Matthew 18 and Heresy in the Public Arena

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DA CARSONDr. D. A. Carson go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

Several years ago I wrote a fairly restrained critique of the emerging church movement as it then existed, before it morphed into its present diverse configurations.1 That little book earned me some of the angriest, bitterness-laced emails I have ever received—to say nothing, of course, of the blog posts. There were other responses, of course—some approving and grateful, some thoughtful and wanting to dialogue. But the ones that displayed the greatest intensity were those whose indignation was white hot because I had not first approached privately those whose positions I had criticized in the book. What a hypocrite I was—criticizing my brothers on ostensible biblical grounds when I myself was not following the Bible’s mandate to observe a certain procedure nicely laid out in Matt 18:15–17.

Doubtless this sort of charge is becoming more common. It is regularly linked to the “Gotcha!” mentality that many bloggers and their respondents seem to foster. Person A writes a book criticizing some element or other of historic Christian confessionalism. A few bloggers respond with more heat than light. Person B writes a blog with some substance, responding to Person A. The blogosphere lights up with attacks on Person B, many of them asking Person B rather accusingly, “Did you communicate with Person A in private first? If not, aren’t you guilty of violating what Jesus taught us in Matthew 18?” This pattern of counter-attack, with minor variations, is flourishing.

To which at least three things must be said:

(1) The sin described in the context of Matt 18:15–17 takes place on the small scale of what transpires in a local church (which is certainly what is envisaged in the words “tell it to the church”). It is not talking about a widely circulated publication designed to turn large numbers of people in many parts of the world away from historic confessionalism. This latter sort of sin is very public and is already doing damage; it needs to be confronted and its damage undone in an equally public way. This is quite different from, say, the situation where a believer discovers that a brother has been breaking his marriage vows by sleeping with someone other than his wife, and goes to him privately, then with one other, in the hope of bringing about genuine repentance and contrition, and only then brings the matter to the church.

To put the matter differently, the impression one derives from reading Matt 18 is that the sin in question is not, at first, publicly noticed (unlike the publication of a foolish but influential book). It is relatively private, noticed by one or two believers, yet serious enough to be brought to the attention of the church if the offender refuses to turn away from it. By contrast, when NT writers have to deal with false teaching, another note is struck: the godly elder “must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it” (Titus 1:9 NIV). Continue reading →

TULIP – The Reformed Pubcast

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Les and Tanner, hosts of “The Reformed Pubcast” begin the 5-week series through the Doctrines of Grace (known by the acrostic TULIP) with their guest Pastor and Radio show host, Jeff Durbin. Jeff explains the severity of man’s condition before God, and our desperate need for a change of nature.

Les and Tanner continue the Doctrines of Grace series, this time joined by Author and Pastor Douglas Wilson. Pastor Wilson explains how God has chosen, in eternity past, a people for Himself.

In the next episode in the series, Les and Tanner invite anonymous thologian, TurretinFan to join them. TurretinFan explores the power of the atonement for those for whom it was intended.

As Les and Tanner continue through the series on the Doctrines of Grace, they’re joined by author and teacher R.C. Sproul, Jr. R.C. explains how God effectually draws His people.

In the final installment of the series, Les and Tanner welcome director of Alpha and Omega ministries, Dr. James White. Dr. White explains the hope of our eternal security.

Pelagianism

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Sproul Jr In an article entitled “Pelagianism: Self-Righteousness” Dr. R. C. Sproul, Jr writes:

Pelagianism is an ancient error built on man’s self-righteousness. Though roundly condemned when it began, it’s still with us.

Transcript:

I suspect that when we are finally ready to wrap up all the “-ism Fridays,” all the –isms that we end up doing, that this for many of us may very well be the most obscure -ism that we will cover because I’d like to talk today about Pelagianism.

Unless you’re some sort of theology wonk, you probably have never heard of Pelagius. Pelagius was a British monk who lived in the fourth century who came onto the radar of the church when he determined to publicly grumble about the prayer of another believer. That other believer was none other than St. Augustine.

Now, St. Augustine is, in my judgment and I would suspect in the judgment of anybody with any sense of sanity, the greatest theologian of the first millennium of the church era. Augustine was perhaps the greatest theologian ever. And so Pelagius was rather bold in striking up his beef with Augustine. What was the prayer that Augustine pray? He prayed this way, “oh Lord, command what thou wilt and grant what thou doest command.” In this prayer, Augustine was acknowledging God’s sovereign authority. That God has the ability, the liberty, the authority to impose obligation on us. Command what thou will – “God, you are our God, I am at your service, I am your servant, I am your creature, whatever you want to command, I know that is what I have an obligation to do.” And that part of the prayer did not upset Pelagius. Rather, what upset him with the second part, “…grant what thou doest command.”

Augustine is praying to his Maker, “you do whatever you want, you command whatever you want but please give me the ability to do what it is you command me to do.” That is what got in Pelagius’ craw. Pelagius argued that it would be immoral, wrong of God to command that which we do not innately, inherently, have the ability to do on our own.

In making that objection, Pelagius fired a shot across the bow of the doctrine of original sin. And, to his credit, he recognized that that was what he was doing. In defense of his own position Pelagius reached the necessary conclusions that flowed out of it. One conclusion being that there is no such thing as original sin. Now, please understand that “original sin” is not the story of what happened to Adam and Eve, rather it is the doctrine of the fruit of Adam and Eve’s sin.

Original sin holds that because Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that they became fallen creatures and that the fallen nature, that inclination towards evil was passed on to all of humanity that would flow from them ever afterwards. That all of us (of course with the exception of Jesus who was conceived of the Holy Spirit) that all of us are born in sin, we were conceived in unrighteousness, that the imaginations of our heart and minds are wicked from our youths, that we are sinners from the beginning. We are in fact slaves to sin.

Pelagius said, “nope, we are born like a blank slate, a tabula rasa. There is no impact of Adam and Eve’s sin upon us. This means of course that we not only innately have the ability to embrace the work of Christ for us, but we have the innate ability to not need the work of Christ for us. Pelagius not only affirmed that we would come to faith in Christ out of an island of righteousness in ourselves, but he also affirmed that we don’t even need faith in Christ because faith in for Christ is for sinners and we can of our own goodness obey the will God.

Happily, Pelagius’ error was roundly condemned by the Early Church in an ecumenical council. The perspective of Augustine was affirmed and defended by the Church and became the doctrine of the Church at least until hundreds and hundreds of years later. In fact “Augustinianism,” even though it is a part of the history of the Roman Catholic Church, is rightly understood as another nickname for what we might call Calvinism or Reformed Theology. Indeed, if you read through the corpus of Calvin you find that Calvin quotes Augustine not only more than any other scholar, but he quotes Augustine more than all other authorities combined.

Augustine is truly the father of the Reformation. On the shoulders of Augustine stood such giants as Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon, Knox, and Farel. It is on Augustine’s shoulders that these giants stood. And it was Augustine who wisely, faithfully, truthfully first slew that ancient version of theological liberalism that we call Pelagianism.

Pelagianism is not completely gone, it is still with us here in different forms, but it began with Augustine and Pelagius. It was condemned then and it must be condemned now. We need to reject Pelagianism and give thanks for the biblical doctrine of Augustinianism.