this issue and he called me and said do you want all my federal vision junk? And I was like, what do you mean your federal vision junk? Like I thought maybe he meant like clerical colors and things like that, but he meant all the books I said sure sure, um, I'd be happy to take it because he was gonna throw him away and So he brought them, I mean, I'm talking like 20 books by James Jordan and Doug Wilson and Peter Lightheart and, you know, Lusk and Myers and all of them. And it's all back there on my heresy bookshelf in the back there. I need to move my N.T. Wright bookshelf back over there too so that all my heretics are together. But anyway So I've got a lot of those books and this stuff's heretical I remember reading Peter Lightheart's book against Christianity and that book is just wall-to-wall heresy You know Christianity is not about you know, how you're saved. It's it's about how does he put it like international relations and junk like that and They're influenced by new perspective writers, you know, a lot of them are like Schlissel, you know, basically Word for word just just regurgitates what new perspective writers say About justification. It's all about table fellowship and eating at the same table and everything else blah blah blah So anyway, so I I do regard the federal vision and its sympathizers the federal vision is heresy and its sympathizers and proponents are heretics and they The thing that's kind of amazing about it is pretty much every reformed denomination of any significant size at all, published papers and position stuff on this, and they all rejected it. They all rejected it. And to my knowledge, none of the federal vision proponents have repented of these gross errors. And these are not, you know, sideshow errors. You know, Otis has a really good, his book is huge. And he has a really good section where he lists, okay, here's a general list of the errors. And he goes through and documents this. I mean, ad nauseum, this book is very large because it's so well documented. Because no matter how thorough you are in your documentation, your tone is bad or you're misrepresenting us or whatever. There's nothing misrepresented here. There are huge quotations, pages and pages and pages and pages of quotations that document fully. The Federal Vision is wrong on the following things. They are wrong in what they teach about the Covenant. They're wrong in what they teach about the Church. They're wrong about election. In fact, they just revived heresies that were dealt with at the Synod of Dort, that there's multiple kinds of election. There's covenantal election, decreto election. No, there's not. In Scripture, there's only one kind of election. There's only one kind of predestination. They're wrong about baptism. They're wrong about eternal security and assurance. They are wrong about man's depravity. In fact, some of them sound to me, as I've read the quotations and I've read some of their books that I've got in the back there and some of their essays, they're not just, they're not semi-Pelagian. They're not Wesleyan. They're not Arminian. They're Pelagian to the core. Like there's, There's no sense of human sinfulness and you can obey the law and it's easy. That's one of the things that's so weird is some of these guys in the quotations are all here in Otis's book. They say keeping the law, it's easy. It's easy to do. It's easy to do. Keeping the law, obeying the law is easy. Because God looks at us through fatherly eyes. Which is very similar to the way Roman Catholic apologists have always talked about this. Our works viewed under the auspices of God's fatherly grace. He's pleased to reward our good works, and that's what saves us. Okay, so they're wrong about man's depravity. They are wrong about justification. They deny justification by faith alone, right and left, all over the place. And there's no doubt about it that the slipperiest individual on that topic is Doug Wilson. Because Doug Wilson will say the right things in the right company. But Chris Arnson Interviewed Wilson. I'm gonna put a link to it with some some timestamps in the description here And if you go to I think it's one hour and 16 minutes and just listen for a few minutes Earlier, Arnzen had played a clip from the partial debate that Steve Schlissel did with John Otis, and Schlissel is arguing against the gospel as vociferously as I've ever heard anyone, including Roman Catholic apologists over the years, argue against it. Schlissel detests the gospel. And Otis is trying to defend it, and Schlissel's like, you're not allowed to quote Romans and Galatians. Why? Because every error that you're bringing up is addressed in those books. But anyway, he played those clips with Wilson on the phone. And then Arnzen asked Wilson, do you know of any federal vision proponents that deny justification by faith alone? No, I don't know of anyone that outright denies it. And then Arnzen is kind of confused. It's like, are you serious? He's like, so you would say that my friend Steve Schlissel believes in justification by faith alone? It's like there was a long pause and Wilson says, yeah. Wow. Okay. So, Schlissel believes in justification by faith alone. I'll put a link to the Otis-Schlissel debate, too, in the description here. You listen to that. Listen to Otis defending Sola Fide and Schlissel denying it with everything but the kitchen sink. Schlissel's way of arguing against it is the classic Roman Catholic way. Either justification and sanctification are the same thing, or there's no such thing as sanctification. It's a false dilemma. It's either our obedience saves us and makes us right with God and we get into heaven by being obedient, or you're an antinomian. And that's of course what Paul's enemies said to him, and he addresses that in scripture. in Romans chapter 6 very clearly. So anyway, but I wanted to go through Otis's really helpful section here. You know, Otis did a really good job of bringing the reform confessions to bear and pulling all this stuff together. I have my paperback copy of Otis's book. It's got like tabs and stuff all over it. I marked it all up. But I really like looking at stuff on Kindle because then you can like put notes and those notes will appear all over your different gadgets that you have Kindle on. But anyway, so he has a chapter. The opening chapter here is called, What is a Heresy? He says, It is imperative that I discuss the meaning and nature of heresy. After all, I subtitled