Just got this in Belfast today; anyone else read it?
Just got this in Belfast today; anyone else read it?
Daniel Ritchie
Saintfield, Northern Ireland - Queen's University, Belfast:History/Politics
Member of Dromara Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland (Covenanter)
Yep, I thought it was very good although some of the earlier chapters went a little over my head due to the Greek and Hebrew.
Richard
CofE
UK
It is an extremely helpful book, in my opinion.
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?
P.S. I especially enjoyed the articles by Duguid, Van Drunen/Clark, and Clark.
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?
Great book!
D.L.Cox![]()
Christ Reformed Chruch, Anaheim, Ca.
URC
Everyone loves it!!
Daniel Ritchie
Saintfield, Northern Ireland - Queen's University, Belfast:History/Politics
Member of Dromara Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland (Covenanter)
Except the FV. I expect that the NPP guys don't like it very much either.
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?
Daniel:
The book was well done and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Rev. Daniel Kok
Pastor of Grace Reformed Church (URCNA)
Leduc, Alberta CANADA
"What sort of pledge and how great is this of love towards us! Christ lives for us not for himself!"
John Calvin, Commentary on the Hebrews (7:25)
My elder has it and recommends it. He says it's quite scholarly with perhaps more footnotes than actual text (a good thing). And when he's finished he will lend it to me.
Kevin Guillory
Pastor
Redeemer Christian Congregation
Baltimore, MD
I don't interpret Scripture. Scripture
interprets itself. And in the process ...
Scripture interprets me!
I'm reading it right now and it's excellent!
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Jim
An Elder, Harvest Reformed Church (RCUS),Minot, ND
http://www.harvestreformedchurch.org/
http://tbftgoggi.wordpress.com/
Upon a life I did not live; upon a death I did not die, Another's death, Another's life, I'd rest my soul eternally
Omnia dicta fortiora,si dicta Latina
Si vis pacem, para bellum
When I finish John Frame's book I will have to start it.
Daniel Ritchie
Saintfield, Northern Ireland - Queen's University, Belfast:History/Politics
Member of Dromara Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland (Covenanter)

For a healthy critique of this book, I encourage you to read Rev. Mark Garcia's review No Reformed Doctrine of Justification
Also, his recent lectures at the Thirteenth Annual Lynnwood Reformed Conference address many of these issues, and I think are valuable. Lynnwood Orthodox Presbyterian Church (under: audio-13th conference)
Not everyone in the anti-FV reformed camp is convinced the direction of this book is the best way to answer FV.
Another book for me to buy... My wife is going to kill me.
Benjamin P. Glaser, M. Div, Licentiate, Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church
Ruling Elder Fairmount ARP Church
Pittsburgh, PA
"I am as happy as perhaps creation can make me. I enjoy all the necessaries and most of the conveniences of life. I have a peaceful study as a refuge from the hurries and noise of the world around me, the venerable dead are waiting in my library to entertain me..." --Samuel Davies
Deo Vindice
Mark Garcia has now published his study of Calvin's duplex gratia soteriology. Pricey, but worth it.
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?
That was indeed a very interesting review. Have any of the contributors to CJPM responded to it at all?Now, it needs to be mentioned that the problem here is not merely historical but the inevitable neglect of the theological benefit of Reformed theology on this point. Put most concisely, appreciating the biblical truth that sanctification does not result from justification, but is an aspect, like justification, of our union with Christ, alone safeguards the doctrine of justification against the Roman Catholic error. If we argue, with CJPM, that justification is the cause of sanctification, then we attribute to justification a generative, transformational quality (in that sanctification is generated or produced by justification) and thus, ironically in view of the driving concern in CJPM, compromise the purely forensic character of justification, its nature as a declarative act rather than the beginning of a work. This is the liability of the Lutheran model, but it is a liability that is entirely avoided in the Reformed model according to which justification and sanctification come to us as distinct, inseparable, simultaneous benefits of union with Christ, rather than one coming from the other (cf. WLC 69). CJPM urges a model which could have been pulled directly from the Formula of Concord. The Reformed model, however, best reflects the Apostle Paul’s own as it is expressed, for instance, in 1 Corinthians 1:30.
