My spam filter catches hundreds of invitations a day — invitations to check out these mortgage rates, these crazy chicks, these unbelievable cell phone offers, and more. One nagging question concerns why these companies go to all this effort. Does anybody actually get their mortgage this way? And the answer has to be yes. Otherwise, there would not be all this traffic, The percentages may be extremely low, but apparently (judging from the volume of invitations) there is enough of a response to keep these fellows in business.
And this is why I am taking the time to answer John Robbins. However much he has discredited himself in the responsible Reformed world (consigning C.S. Lewis to Hell, attacking the Apostles’ Creed, and much, much more), he still has a hearing in certain quarters. And some of the people who listen to him are dear Christian people.
On page 33 of Not Reformed At All, Robbins/Gerety say: “Wilson lets us know that by redefining this word, he is simultaneously re-structuring all other doctrines. Please keep that in mind as we examine what he says.” The word under discussion here is Christian.
The thing to emphasize at this point is that Robbins/Gerety are incapable of understanding what their opponents are saying. They say, “It is not Wilson’s point that ‘the word Christian can be used in two senses.’ That is trivial, and he is being disingenuous.” But of course, that is precisely my point. The word Christian has more than one legitimate biblical usage, and I want to use them both.
Jesus said to make disciples by baptizing them as such. Such disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. This is the category I understand as Christian by covenant.
But there is another category — those who are born again to God, those who worship in Spirit and truth, those who are regenerate, and any other phrase you might take from traditional soteriology. This is the kind of Christian who goes to Heaven when he dies.
Why can’t Robbins/Gerety understand this? They don’t want to.