I follow Mark Driscoll on Twitter and just watched a little 4:27 video that he tweeted about: “Song of Solomon Q&A 3.” I’ve embedded it below.

It contains some solid practical advice for troubled marriages. On the whole, it’s good stuff.

Two items caught my attention—particularly because of how they seem to be at odds with things John Piper teaches:

1. “If [love is] commanded, that means it’s not a feeling.”
2. “God couldn’t command you to do something that was impossible for you to do.”

Here’s a transcript of the relevant portion with the key parts in bold:

Do you know that love is commanded in the Bible? If it’s commanded, that means it’s not a feeling. You ever thought about that? See, we live in this day when—”I don’t feel like I’m in love.” Well, the Bible says, “Husbands,” Ephesians 5—what?—”love your wives.” Titus 2 says that older women should train younger women to love their husbands. If it’s commanded, it’s possible. You say, “But, I can’t love them. I don’t feel like I love them.” The love doesn’t begin with you. God is love, 1 John 4 says. God’s love comes to you to love your spouse. The great lie is, I don’t love you so we shouldn’t be married. The answer is, you need to get closer to Jesus, and you’ll have all the love you need. God couldn’t command you to do something that was impossible for you to do. He couldn’t tell you to love someone if he wasn’t willing to give you the love to love them.

Love Is Not a Feeling.

On the first point, I wonder if Mark simply meant that love is not exclusively a feeling. I’m inclined to think so, but the words themselves struck me as being the very kind of thinking that Piper takes such great pains to refute in Desiring God (and elsewhere):

One thing is for sure: Love cannot be equated with sacrificial action! It cannot be equated with any action! This is a powerful antidote to the common teaching that love is not what you feel, but what you do. The good in this popular teaching is the twofold intention to show (1) that mere warm feelings can never replace actual deeds of love (James 2:16; 1 John 3:18) and (2) that efforts of love must be made even in the absence of the joy that one might wish were present. But it is careless and inaccurate to support these two truths by saying that love is simply what you do, and not what you feel. . . .

The very definition of love in 1 Corinthians refutes this narrow conception of love. For example, Paul says love is not jealous and not easily provoked and that it rejoices in the truth and hopes all things (13:4–7). All these are feelings! If you feel things like unholy jealousy and irritation, you are not loving. And if you do not feel things like joy in the truth and hope, you are not loving. In other words, yes, love is more than feelings; but, no, love is not less than feelings. (116–17)

Even if Mark believes that love is not exclusively a feeling, his conditional statement “If it’s commanded, that means it’s not a feeling” is logically flawed. There are plenty of commands in the Bible that deal with our feelings. Again, Piper comments,

Positively, Christians are commanded to have God-honoring feelings. We are commanded to feel joy (Philippians 4:4), hope (Psalm 42:5), fear (Luke 12:5), peace (Colossians 3:15), zeal (Romans 12:11), grief (Romans 12:15), desire (1 Peter 2:2), tenderheartedness (Ephesians 4:32), and brokenness and contrition (James 4:9). (Desiring God, 89)

While I’m not completely sure of Driscoll’s view on love as an emotion, my gut feeling is that there probably is no real disagreement between Driscoll and Piper on this point. I do wonder, though, if all of Driscoll’s listeners walked away with the understanding that love is both volition and feeling and that God often does command us to feel certain things.

God Doesn’t Command What We Can’t Do.

I’m nearly positive that Driscoll would disagree with the notion that God’s commands are possible for unbelievers. This is precisely the logic of Pelagianism—and a large segment of the church today: God wouldn’t tell people to do something they have absolutely no power to do, so God’s commands may be taken as indications of man’s abilities.

In this video Driscoll is dealing with believers, not unbelievers. But is it true that “God couldn’t command you to do something that was impossible for you to do”?

When I heard these words, my mind immediately went to Piper’s treatment of Hebrews 6:3. Here are some selections from Piper’s sermon on Hebrews 6:1–3, “Let Us Press On to Maturity”:

1. God governs the progress of sanctification (or maturity).

In other words, he has final say in whether we overcome our bent to sinning and make progress toward maturity. We will press on to maturity if God permits it. That is, we will make progress in our sanctification and holiness if God permits it. He decides ultimately if and how fast we advance in holiness.

