BELIEVETH IN HIM is holy Scripture, not tradition. The Scripture does not say, Whosoever believeth certain facts concerning Him, but, Believeth IN HIM. We are to believe in the Person, WHOM, and not merely the Proposition, WHAT. "I know WHOM I have believed," says the apostle. Sir, Do you believe in Jesus Christ? If you do not believe IN HIM, you shall surely perish in your sins, notwithstanding how much you know about Him.

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Yours sincerely,


"Illum oportet crescere me autem minui."

Hold on to your horses, get ready for some wildness, the above, according to Clarkians, simply draws false dichotomies. So, Matthew, by saying that we are to believe HIM and not (merely) PROPOSITIONS is a false dichtomy.

Yes, they say this with a straight face.

So the problem with you, Matthew (of course I'm being sarcastic here) is that when you say we are to trust in a PERSON and *not* a PROPOSITION, you've simply uttered a non-starter since you've not, technically, disagreed with the Clarkian since persons ARE propositions!

[Insert "your a naughty empiricist and scientist if you disagree with us" emoticon]

(We should also not fail to point out that this Clarkian assumption cannot be 'deduced' from the Bible and som we wonder how they know it.)

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Regards,

J.J.
PCA
Suffix

One must eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man in order to have eternal life, John 6:53. Merely knowing the qualities of His flesh and blood is not sufficient. This issue cannot be regarded as one of mere speculative interest. It is a matter of serious consequence. This is no time to be addressing men as disputants in philosophy. As noted earlier, this subject does not allow room for discussion. Ministers of the gospel are called to press the plain teaching of the gospel upon men's consideration; and the plain teaching of the Word of God is that we must believe IN HIM or we shall die in our sins.

This is precisely the thing that finally drew this former Clarkian to Dabney. Saved by the bell (of the South).

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Pastor Jerrold H. Lewis. (Dipl. IT; Assc. A; B.Th; M.Th Candidate, PRTS)
Lacombe Free Reformed Church
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How should certain phrases found throughout the Bible which differently express the idea of "believing" be understood (i.e. those which seem to imply the same meaning as "believing in Christ" yet do not use the preposition or list objects of belief other than "Christ the person" as that is being understood by most in this thread)? For example:

"And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness." Here Abraham is not said to believe "in" something in the way the term is being used here. He is believing the LORD, in other words, he believed in what the Lord said. He believed that God's promise was true.

Mark 1:15 says: "'The time has come,' he said. 'The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!'"

The good news is not a "person in whom" one believes. It is a set of propositions describing reality.

Luke 1:45 says: "Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!"

John 2:22 says: "After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken."

Several verses talk about believing "in his name."

John 5:47 says: "But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?"

A verse similar to the one which Rev. Winzer has quoted, concerning dying in one's sins, says: "I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins." Here Christ says that one will die in his sins for not believing propositions about Christ.

John 12:38, quoting from Isaiah equates believing the message with believing in a person: "This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet: 'Lord, who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?'"

In John 14:10, Jesus questions the faith of His disciples by asking them whether they believe certain propositions: "Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work."

In the high priestly prayer (here John 17:8), Jesus talks about his people being characterized as having accepted His words and having believed certain things about Christ: "For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me."

In these verses there doesn't seem to be a difference between believing "in Christ" and believing the message, words, propositions, etc.

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Davidius
Husband of Emilia
Member: First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham (RPCNA) - Durham, NC
Student: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, German Literature and Classics

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Well noted. It is for this reason that we do not accept the mystic idea that faith is void of propositional content. Faith is "notitia" and "assensus." But it is not bare "notitia" and "assensus." One must at least know and acknowledge WHAT Jesus Christ and salvation is; but one must also have trust (fiducia) in Jesus Christ for salvation. If we take the eating and drinking language of John 6:53, we see that faith is more than acknowledging the food of the soul, it is digesting and assimilating it also. Food does no good unless its nutritional qualities are broken down by the body and become part of the person's physical existence. Likewise Jesus Christ profits no person by mere knowledge of Him, but there must be a feeding upon Him and His benefits in order to receive eternal life. This feeding is an act of the whole soul, not merely the mind, but the will and affections also. It is a question in reformed theology whether the intellect or the will has primacy; but it is unquestioned that will and intellect are both involved in the act of faith. Hence the reformed faith allows no room for a bare intellectual faith.

What does it mean to "trust in Jesus Christ for salvation?" I mean, I have used the phrase over and over, and I have heard it repeated over and over, but if I was asked to explain it, I don't know if I could? Does trusting Jesus mean that you rely on His sacrifice as sufficient? That you rely on His righteousness rather than your own? That you rely on Him to make intercession for you?

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Brian Vandenburg
Attend Intown Presbyterian Church (PCA)
"The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, depends not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God."-Westminster Confession of Faith
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If you trust someone, you believe what they say is the truth, no?

