Habakkuk 2:14 and the PB

[BobVigneault]

Habakkuk 2:14 For the earth will be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.

I read this verse a couple days ago and thought of the responsibility of the Puritan Board members. The PB is not a church or a denomination. It is a forum characterized by a core of distinctives that include the five solas and the doctrines of grace. We strive for precision in our definitions, devotion in our worship and an acquisition of knowledge that edifies. Sometimes we tend to quibble too much over which doctrines should or should not inhabit the core of our theology. That's a good thing as long as pride doesn't poison the debate.

But my hope for everyone that comes here is that you realize your purpose on the earth. The commodity provided by the Puritan Board is knowledge and we have the privilege of being an instrument of God's means for filling the earth 'with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.' The internet certainly allows 'mice to roar' and cast information more broadly than we could have imagined 20 years ago.

One of the major contributions of the PB to this goal is the service of repairing 'buckets'. Each member brings his bucket to the PB. When I first joined I brought a 'sieve'. After having the privilege of sitting at the feet of some sanctified minds here, I can say that my small bucket is able to hold some water and I have been able to carry it back to my church, my family, my job and the rest of the earth.

So as we debate, entertain, fellowship, ask questions and provide answers let's keep our swords in one hand and our buckets in the other. Recognize that your bucket may need some mending but never stop carrying your share of 'the knowledge of the glory of the Lord' back to your sphere of influence. This knowledge will one day cover the earth and what a day that will be. Hallelujah!

2 Tim 2:24 And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

 

[JohnV]

Bob:

If you sit here long enough eventually someone will post something that coincides with your train of thinking. This comes pretty close. I've been re-thinking my part with the PuritanBoard for quite a while. I go and post again for a while, and then I'm silent again. I go on a reading binge, reading the PB posts, and then later I'm not interested in reading any of it. It goes back and forth, up and down, as I ponder the thoughts and concerns that I have.

I wrote a song, called The Ballad of Fred's Redemption. I'm working on it still, and its a thing I'm taking on as part of my thinking on these things. But its about a young lad who finds that his church is not keeping up with society and himself in the social questions of the Sixties and Seventies of the last century. His disenchantment leads him to despise hymn singing, and he turns to singing his own ballads, ballads about his own observations of our social ills. But one day the answers he cast aside catch up with the questions he thought they couldn't answer. And now his songs have changed.

What I'm trying to get across is the way things have changed in my lifetime. The PB, I believe, reflects a lot of this. What I see happening here is that the answers that church members cast aside a long time ago, via neo-orthodoxy and liberalism, are catching up with the questions that originally boasted greater relevancy, and showing that they really were relevant all the time, while the social questions were not.

I know that sometimes we get caught up in dogmatics, thinking that if we can't convince those who disagree with us, then we can throw the authority of the great forebears of the Church at them. If the weight of argument won't change them, then maybe the weight of authority will. We change from respectful discussion to frustrated accusations. And once we say something, its hard to take it back.

One thing that I've concluded is that, if this Board has standards of faith, and people who have applied for membership are received, then these members ought to be regarded as equal in every way. If they disagree with the standards, (and we can only hold them to the explicitly stated standard), then they may be admonished. But if they are in agreement with the standards, and we disagree with them, then they must, absolutely must, be treated as equal.

What I'm trying to get across is that we need to see how the things of half a century ago are influencing us yet today, and see how the social questions that brought on our present milieu has become bankrupt, while the simple answers which the Church preached at that time have come around again, have remained steadfast, and are now a lot more convincing than they used to be.

This line of thought go started in me when I read the lyrics of a song (I can't remember the name of it anymore), while I was studying the old hymns, about how the Amazing got back into Grace.

 

[BobVigneault]

Great thoughts John,

It reminds of how church history really does repeat itself though we as individuals often think that we are living in the most theologically significant age in history.

I was listening to a lecture regarding Luther and Melancthon. Luther said of himself "I am rough, boisterous, stormy, and altogether warlike.... I must remove stumps and stones, cut away thistles and thorns, and clear the wild forests, and master Phillip comes along softly and gently, sowing and watering with joy, according to the gifts which God has abundantly bestowed upon him."

That quote reminded me so much of the diversity we find here on a board where we are bound by confessions yet vexed by one another's approach and applications.

Melancthon was a friend to both Erasmus and Calvin. How can that be? Luther and Calvin would have killed each other had they been put together. Luther believed Swingli was of another spirit. Yet in these men the gospel was rediscovered and the foundation was set for reformation.