my book, An Analysis and Reputation of the Heresies of the Federal Vision. Now, okay, listen to what he says here. I'm about to kind of go into this myself. I want to make some comments along the way here. The mindset today seems to be that you just need to sit down and have a cup of coffee or a beer and talk to people. And a face-to-face conversation can resolve all these issues. The mindset that dominates today is there are no heretics. And all we have are misunderstandings. All we have is a lack of good communication. That's all we have. We don't actually have problems with heretics and heresy anymore. And we just need to sit down and, you know, drink some beer or some coffee or something and just chit chat and then we can see what a heart for the Lord everybody has and then all go our merry way. That is not the case. There are as many heretics today and false teachers today as there have ever been. I think the United States of America is filled with them. The United States of America, I'm going to preach this coming Sunday morning on the parable of the sower. And I just want to focus on one of the soils, where they immediately receive the word with joy, but have no root in themselves. That is the story of American Christianity. Why do we have a denomination, the PCA, probably the largest ostensibly conservative reform denomination in North America, and people are cheering for the gay pastor coming out for the General Assembly? How in the world can that happen? It's because the church is filled with unregenerate people. People have not been told the truth. People haven't been given the true gospel and they've been sold a shallow gospel and they've not been told the truth. Here are some reasons you might not want to become a Christian. And that's something I think that we need to do. And in my own witnessing over the years, I've told people that sort of thing. You know, people seem to be interested in the things of God. I like to point out to them, by the way, you don't want to start and then walk away. You don't want to profess to be a Christian and then turn back later. Jesus had some really hard things to say about people that did that. He described them in the most foolish of ways. They started to build a building and didn't have enough bricks to finish it, didn't have enough materials to finish it. And everyone that passes by, oh, what a fool. He started to build and didn't have enough to finish. Or it's like a king going out to war, and he has 10,000 in his army, and he doesn't realize he's about to get his head handed to him by an army twice the size. Here are some reasons you might not want to become a Christian. Because it's going to be hard. Especially in America, as the LGBT revolution is destroying everything left of conservative Christianity, and it's probably going to eventually become illegal to preach the gospel, and it's going to become illegal to denounce certain things as sinful. It's going to get hard to be a Christian. People need to be told the truth. You need to embrace antithesis. You need to embrace the fact that you're going to have opposition. You're going to be hated. Jesus told his disciples that if the world hated me or hates you, remember hated me first. People are going to revile you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for Jesus' sake and for the sake of righteousness. It is not an easy road to be a Christian. You're not going to be carried to heaven on flowery beds of ease while others sail the bloody seas. Okay, so there's a lot of reasons you might not want to profess to be a Christian. And I think in America, where church really is like a competitive marketplace. People have just sort of, you know, checked this little box, I'm committing my life to Christ and then we'll put a notch on our Bibles that you're now a Christian. It's not it at all. It's not it at all. People need to repent and they need to take up their cross. They need to understand that this is a hard life. Being a Christian is very hard. Fighting against remaining in dwelling sin is not for the faint of heart and it's very hard and it's painful and it hurts. So anyway, we live in a time where people don't think that heresy is even possible, but it still is, big time. Otis says, I'm fully aware of the stigma that is often attached to this word, heresy, and I am also fully aware of the abuse of this idea throughout church history. And it's abuse today, too. Everybody that disagrees, if you disagree with me on anything, you're a heretic. And that's not it at all. Okay, heresy, the word heresy is a very important biblical term, and listen to how it's defined, it's real important here. Moreover, I have spent much time in thought over the controversy that has arisen in the reform community. I did not rashly choose to call the federal vision a heresy. I am quite aware of the gravity of referring to men as heretics. My decision to refer to the teaching of the federal vision as a heresy has come after considerable time of study over the past several years. I have not made this decision in isolation. I am not the only one who has declared federal vision dogma as heretical. It is a very sobering thing to declare various ministers of churches as heretics. However, in light of the meaning of heresy and in light of the doctrines that the Federal Vision propagates, I believe it is fully justified to view the Federal Vision as a heresy of the Church which must be eradicated from our churches in the reformed world. Amen. He is exactly correct. He continues, We are fully aware of the horrendous things that have been perpetrated in the name of the defense of the Church down throughout the centuries. The Spanish Inquisition, of the Roman Catholic Church, and the assault upon the Scottish Covenanters are grim reminders that zeal in the name of the Church can often be misguided. The Roman Catholic Church declared Protestantism a heresy. Rome's Council of Trent anathematized the blessed truths of justification by faith alone in Christ. Not everyone who is called and treated as a heretic is truly a heretic. This is why we must tread with great care before we declare men to be heretics. Nonetheless, the term heresy or heretic is a biblical word. The Bible does portray certain teachings as heresy, and it gives us guidelines for making such a declaration. There are those in the Church today who shy away from declaring anyone a heretic. Unity in the Church is one of the most important doctrines in