Rewriting Reformation History and Chuck Swindoll
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by: DanielLaLondJr.
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Word Count: 594
Human works must accompany faith before you can be sure of your salvation. We continue to hear that "different gospel"...It is heresy. It is antithetical to the true message that lit the spark to the Reformation: Sola Fide - faith alone (The Grace Awakening, p.86).
When the sixteenth-century Reformers wielded the torch of freedom ...grace was the battle cry: salvation by grace alone a walk of faith without fear of eternal damnation (The Grace Awakening, p. xiv).
Indeed, the "spark that lit the reformation" was Sola Fide or faith alone. However, the Reformers did not define their terms as Chuck Swindoll does. Swindoll's understanding of grace promises, "regardless of how you choose to live, you can't live so bad that God says to you, 'you're no longer mine'" (Shedding Light On Our Dark Side, tape sld 1A). Swindoll's belief regarding the final salvation of even the most reprobate necessitates his elimination of the biblical (as well as the Reformation) linking of works to genuine faith.
In essence, Dr. Swindoll aligns himself with the Reformers and leaves the uninformed reader with the idea that his views on grace and faith are the same as those of the Reformers, which they are not. Contrary to Swindoll, Luther taught that works or "human achievement," as Swindoll says, go hand in hand with genuine, saving faith. Consider Luther's teaching:
"Faith must of course be sincere. It must be a faith that does good works through love. If faith lacks love it is not true faith. Thus the Apostle bars the way of hypocrites to the kingdom of God...To believe, "If faith justifies without works, let us not work," is to despise the grace of God. Idle faith is not justifying faith. In this terse manner Paul presents the whole life of a Christian. Inside it consists in faith towards God, outside in love towards our fellows" (Luther, Commentary On Galatians).
R.C. Sproul, in his book Faith Alone, wrote: "The Reformers saw saving faith as necessarily, inevitably, and immediately yielding the fruit of works. Martin Luther insisted that the faith that justifies is a fides viva, a vital and living faith that yields the fruit of works." Contrary to this, Chuck Swindoll believes it is a lie and another gospel to insist that works must accompany genuine faith. And he does this as though he were speaking for the Reformers!
Chuck Swindoll clearly entices the unstudied reader to conceive of The Grace Awakening as a book restoring the stolen truths of the Reformation from the treacherous hands of modern legalists who have perverted them. In truth, however, Luther himself tenaciously fought against the understanding of grace and faith presented in Swindoll's book.
Like those who invent history to buttress to their agenda, Chuck Swindoll has revised Reformation history. Does Swindoll believe that "the faith that justifies is a living faith that always yields the fruit of works" as did Luther? Does Swindoll insist that "whoever doesn't do good works is without faith," as did the Reformers? Rather, Chuck Swindoll teaches the opposite: that it is heresy to maintain that works must accompany faith. And he does this as if he accurately represents the Reformation! Is this not dishonest? How can this be anything other than revising history?
About the Author
Daniel LaLond Jr.'s book, The Lying Promise, tests the doctrine of Charles R. Swindoll. The Lying Promise also debunks false dogmas like eternal security and the carnal Christian.
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