Theology That Bites Back
The following is a transcript of my remarks to the Society of the Perpetually Aggrieved. The occasion for the address was a response to a court order, and it was in anticipation of the next sexual scandal that is going to be thrown against our community, whenever that might happen to be. A car was …
“The fact that my faith is alive makes it possible to see Christ, the sole basis or reason for anyone’s justification. If my faith were dead, it would be blind also, and incapable of looking to Christ as the sole ground of justification . . . True faith is an eyeball and cannot look to itself. True faith sees Christ alone. But unless it is a living eyeball, it cannot see. Dead eyeballs have no vision. So this life is necessary but it is in no fashion meritorious. God does not give living faith so that it might admire itself in the mirror.”
Letter to the Editor: I’m still a little confused on your opinion of the Jews and Israel’s future salvation. You clearly state that you believe Israel will eventually be converted ...
“This is a battle of ecclesiastical politics, and not, as has been ostensibly claimed, a battle for the truth. If it were a battle for truth, then people would be willing to acknowledge plain truth, even if it seems contrary to their current political advantage. But they are not at all willing for this. I have heard, through back channels, that there are leaders in the anti-FV movement who would acknowledge privately what Mr. Gadbois says here about me. But they will not say anything like that publicly because warriors for truth have to fudge the facts a little if they are to keep up the political pressure.”
Introduction: So Hamas launched a surprise attack against Israel which involved thousands of rockets, and a deliberate murdering of civilians, along with the kidnapping of multiple hostages. Counting both sides, to date thousands are injured, and hundreds dead. This came just a few weeks after the Biden administration released $6B back to Iran, which serves …
“So this is the drill. The last thing in the world that the anti-FV people want is any kind of open forum where questions get to be asked in both directions. They don’t want this in a voluntary set-up, as in a debate. They don’t want it in a judicial setting, as in an open trial. They don’t want it in a box; they don’t want it on the floor. Not in the closet either. We piped but ye would not mourn; we played the bass line from ‘Play that Funky Music White Boy,’ and ye would not dance.”
“After Paul’s rhapsody at the end of Romans 8, a natural question would arise. If all this is true of the elect, then why was the elect nation of Israel trying to kill Paul? And that is why Paul does on to distinguish different kinds of election, distinguishing between the historical, contingent election of Israel, and His sovereign decretal election that reveals itself in a glorious way throughout human history, culminating at the last day . . . All Israel was elect in one sense, while those who were of Israel were elect in another. And I cannot fathom how someone who stumbles over equivocal uses of the same word like this can ever hope to interpret faithfully the teaching of someone like the apostle Paul.”
Dear Gavin, Thanks for your last letter. Clearly it is time for us to get into the ethnic issues, or at least to start on them. You will notice, right at the front end, that I much prefer to use the ...
“Not only do I affirm the internal/external distinction between regenerate and unregenerate covenant members, but I have done so repeatedly, in print, and in ways that are pretty hard to miss. I have done so in pieces that Dr. Clark apparently read and in places he ought to have read.”
