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Charles Finney.....Counterfeit Salvation Feb 5, 2008 1:40 am
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FINNEY'S MAN-MADE METHODS

DR. MARTYN LLOYD-JONES wrote:
Finney was a man who taught quite definitely that, if one applied a given technique, one could have a revival at any time. This is the essence of Finney's teaching in his books on revivals. But history has surely proved that Finney was quite wrong.

Many have tried to plan revivals by using his technique and have done so honestly, sincerely, and thoroughly, but the desired revival has not come. One of Finney's cardinal errors was to confuse an "evangelistic campaign" and a revival, and to forget that the latter is always given in the sovereignty of God. It never results from the adoption of certain techniques, methods, or organization.

Indeed, in copies of the Oberlin Evangelist containing articles by Finney (after his period as an evangelist and when he had become a professor of theology), there are indications that the writer himself had become somewhat suspicious of his own techniques.

There are statements written by Finney such as the following:

"If I had my time over again I would preach nothing but holiness. The converts of my revivals are a disgrace to Christianity!"

"If I had the strength to go through the churches again, instead of preaching to convert sinners, I would preach to bring the churches to the spiritual standard of holy living."

The suggestion is that the tremendous pressure which this evangelist's methods brought to bear upon the will and emotions, produced only temporary results (Conversions, Psychological and Spiritual, ).

David and Linda Liben
Christian Research Ministries
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The absence of any lasting fruit from Finneys evangelistic efforts Feb 5, 2008 12:28 am
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Predictably, most of Finney's spiritual heirs lapsed into apostasy, Socinianism, mere moralism, cultlike perfectionism, and other related errors. In short, Finney's chief legacy was confusion and doctrinal compromise.

Evangelical Christianity virtually disappeared from western New York in Finney's own lifetime.

Despite Finney's accounts of glorious "revivals," most of the vast region of New England where he held his revival campaigns fell into a permanent spiritual coldness during Finney's lifetime and more than a hundred years later still has not emerged from that malaise. This is directly owing to the influence of Finney and others who were simultaneously promoting similar ideas.

The Western half of New York became known as "the burnt-over district," because of the negative effects of the revivalist movement that culminated in Finney's work there. These facts are often obscured in the popular lore about Finney. But even Finney himself spoke of "a burnt district" [Memoirs, 78], and he lamented the absence of any lasting fruit from his evangelistic efforts.

He wrote, I was often instrumental in bringing Christians under great conviction, and into a state of temporary repentance and faith . . . . [But] falling short of urging them up to a point, where they would become so acquainted with Christ as to abide in Him, they would of course soon relapse into their former state [cited in B. B. Warfield, Studies in Perfectionism, 2 vols. (New York: Oxford, 1932), 2:24].

One of Finney's contemporaries registered a similar assessment, but more bluntly:
During ten years, hundreds, and perhaps thousands, were annually reported to be converted on all hands; but now it is admitted, that real converts are comparatively few. It is declared, even by [Finney] himself, that "the great body of them are a disgrace to religion" [cited in Warfield, 2:23].
B. B. Warfield cited the testimony of Asa Mahan, one of Finney's close associates,
. . . who tells us—to put it briefly—that everyone who was concerned in these revivals suffered a sad subsequent lapse: the people were left like a dead coal which could not be reignited; the pastors were shorn of all their spiritual power; and the evangelists—"among them all," he says, "and I was personally acquainted with nearly every one of them—I cannot recall a single man, brother Finney and father Nash excepted, who did not after a few years lose his unction, and become equally disqualified for the office of evangelist and that of pastor."

Thus the great "Western Revivals" ran out into disaster. . . . Over and over again, when he proposed to revisit one of the churches, delegations were sent him or other means used, to prevent what was thought of as an affliction. . . . Even after a generation had passed by, these burnt children had no liking for the fire [Warfield, 2:26-28].

Finney grew discouraged with the revival campaigns and tried his hand at pastoring in New York City before accepting the presidency of Oberlin College During those post-revivalist years, he turned his attention to devising a doctrine of Christian perfectionism.

Perfectionist ideas, in vogue at the time, were a whole new playground for serious heresy on the fringes of evangelicalism—and Finney became one of the best-known advocates of perfectionism. The evil legacy of the perfectionism touted by Finney and friends in the mid-nineteenth century has been thoroughly critiqued by B. B. Warfield in his important work Studies in Perfectionism. Perfectionism was the logical consequence of Finney's Pelagianism, and its predictable result was spiritual disaster.

Charles Grandison Finney was a heretic. That language is not too strong. Though he excelled at cloaking his opinions in ambiguous language and biblical-sounding expressions, his views were almost pure Pelagianism. The arguments he employed to sustain those views were nearly always rationalistic and philosophical, not biblical. To canonize this man as an evangelical hero is to ignore the facts of what he stood for.

Don't be duped by sanitized 20th-century editions of Finney's works. Read the "Complete and Newly Expanded" 1878 edition of Finney's Systematic Theology. This volume shows the real character of Finney's doctrine. (The unabridged 1851 version is now online, and it also exposes Finney's errors in language not toned down by later redactors.) By no stretch of the imagination does Finney deserve to be regarded as an evangelical. By corrupting the doctrine of justification by faith; by denying the doctrines of original sin and total depravity; by minimizing the sovereignty of God while enthroning the power of the human will; and above all, by undermining the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, Finney filled the bloodstream of American evangelicalism with poisons that have kept the movement maimed even to this day.

