The points made in the previous post apply in another way to the problem posed for sola fide by theological Arminianism. To be faithful to Scripture we have to reject all notions of “faith-plus-something-else” salvation. Salvation must be all of God. The ground of our salvation must be Christ and His work alone. Just as …
Faith Alone
Faith is the alone instrument that God uses to bring justification to the individual believer. This faith that He uses is the real thing, living faith, faith that looks to Christ alone (apart from any defective works that person might have). But a very common form of “defective works” would have to include defective theories …
What Is A Christian?
One of the stories circulating out there is that the federal vision folks have changed the definitions of words, words like Christian or justification. This is said because it is simply assumed (not demonstrated) that any expansion of a word’s uses must necessarily include an abandonment of previous uses. I was brought up in an …
Where is the Pulpit?
One of the common mistakes in creating hypothetical scenarios to test where someone “comes down” in the federal vision controversy is the mistake of saying, “How do you preach to the baptized? Do you preach as though they are unconverted, needing constantly to question? Or that they are converted, in need of encouragement?” The question …
More on Robbins
In a recent Trinity Review, John Robbins tackles the work of Richard Gaffin, and spends quite a bit of energy fulminating about the departures of said theologian from the traditional Reformed ordo salutis. In the course of his discussion, Robbins says, “Believers do not die with Christ ‘existentially’ or ‘experimentally,’ but legally. They do not …
Wineskins and Other Metaphors
A recent letter writer to Touchstone magazine (responding to a review of a couple of D.G. Hart’s books) says this: “If one wishes to locate a separate Protestant “confessional” tradition, where should one go? Conservative American Protestantism is root and branch a tradition that depends for its existence and vitality on revivalism and the historical …
Show Me a Token
Nothing reveals a person’s approach to epistemology more rapidly than trouble-shooting in conflict does. “What’s the trouble here? How did the trouble start?” Almost always the way this kind of question is answered serves to extend and continue the trouble. When Ahab decided to start worshiping Baal, the end result of this was a drought …
Reformation and our Children
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” (Mal. 4:5-6). One of …
Heresy Stew
Having become a heretic in the broader Reformed world, I am sometimes asked how I did it. What is the recipe? How might a young man who wants to cook up something similar go about the business? Here is the good news. You probably have the ingredients in your library . . . kitchen . …
Auburn Avenue Hubbub (AAH) Cool Quote #10
This is why God has to stoop down to us, which he does by means of the sacraments. This, then, is how we put on the Lord Jesus Christ at baptism . . . Thus, you see that our baptism becomes precious to us when we use it as a shield to deflect all assailing …