Here is my next installment in getting caught up with Green Baggins. I will not be trying to pick up the thread of discussion that was going on prior to this, but simply reply to some of Lane’s concerns expressed in this post.
Lane says, “I really challenge the assertion that repentance and faith are only indirectly from God.” So do I actually. Paul plants, Apollos waters, and there you have the external instruments and means. But God gives the increase, and He does so immediately and directly (1 Cor. 3:6). The difference God’s direct gift makes can be readily seen in the fellow who enjoyed all the same planting and watering, but who did not believe. Why did he not? Because God withheld the blessing.
Think of it this way. God’s direct gift is His blessing of the intermediate means. If He does not bless those means, then those means will be fruitless. The only thing I would want to resist is the notion that because God’s gift of regeneration is immediate, external means are superflueous, and that we get zapped by invisible lightning bolts from heaven. God’s direct intervention is absolutely necessary, but it is an intervention in the world, a world that includes more than just the sinner’s heart.
Lane says, “If faith is direct gift from God, then that challenges his assertions that faith is obedience, and yet Scripture plainly teaches that faith is such a direct gift from God.” And yet I would say, anticipating Lane’s next point, obedience is also a gift. And because of this Lane thinks that I am rejecting the law/gospel hermeneutic. And I am. The law/gospel hermeneutic needs to be rejected — but this is not the same thing as rejecting the law/gospel distinction, which I do not reject. “I really think the bottom line on this one is that Doug does not acccept the hermeneutical law-gospel distinction (against the whole Reformed tradition), and I do.” The problem with this convenient analysis is that that law/gospel distinction is to be applied to human hearts, and not to the text. The law/gospel distinction is part of the apostolic gospel message — it is not the basis of their hermeneutic. To say it is a hermeneutic is to say that this verse is “law,” and that one “gospel,” and here are the hermeneutical rules to sort it all out. Show me that hermeneutical rule in the apostles. Show it to me in the confessions of the Reformed tradition. And you have not shown it to me if you show me law and gospel. I buy that. What you have to show me is an interpretive grid that sifts all verses out into a law pile and a gospel pile.
“Obedience is a law term, whereas faith is a gospel term.” Not a bit of it. Works is a law term, and the problem with works is that it is disobedient. We are commanded to trust God. We are commanded to not rely on ourselves or our own merits. When we obey Him, and I don’t know how else to say this, we are being obedient. Of course obedience is a gift. We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared beforehand for us to do (Eph. 2:10).