Phillip R. Johnson
Spurgen ministries

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Finney magnifies human ability and minimizes God's role in changing human hearts Feb 5, 2008 12:19 am
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What seemed to chafe Finney most about evangelical Christianity was the belief that Christ's atonement is a penal satisfaction offered to God. Finney wrote, "I had read nothing on the subject [of the atonement] except my Bible, & what I had there found on the subject I had interpreted as I would have understood the same or like passages in a law book" [Memoirs, 42].

Thus applying nineteenth-century American legal standards to the biblical doctrine of atonement, he concluded that it would be legally unjust to impute the sinner's guilt to Christ or to impute Christ's righteousness to the sinner. As noted above, Finney labeled imputation a "theological fiction" [Memoirs, 58-61]. In essence, this was a denial of the core of evangelical theology, repudiating the heart of Paul's argument about justification by faith in Romans 3-5 (see especially Rom. 4:5)—in effect nullifying the whole gospel!

Further, by ruling out the imputation of guilt and righteousness, Finney was forced to argue that Christ's death should not be regarded as an actual atonement for others' sins. Finney replaced the doctrine of substitutionary atonement with a version of Grotius's "governmental theory" (the same view being revived by those today who tout "moral government theology").

The Grotian view of the atonement is laden with strong Pelagian tendencies. By cutting the sinner off from the imputation of Christ's righteousness, this view automatically requires sinners to attain a righteousness of their own (contra Rom. 10:3). When he embraced such a view of the atonement, [B]Finney had no choice but to adopt a theology that magnifies human ability and minimizes God's role in changing human hearts.

He wrote, for example, There is nothing in religion beyond the ordinary powers of nature. A revival is not a miracle, nor dependent on a miracle, in any sense. It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means—as much so as any other effect produced by the application of means. . . . A revival is as naturally a result of the use of means as a crop is of the use of its appropriate means" [Charles Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, n.d.), 4-5].

Thus Finney constantly downplayed God's work in our salvation, understated the hopelessness of the sinner's condition, and overestimated the power of sinners to change their own hearts. When those errors are traced to their source, what we find is a deficient view of the atonement. Indeed, Finney's denial of vicarious atonement underlies and explains virtually all his theological aberrations.
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Finney rejects the doctrine of the original inherited sin of Adam Feb 5, 2008 12:13 am
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Finney rejected the notion that Adam's guilty, sinful nature is inherited by all his offspring. In doing so, he was repudiating the clear teaching of Scripture:

The judgment arose from one transgression [Adam's sin] resulting in condemnation . . . . By the transgression of the one [Adam], death reigned . . . . Through one transgression [Adam's sin] there resulted condemnation to all men . . . . Through the one man's disobedience [Adam's sin] the many were made sinners (Rom. 5:16-19).

Predictably, Finney appealed to human wisdom to justify his rejection of clear biblical teaching: "What law have we violated in inheriting this [sin] nature? What law requires us to have a different nature from that which we possess? Does reason affirm that we are deserving of the wrath and curse of God for ever, for inheriting from Adam a sinful nature?" [Systematic Theology, 320].

Naturally, Finney's denial of original sin also led him to reject the doctrine of human depravity. He flatly denied that fallen humanity suffers from any "constitutional sinfulness" or sinful corruption of human nature:

"Moral depravity cannot consist in any attribute of nature or constitution, nor in any lapsed or fallen state of nature. . . . Moral depravity, as I use the term, does not consist in, nor imply a sinful nature, in the sense that the human soul is sinful in itself. It is not a constitutional sinfulness" [Systematic Theology, 245].

Instead, Finney insisted, "depravity" is a purely voluntary condition, and therefore, sinners have the power simply to will otherwise. In other words, Finney was insisting that all men and women have a natural ability to obey God. Sin results from wrong choices, not from a fallen nature. My note: Humanist doctrine. Dont believe every word you hear or every preacher you hear...know the bible...know history!!!

According to Finney, sinners can freely reform their own hearts, and must do so themselves if they are to be redeemed. Once again, this is sheer Pelagianism:

"[Sinners] are under the necessity of first changing their hearts, or their choice of an end, before they can put forth any volitions to secure any other than a selfish end. And this is plainly the everywhere assumed philosophy of the Bible. That uniformly represents the unregenerate as totally depraved,[3] and calls upon them to repent, to make themselves a new heart" [Systematic Theology, 249].

Finney was therefore not ashamed to take credit for his own conversion. Having rejected sola gratia, Finney had destroyed the gospel's safeguard against boasting (Eph. 2:9). As John MacArthur points out,

In Finney's telling of [his conversion] story, it becomes clear that he believed his own will was the determinative factor that brought about his salvation: "On a Sabbath evening [in the autumn of 1821,] I made up my mind that I would settle the question of my soul's salvation at-once, that if it were possible I would make my peace with God" [Memoirs, 16,].

Evidently under intense conviction, Finney went into the woods, where he made a promise "that I would give my heart to God [that day] or die in the attempt [Memoirs, 16]. [John MacArthur, Ashamed of the Gospel, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1993), 236.]
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Finney Denies that the righteousness of Christ can provide ground for the justification of sinners Feb 5, 2008 12:04 am
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Specifically, what were Finney's most serious errors? At the top of the list stands his rejection of the doctrine of justification by faith. Finney denied that the righteousness of Christ is the sole ground of our justification, teaching instead that sinners must reform their own hearts in order to be acceptable to God. (His emphasis on self-reformation apart from divine enablement is again a strong echo of Pelagianism.)