Scripture, but unity must never be sought at the expense of truth. To fail to defend the faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints, is a serious sin. Unless we defend truth, all can be lost. The attitude that shuns theological debate for fear of upsetting people is not an admirable trait. In fact, if taken to an extreme, it is a betrayal of allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ. I just want to say, those of you out there who are in Presbyterian, who are in Presbyteries, who actually think, for example, that re-voice and its acceptance of Roman Catholic theology on sin, and the idea that same-sex attraction is not inherently you know, sinful, it can be embraced in some way as an identity, and you can define yourself as a homosexual and call yourself a homosexual, but not really mean it in the same sense that the Bible means it. That's heresy. That's moral heresy. And I say that very, very carefully, because if we are not going to tell people that they need to repent of being attracted to the anatomy of the same gender, then we are betraying the gospel. And we're telling people that, in point of fact, they don't need to repent of what the Bible says they do need to repent of to be saved. And so, that is a gospel issue, and that's a very serious error. And even in my own presbytery, the attitude of some seems to be that, well, you just need to sit down and have a conversation. Well, yeah, but everyone and their mothers already had a conversation with Greg Johnson and with the session out there. They're not backing down. So what do we do now? What do we do now? It needs to be dealt with. And I think we all know it's not going to be. Otis continues here. Okay, in fact, if taken to an extreme, we already read that, Jesus did not shy away from saying hard things to those who corrupted the Word of God, to those who substituted their man-made traditions for the Word of God. Matthew 15, that's true. He said they teach as doctrines the commandments of men. Matthew 23, he ripped the faces off of the scribes and Pharisees and called them hypocrites. For the Lord to call men whitewashed tombs and blind guides who lead themselves and others into destruction is quite intense. For the Apostle Paul to refer to the Judaizers as dogs and evil workers, Philippians 3.2, who are accursed of God, Galatians 1.8, and to refer to the Galatians as foolish for having succumbed to the bewitching teachings of the Judaizers is also quite intense. It's a very interesting verb, bewitched, who has bewitched you, in Galatians chapter 3 there. It's a term, who's put you under a magic spell, he asks them. In the cause of truth and in fidelity to the Lord Jesus Christ, we must be willing to declare some men to be heretics if they truly deserve it. What is heresy? Okay, this is a very important part. Let me turn my phone off. It's dinging. What is heresy? The English word heresy is derived from the Greek word hierasis, and the English word heretic is derived from the Greek word hieretikos. Hierasis is used four times in the New Testament, Acts 24, 14, 1 Corinthians 11, 19, Galatians 5, 20, and 2 Peter 2, 1. Hieretikos, so hierasis means heresy, like the teaching itself. Hieretikos is a person who teaches that, a heretic. is used once in the New Testament, Titus 3.10, reject a heretic after the first and second admonition. Most translations render that as like divisive person or factious person instead of heretic, but really it'd be more useful to use the word heretic because I think one of the reasons people are not okay with using the word heretic is it doesn't occur in our modern English Bibles very often. I will obviously discuss these usages and their implications, but there are other passages that must be considered. For example, Galatians 1, 6-9 is absolutely vital. Though the word heresy is not used specifically, the inference is definitely there, because Paul calls the Judaizers anathematized or accursed of God. That's right, he says what he points out there is actually quite clear. even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach some other gospel to you than what you receive, let him be anathema." So Paul is saying even the apostles themselves don't have inherent authority, it's only the gospel that has inherent authority. So that's one of the reasons that we don't care, as Protestants we've never cared, about the idea of apostolic succession. Well our bishops were ordained by bishops who were ordained by bishops who were ordained by the apostles. Doesn't matter. If they don't teach what the apostles taught, you don't have to listen to them. It's not about genealogical descent of ordination, it's about fidelity to the gospel, to the apostolic gospel. How is your church apostolic? In that sense, only if it obeys and listens to what the apostles teach. And what is the only source of what the apostles taught? Scripture. That's the only source of apostolic teaching that we have. When Paul tells the Ephesian elders in Acts 29-31 that there would come in among them wolves in sheep's clothing who would not spare the flock, he is definitely inferring that these were heretics. That's right. The admonition to confront those bringing false doctrine is an inference to heretics, both hiresis, heresies, and hieraticus, heretics, have their deviation, or derivation, in the root word hieretemai, which means to take for oneself, prefer, or choose. Let's take a look at all the passages where the word heresy or heretic is used. First, Acts 24, 14. But I admit this to you, but this I admit to you, that according to the way which they call a sect or a heresy, I do serve the God of our fathers, believing everything that is in accordance with the law and that is written in the prophets. The word sect in the New American Standard Bible is the Greek word hiresis. King James Version translates the word as heresy, which I believe to be a better rendition of the Greek word. I do too. I think it'd be much better. If all the uses were just, if they just kept the original King James Version, heresy, heretic, heresies would be better. The point here is that Paul states that Christianity in its early days was viewed as a faction of the Jewish faith. In other words, the Jews saw Christians as heretics. We could say that Paul once believed this himself, which is why he zealously persecuted the Christians. That's right. Why did Paul devote himself to destroying this? He saw it as heresy. He believed he was being