Devilish Scholasticism

The main reason why the devil has taken a particular interest in me recently is that I am currently reading again DML-J's excellent sermons on Eph.6:10-13, The Christian Warfare.  These sermons are re-educating and reminding me of the subtle activity of the devil, and of his desire to destroy me and the work of God in and through me.

In the course of reading about "the wiles of the devil," DML-J makes this very insightful statement.  He preaches: The devil has wrought havoc in the Church in general, as well as in individual lives, many times throughout the centuries by producing a kind of scholasticism," (p. 156).  

It might be too much to say that the kind of scholasticism that has bedeviled reformed theology may well come from that source.  If the devil's stated plan and intention is the destruction of God's people and work on the earth, then what better way to do this than by using education and intellectualism as his tool?  He has endowed men with gifts of academic excellence, but the devil has taken these gifts and used them to the detriment of the Gospel.  We see that most clearly that in the case of Calvin's doctrine of the atonement and the Bezan development into high Calvinism, where the philosophy of medieval scholasticism was imposed on to the biblical teaching on the atonement.  Calvin adhered closely to the biblical data, but his followers down the Bezan road imposed this logic on to it and made it say what the original writers never intended it to say, namely that Christ died solely and exclusively for the elect, and none else.

This development was evidence of devilish influence, which influence DML-J saw as the devil's work.

The church needs to be very careful about what influences she allows to come into her family, because all such influences are detrimental to the work of the Gospel.  Indeed, where the Gospel, in all its glorious fulness, is not preached with passion and authority, there you can see evidence of the devil's activity.  High churchmen do not recognise this analysis because since Christ died only for the elect they will be saved infallibly come what may.  So you do not have to worry about whether the Gospel is preached or not.  Christ's death actually saved the elect, so preaching of the Gospel is not a necessary prerequisite to Gospel success.

Quite a handy theology to hold, is it not?  How pleased the devil is with such thinking and practice.  How he is rubbing his evil hands with glee when he sees this happen!  And all the while, the reformed high churchmen are oblivious to the fact that one day they too will have to give an account of their ministries and for what they were prepared to allow within their churches.  It just shows how little love they have for their co-religionists that they are happy to have non-Gospel preachers within the ministry of their church - which they claim is reformed.