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Jeff Bartel
Mechanical Engineer
Member - Trinity Reformed Church - RPCNA

"To believe in the power of man in the work of regeneration is the great heresy of Rome, and from that error has come the ruin of the Church. Conversion proceeds from the grace of God alone, and the system which ascribes it partly to man and partly to God is worse than Pelagianism" (The Reformation in England (London, 1962), Vol. 1, p. 98)

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Again, will anyone let me know if the clarkian/robbins thought is the same as Glas /Sandeman/McLean thoguht?

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N. Robert; Trinity Reformed Church RCA, Holland MI

Once in a while you can get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right."

That's what I would suppose it means.

Who are those guys?

***EDIT***

Nevermind. All I found out about them was that Glas and Sandeman repudiated the idea of a national church (seems fine) and that Sandeman rejected imputed righteousness (something which, from my little knowledge of Clark, I know that he did not do). The article on Sandeman mentioned some kind of "intellectualist" doctrine shared between him and Glas, but the description it gives is very vague.

Not necessarily. Do you trust your parents? What if they told you Santa Clause was real, and that he has a summer house in Miami, Florida?

Anyway, you can't fallaciously argue from affirming the consequent, so you'd have: "Christian trusts someone for their salvation." This is a rejection of the Clarkian position taken in this thread.

Lastly, my brother is intelligent, and one of the nicest people any of you would meet (unlike me!). He believes that the Bible is God's word. He believes that he is a sinner. He believes that Jesus is God incarnate. He believes that God is a trinity. He believes that God's law represents the best way for him to live. He still rejects Christianity. He refuses to bow the knee. He loves his sin too much. And, he even admits that he's being irrational about it all!

He thus believes the truth, yet isn't saved.

I take it that's case closed...

Well, as I see it, then you would trust your parents in some circumstances, but not in others. Trusting someone wholly would be believing EVERYTHING they say.

I agree that if one does not accept Christ as both Prophet Priest AND King, then he is not saved. However, my point is that I doubt that your brother truly believes what he says he does.

The point I was trying to get at in the post above is that in my understanding, trust is not so different from assent. They are in my mind two ways of looking at the same thing. Belief, trust, assent, reliance, faith...all different ways of saying the same thing. I have no problem with including trust as a part of saving faith, but I don't believe that Clark does either. I think that he was essentially saying the above.

It is for this reason that I brought up the passage from Paul's epistle to the Corinthians in which he states that the Word of the cross is foolishness to unbelievers. Does this mean that unbelievers can't assent to God's truth or that they can assent to it yet still not "believe"? I don't see how a person who thinks that God's Word is foolish can assent to it.

No, they are not the same thing at all:

Sandeman: "That the bare death of Jesus Christ without a thought or deed on the part of man, is sufficient to present the chief of sinners spotless before God."

Clark: "salvation is not obtained by knowing the propositions in the Bible and understanding their meaning. Obviously this is true. Many intelligent men know very well what the Bible says; they understand it far better than many Christians; but they are not saved and they are not Christians. The reason is that though they understand, they do not believe. They know what the Bible says, but they do not assent to it."

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R.Vic Bottomly
Providence Reformed Baptist Church, Tacoma, WA

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Jeff,

I think the main problem, as I see it, is that variations of Clark's thought end up being presented as if what is in view in Gospel preaching is getting the hearers to become convinced of the facts of the matter as in a logical set of propositions. I would not be surprised to see someone using logical notation to express what faith looks like according to some of the conceptions about it.

I really think it would be beneficial for folks to download Packer's History and Theology of the Puritans at RTS on iTunes U to get an idea about how the Puritans viewed especially the Preaching enterprise (just listen to the last two if you don't have time to listen to them all). The contrast in thinking and speaking becomes readily apparent. The Puritans can hardly be accused of depreciating logical formulation or precision but their idea that preachers were "Physicians of the Soul" and ought to even know how to appeal to the broad category of weak and strong, immature and seasoned, members of the congregation is incredibly rich.

Rev. Winzer's observation was spot on regarding definitions of words. The Puritans would have no patience for the man who failed to be precise in his words but also would have no patience with any that believed that the enterprise ended simply with a flawless presentation of the facts. A man who was unable to understand his flock and could not "rip up" the consciences of his hearers with the application of the Word was not considered a good preacher.

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Rich
Okinawa, Japan

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I second Rich's commendation for Packer. It was a great overview of the Puritans. He taught the course nearly two decades ago, but it is spot on in terms of whetting one's appetite for these spiritual doctors.

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Dennis E. McFadden, Ex Mainline Baptist (in Remission)
Atherton Baptist Homes, CEO
First Baptist Church of Alhambra, Member, Transformation Ministries (CA)

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But you didn't put THOSE QUALIFIERS in your ORIGINAL statement. I can only go on what you tell me.

Then nothing can falsify your theory. It's simply an a priori assumption (that you haven't exegeted from the Bible, btw). It should be relegated to those other unfalsifiable psychological theories.

You know, like psychological egoists. They say that every one always does everything from selfish reasons. So, the st