Principle 6: The touchstone, no boasting

From Sovereign Grace and the Scope of Election: A Comparative Examination of Attainment Theology and Grace Theology, with Particular Attention to the Question of Whether God's Elect Are Found Among All Nations and Religions

The principle. Paul supplies an explicit doctrinal touchstone: the true gospel is the one that excludes boasting. "Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith" (Romans 3:27); salvation is "not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:9); "that no flesh should glory in his presence... He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 1:29-31).

Why it should be preferred. Because it is not our test; it is Scripture's own stated pass/fail criterion for identifying its doctrine, and it is beautifully mechanical to apply. Put any system's finished product in glory and ask: can he say, truthfully, "something I did distinguishes my position from that man's"? In the attainment system's scheme the Zion-dweller can, his consecration, his celibacy, his overcoming placed him above the New Jerusalem believer, who in turn out-performed the New Earth resident. Boasting here is not an accident of the system; it is a predictable theological consequence of the system's design. In the sovereign grace scheme the answer is no at every point: election he did not cause, blood he did not shed, a birth he did not will, perseverance he was given. "Who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive?" (1 Corinthians 4:7). Whatever else may be said of the two frameworks, one of them sits far more comfortably in the same room as Romans 3:27 than the other.