. . .

3. God sometimes wills that something come to pass which he forbids us to bring to pass.

That is, he sometimes decrees what he forbids. In this case, for example, he may not permit someone to press on to maturity. Nevertheless he commands us to press on to maturity. So he is decreeing immaturity while commanding maturity.

If Piper rightly understands Hebrews 6:3—and I think he does—it would seem, then, that God can and does command believers to do things that are at times impossible for them to do (i.e., by virtue of His decree, that is, His unwillingness to enable us to do them).

Does anyone know if Driscoll deals with either of these two issues in more detail elsewhere? I’m curious to know if he agrees with Piper and, if not, how he would interact with Piper’s teaching on these points.

I saw this video this morning and just have to pass it along.

Here’s a transcript of the short exchange:

John Roberts: US News & World Report this week commissioned a poll that surveyed a bunch of women in American asking what role you should take on with your wife as Secretary of State. Thirty-seven percent, the greatest number of women, said, “House husband.” We’re wondering what you think about that.

Bill Clinton: I—well, you know, it’s funny. I told her when she left that I—that I wish now that I was an ordinary citizen, because I wish I could go with her and be there when she comes home at night and do for her what she did for me when I was President. But it’s not in the cards. I’m—we’re doing the best we can to work through this and do the right thing.

John Roberts: Would you ever be comfortable being a house husband?

Bill Clinton: No. I have to go to work. I’m—I’m too much of a Calvinist. If I don’t work every day, I get nervous.

A few brief thoughts:

1. First, I wonder if “it’s not in the cards” and “I’m too much of a Calvinist” have ever been used so closely together before—or even by the same person!
2. Second, the question being discussed around the blogosphere is what Clinton meant by Calvinist in this statement. My theory is that he’s seen the attention that Driscoll has received lately (e.g., Nightline and CNN) and thought perhaps claiming the label Calvinist could help him become more popular, too! (BTW, I’m not being serious.)
3. Finally, I don’t think I’ve ever before been so tempted to consider becoming an Arminian. :)

HT: Aaron Sauer

Here’s another solid text from Toplady that I enjoyed meditating on this morning and last evening.

A debtor to mercy alone,
Of covenant mercy I sing;
Nor fear, with Thy righteousness on,
My person and off’ring to bring.
The terrors of law and of God
With me can have nothing to do;
My Saviour’s’ obedience and blood
Hide all my transgressions from view.

The work which His goodness began
The arm of His strength will complete;
His promise is yea and amen,
And never was forfeited yet.
Things future, nor things that are now,
Not all things below or above,
Can make Him His purpose forgo,
Or sever my soul from His love.

My name from the palms of His hands
Eternity will not erase;
Impressed on His heart it remains,
In marks of indelible grace;
Yes, I to the end shall endure,
As sure as the earnest is giv’n;
More happy, but not more secure,
The glorified spirits in heav’n.

This one is available in an audio recording. The only place I’ve been able to locate it is on Bob Kauflin’s Upward CD (iTunes). You can hear a sample at the Sovereign Grace website or at iTunes.

See also my previous post: “Faith Reviving” | Augustus Toplady.

I recently enjoyed reflecting on this encouraging hymn text with solid theology penned by Augustus Toplady (ERF | ODCC):

From whence this fear and unbelief?
Hath not the Father put to grief
His spotless Son for me?
And will the righteous Judge of men
Condemn me for that debt of sin
Which, Lord, was charged on thee?

Complete atonement thou hast made,
And to the utmost farthing paid
Whate’er thy people owed;
How then can wrath on me take place
If sheltered in thy righteousness,
And sprinkled with thy blood?

If thou hast my discharge procured,
And freely in my room endured
The whole of wrath divine,
Payment God cannot twice demand—
First at my bleeding Surety’s hand,
And then again at mine.