 

[panta dokimazete]

Wonderful posts!

I don't mind saying that you two are probably my "most favoritist" of PB posters.



Grace and Peace,

JD

 

[BobVigneault]

Why thank you JD, that means a lot to me. What do you say John, let's get together and write a song about JD.

 

[JohnV]

Yeah, thanks, JD. Its nice to hear.

Good example, Bob. It did take a number of decades to refine the Reformation itself. But finally the original answers of the basic doctrines of the church caught up with all the questions being raised by all sorts of people who wanted things to go in their own direction.

I've always been one who advocated that the big decision makers of the churches ought to have the option of being able to go home with the questions raised, think about them carefully and prayerfully, and then reconvene to discuss the answers or possible answers that the Bible gives us. And if they have to go home again to think things through some more, then they should. I just don't like the idea of time limits on matters of great importance to the church. If GA has to meet an extra two weeks, or meet over two years, then it should do so. If that's what it takes, then that's what it should take.

We kind of do that on this Board. If someone posts something that I can't respond to right away, or that I think needs some more thought, then I don't answer until I'm ready. Even if I have to sleep on it a few days, that's what I do. That's why you might notice that some of my posts are written early in the morning (my time zone), when there's very few people on the Board. Others do that too, waiting until they have their thoughts together before they post, I noticed. It sometimes takes me a couple hours to compose one post.

Now, it seems to me that we need to be able to tell things apart, seeing when someone opines well within the boundaries, or steps outside of it. I would suggest that calling credo's covenant breakers is itself a breaking of the PB covenant, as an example. We let them onto this Board because they meet the standards, but yet hold over them some kind of dogma in addition to those standards.

My main beef would be things like the matter of EP. Its not that I disagree with it per se, but that it has become in some respects a mark of orthodoxy for some. That puts it in the same cagegory as the form of Presuppositionalism that condemns other apologetic methodologies; or the triumphal kind of Postmillennialism that regards all other millennial views as doctrinally inferior if not false. Some have even suggested that a solid millennial view is prerequisite to proper theology.

These are not explicit in our standards, and can only be inferred by good and necessary consequence, not merely by sufficient argumentation to convince. There's a huge difference, but some actually cannot see the difference. Hence we have such ridiculous things as FV taking root in some churches. Its because we're weak, not because such things as these give good answers. In the case of FV it isn't iron sharpening iron, but some taking advantage of an assumed loophole in the doctrinal standards.

If a man can preach the Framework Hypothesis from the pulpit because the GA has okayed it as not being outside the WCF, then that means that the pulpit is open to all things that have liberty within the Confessions, whether or not they are actually doctrinally binding, just like the FH. So in one church the FH is doctrine, and in another the ADT (Analogical Day Theory), or DAT (Day-Age Theory) or the SDT (Six-Day Theory); or even each of these in four different churches within a Presbytery. And if that's possible, then why not the FV theory also. Who is to forbid it? Its not that this particular Amillennialist is going to eventually be a FV guy, but that if one minister may preach this, then why not another preach that?

Some think that the only way to combat FV is to get it classified as a heresy. But can't we all see that preaching anything as doctrine that is not doctrine is heretical? Even if its one of those isms that we personally think is right? For example, I might think that Amillennialism is the right view, but if I catch a minister preaching it as doctrine, then I tend to think that things like FV are not that far down the road by other preachers. Its a weak church that elevates these kinds of things to points of doctrine.

That's what I mean. When all the excitement is over, and things have run their course, then we're finally back to answering the same old questions with the same old answers as we had before we started thinking that these same old answers weren't relevant anymore. We go through historical phases, and then come right back the same things that the Church has had all the time. Its not that these things are brought into a new light, but that we ourselves have come to see the light, instead of being blinded by those flashes that stand for but a short time.

Some people think that we need to acquire a thicker skin, but I think that we need to understand that those flashes of our own intelligence are not as bright as the dimmest parts of the Bible.

 

[ChristopherPaul]

Why thank you JD, that means a lot to me. What do you say John...

I initially read this response as, "Why thank you JD, that means a lot to me. Why did you say John?"

I am tired, thanks for the edifying posts.

 

[puritan lad]

[sarcasm]Bob, don't we have to wait for the millennium for Habakkuk 2:14 to be relevant?[\sarcasm]

Just kidding. Wonderful post. May God give us all humility as we seek to further His kingdom.

