Here
Didn't have time to figure out which forum to place this in, so please move where appropriate.
Here
Didn't have time to figure out which forum to place this in, so please move where appropriate.
Rev. Adam J. Myer
Estacada Christian Church
Sandy, Oregon
ChBOLC
Soli Deo Gloria
Brian Bosse (06-25-2009), ColdSilverMoon (06-25-2009), Josiah (06-25-2009), Scott1 (06-25-2009), SolaScriptura (06-25-2009)
This gave me a tickle:
Calling a Baptist “Reformed” is like calling Presbyterians “Baptist” because they believe in believer’s baptism.
Josh
CCRPC, RPCGA
Board Rules -Signature Rules
How absurd a tenet is this, which holdeth that there is some particular worship of God allowed, and not commanded? What new light is this which maketh all our divines to have been in the mist, who have acknowledged no worship of God, but that which God hath commanded? Who ever heard of commanded and allowed worship? - George Gillespie
YAY! I was soooo hoping he'd have a comment or two about this matter!
Signed,
Fan Girl
Patricia
Communicant Member
Westminster Presbyterian Church, PCA
College Station, TX
Give yourself to prayer, to reading and meditation on divine truths: strive to penetrate to the bottom of them and never be content with a superficial knowledge.
David Brainerd
Josiah (06-25-2009)
A very good comment from Dr. Clark, especially his exegesis of the super-Apostles text and how FV advocates are a modern parallel.
I have one question and two comments. Not being familliar with the ins and outs of NPP/FV let alone where Wilson's views unite and differ with the standard NPP/FV position, has Wilson ever repudiated the NPP/FV's "the radical re-definition of 'justification' to a socio-religious boundary marker" in favour of the “forensic declaration by God that a sinner is accepted by God on the sole basis of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness and received the faith resting and receiving alone?”
My first comment is that Piper seems to be reading into Wilson's neo-Presbyterian view of covenant membership through the lens of Baptist ecciesiology as if they were the same thing. But they aren't.
My second comment is: beware double negatives! Dr. Clark wrote ""Both groups still deny that, after all this time, after all these pixels and all the ink spilled, their critics still do not understand them!" Perhaps he meant to write: "both groups still affirm...their critics still do not understand them?"
In Christ's love and service
Mr. Tim Cunningham,
BMus. (Trombone Performance), University of Toronto
Dip. CS, Regent College, Vancouver
Member, First Baptist Church
Vancouver, BC
------------
"I once sat in darkness, and waited for the moon to rise.
I once sat in darkness, and waited for the sun to shine.
I once sat in darkness, when all the light I'd waited for was gone.
Then Jesus came, and now the only true light, ever, shines in me."
– John Deacon -
He said panoply.![]()
Andrew ThornquistMy Photo Album
Calvinistic Baptist![]()
Ukiah, California![]()
To follow Christ was the best decision God made for me!
On your question, I would say that Wilson affirms that justification is a forensic declaration by God that a sinner is accepted by God on the sole basis of the imputation of Christ's righteousness, and received by faith alone. Where it becomes trickier is in his denial of the law/gospel distinction as normally formulated (he believes that law and gospel are not two categories of Scripture itself, but rather two applications that can come from any Scripture), and also the nature of faith itself, both of which issues factor in heavily and create confusion when they are not articulated clearly. He is too close, in my opinion, to Shepherd's formulation that we are justified forensically by a living and active faith, as if the living and active part of faith was the reason that we are justified. Still, if one places him on a teeter-totter, he is still on the orthodox side, in my opinion. But he does not have the clarity of the WCF on this.
Rev. Lane Keister
Teaching Elder, PCA, North Dakota (working out of bounds in a CRC and an RCA church)
http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com
http://brahmsgreenglove.blogspot.com
http://accenttranslation.blogspot.com
Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?
Now I am no fan of Shepherd (I think he did a poor job of supervising Bahnsen's MTh thesis) but I have not studied his recent views in detail.
I fully affirm that works have no place in justification whatever, but isn't the statement "Faith alone justifies but the faith that justifies is never alone" essentially making the same point as saying that the only "faith" that will in the end result in justification is a living and active faith? Or does Shepherd mean something else by his formulation?
In Christ's love and service
Mr. Tim Cunningham,
BMus. (Trombone Performance), University of Toronto
Dip. CS, Regent College, Vancouver
Member, First Baptist Church
Vancouver, BC
------------
"I once sat in darkness, and waited for the moon to rise.
I once sat in darkness, and waited for the sun to shine.
I once sat in darkness, when all the light I'd waited for was gone.
Then Jesus came, and now the only true light, ever, shines in me."
– John Deacon -
Shepherd means what the Roman Catholic Church means: justification cannot happen unless the faith is formed by love. In other words, the living-ness and the active-ness of faith is the reason it justifies, rather than the fact that it lays hold of Christ's righteousness. Of course, they will respond that it cannot lay hold of Christ's righteousness unless it is alive. Yes, of course. But that is different from saying that it is faith's aliveness that is the instrument, rather than the nature of faith itself. Hope this is clear. Shepherd is a false teacher.
Rev. Lane Keister
Teaching Elder, PCA, North Dakota (working out of bounds in a CRC and an RCA church)
http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com
http://brahmsgreenglove.blogspot.com
http://accenttranslation.blogspot.com
Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?
ColdSilverMoon (06-25-2009), Dearly Bought (06-25-2009), Reformed Rush (06-25-2009)
Wilson being examined by his own presbytery in his own denomination is like the pope being examined by a college of cardinals whom he has appointed!![]()
Matt
Reformed Baptist
United Reformed Church
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