Union with Christ the latest Trojan Horse

Excellent, concise comment:

"I think Gaffin goes off the ranch when he makes union [with Christ] an existential category and not exclusively an intellectual and legal one." - Sean Gerety

It's not just one theologian named Gaffin, but this is a current popular attack on justification by faith alone.

For context listen to Lane Tipton being interviewed in several of the reformedforum.org podcasts such as this one: http://reformedforum.org/ctc200/

Bottom line: however the false teachers are identifying themselves their attack as always is against justification by faith alone. The Kingdom of Satan wants you in bondage to it. It wants you working (to any degree) for your salvation. And the angles of attack it takes on the central doctrine of justification by faith alone are subtle and myriad. In this latest case they are saying, "Union with Christ! Union with Christ! It's all about union with Christ! You disagree with that? How, brother? It's all about Christ! You deny it's all about Christ?" So once they get union with Christ ensconced in a position that is prior to and foundational to the legal status of justification by faith alone they already have downgraded justification and imputation of the active obedience of Christ and everything else important to a person's status before God.

Of course the useful idiots that spread the new attack don't know the issues and don't sense even the importance of it all. They can't discern that doctrine effects internal states. That doctrine, when discerned and accepted and believed effects one internally. And that doctrine is armor of God. The false teachers themselves, though, are purely Satanic. They are pulling and distorting biblical doctrine down to the level of man's fallen nature and the demands of man's fallen nature. They may be only half-conscious of what they are doing, but that is enough. Have no sympathy for them. Have no sympathy for the Devil.