Finney spends a considerable amount of time in several of his works arguing against "that theological fiction of imputation" Memoirs, 58. Those who have any grasp of Protestant doctrine will see immediately that his attack at this point is a blatant rejection of the doctrine of justification by faith alone (sola fide). It places him outside the pale of true evangelical Protestantism. The doctrine of imputed righteousness is the very heart of the historic difference between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. The whole doctrine of justification by faith hinges on this concept. But Finney flatly rejected it. He derided the concept of imputation as unjust:

"I could not but regard and treat this whole question of imputation as a theological fiction, somewhat related to our legal fiction of John Doe and Richard Roe" Memoirs, 60. Dismissing the many biblical texts that expressly say righteousness is imputed to believers for their justification, he wrote,

These and similar passages are relied upon, as teaching the doctrine of an imputed righteousness; and such as these: "The Lord our righteousness" (Phil. 3:9). . . . "Christ our righteousness" is Christ the author or procurer of our justification. But this does not imply that He procures our justification by imputing His obedience to us. . . Charles Finney, Systematic Theology My note...what about the just for the unjust? His righteousness for our filthy rags.

Here Finney offers no cogent explanation of what he imagines Scripture does mean when it speaks repeatedly of the imputation of righteousness to believers ( Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:4-6). But throughout all his discussions of imputation Finney repeatedly insists that neither merit nor guilt can righteously be imputed from one person to another. Therefore, Finney argues, the righteousness of Christ can provide no ground for the justification of sinners. Furthermore, he continues:

Foundation of the justification of penitent believers in Christ. What is the ultimate ground or reason of their justification?
1. It is not founded in Christ's literally suffering the exact penalty of the law for them, and in this sense literally purchasing their justification and eternal salvation Systematic Theology, .

My note...Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheeps clothing!Gods word is truth and not mans!

By employing terms such as "exact" and "literal," Finney caricatured the position he was opposing. (The immediate context of this quotation makes clear that he was arguing against the position outlined in the Westminster Confession, which accords with all major Protestant creeds and theologians on the matter of justification.) But Finney could not obscure his own position: Having decided that the doctrine of imputation was a "theological fiction," he was forced to deny not only the imputation of Christ's righteousness to believers, but also the imputation of the sinner's guilt to Christ on the cross.

Under Finney's system, Christ could not have actually borne anyone else's sin or suffered sin's full penalty in their place and in their stead ( Isaiah 53:6; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 2:2). Finney therefore rejected the doctrine of substitutionary atonement.

Finney's position on these matters also caused him to define justification in subjective, rather than objective, terms. Protestants have historically insisted that justification is a purely forensic declaration, giving the penitent sinner an immediate right standing before God on the merit of Christ's righteousness, not their own ( Rom. 10:3; Phil. 3:9). By forensic, we mean that it is a legal declaration, like a courtroom verdict or a marriage pronouncement ("I now pronounce you husband and wife"). It changes the person's external status rather than affecting some kind of internal change; it is a wholly objective reality.
The subjective transformation of the believer that conforms us to Christ's image is sanctification—a subsequent and separate reality, distinct from justification. Since the dawn of the Protestant Reformation, the virtually unanimous Protestant consensus has been that justification is in no sense grounded in or conditioned on our sanctification. Catholicism, on the other hand, mingles justification and sanctification, making sanctification a prerequisite to final justification.

Finney sided with Rome on this point. His rejection of the doctrine of imputation left him with no alternative: "Gospel justification is not to be regarded as a forensic or judicial proceeding" Systematic Theology, 360.
Finney departed further from historic Protestantism by expressly denying that Christ's righteousness is the sole ground of the believer's justification, arguing instead that justification is grounded only in the benevolence of God. (This position is identical to that of Socinians and theological liberals.)
Obfuscating the issue further, Finney listed several "necessary conditions" (insisting these are not, technically, grounds) of justification. These "necessary conditions" included Christ's atoning death, the Christian's own faith, repentance, sanctification, and—most ominously—the believer's ongoing obedience to the law. Finney wrote,

There can be no justification in a legal or forensic sense, but upon the ground of universal, perfect, and uninterrupted obedience to law. This is of course denied by those who hold that gospel justification, or the justification of penitent sinners, is of the nature of a forensic or judicial justification. They hold to the legal maxim, that what a man does by another he does by himself, and therefore the law regards Christ's obedience as ours, on the ground that He obeyed for us Systematic Theology.

Of course, Finney denied that Christ "obeyed for us," claiming that since Christ was Himself obligated to render full obedience to the law, His obedience could justify Himself alone. "It can never be imputed to us," Finney intoned Systematic Theology, The clear implication of Finney's view is that justification ultimately hinges on the believer's own obedience, and God will not truly and finally pardon the repentant sinner until after that penitent one completes a lifetime of faithful obedience. Finney himself said as much, employing the undiluted language of perfectionism. He wrote,

By sanctification being a condition of justification, the following things are intended:
That present, full, and entire consecration of heart and life to God and His service, is an unalterable condition of present pardon of past sin, and of present acceptance with God. That the penitent soul remains justified no longer than this full-hearted consecration continues. If he falls from his first love into the spirit of self-pleasing, he falls again into bondage to sin and to the law, is condemned, and must repent and do his "first work," must turn to Christ, and renew his faith and love, as a condition of his salvation. . . .
Perseverance in faith and obedience, or in consecration to God, is also an unalterable condition of justification, or of pardon and acceptance with God. By this language in this connection, you will of course understand me to mean, that perseverance in faith and obedience is a condition, not of present, but of final or ultimate acceptance and salvation Systematic Theology