a faithful Pharisee to rid the community of these factious Christians. This goes to show that one can be zealously mistaken, just like Paul. The Christians were viewed as heretics, when obviously they were not heretics from God's perspective. When Paul was admonishing the Corinthians, he says in 1 Corinthians 11, 18, For in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you, and in part I believe it. For there must also be factions among you. You know what that term is? Heresies. heresies among you in order that those who are approved may have become evident among you. The word translated as factions in the New American Standard is the word hiresis. King James Version, again, does a better job translating it as heresies. There must be heresies among you so that those who are approved may have become evident among you. The reason that the New American Standard translators use the word factions is probably because that is what the context conveys. In verse 18, Paul says that divisions existed among them. We're reading Galatians 5, 19 through 20. Yeah, one of the works of the flesh there, before you get to the fruits of the spirit, one of the works of the flesh is heresies. Listen to it. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions. The term faction is heresies, high races. King James Version translates it as heresies. It'd be better translated that way. Thus far, whether justified or not, the term heresy conveys divisiveness or schism. When one studies the history of heresies over the centuries, one very obvious fact is seen. Heresies bring division and unrest to the unity of the church. So when you think of what is a heretic? A heretic is someone who splits the church, someone who divides the church by unbiblical teaching. When one studies the history of heresies over the centuries, one very obvious fact is seen. Heresies bring division and unrest to the unity of the Church. Professing Christians become confused and begin to take sides with one or the other. This tells us who inspires heresies, doesn't it? Satan is the master deceiver who loves nothing more than to bring unrest to the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our arch enemy relishes heresies. Satan wants to impede the onslaught of the church against the gates of hell. The scripture promises victory ultimately to the church of Jesus. The enemies of Christ will lick the dust, as the Old Testament puts it in Matthew 16, 18. Jesus promised the gates of hell would not resist the church's onslaught. 2 Corinthians 10, we are told that the church possesses divinely powerful weapons to destroy the fortresses of Satan and bring all thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ. Satan is known as the great deceiver and Abaddon the destroyer. As a deceiver and destroyer, Satan will seek to manifest himself through his agents, his false apostles, who disguise themselves as angels of light. 2 Corinthians 11, 13, and 14. So please remember that. The most effective heretics, And the most effective heresies are individuals who are ministers in the church who wear clerical collars or who stand in pulpits every Sunday. And they teach things that destroy the gospel and destroy people's souls. What is Satan's objective in heresies and heretics? To bring men to destruction in the fires of hell forever. If Satan can convince men of a lie as to how to be saved other than the way that God has prescribed, he has achieved his devious plans. When heresies arise in the Church, there will always be disunities. Heretics are troublemakers in Israel. 2 Peter 2 verse 1, listen to it again. But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. And many will follow their sensuality, because of them the way of truth will be maligned. In this passage, the word heresies is translated the same in both New American Standard and the King James Version. This is not an easy text to deal with because the Armenians historically have used this passage to support their belief that one can lose his salvation because it says that these false teachers who come with their heresies deny the master who bought them and end up in destruction. Without going into a prolonged exegesis of this passage, it is noteworthy that the word for master is the Greek word despotēs. Arminianism and the Federal Vision both believe that Master is a reference to Jesus as Redeemer. There is no exegetical support for this, I would agree with that completely. The Best Interpretation's view that the Master refers to God as Creator in the phrase, who bought them, pertains to the fact that all men are creatures of God who owe obligation to their Creator. Another point to be made about this text is that even though this text says these false teachers were sensual, it says these false teachers, not even though, but these false teachers were sensual men, this should not be taken as something that is indicative of all heretics. So let's now turn to the Titus passage, Titus 3, 9 through 11, the term hieraticus. It says this, Titus 3 verse 9. But shun foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and disputes about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. Reject a factious man, or reject a heretic, after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and sinning, being self-condemned. King James Version calls this man a heretic, which is close to the Greek pronunciation. Again, we see that schism is at the heart of the heretic. A heretic, in this context, is one who relishes in theological speculation. The result? Division occurs, and the scripture gives an analysis of the heretic. He is perverted, he is sinning, he is self-condemned. One could say that a heretic is one who uses controversy to create a division in the church. This concludes an examination of all the direct usages of the idea of heresy. As noted earlier, there are indirect references to heresy in other passages, 1 Timothy 1, 3-7. As I urged you upon my departure from Macedonia, remain on an emphasis in order that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines, nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which give rise to mere speculation, rather than furthering the administration of God which is by faith. But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to frivolous discussion, wanting to be teachers of the law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions. These men teach strange doctrines, and what is strange about them? It does not