A couple years ago, I started posting a series of notes on the Westminster Confession. But I never finished posting them, I didn’t like the format I was using, and there I was, like the guy with the half-finished tower in the gospels. Not to mention the prospect of having to exposit that stuff about …
Conservatives Blitz Anyway
I believe it was Samuel Francis who said that Washington D.C. was run by two political parties — the Evil Party and the Stupid Party. The same thing is true in contemporary ecclesiastical politics. We have the people who are selling out the “faith once delivered,” and then there are those who are clueless about …
Chugging In the Meadow
What does it look like when the Presbyterian locomotive jumps the rails and finds itself chugging valiantly through a meadow? Let a recent statement from Evangel Presbytery (PCA) answer the question. HT: Jeff Meyers Evangel Presbytery declares that the doctrines of the “New Perspective on Paul,” “Auburn Avenue Theology/Federal Vision”, and teachings of Norman Shepherd, …
Last Post on Waters
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). …
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, …