“Despite all the intramural differences in how we put things, it is distinct from a strict merit system which sees Adam as the first failed Pelagian.”
High in the Rockies
“I am a high Calvinist. For almost twenty years, I have been standing here well past the tree line, up amongst the boulders. I am prepared to be rebuked for lots of things but living in a semi-Pelagian swamp is not one of them. Try something else. Try something plausible.”
Dikai-Decimals
“For some that naïveté is a function of having decided thirty years ago to translate all discussions of theology into the metric system, just to keep life simple. If ten won’t divide into it, then it can’t be part of the dikai-word group. For others the reason for the naïveté is more obvious—graduate school is still a fresh memory. They are just out of the egg with bits of shell on their heads.”
Like Annie Oakley
“Shooting reformational solas into the air is not the same thing as defending the faith.”
Works as Grace After Reverse Engineering
“The non-elect reject God’s grace. That is the distinguishing mark of the non-elect; they cannot live by grace through faith. But they are surrounded with the apparatus of grace—Word, sacraments, promises, fellowship, and so on. Grace is everywhere—except in their hearts. So what they do (and they always do it) is construct a covenant of works out of the materials around them. This is the high rebellion of reverse engineering. This is why people can come to the Lord’s Table as though they were doing a good work, or they sign a card at the revival, or the memorize the Shorter Catechism. They can take pride in a confession of unworthiness. Who among us has not known a Calvinist who was proud of his knowledge that creatures cannot take pride in anything?”
I Usually Don’t Come Close
“The current plan is to review [By Faith Alone, Johnson/Waters] thoroughly in this space. By ‘review it’ I mean that I intend to take it apart brick by brick, and if the past is any indicator of the future, I intend to snap any flawed brick in two, and throw at least one half of that brick at the moon.”
Christ and Moses
“A man under conviction of sin can be just as worked over by the Sermon on the Mount as by the Ten Commandments. That doesn’t make it appropriate to state as a hermeneutical principle that Christ now has to be Moses. This is why I prefer to speak of use, rather than hermeneutic.”
The Bubble Bath of Orthodoxy
We “also speak in numerous places, of a decretal election, settled and sealed before all worlds, in which the elect of God are named and numbered, and with a number that cannot be increased or diminished. But there no sense bring that up here—it would only serve to confuse people who have settled into the warm bubble bath of orthodoxy and wish to have no pounding on the bathroom door.”
Where the Law/Gospel Divide Actually Is
“I prefer to speak of a law/gospel use, rather than hermeneutic. Just as the law is one, but there are three uses of the law, so with this. Instead of assuming that the Scriptures come in two categories, I prefer to speak of the human race coming in two categories—the regenerate and unregenerate. For the regenerate, the entire Bible is gospel, good news. The gospel is obviously gospel, and the law falls under the third use of the law. The regenerate believer looks to Scripture and finds Christ everywhere. Christ in the manna, Christ in the water, Christ in the sacrifices, Christ in the law. He finds Christ in the promises and Christ in the law. To the unregenerate, the law is simply condemnation. For the elect who are unregenerate, this condemnation drives them to Christ and therefore functions asa servant to the gospel. For the unregenerate who are not elect, this condemnation drives them away. All this is simply standard for Reformed believers. But we have to note that for the unregenerate who are not elect, the gospel does exactly the same thing that the law does—it is the aroma of death (2 Cor. 2:14-16).”
The Chariots of Recapitulation
“Those who want the Mosaic law to recapitulate the covenant of works from the Garden need to be aware that works will always drive out grace. To mix the covenant of works into the Mosaic administration of grace will ensure that the grace of the law will be entirely supplanted. It is astonishing that through this book, the recapitulated sense of law and condemnation has almost entirely effaced the Westminsterian understanding of the graciousness manifested at Sinai . . . God had brought the Jews out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, but apparently the hosts of recapitulation had not been drowned like Pharaoh, but chased them out into the wilderness, caught up with them, and subjected them again to a yoke of slavery.”