“It is not a denial of SOLA FIDE to BELIEVE THE PROMISES.”
The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 903
Not Marbles in a Sack
“We have to remember that regeneration, repentance, faith, justification, and sanctification are not five marbles bonking around in a sack. They are descriptions of what I do, or have done to me. I receive a new heart. I repent. I believe. I have the righteousness of Christ imputed to me. I walk in newness of life. The traditional ordo has limitations, and because of those limitations, it is easy to misrepresent.”
The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 903
Perhaps Too Much
“You said that we should not say things like ‘faith is obedience’ without qualification because people will grossly misunderstand. That is quite right, which is why in my post I qualified the heck out of my statements. I qualify my head off. They will carve on my tombstone, ‘He qualified a lot.’”
The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 900
No Rabbinical Pretzels
“You should see obedient faith as the only kind of faith that God gives. It is obedient because it is breathing, just like it was told to . . . I do not have any problem saying that ‘a man is justified by obedience [doing what God says to do, the way He says to do it, and what He says to do is believe on Jesus Christ completely] apart from works of the law [disobediently twisting God’s words into a rabbinical pretzel that allows me to feel quite pleased with myself]’ That is not contradictory at all.”
The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 897
The Quality of Faith
“As I use it, obedient faith is a phrase that describes the quality of the faith, not the particular actions of that faith after the fact. For example, I can refer to an obedient child in two ways. The phrase can refer to the disposition of the child, which will result in actions in line with that disposition. But it could also mean a child was obedient because of an action or a series of actions he had performed.”
The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, pp. 896-897
So You Are Saying You’ve Changed Then?
“But I have been clear on all these things for lo, these many years. I have had a significant pile of things attributed to me which I hotly deny, and then, when my denials start to get through, somebody says, ‘well, why didn’t you say so?’ Or they say that they are glad that I have finally started to repudiate my errors.”
The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 887
Nothing of What He Needs
“It is pernicious and false to say that at baptism each member of the covenant has been given all that he needs in order to persevere. If a covenant member is unregenerate he has nothing of what he needs to persevere.”
The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 886
Seriously. No Dead Faith
“But what is the qualitative nature of the faith that justifies? It is a gift of God, lest any should boast, and this means that the faith involved is the kind of faith that God only ever gives. When a man is justified by faith alone, it is never by a faith that is alone—it is ‘ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but works by love’ (WCF 11.2). In short, justifying faith, a saving gifts from the living God, is by definition not dead. Dead faith gets nothing in the stocking but coal. But that ought not to worry us, because God never tried to save any man by giving him dead faith” ().
The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 882
Dropped From Heaven
“Nor does it mean the kind of confessionalism intended by some, where they don’t believe you can possibly understand the Heidelberg unless you can read it in the original Arabic.”
The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 880
Should Have Done Better
“It is difficult, in the middle of a saloon brawl, to distinguish the motives of loyalty, manly principle, stubbornness, and cussedness. That is correct. It is difficult, but I still should have done a better job. I am responsible for not having done so, and I thought I needed to say so publicly.”
The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 877