David King - Justification and The Auburn Avenue Controversy

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Most people are on the right, and we're in the wrong state for that, but that's okay. It's all right.
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This morning our first presentation is on the subject that we touched on last evening, but from a
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Presbyterian perspective, a Reformed Presbyterian perspective, my good friend David King will be speaking to us this morning.
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I insisted, as he will tell you, that we needed to put Pastor King's material on the screen for you.
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I hope that you'll be able to especially see the references at the bottom. There is so much material here that you'll want to be taking notes on that I really wanted to make sure that it was visible to everyone, and so I hope you'll take the opportunity of utilizing the tremendous amount of time that I know
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David has invested in this presentation, and so without any further ado, because we have a lot of material to cover, let me ask you to welcome
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Pastor King to the podium this morning. Thank you. Well, I am grateful to be with you here today, and still trying to get used to the idea that James asked me to do this.
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It was a little bit misleading. He said, I asked him, coming into Georgia, were they going to have some comforts that I could relate to from Georgia?
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And I inquired about the grits, and he told me they don't serve grits here for breakfast.
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That's very misleading. If you ate at the buffet this morning, you will have found that they were serving them.
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James insisted that without the added use of this sacrament this morning called
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PowerPoint, that I would lose all of you without this visual impingement.
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So we have this, and I'm grateful for that. Hey, as we begin today, why don't we look to the
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Lord in prayer, okay? Let's pray. Great God of heaven, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, we bow before you this day and acknowledge that you're a sovereign over all.
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You're the one who has made us, and not we ourselves. And then those of you who belong to you this morning, we confess that you're the one who has made us once again by act of regeneration in the
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Lord Jesus Christ. We come to you in his name this day, and we ask,
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O Father, that you would be with those of us who speak, that you would grant us clarity of thought and expression.
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And Father, we pray that your truth would be underscored, that the
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Lord Jesus Christ would be exalted, that you would grant us as a result of this day a greater appreciation for his person and work, and that you would grant that we would love him even more for having fellowship around him this day.
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Bless them this time. Sanctify it for your use in our own hearts.
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And we ask all these blessings for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name and by whose merits we draw near to you, with these our pleas.
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Amen. Now, to let you know up front that there is some reason to my madness,
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I've more or less broken down my address in the four points. I want to make an opening statement with respect to the doctrine of justification by faith, and then
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I want to, in the second place, talk about some aspects of the Auburn Avenue controversy for which
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I'm grateful. Then in the third place, I'd like to examine some areas, particularly with respect to the sacraments, that I think are problematic about this approach.
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And then in the last place, I would like to offer, fourthly, some concluding remarks on justification by faith.
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I was reminded in seminary, oftentimes by my professor of systematic theology, that Philip Melanchthon prayed
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God on his deathbed that he might be delivered from what he called the
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Rabiae Thalagorum, the raving madness of the theologians.
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I think it's true that oftentimes we can be sidetracked by things that are secondary and peripheral issues, perhaps that cluster around the gospel.
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But certainly central and primary to the proclamation of the gospel in the
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Bible is that of the doctrine of justification by faith. You and I are living today in challenging days when this biblical doctrine is increasingly coming under attack, not only from non -Protestants, but sadly from professing evangelicals offering such sophisticated expressions of rejection as hooey and hogwash.
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And particularly by the proponents of the New Perspective, or perhaps
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I should say the New Perspectives on Paul. Now there are a number of common tenets which all adherents of the
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New Perspective share. All of them agree. And one of the things that they agree on is that Paul's doctrine of justification by faith in the analysis, or by the analysis of the
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Reformers, is wrong. They're saying that they all agree that the
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Reformation's analysis of Paul's doctrine of justification by faith alone was wrong.
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And personally every Reformed theologian whom I've read, whom
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I've heard, they've offered this same observation. Recently on a website one of the proponents of the new federal vision position insists, quote, the attempt to make right ecumenical interpretation of justification some sort of evidence of a downgrade in theology or a denial of the division between Protestant and Roman Catholic soteriology is simply misguided and misleading.
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I disagree with that and it's interesting to me that recently while being interviewed by Mark Deaver on the 9
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March ministry leadership interview and seminar series, Dr. Ligon Duncan related this following observation.