Turn then, my soul, unto thy rest!
The merits of thy great High Priest
Have bought thy liberty;
Trust in his efficacious blood,
Nor fear thy banishment from God,
Since Jesus died for thee.

Amen!

This is quoted in J. I. Packer, “The Doctrine of Justification in Development and Decline Among the Puritans,” in A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Wheaton: Crossway, 1994), 156n15 and comes from Diary and Selection of Hymns of Augustus Toplady (Gospel Standard Baptist Trust: Harpenden, 1969), 193. It is also hymn 370 with the title “From Whence This Fear and Unbelief?” in Hymns of Grace and Glory (BJUP | MCBC) (edited by Joan J. Pinkston and Sharalynn E. Hicks), appearing with only one minor modification: instead of “utmost farthing paid” it reads “utmost Thou hast paid.”

Packer comments that this text

mirrors most strikingly in devotional response the particularistic efficacy, i.e., the genuinely substitutionary character of Christ’s atoning death. This hymn, as Toplady wrote it (verbal smoothings in modern printings sometimes smudge the theology), brilliantly focuses the Reformed recognition of what Jesus and the apostolic writers meant by saying that the death at Calvary was ‘for’ people (Greek, huper and anti).

Does anyone know if this hymn is available in audio anywhere?

Update: I contacted Bob Kauflin, the Director of Worship Development for Sovereign Grace Ministries, and asked him if he knew of any CD containing this text put to music. He said that he didn’t and wasn’t aware of this text. I also asked him if he would consider writing a new tune for it and including in a future Sovereign Grace CD, and he said that he would. He will probably adjust the lyrics a bit as well so they are more understandable to a modern-day audience. This is exciting news. Keep an eye out for this song in a future Sovereign Grace recording.

I recently stumbled across a brief defense of limited atonement written by Greg Bahnsen (Wikipedia | Theopedia) in 1972 (at the age of 23 or 24). His fervency reminded me of Owen’s in Death of Death in the Death of Christ (WTSBooks) and Packer’s in his introductory essay in the same (which is also the eighth chapter in his A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life).

Here are some selections from Bahnsen’s article:

A very unhealthy notion that plagues the fundamentalist church is the idea that Christ laid down his life for each and every individual; that he went to the cross to save all men without exception. Such a view is not consistent with Biblical Christianity. Sometimes a person will acknowledge the total depravity of man, unconditional election of God the Father, prevenient grace of the Spirit and yet deny the particular redemption of Christ; such a position is known as “fourpoint Calvinism” and is as inconsistent as it is unorthodox.

If it be said that before creation the Father singled out in election those whom He destined to save and that the Spirit’s activity of bringing men to repentance and faith is operative (to that extent) only in the lives of God’s elect and yet that Christ offered up His life for the purpose of saving every single individual, then the unity of the Trinity has been forsaken. For in such a case Christ clearly sets out to accomplish what God the Father and Spirit do not intend to do; Christ here would be out of harmony with the will and purpose of the other two persons of the Trinity. Hence anyone who expounds “four-point Calvinism” has inadvertently destroyed the doctrine of the Trinity (by dissolving its unity) and is logically committed to a polytheistic position.

. . .

Particular redemption is the only triune, monotheistic, substitutionary, personal, effectual, and biblical (hence, orthodox) doctrine of Christ’s atonement; all else (including fundamentalism’s redemption for every individual) are doctrines pleasing to men but unsatisfactory in their Theology, anthropology, and soteriology. Sola Scriptura!

Read the whole article.

Now, I agree with the view that Christ died particularly and singularly (as concerns His manward aim) to save His people from their sins. Yet I’m not comfortable going so far as to call the opposing view(s) unorthodox, antitrinitarian, and polytheistic! Perhaps his later expressions were not so audacious. Does anyone know if he wrote on the subject later in life? I’d be curious to find out if he toned it down at all.