Thus Finney insisted that justification ultimately hinges on the believer's own performance, not Christ's. Here Finney once more turns his guns against the doctrine of imputation:
Those who hold that justification by imputed righteousness is a forensic proceeding, take a view of final or ultimate justification, according with their view of the nature of the transaction. With them, faith receives an imputed righteousness, and a judicial justification. The first act of faith, according to them, introduces the sinner into this relation, and obtains for him a perpetual justification. They maintain that after this first act of faith it is impossible for the sinner to come into condemnation; Systematic Theology,

But isn't that precisely what Scripture teaches? John 3:18: "He that believeth on him is not condemned." John 5:24: "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." Galatians 3:13: "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." It was immediately following his great discourse on justification by faith that the apostle Paul wrote, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:1). But Charles Finney was unwilling to let Christians rest in the promise of "no condemnation," and he ridiculed the idea of security in Christ as a notion that would lead to licentious living. He continues, again caricaturing the position he opposes:
that, being once justified, he is always thereafter justified, whatever he may do; indeed that he is never justified by grace, as to sins that are past, upon condition that he ceases to sin; that Christ's righteousness is the ground, and that his own present obedience is not even a condition of his justification, so that, in fact, his own present or future obedience to the law of God is, in no case, and in no sense, a sine qua non of his justification, present or ultimate.

Now this is certainly another gospel from the one I am inculcating. It is not a difference merely upon some speculative or theoretic point. It is a point fundamental to the gospel and to salvation, if any one can be Systematic Theology, 369
As the final paragraph of that excerpt makes clear, Finney himself clearly understood that what he proclaimed was a different gospel from that of historic Protestantism. By denying the forensic nature of justification, Finney was left with no option but to regard justification as a subjective thing grounded not in Christ's redemptive work but in the believer's own obedience—and therefore a matter of works, not faith alone.
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Finney preaches Humanism and Denies Original Sin. Feb 4, 2008 11:47 pm
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Finney is often portrayed as a moderate who fought against hyper-Calvinist influences. It's true that hyper-Calvinism (a corruption of Calvinist doctrine that nullifies or minimizes human responsibility) was on the rise in New England, and Finney had probably been exposed to it. In fact, it is fair to say that hyper-Calvinism had a major hand in creating the cold spiritual climate in which Finney's errors flourished. The popular reception of Finney's teaching was certainly in large part an overreaction against the errors of hyper-Calvinism. Finney regarded his own theology as a necessary antidote to hyper-Calvinism. He wrote,

I have everywhere found that the peculiarities of hyper-Calvinism have been the stumbling block both of the church and of the world. A nature sinful in itself, a total inability to accept Christ and to obey God, condemnation to eternal death for the sin of Adam and for a sinful nature,—and all the kindred and resultant dogmas of that peculiar school, have been the stumbling block of believers and the ruin of sinners." [Memoirs, 444].

But Finney was too much of a novice to distinguish between biblical, orthodox Calvinism and hyper-Calvinism. He lumped them together and ended up rejecting much sound doctrine along with what he thought was "hyper-Calvinism." Far from being a "moderate," Finney answered hyper-Calvinism by shifting to the opposite extreme—Pelagianism.

Notice that under the guise of condemning "hyper-Calvinism," Finney expressly attacked the idea that people are fallen and depraved because of a sinful nature inherited from Adam. That is the doctrine of original sin, not a hyper-Calvinist dogma, but a standard tenet of Christian doctrine—and recognized as such by all mainstream Christians since the Pelagian heresy of the Fifth Century.

Note, too, that Finney rejected the idea that sinners are totally unable to please God ( Rom. 8: 7-8 ) Again, total inability is no hyper-Calvinist notion, but a biblical truth defended by Augustine and the Protestant Reformers alike.

Many of the doctrines Finney rejected were central to the gospel itself. Remember his comments about his own pastor's views? ("I could not receive his views on the subject of atonement, regeneration, faith, repentance, the slavery of the Will, or any of their kindred doctrines.") Again, not one of the issues he lists deals with any error that arises out of hyper-Calvinism. Instead, what Finney was rejecting were basic biblical doctrines and long-standing tenets of Christian orthodoxy. He jettisoned several essential aspects of Protestant and Reformed doctrine related to "the atonement, regeneration, faith, repentance, the slavery of the will." Many of the doctrines he argued most vehemently against are, in fact, core biblical truths.

In other words, it was not merely hyper-Calvinism—or even simple Calvinism—that Finney rejected, but the biblical essentials of sola fide and sola gratia (justification by faith alone through grace alone). In effect, Finney also abandoned sola scriptura (the authority and sufficiency of Scripture), as shown by his constant appeal to rationalism in support of his new theology. The movement he led therefore represents the wholesale abandonment of historic Protestant principles.
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Charles Finney ...Arminius rears his ugly head again! Feb 4, 2008 11:38 pm
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IT IS IRONIC that Charles Grandison Finney has become a poster boy for so many modern evangelicals. His theology was far from evangelical.