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One of the men who was interviewing Dr. Duncan noted that he himself had remembered the occasion of an event in which he was present at when
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Tom Wright lectured, I believe this was in he said 1993 or 1994 in England, and asking him afterwards when
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Wright had said that Luther had gotten Romans wrong, this man asked
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N .T. Wright how Luther had gotten Romans wrong and he asked him how he had understood justification and then the man asked
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N .T. Wright have you ever read the decrees of the sixth session of the
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Council of Trent and Wright responded at that point that he hadn't and the man said well
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I think if you did you would find some understanding of justification very similar to that which you yourself laid out tonight and then upon hearing that Ligon Duncan responded and said oh let me collaborate that.
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He said Guy Waters, another colleague of ours, a Duke graduate who studied with E .P.
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Sanders and Richard Hayes at Duke, worked in early Judaism and New Testament Christianity.
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He was in a seminar with Ed Sanders and for his seminar topic he chose to do a survey of 20th century
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Roman Catholic New Testament scholarship on Paul, the law, and justification and he handed it in to Sanders and I'm quoting
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Duncan here, Sanders said this is fascinating stuff, never read any of this material before but if I had
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I would have given them credit for my thesis. Well that's just an open acknowledgment.
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Dr. Duncan noted that they're acknowledging exactly what he's saying. Now it cannot be emphasized enough today that with respect to the doctrine of justification by faith alone, in Christ alone, the
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Reformation speaks with one voice. John Calvin said that the doctrine of justification by faith alone, this is the main hinge on which religion turns and we devote the greater attention and care to it.
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He says, for unless you first of all grasp what your relationship to God is and the nature of his judgment concerning you, you have neither a foundation on which to establish your salvation nor one on which to build piety toward God.
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And in his reply to the Roman Catholic Cardinal Sadele, Calvin said that the doctrine of justification by faith, wherever the knowledge of it is taken away, the glory of Christ is extinguished, religion abolished, the church destroyed, and the hope of salvation utterly overthrown.
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Now let me mention this morning in the second place some aspects of the controversy for which
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I'm grateful. Given the overall picture of the present state of Christendom in the world today and especially in the
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United States as influenced and characterized by, but certainly not limited to, the spirit of egalitarianism, individualism, revivalism, the exaltation of one's own subjective personal experiences, the common attitude of me and my
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Bible, I am grateful for the renewed stress on the importance of the
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Church of Jesus Christ and its corporate life that has come to the forefront in this controversy.
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We do need to learn afresh, you and I, to divest ourselves of this incipient individualism which very corrosively eats away at the very heart of the community, of the corporate community, of the family of God.
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We need to discover again the community of faith, the interrelatedness, and the interdependence of the believing life that we as Christians, as living stones, are being built up together into a spiritual house, the draw from the language of the
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Apostle Paul. And we live in detached isolation from one another, not only to our own detriment, but to the cause of Christ in the world.
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And when God's grace, through the work of the Holy Spirit, we are birthed by the gospel into saving union with Jesus Christ, we are brought by that same grace into union with the people of God so that we become common members of the body of Jesus Christ.
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Thus this incipient spirit of individualism is utterly foreign to biblical
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Christianity. Our unity must be unity around revealed truth, though.
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And the Puritan John Trapp put it like this, he said, unity without a verity is no better than conspiracy.
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Now I'm also grateful in the second place for this renewed emphasis with respect to the whole subject of corporate worship.
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We are commanded in the 29th Psalm to give to the Lord the glory due to his name.
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We're to worship the Lord the scripture commands us in the beauty of his holiness.
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And then elsewhere we learn in the 95th Psalm, we're reminded there of the corporate nature of this worship.
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Oh come let us sing to the Lord. Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.
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Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving. Let us shout joyfully to him with psalms.
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For the Lord is the great God and the great King above all gods. Oh come let us worship and bow down.
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Let us kneel before the Lord our God. For he is our
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God and we are the people of his pasture. The word liturgy itself comes from the
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Greek word liturgia, which contrary to popular opinion from some quarters, it's not a nasty word.
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And in post -biblical usage and in contemporary ecclesiology, the word liturgy simply refers to an outward ceremony or an ordered ceremony of worship.
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Virtually all churches today use some kind of liturgy, whether that word is adopted for the order of worship or not.
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The problem is that even where liturgy is preeminently biblical, it degenerates into mere formalism and becomes exclusively external in its application.