Ben Witherington (Theopedia | Wikipedia) apparently thinks so. In his recent post “Mr. Falwell Moves On Up” he said, “Throughout his adult life he remained a committed Reformed Dispensationalist Baptist.” When I read that I did a double take, as you probably just did. Reformed?! In what sense?! It seems that he is using Reformed as a synonym for Calvinist rather than as a synonym for Covenantalist, since it occurs alongside Dispensationalist.

Jerry Falwell (Wikipedia) a Calvinist?! The same man who just pronounced limited atonement heresy?! Here are the words from a chapel message entitled “Our Message, Mission and Vision,” which Falwell preached at Liberty University on Friday, April 13, 2007—almost exactly a month prior to his death.

And we believe here at Liberty in the substitutionary atonement of Christ for all men. We believe that Jesus Christ was the perfect God-man, who died upon the cross of Calvary to take my sins, your sins, the sins of all humanity upon himself and that, duh, that anyone who trusts him, who believes in his death, burial, resurrection, is born again. We don’t believe that Jesus Christ died for a select few, sometimes called “the elect.” We believe that who-so-ever will may come—and that no one is left out. We are not in the into particular love or limited atonement. As a matter of fact we consider it heresy. And so we are believing that all men everywhere in every age can be saved if they will come to the living Christ, who died for them.

You can watch the whole video of the message or just the portion quoted above. You can also read some of the responses from the Reformed community:

• James White (Theopedia | Wikipedia): Jerry Falwell Identifies Calvinism as Heresy
• Tom Ascol: Jerry Falwell’s Friday the 13th declaration: Limited atonement is heresy

Not too many Reformed folk that I know of would say that about limited atonement, even if they did reject it. Sounds more like something you’d find in John R. Rice’s magnum opus False Doctrines Answered, in which he claimed that it is okay to be a Calvinist like C. H. Spurgeon, but if you believe in any one of the five points of Calvinism, you are a hyper-Calvinist, since each of the five points is false doctrine and heresy. Huh? Yeah. You read that right. I’m not even going to go there.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand. Naturally I questioned Dr. Witherington on this claim, looking for some of the evidence that led him to this conclusion.

Reformed? That’s news to me. Can you substantiate that?

Thanks.

Phil

His response was very disappointing on several levels, but it did confirm that by Reformed he did indeed mean Calvinist.

Hi Philip– yep Jerry was a seven and a half point Calvinist. If you read or hear any of his sermons on the sovereignty of God this is clear enough. This is not uncommon with Dispensationalists.

Ben

No. I didn’t make that up. That’s really what he said. Go and read it at his blog for yourself if you don’t believe me. I was shocked to read this from a scholar of Witherington’s stature. Now, I’m not sure what a seven-and-a-half-point Calvinist is—more particularly, what those points are—but I’d be shocked if such a one would call limited atonement heresy! By the way, that would mean that there would have to be at least nine points of Calvinism. (There has to be at least eight for Falwell to hold to seven and a half of them, and there has to be at least nine for Falwell to hold to seven and a half of them while rejecting limited atonement.) Anyone have any idea what those nine might be? Dr. Witherington?

How serious Witherington is here, I’m not sure. But I don’t really sense any jesting. Perhaps Dr. Witherington is getting Jerry Falwell and John Piper (Theopedia | Wikipedia) confused. Piper is most certainly a Calvinist, and even half jokingly (and half seriously) calls himself a seven-point Calvinist.¹ But Piper would certainly affirm limited atonement, rather than calling it heresy. So I’m not sure what to make of the claim that Falwell affirmed another point and a half beyond John Piper, while rejecting limited atonement and labeling it heresy.²

Witherington doesn’t really provide much by way of objective evidence for his assertion, and something makes me skeptical of the validity of Witherington’s claim that any of Falwell’s sermons on the sovereignty of God would demonstrate clearly enough that he is a seven-and-a-half-point Calvinist. If that is the case, how about someone pointing me to at least one of them. Dr. Witherington?