Finney's ministry was founded on duplicity from the beginning. He obtained his license to preach as a Presbyterian minister by professing adherence to the Westminster Confession of Faith. But he later admitted that he was almost totally ignorant of what the document taught. Here, in Finney's own words, is a description of what occurred when he went before the council whose task it was to determine if he was spiritually qualified and doctrinally sound:

Unexpectedly to myself they asked me if I received the Confession of faith of the Presbyterian church. I had not examined it;—that is, the large work, containing the Catechisms and Presbyterian Confession. This had made no part of my study. I replied that I received it for substance of doctrine, so far as I understood it. But I spoke in a way that plainly implied, I think, that I did not pretend to know much about it. However, I answered honestly, as I understood it at the time [Charles Finney, The Memoirs of Charles Finney: The Complete Restored Text (Grand Rapids: Academie, 1989), 53-54]

Despite his Clintonesque insistence that he "answered honestly," it is clear that Finney deliberately misled his examiners. (His ability to parse legal terms would have served him well had he been a politician in the late Twentieth Century. But he betrays an appalling brashness for a clergyman in his own era.) Rather than plainly admitting he was utterly ignorant of his denomination's doctrinal standards, he says he "spoke in a way" that implied ("I think") that he did not know "much" about those documents. The truth is that he had never even examined the Confession of Faith and knew nothing at all about it. He was woefully unprepared for ordination, and he had no business seeking a license to preach under the presbytery's auspices.

"I was not aware that the rules of the presbytery required them to ask a candidate if he accepted the Presbyterian Confession of faith," Finney wrote. "Hence I had never read it"

My note...what kind of lawyer (Finney was a lawyer) does not read the material of the contract he is signing???? Obviously this was deliberate deciet.[Memoirs, 60.] So when he told his ordination council that he received the Confession "for substance of doctrine," nothing could have been further from the truth! Nonetheless, the council naively (and all too willingly) took Finney at his word and licensed him to preach.

Finney's credibility is further marred by the fact that when he later read the Westminster Standards and realized he disagreed on almost every crucial point, he did not resign the commission he had received under false pretenses. Instead, he accepted the platform he had duped those men into giving him—then used it for the rest of his life to attack their doctrinal convictions. "As soon as I learned what were the unambiguous teachings of the Confession of faith upon these points, I did not hesitate at all on all suitable occasions to declare my dissent from them," he boasted. "I repudiated and exposed them. Wherever I found that any class of persons were hidden behind these dogmas, I did not hesitate to demolish them, to the best of my ability" [Memoirs, 60].

The fact that Finney had obtained his own preaching credentials by professing adherence to the Confession did not faze him at all. "When I came to read the Confession of faith, and saw the passages that were quoted to sustain these peculiar positions, I was absolutely ashamed of it," he frankly stated. "I could not feel any respect for a document that would undertake to impose on mankind such dogmas as those" [Memoirs, 61].

Finney's disagreements with his denomination's doctrinal standards clearly were not opinions he formed after his examination by the council. By his own admission, he had consciously rejected the basic theological framework of the Presbyterian confession long before he stood before those men. He writes of doctrinal debates he had provoked with his pastor, George W. Gale: "I could not receive his views on the subject of atonement, regeneration, faith, repentance, the slavery of the Will, or any of their kindred doctrines" [Memoirs, 46].

My note, Interesting that Finney opposed all reformation doctrines. He used the reformed faith to come to power and then attacked them with his secular reasoning and humanist theology.

Even prior to his conversion, Finney had raised many of the very same issues and objected strongly to Gale's teaching on such points. He wrote,I now think that I sometimes criticised his sermons unmercifully. I raised such objections against his positions as forced themselves upon my attention. . . . What did he mean by repentance? Was it a mere feeling of sorrow for sin? Was it altogether a passive state of mind? or did it involve a voluntary element? If it was a change of mind, in what respect was it a change of mind? What did he mean by the term regeneration? What did such language mean when spoken of as a spiritual change? What did he mean by faith? Was it merely an intellectual state? Was it merely a conviction, or persuasion, that the things stated in the Gospel were true? [Memoirs, 10-12.]

Finney's "conversion" does not seem to have altered his skepticism about his denomination's stance on any of these crucial evangelical doctrines. After his experiential crisis, those were the very issues on which he dissented from the Presbyterian Confession—only now with more vigor than ever. The intense emotional experience Finney regarded as his new birth seems merely to have confirmed his feeling that he was right about Christianity and Scripture—and that most of the leaders of his denomination were either stupid or deluded.

In fact, in his own account of his conversion and theological "training," Finney comes across as utterly unteachable. He meticulously recounts the issues on which he and Pastor Gale disagreed. They are for the most part the same points Finney says he objected to before his conversion. Never once does Finney acknowledge conceding any point to Gale (or to anyone else, for that matter). He obviously believed that his intuitive grasp of spiritual truth, combined with his legal training, automatically made him more doctrinally adept than all the seminary-trained Presbyterian preachers combined. He consistently portrays church leaders who adhered to the Confession of Faith as dupes and dullards. He was convinced they had nothing to teach him, and from the point of his conversion on, he casts himself in the superior role, as a reformer of their outdated and indefensible doctrines. He writes,

The fact is that Brother Gale's education for the ministry had been entirely defective. He had imbibed a set of opinions, both theological and practical, that were a strait jacket to him. He could accomplish very little or nothing if he carried out his own principles. I had the use of his library, and ransacked it thoroughly on all the questions of theology which came up for examination; and the more I examined the books, the more I was dissatisfied. [Memoirs, 55.]
Now convinced that his tutor (Pastor Gale) and all the Reformed and Puritan books in Gale's library were utterly worthless, Finney set out to devise a theological system more to his own liking.

