Okay, one last comment, and I am done reviewing Waters’ book. In the bibliography, Waters says this about my lecture on heretics and the covenant at the 2002 Auburn Avenue Pastors’ Conference. “Wilson calls for a ‘covenantal approach to heresy,’ one that recognizes the ‘objective . . . covenantal obligations’ of the heretic, who, if …
Talmudic Layers of Revivalism
In the footnotes of Waters’ book, Cal Beisner makes this statement. “The Westminster Standards present the sacraments solely as means of sanctifying grace, not as means of converting grace” (p. 302). In his response to my essay on sacramental efficacy in the Westminster Standards, Rick Phillips makes a similar point. “In reading Wilson’s paper I …
Making the Necessary Qualifications
One of the things that became obvious throughout this review of Waters’ book on the Federal Vision was the extraordinarily sloppy job done by Waters in representing my views fairly or accurately. Unfortunately, this pattern continues in the footnotes and bibliography. An astonishing ommission in the bibliography is the doctrinal examination I took before my …
A Tulip From Calvin’s Garden
The last chapter of Waters’ book gives him an opportunity to wrap up. But although I will interact with some elements of this chapter, I am not going to wrap up, not just yet anyhow. Nossir. I am going to go through the footnotes too. First, Waters charges me with a “misuse of logic.” Were …
Confessional Laxity Over At Mississippi Valley
In my previous Auburn Avenue post, in the comments section Mark Horne supplied the following quotation from Turretin. The emphases are Mark’s, and Turretin was da bomb. “The question is not whether faith alone justifies to the exclusion either of the grace of God or the righteousness of Christ or the word AND SACRAMENTS (BY …
Salty Dogs and Crusty Lutherans
The first part of chapter seven in Waters’ book is dedicated to my views of sacramental efficacy and baptism. And so, here we are. He begins by saying that I misread B.B. Warfield definition of sacerdotalism, and seeks to establish that I misread it by simply stating why Warfield said what he did (p. 199). …
God in All
Minister: Lift up your hearts!Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! God of heaven, God of earth, God of men and women, God our of children, we worship You now through Jesus Christ our Lord. You know all things, the end from the beginning. You know the desires of the sparrow’s heart, You know …
Two Kinds of Crazy
Do not make the mistake of trying to figure sin out. In one sense, we can describe the pattern of sin and temptation, but we cannot ever make sense of sin. If sin made sense, it wouldn’t be sin. This means that every sin, no matter how small, is insanity in principle. Every pattern of …
You Betcher
In the second part of chapter five, Waters goes on to misrepresent me on some other issues, particularly on the subject of the perseverance and apostasy. While Wilson admits the existence and presence of hypocrites within the covenant community and stresses the necessity of the inward operations of the Holy Spirit for an individual’s salvation, …
Love in Trifles
You come here to display Your love for God, and this is good. But this cannot be done apart from your love for your neighbor, whom you have seen. The two great commandments are always together in Scripture, like husband and wife. A husband is not a wife, but without a wife, he is no …