correspond to that which the apostles have taught. I'm reminded of what Calvin said to his short-term pupil, Socinus, who would later deny essential elements of Christ's atonement and to whom Unitarianism has been traced. The church historian Philip Schaff comments that between 1548 and 49, Socinus came to Geneva seeking instruction from Calvin. Some of the questions he had pertained to whether it was lawful for Protestants to marry Roman Catholics, whether Popish baptism was efficacious, and how the doctrine of the resurrection of the body could be explained. On July 25, 1549, Sosinus wrote Calvin that he was troubled very much about the resurrection. In December of 1549, Calvin sent a letter to Sosinus warning him against the dangers of his skeptical bent of mind. Then in 1554, Sosinus... presented to Calvin his objections to the doctrine of the vicarious atonement of Christ. Calvin replied at length, but to no avail of persuading Sosinus. Later, Sosinus would depart from the biblical understanding of the sacraments and the Trinity, questioning the personality of the Holy Spirit and then the eternal divinity of Christ. That's from Philip Schaff, volume 8, pages 634 through 36 of his History of the Church. Where did the downhill slide begin with the young Sosinus? It began with his questioning biblical truths. 1 Timothy 1, 3-7 demonstrates also that these false teachers, heretics, want to be teachers of the law, and they are given to confident assertions about their teaching that is not biblically consistent. One of the most profound passages on the nature of false doctrine that can be seen as heresy is found in Galatians 1, 6-9. Listen carefully to this passage, well-known passage. I am amazed, says the word of God, Paul writing in Galatians 1, 6, I am astonished. that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another. Only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even though we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said again, so now I say now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed. John Calvin, in his commentary on Galatians 1-9, has some very instructive comments about this passage. Here's what Calvin says, quote, For it was impossible for them to retain their attachment to Christ without acknowledging that He has graciously delivered us from the bondage of the law. Thus, in our own times, the Papists, choosing to have a divided and mangled Christ, have none, and are therefore removed from Christ. They are full of superstitions which are directly at variance with the nature of Christ. Let it be carefully observed that we are removed from Christ when we fall into those views which are inconsistent with his mediatorial office, for light can have no fellowship with darkness. and the same principle. He calls it another gospel, that is, a gospel different from the true one. And yet the false apostles profess that they preach the gospel of Christ, but mingling with it their own inventions, by which its principal efficacy was destroyed, they held a false, corrupt, and spurious gospel," says John Calvin in his commentaries on Galatians. He also says here, says Calvin, from Christ who called you by grace to revolt from the Son of God under any circumstances is unworthy and disgraceful, but to revolt from him after being invited to partake salvation by grace is more eminently base. His goodness to us renders our ingratitude to him more dreadfully heinous. which is not another thing. For he speaks contemptuously of the doctrine of the false apostles as being nothing else than a mass of confusion and destruction. He declares that it is not a gospel, but a mere disturbance. He charges them with the additional crime of doing an injury to Christ by endeavoring to subvert his gospel. Subversion is an enormous crime. It is worse than corruption. And with good reason does he fasten on them this charge. When the glow of justification is ascribed to another and a snare is laid for the consciences of men, the Savior no longer occupies his place and the doctrine of the gospel is utterly ruined. To know what are the leading points of the gospel is a matter of unceasing importance. When these are attacked, the gospel is destroyed. When he adds the words of Christ, this may be explained in two ways. Either that it has come from Christ as its author, or that it purely exhibits Christ. The apostle's reason for employing that expression unquestionably was to describe the true and genuine gospel, which alone is worthy of the name. of what avail was it to profess respect for the gospel and not to know what it meant." Okay, just break it there from the quotation. Every heretic, all of them, will tell you, we believe the gospel. And they'll look you right in the face. We believe the Westminster Confession. We believe in justification by faith alone. But they really don't. And they've redefined every word in that phrase, justification by faith alone. Says Calvin, with Papists, who hold themselves bound to render implicit faith, that might be perfectly sufficient, but with Christians, where there is no knowledge, there is no faith. that the Galatians, who were otherwise disposed to obey the gospel, might not wander hither and thither and find no rest for the sole of their foot, Paul enjoins them to stand steadfastly by his doctrine. He demands such unhesitating belief of his preaching that he pronounces a curse on all who dared to contradict it. When he says, let him be accursed, the meaning must be, let him be held by you as accursed. In expounding 1 Corinthians 12.3, we had occasion to speak of the word anathema. Here it denotes cursing, and answers to the Hebrew word harem, meaning put under the ban, is what that Hebrew word means. Says Calvin, what then must be the consequence if ignorance of the nature and character of the gospel shall lead to hesitation? Accordingly, he enjoins them to regard as devils those who shall dare to bring forward a gospel different from his, meaning by another gospel, one to which the inventions of other men are added. For the doctrine of the false apostles was not entirely contrary or even different from that of Paul, but corrupted by false additions." So, you see Calvin's heart here and his point? The Galatian heretics and the federal vision guys, they will look you dead straight in the face. We believe that we're saved by the grace of God alone, and we're justified by faith alone, in Christ alone. It's all of Jesus. It's all of grace. It's