 

[panta dokimazete]

Why thank you JD, that means a lot to me. What do you say John, let's get together and write a song about JD.

 

[bookslover]

Luther and Calvin would have killed each other had they been put together.

Oh, I don't think that's true. Luther read the first edition of Calvin's Institutes and thought highly of it.

They might have disagreed over which beer is the best, but that's a whole 'nuther conversation...

 

[kvanlaan]

Bob, I like the bucket illustration. I am not quite there yet (I've just got a teaspoon, not a bucket) but I find that if I run back and forth fast enough, the family gets watered after all, and the teaspoon is getting larger. I attribute that to the PB; it's like having a 24 hour accountability partner. When I have some time at work, it's where I go.

John, I think we have somewhat similar backgrounds and I enjoy hearing your point of view, in part because of this. There's a certain gezelligheid to them that perhaps allows one to follow the track of the argument a little more closely. Whether or not I always agree is not an issue, it is always thought-provoking and built on cultural/theological standards familiar to me. I confess that before I came to the PB, I had little knowledge of the Puritans; to me, the Dutch Calvinists were the standard to look to. The PB has opened my world up that much more (while keeping within the confines of Scripture), and I'm very thankful for it.

There are actually many posters that I love to see contributing; it seems that almost every individual has their own theological/doctrinal specialty.

The PB has truly been a blessing to me and my family. Thank you for raising this issue, Bob.

 

[Herald]

One of the major contributions of the PB to this goal is the service of repairing 'buckets'. Each member brings his bucket to the PB. When I first joined I brought a 'sieve'. After having the privilege of sitting at the feet of some sanctified minds here, I can say that my small bucket is able to hold some water and I have been able to carry it back to my church, my family, my job and the rest of the earth.

Bob - I can no longer lift my bucket out of fear that the bottom will fall out. I have a series of garden hoses running from my bucket that have numerous leaks of their own. Most days you can see me tending to new leaks with duct tape. "If you can't fix it...duct it!"

In absolute honesty I have come to realize that the amount I don't know about God and His word is far greater than what I do know. I've been a Christian since 1979. Yes, I've acquired a great deal of knowledge and can do an adequate job of holding my own in a theological discussion. But the question I have to ask is, "This impresses who?" Certainly not our Lord. I pray that my acquired knowledge will be used for God's glory. I pray that I may display Christ in both word and deed both within and without the church. May I never be haughty in the eyes others. May I be willing to swallow pride and be willing to learn from others. That is the value I have found on the PB.

Bob, thanks for you OP. It gave cause to reflect.

 

[JohnV]

Kevin and Bill:

I don't think it has anything to do with how much you know, but more with what you do with what you know. There are quite a few people that I've had dealings with in the churches that come across as knowing a great deal about one thing or another, but most every time they're advocating something that just can't be true.

It was Christian university professors who were saying (as if proving from Scripture) that parts of the Bible were culturally relative, and that therefore it could be just as faithful to the Scripture if we read Paul's admonition against women holding authority over men in his day as meaning the same thing as having women ministers in our day. Or that homosexuals could be just as much members of the covenant with their sexual orientation as we are, because Paul speaks against sexual slavery and its acts, not against what kind of partner one has.

Again, it was one of the most highly regarded teachers of our time that tried to tell me that only Postmillennialism and only Presuppositionalism were Reformed, and that the other views of each were laughably ignorant, even unfaithful; yes and one could even discern an insinuation that they were sinful. But no matter what their degree or office are, or who it is that says them, such things are poppycock. I don't even have to have a particular view on the millennium or on apologetics, and I'll still be welcomed into full fellowship in the church. I don't have to develope any views on these topics at any time in my life. They're not essential.

I don't even have a grade twelve education, but I do know the catechism and confession. And at no time was assent to any of these things required. And I continue to give none. I might not know much, but I know what my first confession was, and I'm not going to depart from that. Whatever you may think our Dutch heritage was, this was it: loving God and staying with the our first confession. (The Confession of Faith is the systemized, organized, doctrines of the Bible, so its the same thing as saying that one must stay true to the Bible's doctrines.)

So steadfastness in the confession means more than the amount of knowledge. And when the two don't agree, the first confession and subsequent knowledge, then go with steadfastness rather than knowledge until all doubt is cast aside. The only time you should depart from your original confession is not when the arguments are convincing enough, but when there is no longer any Biblical choice, when all doubt has been Biblically resolved.

