Theology That Bites Back
“But there is a place of integration, a point where everything hangs together. In Christ, do law and grace meet in perfect harmony? If someone hates Christ, repelled by His aroma, do they recoil from both law and gospel, or from just one? In Christ, what do law and gospel do? According to the Westminster Confession, they do ‘sweetly comply’ with one another.”
The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 770
“A minister is like a licensed electrician. He has to wire the room so that the lights work. But a child can flip on the lights. I want high standards for the theological electricians because this is the house of the Lord, and don’t want it to burn down. I want low standards (work with me here) for the people who live in the house. I want every three-year-old with curious fingers, and a rudimentary knowledge of cause and effect, to able to reach that light switch.”
The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 765
“The latitudinarians receive as Christ’s those who are manifestly not Christ’s and the sectarians reject those who manifestly are.”
The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 764
“Regeneration cannot be understood apart from the doctrine of generation. And if a person is of their father the devil, that is their problem of generation, which can only be addressed by means of a glorious regeneration.”
The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 761
“I have gone through enough theological paradigm shifts to know when it is happening. I used to be Arminian, and now am Calvinist. I used to be baptistic and now am paedobaptistic. I used to be premill and now am postmill. I have learned to recognize it when the scenery changes outside the car window. But I was brought up as an evangelical Christian, I am an evangelical now, and if the doctrine of perseverance is what I take it to be, I will die an evangelical. Bottom line, this means that I hold that a man must be born again, must be given a new heart, in order to see the kingdom of heaven. I don’t care how many chicken bones the priest threw in the air at his baptism. If he is not converted to God in his heart by the glorious gift of the Spirit, then he is going to Hell.”
The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 760
“At some point in the discussion Wilson began to spit sixteen penny nails. He maintained that this was necessary to keep him from swallowing them.”
The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 758
“Every other year I teach through the Westminster Confession to our ministerial students. It is a practice I commend to some of our critics. There are some lost valleys in there that no white man has ever seen.”
The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 758
“As I have maintained, clearly I do not want to substitute biblical language in for confessional language. I want confessional language, believing it to be necessary and edifying in its place. What I object to is the restriction that has been placed on using biblical language ever. So the question is not whether we use biblical language or confessional language. The issue is when we are to use each, because we must use each.”
The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 758
“Signs signify. Seals do more than that. When we say that baptism is a sign and seal of the covenant, we are saying more than that baptist is a ‘sign and another kind of sign’ . . . The grace signified (sign) by their baptism is really exhibited and conferred (sealed) at God’s appointed time, in the power of the Spirit. This is not a place where I have to take an exception to Westminster. I would be happy to do so and have taken an exception to the Westminster Confession at other places. But I don’t have to do so here. Their position is mine.”
The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 755
“Granted that true faith is necessary, how does this faith arrive? If it is genuine faith, how does it get here? One view says that it is shipped, and it arrives in a box. You open the box, take the bubble wrap off, and hold it up so the elders can see if it is the same kind they got. The other view of faith is that it grows. Timothy had the same faith that his mother and grandmother had (2 Tim. 1:5). Now, if true faith can grow from a seed, those guarding the Table must know what it looks like at every point along the continuum—first the blade, then the ear, then the full head. My toddler grandchildren coming to the Table have true faith—but it is blade faith. We’re not anywhere near done”
The Auburn Avenue Chronicles Vol. 2, p. 754.