At first, being no theologian, my attitude in respect to [Gale's] peculiar views was rather that of negation or denial, than that of opposing any positive view to his. I said, your positions are not proved." I often said, "They are insusceptible of proof." So I thought then, and so I think now. . . . I had nowhere to go but directly to the Bible, and to the philosophy or workings of my own mind as they were revealed in consciousness. My views took on a positive type but slowly. I at first found myself unable to receive his peculiar views; and secondly, gradually formed views of my own in opposition to them, which appeared to me to be unequivocally taught in the Bible. [Memoirs, 55, emphasis added.]

In other words, Finney's earliest opinions on "the subject[s] of atonement, regeneration, faith, repentance, the slavery of the will, [and] kindred doctrines" became baggage he dragged along into his own peculiar systematic theology. Having objected to Pastor Gale's doctrinal stance on these issues since before his conversion—and especially now that Finney realized these ideas came from the Confession itself—he grew to despise "Old School" doctrinal standards. He was not about to study books that defended such doctrines.

Without any "positive view" of his own (other than his obvious contempt for Reformed doctrine), he was content for a while to rebuff Gale's tutoring with "negation or denial." But Finney soon realized he needed something more than denial to answer the doctrines of the Presbyterian Confession. So he set to work scouring the pages of Scripture in search of arguments against the doctrines he despised, while devising new doctrines more suited to "the philosophy or workings of [his] own mind." Ideas Finney had toyed with since his pre-conversion days thus became the heart of the theology he espoused until the end of his life. In other words, as a new "convert," Finney simply devised a theology that fit his already-established prejudices.

In his Memoirs, his Lectures on Revival, and his Systematic Theology, what comes through, frankly, is not a man with a high regard for Scripture, but a man with an inflated view of himself. Where Scripture does not suit him, Finney resorts to sophistry to explain it away. Whole sections of his Systematic Theology contain paragraph after paragraph of philosophizing and moralizing—sometimes without a single reference to Scripture for many pages.[1]
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SHOCKING YOUTH MESSAGE STUNS HEARERS #8 Feb 4, 2008 12:07 am
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SHOCKING YOUTH MESSAGE STUNS HEARERS ––
SO SHOCKING AND BIBLICAL
THE PREACHER WAS NEVER INVITED BACK
Matthew 7:13-27
Paul Washer

I know that there are some of you who look around and you think, “Well, I’m saved. I mean,look, I look like everybody else in my youth group.” What makes you think your youth group is saved? “Well, I’m like my parents”; or, “I’m like the adults in my church or the deacon or the pastor.” What does that matter? You won’t be judged by them on the day of His coming. My question for you, beloved, my question for you, little child––I mean, you could be my children,and I pray someday when my little boy grows that there will be a preacher who will stand beforehim and say, “Enough of this!”

Let’s get down. What does the Word of God say? How does your life stand in front of that
blazing fire which is the holiness of God on that final day? Beloved, precious little girl, beloved, precious young man, on that final day will your confession hold true? Are you saved? And I’m not talking about, “Well, I think I’m saved.” You know, there’s a way that seems right unto a man, but it leads unto death.

“Well, I feel in my heart of my hearts that I’m saved.” Well, let me ask you a question. Did you ever read that the heart is deceitfully wicked; who can know it? Shouldn’t you go to the
testimony of Scripture? “Well, I know I’m saved because my mom, my dad, my pastor, everybody else told me I was saved.” Well, I’m telling you this. What does the Word of God tell you?

We talk so much about being radical Christians. Radical Christians are not people who jump at
concerts. Radical Christians are not people who wear Christian tee shirts. Radical Christians are
those who bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Radical Christians are those who reverence and
honor their parents even when they feel like their parents are wrong. Radical Christians are
those who do not––now listen to me. This is going to make you mad, and I’m talking to boys
and girls. Radical Christians are those who do not dress sensually in order to show off their
bodies. If your clothing is a frame for your face, God is pleased with your clothing. If your
clothing is a frame for your body, it’s sensual and God hates what you’re doing. Everybody
wants to talk about a prophet, but no one wants to listen to one.

I’m talking about Christianity. I have spent my life in jungles. I have spent my life freezing in
the Andes Mountains. I have seen people die. A little boy, Andrew Myman [phonetic], the
Muslims shot him five times through the stomach and left him on a sidewalk simply because he
cried out, “I am so afraid but I cannot deny Jesus Christ. Please don’t kill me, but I will not deny Him.” And he died in a pool of blood.

And you talk about being a radical Christian because you wear a tee shirt, because you go to a conference. I’m talking about holiness. I’m talking about Godliness. I wish––you know what a move of God would be in this place? If all of you came under conviction, if I myself came under conviction of the Holy Spirit, we fell down on our faces and wept because we watch the things that God hates, because we wear the things that God hates, because we act like the world, look like the world, smell like the world, because we do the very things, and we know not that we do these things, because we do not know the Word of God.

Because, even though we claim as a denomination that the Scripture is the infallible Word of
God, basically all we get is illustrations, stories, and quaint little novels. Oh, that God will glow on this place, that we would turn away from our sin, that we would renounce the things that are displeasing to God, and, then, that we would run to Him and we would relish Him and we would love Him.