Another individual (Bill Barnwell) also took issue with Witherington’s claim:

I’m pretty sure just about any Calvinist would take issue with labeling Rev. Falwell as one of their own. I’ve read tons of critiques of Falwell’s soteriology from Calvinist quarters. The best I could see is that he was a one and a half or 2 point Calvinist, who bought into a modified total depravity and Baptist views of “eternal security.” I think I read stuff on his site before that claimed he was not either an Arminian or Calvinist. Basically he just held to what is now mainstream doctrine amongst most conservative Baptist groups (excluding the Free Will Baptists) regarding the doctrine of salvation. Perhaps I missed something else though along the way. However, he most certainly was a staunch dispensationalist and did buy into what was arguably an unhealthy patriology. All that said, I join with those who mourn his passing and am sickened by those who [have] been laughing off or celebrating his death.

Witherington gave another unimpressive response:

o.k. Bill . . . sometimes when a Baptist gets hold of Calvin funny things happen to T.U.L.I.P.

BW3

I’m not quite sure what that means. Perhaps it’s a veiled admission of being wrong. Who knows.

Another piece of evidence that leads me to question whether Falwell was a Calvinist is the fact that his seminary’s president, Ergun Caner, is an Arminian (though he claims to be neither a Calvinist nor an Arminian) and was supposed to debate James White on Calvinism several months ago. I’d be surprised if a seven-and-a-half-point Calvinist would hire such a staunch opposer of Calvinism to run his seminary!

Two final pieces of evidence: on Ergun Caner’s site, in a post entitled “A Man of Valor . . . ,” the following words about Jerry Falwell appear:

Why did God bless our Pastor and Chancellor, Dr. Jerry Falwell, so greatly? Because he was a man of integrity and courage—He never feared men . . . he just feared God. He believed that Christ died for every man, and that whosoever will could come. He believed retreat was impossible, and idleness was a sin. He stood, even when he had to stand alone. He believed in the Book, the blood, and the blessed hope. He believed there were only two types of Christians—soul winners and backsliders. He believed God could use anyone, and that the broken hearted were within God’s grasp.

Elsewhere on his site, in a post most likely directed at James White, are these words:

Liberty University will never be 5-point Calvinist. Never. Dr. Falwell loathes the very system, as does Dr. Patterson at SWBTS, and many of us in the SBC.

Does this sound like the description of a seven-and-a-half-point Calvinist? A four-point Calvinist? Three? Two? One? More like zero if you ask me. We’ve already established that Falwell rejects the L. Now we know that he also rejects the P (he affirms the category of a carnal Christian). It’s extremely likely based on the language from the sermon and from the above descriptions that he would reject the U and the I. The T is integrally related, especially to the U and the I, and no doubt would not stand on its own. Besides, if Bill Barnwell was right, we have a testimony that he also rejects the T.

So I think it is fairly clear that Jerry Falwell was not Reformed in any meaningful sense of the word. Although, in my view, he most certainly is now.³

_____________________________________________________________

On a side note, Witherington also has a strange understanding of the term Fundamentalist.

Jerry Falwell has often been called a fundamentalist, and if by fundamentalist you mean a very conservative person who believes the Bible is totally true, then I suppose the term applies. Fundamentalism however is more of a mindset than a theological position to be honest. I ran into fundamentalist liberals while at Harvard. They were so utterly convinced of their liberal opinions about the Bible that no amount of evidence or logic could convince them otherwise.

Has anyone ever heard of a Fundamentalist liberal? How about a Calvinist Arminian? A Reformed Falwell? I didn’t think so.

Footnotes

1. By the way, in case you’re wondering, the two additional points are (1) double predestination and (2) the best of all possible worlds. ↩
2. A word of clarification: since there are at least nine points (for which see my explanation)—Piper affirming seven of them and Falwell affirming seven and a half of them, but rejecting limited atonement—then Falwell had to have affirmed one and a half points that Piper doesn’t. If we’re just counting points, then Falwell affirmed a half of a point more than Piper does. But if we’re counting additional points that Piper apparently does not affirm, then Falwell affirmed one and a half more points (while rejecting one of Piper’s seven). Confused yet? Me too. ↩
3. I say this half jokingly—and half seriously. ↩