Only LIving Things Act

“Life and obedience are essential characteristics of the instrumentality of faith, in just the same way that life is an essential characteristic of a seeing eye. But I do not see blue as a reward or payment for having a living eye. This does not make life irrelevant to the seeing however.”

The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 694

An Eye Must Be Alive in Order to See

“When I say that faith is alive, I am saying nothing more than that faith is really faith. When I say that faith is obedient, I am saying nothing more than that faith is true faith. If it were not alive, not not obedient, you would not have the same basic thing, only with some of the paint chipped off. You wouldn’t have faith at all. And if you don’t have faith at all, then you don’t have justifying faith, or faith that lays hold of Christ. Put another way, faith must be faith to be the instrument of justification.”

The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 694

An Aorist Scream

“Now if you have a law/gospel hermeneutic, you have decided going into your exegesis what that exegesis can and cannot reveal to you. So if I produced a verse that said, ‘Thou shalt exercise justifying faith as your evangelical obedience,’ this would not even be a minor challenge to a law/gospel hermeneutic. A law/gospel hermeneutic would chase the verb around the room, until the aorist imperative ran out of the door screaming, turning the verse into gospel, remarkably enough.”

The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 692

Good and Necessary

“Here is a good place for some good and necessary consequence. A command can only be disobeyed or obeyed. Ignoring it is disobedience. Pretending not to hear is disobedience Given the authority and legitimacy of the command, there are no other options. If someone wants to maintain a third possibility, I am open to hearing what it might possibly be. Now, does God command men to believe the gospel?”

The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 689.

Mr. George Knightley, Groomer

September 25, 1817 Reverend Sir, I am mindful, as always, of the great debt that we owe to your eminence, and we are as well grateful for the spiritual oversight you so graciously provide for your people. In the two years since the marriage of Mr. Knightley to Miss Wodehouse, my husband and I have …