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So that in it we fail to worship the Lord our God with all of our heart, with all of our mind, soul, and strength.
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And though we can sympathize with a number of the pastoral concerns that have been raised by the adherents of the federal vision,
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I and other Presbyterians are convinced that their proposed remedies are as bad, if not worse, than the maladies underscored themselves.
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So then I want to offer something of a perspective, a critique, on those things which from a
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Reformed and Presbyterian perspective I think are problematic. Now it would be simply an impossible task for me this morning to attempt to offer a detailed assessment and criticism of the various positions expressed by the federal visionists concerning such doctrines, vital doctrines, as ecclesiology, the covenants, justification, election, the sacraments, the believers' assurance, the perseverance of the saints, as well as the distinction between the visible and the invisible church.
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And there does exist a diversity of positions among the adherents of the federal vision themselves.
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There's not complete agreement among themselves on the various aspects of these matters.
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But I and other Presbyterians are convinced that the Auburn Avenue, the federal theology, or the federal vision theology, that it does represent a serious departure from the historical
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Reformed position on these above -mentioned matters. And of course they would charge the same of us.
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And that I would say that it opposes a threat not only doctrinally but also to the unity of the
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Reformed Church. I think in particularly that there is a real danger on the part of its adherents of lapsing into a mere formal sacramentalism and even the form of works righteousness through the back door if this hasn't already been the case despite all of their objections notwithstanding.
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And I can only mention this in the cursory way due to the time constraints of this context.
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But this is not the first time the nature of this controversy, especially with respect to the sacraments, has confronted
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Reformed parties in Christ's Church. I call your attention to the recent historical context briefly and I do so only to stimulate or to provoke your own studies in examining these matters.
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E. Brooks Holifield has written or Holifield has written two different books and he has observed, and I'm quoting from one of them,
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I believe it's on the on the presentation here, by the 17th century the
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English Puritans who took most of their cues about theology from the
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Continental Reformed theologians were arguing that all external religious aids were secondary and subordinate to inward spirituality.
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The sacraments were effective only for the soul wherein the Spirit dwelt. The internal illumination of the
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Spirit necessarily preceded any true understanding of the external words of Scripture and the church took on reality and substance only with the
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Spirit poured out its, and that's Holifield's word, I would say poured out his gifts.
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Now I'm not suggesting that Calvin would have been in complete agreement with the
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Puritans in general on this issue, but Calvin did insist repeatedly throughout his writings that the sacraments were secondary instruments and appendages to the gospel.
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Making mention of the 39 articles of the Church of England, Holifield says that they made no reference to the older doctrine of baptismal regeneration.
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And then Holifield goes on to give three specific examples.
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He says it was involved in the 17th century divisions between Calvinists and Arminians, between Puritans and traditionalists, and even among Puritan reformers.
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It reappeared in 18th century conflicts between Latitudinarians and high churchmen and in 19th century disputes between the
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Oxford Tractarians, and of course that was Newman's bunch, the Oxford movement or the
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Tractarian movement, the Oxford Tractarians and their evangelical critics.
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Some English theologians said that the sacrament was a conditional pledge to the faithful that they would experience rebirth as adults if they kept the covenant conditions.
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Others believe that infant baptism immediately conferred regeneration, and a few of them explained sacramental rebirth sealed an absolute covenant.
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The metaphor seemed infinitely malleable when applied to sacramental matters, so that controversies over baptism and the
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Lord's Supper maintained interest in the covenantal themes well into the 19th century.
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And with respect to Americans, Southern Presbyterians, Holifield correctly observes that they denied that the sacrament, that is baptism specifically here, conferred saving grace or removed disdain of original sin or justified the baptized infant, just as they denied that baptism was necessary for salvation.
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And he says the same thing with respect to the Puritans in his other work,
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The Covenant Sealed. I believe the first one came from The Gentleman Theologians, but in his work
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The Covenant Sealed, he uses those exact same words of the Puritans, that they criticized any suggestion that the sacrament conferred saving grace or removed disdain of original sin or justified the baptized infant, just as they denied that baptism was necessary for salvation.
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Now in this latter work of his, The Covenant Sealed, Holifield observed an insight that I think is especially germane to the present controversy raised by the advocates of the federal vision.