all of Jesus. It's all of grace. It's Christ's righteousness given to us by faith alone. But, but, there's a future justification. And it's all made possible by grace. Couldn't do it without grace. Couldn't do it without faith in Jesus. But, your works and your obedience, this obedience of faith, is going to be judged at the last day in the courtroom of God, and you'll be eschatologically vindicated by your good works, all in accordance with grace, and faith, and Jesus, and all of Jesus. Listen to Calvin again. What then must be the consequence if ignorance of the nature and character of the gospel shall lead to hesitation? Accordingly, he enjoins them to regard as devils those who shall dare to bring forward a gospel different from his, meaning by another gospel, one to which the inventions of other men are added. For the doctrine of the false apostles was not entirely contrary or even different from that of Paul, but corrupted by false additions, add-ons, The Galatian heretics and Judaizers would have said, you need to repent and believe in Jesus Christ to be saved and go to heaven. And you need Christ alone to go to heaven. And it's faith in Jesus alone that justifies you. And there's these other things. There's this other stuff. But the biblical gospel, Christians know. Christians know. that the legal grounds of their entrance into heavenly glory is the very same legal grounds of their justification when they were effectually called by God. There is no future justification by works in the legal forensic sense of being accepted by God and allowed into heaven. And that's what all the Reformed confessions have taught us. And that's what all the Word of God teaches. Listen to what Otis goes on to say here. The reason I have quoted Calvin extensively on this passage is because of its enormous ramifications for this book. Paul sees an attack on the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ as being another gospel. I can't emphasize that enough. If you start toying around with justification, and you're willing to do as John Piper has, yeah, justifications by faith alone! It receives a finished work of Christ, accomplished totally outside of you, received by faith alone. If you go the direction of justification by a little law-keeping, you go the direction of justification by total law-keeping, and Christ will be of no benefit to you. And there's this other thing called final salvation by works. You just destroyed the gospel. Just totally destroyed it. False gospel, that's another gospel, that's not the gospel. Listen to Otis. Paul sees an attack on the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ as being another gospel. The Judaizers had come in and sought to undermine Paul's apostleship and teach that the Galatians had to submit to all the laws of Moses in order to be justified. As Paul writes in Galatians 5.4, if they buy into this false doctrine of the Judaizers, then they have been severed from Christ and fallen from grace. Meaning that if one makes justification contingent upon works, then salvation is not of grace, but of works. Paul's concluding statement in Romans 4, 16. Therefore, it is by faith, so that it would be by grace. So that the promise would be sure. The only way our salvation is sure, is if our works don't figure into it at all. Ah! You're an antinomian! You're an antinomian! You're telling people they can just do whatever they want! Meganoita. May it never be. How shall we who died to sin live any longer? That's sanctification? That's a different thing entirely. It always accompanies justification, but it is absolutely necessary to distinguish it from justification. Your subjective transformation as a Christian plays absolutely zero role in your getting into heaven at all. And as soon as you say that it does, that's another gospel. That's no gospel at all. You are under the wrath of God, Christ will be of no benefit to you, and you're a debtor to keep the whole law. It is, you get all the way into heaven by grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone, or you don't understand the gospel at all, and you're a child of the devil. Plain and simple. It is that clear in the Apostle Paul's thinking. It is literally that clear in Paul's thinking. Listen to Otis. As Paul writes in Galatians 5, 4, where he says, you who attempt to be justified by law, which means getting into heaven by the fruits of your faith, or however you want to put it, You are severed from Christ. Jesus will be of no value to you. You will be in the line of people. Matthew chapter 7. Lord, Lord, didn't we do this and do that? And didn't we believe that we're justified by faith alone and then saved by our fruits at the final day? Depart from me, I never knew you. Listen to Otis. As Paul writes in Galatians 5.4, if they buy into this doctrine, this false doctrine of the Judaizers, then they have been severed from Christ and fallen from grace, meaning that if one makes justification, and I would say, getting into heaven contingent upon works, then salvation is not of grace but of works. We can be assuredly affirm, we can assuredly affirm that maintaining justification by faith alone is a fundamental doctrine. Any doctrine that denies this truly is a heresy, making the teaching and teacher accursed of God. Amen. Would that God would raise up a hundred more John Otuses, who not only love the gospel, but are willing to go out there and then be attacked by everyone. who's sympathetic with this nonsense, as he has been. Listen to the debate. I'm going to link to it. Listen to Schlissel versus Otis on the Chris Arnson program, on Iron Sharpens Iron. Listen to that. It is unbelievable. The things that Steve Schlissel said in that are unreal. And then Chris Ornson plays some of the most astonishing things that Schlissel said, and then asks Doug Wilson, so Doug, you think that my friend Steve Schlissel affirms justification by faith alone? And Wilson says, yes. Okay, then language doesn't mean anything anymore. Words mean nothing. Words mean nothing then. Listen to what Otis goes on to say here. We now turn our attention to 1 John 2, 18-24. Children is the last hour, and just as you heard that Antichrist is coming, even now many Antichrists have arisen. From this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of us. For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us. But they went out in order that it might be shown that not all were of us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, one