Oh, that God would raise up missionaries. I don’t wish the same things your parents want for
you. They want for you security and insurance and nice homes. They want for you cars and
respect. I want for you the same thing I want for my son, that one day he takes a banner, the
banner of Jesus Christ, and he places it on a hill where no one has ever placed a banner before, and he cries out, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” even if it costs my son his life. Oh, when he’s 18 years old, if he says to me the same thing I said when I was a young man, “I’m going into the mountains. I’m going into the jungle.” And they said, “You can’t go there. You’re insane. It’s a war. You’re gonna die.” I’m going. When that little boy puts on that backpack, I’m going to pray over him and say, “Go! God be with you, and if you die, my son, I’ll see you over there andI’ll honor your death.”

Oh, God, let’s pray, let’s pray.
Oh, God, I don’t care about reputation. I don’t care what men think. I want You to be honored.
I want these young people to be saved. I want those that are saved to stop looking around at a
cultural Christianity that You hate and will spew out of Your mouth, and that they will look at the Word of God and say, “I will follow Jesus.”

Oh, God, I pray for youth ministers and pastors and I pray that You’d fill them with the spirit of wisdom and love and boldness and discernment. And dear God, whatever the cost, I pray that
you will raise up missionaries. I can’t help but look at these kids and think of my own little boy. Oh, God, that You would save Ian and that You would raise him up and send him into the worst part of the battle. Oh, dear God, raise up missionaries here. Raise up missionaries. Raise up preachers and pastors and reachers and evangelists that know the Word of God. Oh, God, work in this place, please work in this place, dear God. Please. Please. Please.

Please. Now with every head bowed, is there anyone here tonight that would say, “Brother Paul, I have been living a lie. I claim to be a Christian but I love the world, and I look like it and smell like it and I hate myself for it, and, Brother Paul, I am so tired of this Christianity that I’m living. I’m just sick of it. I’m just sick of it. I want to be saved. I want to be saved.” I just want you to
stand up. “Brother Paul, I want to be saved.” Amen. Is there anyone else? Amen. Amen.

In a moment, we’re going to have an invitation. Those of you who stood up––I’m going to come
down here and I want you to meet with me. I want to talk to you. Now, you may be seated,
thank you.

Now, I want to talk to those of you who claim to be Christians. Does your life honor Jesus
Christ? Are you looking in His Word to find out how you’re supposed to live? I pray with all
my heart, the only thing that’s going to save the church in America, there’s only two
possibilities. One is a total reformation in our preaching and our study of the Word of God, and the other is fierce, horrifying persecution. That’s the only thing that’s going to save the church in America. Oh, I pray, I pray that you would return to the Word.


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SHOCKING YOUTH MESSAGE STUNS HEARERS #7 Feb 3, 2008 11:52 pm
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SHOCKING YOUTH MESSAGE STUNS HEARERS SO SHOCKING AND BIBLICAL THE PREACHER WAS NEVER INVITED BACK
Matthew 7:13-27 speaker Paul Washer

Now, we bring this to a close, verse 22: Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many
miracles. Then I will declare to them, I never knew you. You say the most important thing on the face of the earth is to know Jesus Christ. That is not true. The most important thing on the face of the earth is that Jesus Christ knows you. I’m not going to get into the White House tomorrow because I walk up to the gate and tell everybody I know George Bush, but they will let me in if George Bush comes out and says, “I know Paul Washer.”

You can profess to know Jesus, but my question for you . . . do you know Jesus? Does Jesus
know you? And look how he describes the lost man here. He said, Depart from me you who
practice lawlessness. In Greek, anomia––a negative particle, a, “not”; word nomos, “law”––“no law.” And this is what it means. Let me give you an accurate translation of this. Depart from
me––Listen to me, if I could come out there and hug you while I was telling you this, I would.

Listen to me. He says, Depart from me those of you who claim to be my disciples who confessed
me as Lord and, yet, you live as though I never gave you a law to obey. I just described a great majority of North American Christianity. If anyone starts talking about law, if anyone starts talking about Biblical principles on what we’re supposed to do and not supposed to do, how we’re to live and not supposed to live, everyone starts screaming, “Legalist.” But Jesus said, Depart from me those of you who live––you called me Lord, but you lived as though I had never given a law.

In American Christianity today, pass through the gate. Praise God. Live like the rest of the
world and it’s okay. You’re just carnal. Maybe one day you’ll come back. Do you know what
happens because of our bad evangelism? We have gazillions of children saved in vacation Bible
school, and when they hit 15 years old, they enter into the world and live like demons, a great majority of them. And then when they’re around 30, they come back and rededicate their life. Maybe they just got saved. Because, folks, it’s more than just telling someone you’re saved
because you acknowledged that Jesus is Lord.

Satan acknowledges that Jesus is Lord. Is your life in a process of change?
And then He drops down and He talks about two people––two foundations. Do you know what
this passage in contemporary . . . See it’s important to study theology and it’s important to study history. The contemporary interpretation of this passage about the rock and the sand is basically like this. If you’re a Christian, you need to build your life upon the rock because, if you build your life upon the sand, you’ll be an unhappy Christian and your life won’t go right. That is not what Jesus is teaching and history backs me up on it. It was hardly ever interpreted that way.

Do you know what the interpretation is? It goes like this. There are two ways. There’s a narrow way and a broad way. Which one are you on? There are two types of trees. There is a good tree that bears good fruit, and it’s going to Heaven. There’s a bad tree and you know it’s bad because it bears bad fruit, and it’s going to hell. It’s going to be cut down and thrown into the fire. There are those who profess Jesus is Lord and they do the will of the Father who is in heaven, and there are those who profess Jesus Christ is Lord and they do not do the will of the Father who is in heaven, and they go to hell––not because of a lack of works, but because of a lack of faith demonstrated by the fact that they had no works.