Ruben
Moderator
F.P.C.I.
Indiana
Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New; which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favour.
Francis Bacon, "Of Adversity"
Board Rules - Signature Requirements - Suggestions?
Calvinistas Conversando
Teología en Mexico
The Howling Wilderness
Ruben:
See here.
Rev. Daniel Kok
Pastor of Grace Reformed Church (URCNA)
Leduc, Alberta CANADA
"What sort of pledge and how great is this of love towards us! Christ lives for us not for himself!"
John Calvin, Commentary on the Hebrews (7:25)
Thanks!
Ruben
Moderator
F.P.C.I.
Indiana
Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New; which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favour.
Francis Bacon, "Of Adversity"
Board Rules - Signature Requirements - Suggestions?
Calvinistas Conversando
Teología en Mexico
The Howling Wilderness
I found this part of Mr. Garcia's critique to be quiet disturbing.Garcia says that the doctrine of the imputation of the active obedience of Christ is not found "even 'seminally' " in Calvin before the last edition of the Institutes 1559. Garcia is simply wrong. Surely the doctrine is present more than seminally in these words of Calvin in his 1539 Commentary on Romans: "When, however, we come to Christ, we first find in Him the exact righteousness of the law, and this also becomes ours by imputation."
Daniel Ritchie
Saintfield, Northern Ireland - Queen's University, Belfast:History/Politics
Member of Dromara Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland (Covenanter)
From the original article:
Church site http://www.immanuelopcpgh.org/Mark A. Garcia is the pastor of Immanuel Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Oakdale, Pennsylvania.
Rev. Daniel Kok
Pastor of Grace Reformed Church (URCNA)
Leduc, Alberta CANADA
"What sort of pledge and how great is this of love towards us! Christ lives for us not for himself!"
John Calvin, Commentary on the Hebrews (7:25)
Daniel Ritchie (05-11-2008)
From the response to the review.
It seems that the hinge of this controversy is union with Christ.In light of this we would appeal to Garcia to uphold this sense of priority of justification to sanctification in the ordo salutis. This is not a doctrine to be embraced in place of union with Christ, but our theology of union must be compatible with this doctrine. We ought not begin with an abstract doctrine of union, conceived independently of the concrete blessings of justification, adoption, and sanctification, and then deduce from this abstract doctrine the idea that justification, adoption, and sanctification must be received simultaneously through union without a defined relationship to each other. Union with Christ (or any other doctrine) should not become a central dogma from which we derive everything else. Garcia refers several times to 1 Corinthians 1:30 ("He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption"). Certainly this verse indicates that our justification and sanctification are received in union with Christ, which we gratefully acknowledge. But this verse should not be freighted with more weight than it can bear. Though Paul is not teaching any particular priority of justification to sanctification in this passage, he does teach such a priority elsewhere. Garcia also refers to WLC 69 in support of his position ("The communion in grace which the members of the invisible church have with Christ, is their partaking of the virtue of his mediation, in their justification, adoption, and sanctification, and whatever else, in this life, manifests their union with him"). This statement also rightly connects our justification and sanctification to our union with Christ. But clearly it does not teach that justification and sanctification bear no ordo relationship to each other. If anything, WLC 69 warns us against starting with an abstract doctrine of union from which we deduce the relationship (or lack thereof) between justification and sanctification. The WLC points us precisely to justification, adoption, and sanctification as those blessings that manifest our union. If we want to understand union, then, we must look to our justification, adoption, and sanctification. These blessings show us what our union with Christ is.
Ruben
Moderator
F.P.C.I.
Indiana
Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New; which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favour.
Francis Bacon, "Of Adversity"
Board Rules - Signature Requirements - Suggestions?
Calvinistas Conversando
Teología en Mexico
The Howling Wilderness
Hermonta Godwin
Christ The King PCA
Raleigh, NC
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