“I know you can’t put a stopwatch on these things. The ordo is simply making a critical theological point by placing regeneration first for illustrative purposes. So what is that point? It is that life pervades the whole shebang. And that life is sheer, unadulterated, exuberant, overflowing, monergistic grace of God. God speaks, and the dead bones live. The dead bones become a living man. The living man repents and believes, turning away from his old comfortable graveyard, and turning toward his everlasting home. He believes in Christ, and God imputes everything that Jesus did, said, has, or will have to that living man. He receives it all by faith. What faith? The only kind he has, the kind God gave him when He breathed into his nostrils the breath of eternal life. And you want to say this is not ‘really’ Reformed? Wake up, man! I put who whole fistfuls of the black beans of Calvinism into the grinder, and then put five extra tablespoons of the resultant black powder in the coffee filter. I then put a fork in the bottom of the coffee pot. When the fork floats, the coffee is ready. Don’t come around here saying the coffee isn’t strong enough!”

The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 484

[Regarding Dt. 29:29] “It is revealed to us that Christians can fall away from the covenant. It is not revealed to us who was predestined to do so, and who was predestined to remain—although everyone in the covenant is in one or the other category. The latter is there not to be the basis of our pastoral warnings. The former is.”

The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 477

“When we say that the reality of the decrees should not be allowed to trump the covenant, we are saying that it is right and appropriate and proper and good for a minister to warn a congregation against falling from grace, or trampling underfoot the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified, or failing to bear fruit as a branch in the vine. We are talking about how we function, how we warn, how we admonish. The covenant is given to us. The decrees are made concerning us. It is not our job to parse the decrees. It is our job to live in terms of the covenant. We affirm that the decrees are there. We deny that we should preach or admonish someone in particular based on a presumed knowledge of the content of the decrees with regard to that person.”

The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 477

“The FV statement that we issued was motivated in part because of our recognition that we bore some responsibility for the confusion. Consequently, we issued a statement that made very clear what the center of FV agreement was, and the statement also included a number of items where we differ among ourselves.”

The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 475