who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father, but the one who confesses the Son has the Father also. As for you, let that abide in you which you have heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. And Oda says this, we learn from this passage that there are many Antichrists. Antichrist is anyone who denies the true nature of the Father and the Son. This would entail any deviation regarding the Trinity, that all persons of the Trinity are coequal in power and glory. It would declare anyone who does not believe in the Trinity as an Antichrist, a heretic. Anyone not believing the deity of the Son of God in its fullest sense is Antichrist, a heretic. Anyone who mishandles the work of the Son, who is the Redeemer, is Antichrist, a heretic. To deny that Jesus is the only way of salvation between sinners and God is Antichrist, a heretic. Anyone who denies the imputation of Christ's righteousness to sinners as that which is necessary to inherit eternal life is Antichrist, a heretic. The belief that man is basically good and can keep the law for justification is Antichrist, a heretic. Although one could argue that not all false doctrine is necessarily identical to heresy, technically any doctrine that is not reflective of the truth is a false doctrine. Not all false or erroneous doctrines strike at the fundamental understanding of God and His redemptive work. Marcion of the 2nd century AD taught that the God of the Old Testament was a God of hate and then the God of the New Testament was a God of love. The heresy of Arianism was condemned at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Arius' teaching challenged the very nature of God. Arius did not believe that the Son of God was co-equal in essence or glory with the Father. He saw the Son of God as the firstborn of God. that there was a time that the Son of God was non-existent. Our modern-day Aryans would be Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons to name a few. You had Pelagius, with whom Augustine did theological battle in the 5th century. Pelagius denied the biblical doctrine of original sin. He taught that every man was born in the same state that Adam was created, that is, without sin. Pelagius believed that man could choose to obey God's commands and be sinless. So Sinus, during the time of Calvin, came to challenge the nature of the atonement. When we commonly think of heresies in the church history, we think of those doctrines that challenge the nature of the Trinity, the fundamental nature of man, and the atoning work of Christ. Differences in understanding of the nature and mode of baptism The nature of church government would not be viewed as heresies because the nature of God and the gospel are not jeopardized. I hope that's clear. Not everything is a heresy. People that just throw the word heretic around like, well, we disagree on certain interpretations of certain eschatological passages like the Olivet Discourse or certain passages in Daniel. Those aren't heresies. Those don't strike at the vitals of religion. The form of church government. Is church government important? It's very important. Very important. Is baptism important? Yes, it's very important. But are errors on those things heresies, where you have heretics? No, they're not. Otis continues, heresy then would be a challenge to the direct witness of the scripture pertaining to God's being, Christ's person, the nature of man, and the plan of salvation. Okay, so that's really at the heart of what heresy is all about. It strikes at the vitals of what it means to be a Christian. And so is the federal vision heresy? Yes, because they get the doctrines of salvation completely wrong. Justification is completely wrong. Covenant, assurance, sacraments, the church, election, all of it is just is completely undermined by this movement. And so is the federal vision a heresy? Yes it is. That's why practically every reformed body took up that issue, studied it very carefully, and published papers and position reports on it, and condemned it, and said this is contrary to scripture, it's contrary to our confessions, and this needs to get out. And that's why they really had no choice, they had to form their own denomination, the CREC, the Confederation of Reformed and Evangelical Churches, which is neither reformed nor evangelical. And they all wear their clerical collars and do their sacerdotal stuff, all the while claiming to be Reformed. And claiming to believe confessions that they don't believe. as is demonstrated by these books. There's also another book I want to put a plug in for. Dewey Roberts, Historic Christianity and the Federal Vision. I just started reading this. It is outstanding stuff. And I need to do some, I need to plow through this in great detail. It's very long and I'm very thankful. Dewey Roberts is a great man of God. I had the opportunity to shake his hand. He probably doesn't remember me. At the Reformed Evangelistic Conference, Reformed Evangelistic Fellowship I spoke at that conference in Birmingham, Alabama last summer and man I tell you I got to meet some wonderful people there Al Baker What a what a great man of God he preached a sermon on the necessity of regeneration that was it just brought tears to my eyes and and got to hear reports of different groups and their street evangelism and their outreach and everything else and Listening to Dewey Roberts talk about the formation of Vanguard Presbytery and the new denomination that's gonna come out of the PCA man I got to meet so many great people. I thought, even though my stomach was killing me, I got a hold of something that just ripped my stomach to shreds at that conference. But the time I was able to mingle with the people there, and it was just great fellowship. And boy, I tell you, the thought kept going through my mind, these are my people here. The people at Reformed Evangelistic Fellowship, boy, what a great group of people who love the gospel, who detest the federal vision, they detest the revoice and all this LGBT insanity going on, and they want to have a denomination that's going to have a book church order that's been pared down and hasn't been overtured to death for 40 years. And so, I don't know if we're going to end up in it. I've been talking to the elders here a lot. I'm really hopeful when they do their convocation of sessions in 2020, we are going to be there. And I'm really hoping that my brethren in the PCA that still