Tullian Tchividjian 🤡 Blasts John MacArthur for Preaching a False Gospel

Of all the people to crawl out of their theological grave to critique John MacArthur in the wake of his passing, who but Tullian Tchividjian—the crown prince of spiritual collapse, the poster child for disqualification, the clown in the collar—thought himself qualified to hold court?

Unbelievably, this is real. The same man who detonated not one, but two pastorates through adulterous affairs, who spun his pulpit like a turnstile of scandal, now wants to lecture the church on pastoral discernment?

That’s like the Titanic offering swimming lessons.

In 2015, Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church rightly fired him after he admitted to an extramarital affair. But wait, the story gets better. It later emerged that he had two affairs, back-to-back, while pastoring a church. And because one round of devastation wasn’t enough, he did what any self-respecting fallen celebrity pastor would do. He rebranded, repackaged, and recast himself as a misunderstood martyr of grace, a theological exile chased out of the camp for loving the gospel too much.

And now, here he is, standing atop the rubble of his own disgraced ministry, wagging his finger at John MacArthur’s theology as though his own life hasn't been a theological warning label printed in neon red.

"At the heart of my concern," he writes on Twitter, "is this: MacArthur consistently directed believers inward—to their own obedience, performance, and spiritual fruit—as the primary evidence of their salvation."

Imagine that—calling Christians to examine their lives. Has Tullian ever cracked open 1 John? Read James? Skimmed Hebrews? Glanced at the Sermon on the Mount? If self-examination is now heresy, then someone should tell the Apostle Paul, who said with all the subtlety of a jackhammer to the teeth: "Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves" (2 Cor. 13:5).

But of course, antinomians like Tullian aren’t concerned with biblical consistency. They’re concerned with salvaging their shredded conscience. When the fruit doesn’t show, you have no choice but to start denying that fruit even matters. When sanctification starts sounding like a mirror, you cover it with a false doctrine that numbs the sting.

Antinomianism is nothing but bad biographical theology. It’s the gospel rewritten by the unrepentant, to soothe the guilty with grace that demands no holiness. It’s not a system—it’s a sedative.