I mean that, sure there still is a lot more that I don't know about the Trinity than what I do know, but there is no doubt anymore that the Bible speaks of God as three distinct persons and at the same time as one God. I can't doubt that anymore, because that is clearly enough revealed. I can't doubt that anymore! How that is so is another question, and I may have doubts about how I understand it, but that it is so is beyond doubt.

In the same way, I know what was required of me, and there was no assent to apologetic methodology, to a millennial view, to a lapsarian view, to a new perspective on Paul, to a new view of justification, to singing only the Psalms in church (though there certainly was something about singing the Psalms), and the list could go on and on. Anybody that tries to add to it without such Biblical support as is necessary, that has any shade of subjectivity in it, I won't believe. I don't care how thorough Girardeau is, I'm not biting. Its just not in the confession, and I have to think that this was done on purpose. If I do otherwise, then I'm leaning to my own understanding. That is, my own understanding becomes a foundation for something, it becomes what that something is standing on for its verification.

It seems to me that, if I'm a preacher, it doesn't matter if I raise my millennial view to a tenet that I hang on Jesus, saying that its His will, or if I'm advocating a whole new justification theory on the tenous ground that it was taught in the churches a long, long time ago: it is heretical all the same. Putting words in Jesus' mouth is putting words in Jesus' mouth. What words they are putting in Jesus' mouth is of a lot less importance to me than the fact that ministers are putting those words in Jesus' mouth. They are requiring of me to confess what Jesus never ever called me to confess. And that's the issue.

You can't cover all that up with a lot of scholastic talk and with words and meanings that go beyond my understanding. A scholarly man like Van Till or Plantinga may be able to speak for half an hour, and I hear every word he says, and yet not understand one word of it. But I'll know all the same whether or not he's asking of me to hold more than the confession requires of me.

So what I'm looking for on the PB is things that build on that first confession. I was brought up in a Reformed church. If some things are wrong, then it has to be shown me from the Bible, not from men's conclusions.

I can well understand a Baptist being of the same mind. I wouldn't have any qualms at all in calling him my brother if I could discern the same steadfastness in him to his first confession. He has to be shown from the Bible that baptizing children is right. That's the Spirit's job. I can only tell him about why I believe as I do, and how it is fully Scriptural and not mere opinion. At the same time, if I'm asking him to put his first confession on the block, I have to be ready to do the same. I approach each discussion with a Baptist on this Board in this way.

He's not a covenant breaker if he's holding on to what he believes the Bible to say. Good Lord, if we were covenant breakers because we did not understand what others did, then who of us is not a covenant breaker? What I can't abide is someone like an exclusive Presuppositionalist telling a Baptist he's not being faithful to the Bible. Good grief! Or someone who believes that we can sing only the Psalms in church dissing a FV-ist.

We're dividing up into sectarian groups, and all over things that are not required in the first place. We're not covering the earth with the knowledge of the Lord, but with our opinions on this or that or another thing, all of which are not explicitly required of us for our faith.

And as I said before, this breaks also with the PB covenant. All these groups are allowed onto the Board, (though not FV-ists anymore; that's fine with me.) If they're allowed on the Board, then they ought to be allowed to express their views within those standards without reproach. That's the implied agreement. So there's no room for much of the acrimony that has occurred here. We're getting worked up about things that are really not that important. We need to do a reality check on some of the things that we are attaching ourselves to beyond what is required of us for our faith.

Micah 6:8,
He has shown you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
But to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

 

[blhowes]

John,
As always, I appreciate the tone, thoughtfulness, and wisdom of your posts. Its refreshing.

I can well understand a Baptist being of the same mind. I wouldn't have any qualms at all in calling him my brother if I could discern the same steadfastness in him to his first confession. He has to be shown from the Bible that baptizing children is right. That's the Spirit's job. I can only tell him about why I believe as I do, and how it is fully Scriptural and not mere opinion. At the same time, if I'm asking him to put his first confession on the block, I have to be ready to do the same. I approach each discussion with a Baptist on this Board in this way.

This Baptist appreciates the attitude that you bring to the discussions. With regard to baptizing children, its good to be reminded (thanks) from time to time that though we are to do our best with our God-given intellect to work at discerning the truth, we're not alone, but the Spirit teaches. I guess the question of the day to ponder is, "Will I learn?"