love the gospel and love the truth and who know that this gay stuff is from the pit of hell, which it is, and know the federal vision stuff, they understand those issues. They want nothing to do with that stuff. They want to do their pro-life work. Divorced from liberal Protestants, divorced from Rome and divorced from the federal vision heretics and want to actually have a true gospel witness to the world. These are my people. I'm telling you. John Otis, my hat goes off to the guy. This book is excellent, not only as a refutation of this stuff, but as a celebration of the gospel. You can't help it, your heart is stirred by seeing the light of God's truth against the backdrop of all this darkness and this evil wickedness. So I'm gonna do a little bit more reading of Otis here. And the books that have been put out against the Federal Vision have been really good. Guy Waters' book, The Federal Vision and Covenant Theology was very good. Dewey Roberts' book so far has been real helpful. Otis' book is outstanding. It's the one I've spent the most time reading. Putting marks in and highlighting stuff in there just really really really useful in terms of helping people understand federal vision. It didn't go away People need to know that like Doug Wilson and that whole gang out there that none of this The reports that came out from a pretty every major denomination our Scott Clark has a good link showing I'm trying to get a link to that in the description here The reports that came out of every major reform denomination condemned this stuff and said it's wrong, it's contrary to scripture, it's heretical, it needs to be rejected, and that's why they had to form their own denomination. The CREC is a safe haven for all these people that don't believe the biblical gospel. And so, it's heartbreaking to me that this stuff is still around. I don't think any of them repented. The thing is, when the church courts, you know, if they all get together, and they all say, this is wrong, it's unbiblical, it's not confessional, wouldn't you think that, like, a humble, teachable person would take a step back and go, hmm, maybe I need to listen, and go back to the Word of God, and, you know? the Spirit of God has been building his church and the church has fought these kinds of battles. The thing is that this federal vision, these things, we're going in a new direction now and the Spirit's bringing more truth out of the Bible. None of this is new. Nothing that they're saying is new. The Senate of Dort dealt with, for example, different kinds of election. I mean, it dealt with these kinds of errors. And the Romanizing tendency, I mean, it's all fully documented in these books. I'll put some links to the books in the description here, but we've seen all this stuff before. None of this is new. Nothing that they're saying is new. And it is one of the reasons, some of the folks involved in this stuff have just gone all the way back to Romanism because they have more in common with Rome than they do with the Reformation. And, you know, one thing I listened to Dewey Roberts interviewed on a really good podcast. I think it was Confessing Our Hope, maybe. Let me see real quick here. Hold on, I've got it. Yeah, Greenville Seminary and Mount Olive Tape Ministry. So it was a podcast of theirs. It's episode 126. I'll put a link to that. Good interview with Dewey about the federal vision. And he points out, kind of takes a different angle, that the biggest problem is they don't believe in regeneration. And I never really noticed that, but that's true. You have people questioning it. You know, James Jordan, you know, does man even have a nature that can be changed or whatever? That's not a little thing. That's a massive problem. That's a huge problem. B.B. Warfield's book on the plan of salvation where he goes through the different views on sacerdotalism and then there's the evangelical principle. There's supernaturalism and there's naturalism, Pelagianism and Arminianism. And then he speaks of the evangelical principle as the biblical idea that God interacts directly with the soul of man. God makes the sinner alive in Christ through the word of God. And it's not through priest craft and men wearing clerical collars who baptize and regenerate people and things like that. We rejected that long time ago. We don't believe that. That's not what the Bible teaches. So anyway, this stuff gets my blood up, because at the end of the day, it's a false gospel. And yet these people will sit there and say, we believe all these confessions, we believe all these Reformed confessions. No, they don't believe them. And you listen carefully to what they say, and the bedfellows here, one will say, I believe in the Imputation of Christ Act of Obedience, and someone else that he speaks at conferences with not only denies it, but mocks it. So if they actually believe any of this stuff, they obviously don't believe it's essential, because they think, yeah, you can deny it, we're all still brothers, we're all still reformed, we're all still on the same page. Just know this, the church courts of pretty much every major reformed denomination addressed this stuff and rejected it as false for the simple heresy that it is. So I hope this has been helpful, and I'm gonna do a little bit more reading here. I'd like to get back to the Burkhoff stuff on baptism, because it's so good. I'm gonna do a video or a podcast on Fesco's stuff on the recipients of baptism in his book, Word, Water, and Spirit. I think it's unanswerable. I think it's outstanding, his stuff on that. And A. A. Hodge, his stuff from the Westminster Confession, his commentary, very instrumental in my own understanding and helping me get my mind around what the Bible teaches about baptism and the nature of the visible church. fact that it's all professing believers and their households, their children, etc. So I hope this has been helpful and thank you for watching or for listening. This is Pastor Patrick Hines of Bridewell Heights Presbyterian Church and you've been listening to the Pulpit Supplemental Podcast. You can find us on the web at www.bridewellheightspca.org. Our sermons are streamed through sermon audio and you can listen to that on the iTunes podcast version of Bridewell Heights Presbyterian Church. Feel free to join us any Sunday morning for worship at 11 a.m. sharp at 108 Ridgewell Heights Road in Kingsport, Tennessee. And may the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.