And then he goes on. He says, not two Christians building their house on two different
foundations. No. This is a saved man and a lost man. The lost man hears the Word of God
preached but he lays no foundation. You cannot see in any way in his life how the Word of God
is forming and building and sustaining his life. His life is not––how many people in the
Southern Baptist Convention, regardless of all our numbers, regardless of everything we say, if
we were to simply take this passage and compare the people to this passage and say––Are you
building your marriage on the Word of God? Are you raising your children on the Word of
God? Are you doing your finances on the Word of God? Are you living, separating yourself
from the things of this world based upon the Word of God? How many would be able to answer
positively?

No, none of that. “I profess Jesus. He’s my Savior. My Sunday school teacher told me so.” Oh. I know, like Leonard Ravenhill, an acquaintance of mine before he passed on, used to say, “I preach in a lot of Baptist churches once.” I preach in a lot of places like this once. I could have got up here today with a vocabulary that would have astounded you and preached you things that would have lifted you up and floated you around this room. I could have told you stories that would have made you laugh and stories about dogs and grandmas that would have made you cry, but I love you too much for that. I know . . . I know, because the Word of God is true, that there are people who believe themselves to be saved and they are not more saved. They’re not.
2 Comments
SHOCKING YOUTH MESSAGE STUNS HEARERS # 6 Feb 3, 2008 11:39 pm
143 Views
SHOCKING YOUTH MESSAGE STUNS HEARERS SO SHOCKING AND BIBLICAL THE PREACHER WAS NEVER INVITED BACK
Matthew 7:13-27 speaker Paul Washer

Oh dear friend, I cannot look into your heart. I am so easily deceived by my own heart, but there
is One who is not deceived. There is One who is not deceived, and He is not deceived by a
contemporary Christian culture. He knows. You will know them by their fruit.

And He goes on and He says this, verse 21: Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter
the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father who is in heaven will enter. Do
you know what your profession of faith in Jesus Christ is worth? Absolutely nothing. Yes. Did
you read that passage? Study it. Not everyone who comes to me and says, Lord, Lord . . . not
everyone who professes, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven. There are many
people who are going to profess, “Lord, Lord,” but they are not going to enter into the kingdom
of heaven. My dear precious child, are you one of them? “Lord, Lord.”

Now, again, let’s go back to Hebrew literature. He said, Lord, Lord. He didn’t say, Lord. What
does that mean? This fellow who is making this profession, he is not someone who just all of a
sudden decided, “It’s judgment and I better profess Him to be Lord.” This is a person who
emphatically declares to other people that Jesus Christ is Lord. He walks around saying, “Lord.”
He dances up in front while the musicians are playing, saying, “Lord.” He sings the songs,
“Lord.” But Jesus said to him, Depart from me. I never knew you.

Do you know, Billy Graham is one of the kindest, lovingest men; yet, Billy Graham has said he
believed that a great majority of people who attend Bible-believing churches are lost. He said
that he would be happy if even five percent of all the people who made professions of faith in his campaigns are even saved.
When I’m in Nigeria . . . I was there last year visiting a mother whose son was in our church and
was martyred by the Muslims. In Northern Nigeria, when someone professes faith in Jesus
Christ, you pretty much know they can die because of that profession.

But in America, oh, consider the cost. Think. Examine your life in light of Scripture. Do you know the Lord? Do you know the Lord? Because not everyone who says to him, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but what does it say here? Look what it says. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

What is the sign that someone has become a genuine Christian? I wish that we would start
teaching this again. What happened to our theology? What happened to our doctrine? What
happened to our teaching? It went right out the window. No one wants to study doctrine
anymore. They just want to listen to songs and read the back of Christian tee shirts.

What happened to truth? Truth tells you this. The evidence––the way that you can have assurance that you are genuinely a born-again Christian––is that you do, as a style of life, the will of the Father. You say, “Oh, you’re talking about works.” No, I’m not. I’m talking about evidence of faith,and it goes like this. Your profession of faith is no proof that you’re born again because everybody in this whole country professes faith in Jesus Christ.

Barnard tells us that 65 to 70 percent of all Americans are saved, born-again Christians. The most Godless country on the face of the earth. Kill 4,000 babies a day but, bless God, 70 percent of us are born again. How do
you know that the faith you have is not false?

A style of life that is concerned about doing the will of the Father, that practices the will of the Father, and when you disobey the will of the Father, the Holy Spirit comes and reprimands you either personally through the written Word of
God or through a brother or sister in Christ, and God puts you back on the path again. If you’re a genuine Christian, you cannot escape Him.

Let me give you an example. If I was your pastor and you were, let’s say, 14 years old and I
came back from preaching at one o’clock in the morning and I saw you standing out there in a
park or on a corner with a bunch of hoodlums, doing things you shouldn’t be doing and you’re a
member of our church, I would tell you, “Get in the car.” I would take you home to your father.
I wouldn’t be mad at you. I’d be mad at your father. I would tell him, “Sir, you are a derelict father that you would allow your child to be out in such circumstances.”

I want you to know something. God is not a derelict father. If you can play around in sin, if you can love the world and love the things of the world, if you can always be involved in the world and doing things of the world, if your heroes are worldly people, if you want to look like them and act like them, if you practice the same things they practice, oh my dear friend, listen to my voice. There’s a good chance you know not God, and you do not belong to him.
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