 

[JohnV]

Bob:

I remember your struggles. Josh's too. It's not easy. I don't think that I have any wisdom, but I do know that we need each other for support more than we need each other for banging heads. I can't blame some of those who can't trust Presbyterianism. We deserve not to be trusted. While there are "special interest" churches within our ranks, we certainly are not to be trusted. That's part of your battle, whether you know it or not. Some have been wounded once too many times by the churches that ought to have been shelters from the storms of life.

It is my hope that we as PB members, no, rather as members of Christ's church at large, could be of help to each other where organized individual churches with harmful agendas may have failed.

It still has not been explained to me why it is wrong to have FV-ist churches within our denominations, while its OK to have Reconstructionist or Presuppositionalist, or whatevermillennialist churches. That's as two-faced as you can get. And it makes it hard for those who are truly seeking to find a church home. It hardly matters that FV guys are actually proposing a different justification: they're preaching the elevation to doctrine what is not doctrine. You actually think that putting a millennial view before theology is not a different justification too? Or a mandatory Presuppositionalism, which condemns other apologetic methodologies, is not also a different justification too? They surely are. Only they don't step as directly on our toes like FV does, so we don't pay as much attention. But they are all equally despotic, and equally heretical to the degree that they create doctrines which are not doctrines.

Or why is it OK for a minister to preach a different view of the creation days from the pulpit? There's nothing in the Bible or the Confessions about another theory. Has the GA decided that such and such a theory doesn't really oppose the Confessions? So what? That doesn't make it a doctrine, something the Word advocates. Very far from it. If a minister claims belief in the FH, and if he says it goes against his conscience to preach the six-day creation, then he ought to be barred from preaching and teaching on the creation; and if he can't preach and teach on the creation, then he can't preach and teach the whole council of God; and if he can't preach the whole council of God, then he can't preach at all. Simple as that. He still has every right to hold to his FH view, because it does not violate the confessional standard. But as a minister, he's not called only to "not violate the confessional standard", but to defend, preach, and teach the confessional standard. And the FH is not part of that; it is not part of the standard just because it does not violate the standard. The FH is nowhere near approaching the level of the six-day view. Nor is any other creation view. So why are these views allowed to be taught from the offices of the Church? These things have not been explained to me.

This makes it very hard for those who are struggling to understand the Reformed faith. They have all these things thrown in their path to cause them to stumble. Meanwhile the pillars of the churches have the freedom to apostacize within accepted or safe limits, as ruled by contemporary GA's and Presbyteries.

Just take the Reformed faith at face value, Bob. Never mind all these contemporary issues. And if you can't make out the baptism issue, don't worry about it. Very few Presbyterians can either, if truth be told. Understand first the most important things. Look at the Confessions, and notice what's important. What baptism is about far exceeds how it is to be done. That's the way to come to understand it. That's the way to represent it to your family.

Meanwhile, you're not any worse off than I am in finding a church that we can attend with a clear and restful conscience.

 

[blhowes]

Bob:
I don't think that I have any wisdom...

You're lucky this point wasn't the thread topic. You'd be surprised at the debate intensity you'd get!

...but I do know that we need each other for support more than we need each other for banging heads. I can't blame some of those who can't trust Presbyterianism. We deserve not to be trusted. While there are "special interest" churches within our ranks, we certainly are not to be trusted. That's part of your battle, whether you know it or not. Some have been wounded once too many times by the churches that ought to have been shelters from the storms of life.

My exposure to Presbyterianism is (very) limited. If you and the others on the PB are typical of Presbyterianism, then Presbyterianism (reformed, as opposed to PCUSA) is certainly not to be distrusted.

I've for the longest time had a pretty high view of Presbyterians, without having met any. While the Baptist churches I attended lumped Presbyterians in with the Roman Catholic church (because of infant baptism), it was always interesting to me that all the books I read over the years that had anything worth reading about were put out by Presbyterians.

Just take the Reformed faith at face value, Bob. Never mind all these contemporary issues. And if you can't make out the baptism issue, don't worry about it. Very few Presbyterians can either, if truth be told. Understand first the most important things. Look at the Confessions, and notice what's important. What baptism is about far exceeds how it is to be done. That's the way to come to understand it. That's the way to represent it to your family.

Good advice. I don't know if I'll ever cross over to the 'other side', but I go through times of studying the issue and then "mulling it over". Right now I'm in "mulling it over" mode. Over the years baptism has certainly been discussed extensively on the PB, the case for infant baptism has been made, and its compelling.

Meanwhile, you're not any worse off than I am in finding a church that we can attend with a clear and restful conscience.

I truly hope this will change for you soon.