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He says, quote, the vocabulary of the sacramentalists revealed their intention to elevate baptism by combining two theological traditions, reformed orthodoxy and medieval scholasticism, to speak of the
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Christian life in terms of potency or form and actualization or matter was to appropriate scholastic imagery.
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Initial grace was a reformed adaptation of the medieval gradia prima, also given to children in baptism.
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Baxter recognized later, and of course you're talking about the Puritan here, Baxter recognized later the similarity between seminal grace and the scholastic notion of infused habits.
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Burgess and Ward, and by the way Cornelius Burgess was a member of the Westminster Assembly, Ward, Samuel Ward was invited to participate but he died and therefore was not a part of that gathered assembly, but these two men held to baptismal regeneration.
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And Hollifield says of them, Burgess and Ward carefully inserted the older language into their orthodox
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Calvinism, but they could not entirely eliminate the incommensurabilities.
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The medieval language depicted the Christian pilgrimage as a gradual development approximate to salvation in extending stages and levels of growth, nourished by sacramental grace from beginning to end.
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Earlier reformed theologians spoke of progressive sanctification after the effectual call, and they argued about preparatory development in adults prior to the experience of saving grace.
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But the sacramentalist language seemed to depict the whole of man's spiritual life from infancy to glorification as an unbroken continuum beginning with baptism.
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The problem was to combine that vocabulary with a traditional
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Puritan notion of genuine conversion as a specifiable experience, restricted to the elect, moving them into a new sphere of life, discontinuous with their path.
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Puritan theology often consisted of the artful manipulation of images, and Burgess and Ward accordingly proposed a sacramental theology based on medieval images of salvation as a new creation.
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And here's what Hollifield says, few of their Puritan contemporaries shared their vision.
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However, and the initial response was therefore hostile. When Ward first published his ideas around 1627, a close friend, and this was another
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Puritan, advised that he not set that controversy on foot.
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And when Burgess published his treatise, he complained that he received for his effort nothing but clamors, slanders, revilings without end or measure.
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Now there's a certain article on the internet that mentions Burgess and Ward and says that their views were not regarded as controversial at that time.
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Well I beg to differ. I think the historical facts do not support that statement.
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Now it seems to me as well that there are some unreconciled double standards that are at play in the criticisms of the proponents of the federal vision.
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For all the emphasis by some of them on conciliar authority, the peace of Christ's church has been disturbed by this.
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And the respective courts of the same have been circumvented in the process.
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We're not to take these things to the public venue as the first way of discussing them.
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That's not Presbyterianism. These things are to be worked out in the courts of our church.
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And so they have taken the public venue and I think those who would differ with them have been forced by that to take the public venue as well.
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And so I think this comes to the forefront of the controversy with respect to their allegations.
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There is this glaring double standard from them that on one hand,
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Presbyterians and Reformed men such as myself have departed from the Westminster standards because we happen to disagree with their particular formulations, proposals, and interpretation of our standards.
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On the other hand, while they're insisting at the same time that they actually hold to the standards, whereas we don't, but they're the ones insisting that they need to be revised.
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So I think we need to just look who's insisting for the revision here. And I think we see this especially in their approach to the sacraments and to the doctrine of justification by faith.
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Now I'm convinced that their emphasis on sacramentalism is rooted in their ecclesiology, which for them becomes a matter of soteriology.
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And I hope to show the connection. In this schematic, I would suggest to you that this is where their position comes very close to resembling that of Roman Catholicism because soteriology is in essence replaced by ecclesiology.
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Let me explain. One of their writers states this, and this is from the
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Auburn Avenue Theology Pros and Cons Debating the Federal Vision, and these are from a number of articles.
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This is in a book now, but I got this from the PDF file that it was on.
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One of their writers says this, entry into the church is always a soteriological fact for the person who enters.
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If the church is the house of God, then membership in the church makes the person a member of that household.
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Now critiquing this proposed paradigm, Richard Phillips has pointed out, quote, instead of realizing that our relationship with God is primary, so that salvation is primarily a spiritual reality in which our relationship, one with another in the church, is derivative from our relationship with God, this revamped covenant theology puts it precisely backward.
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Under this view, our relationship with the church is primary, so that salvation is primarily a social and cultural reality, and our relationship with God is derivative from our relationship in the church.
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Simply put, I think the federal vision to the extent that view is held by them is a reversal of the biblical model.
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As I've written in another context, the emphasis of the New Testament is that incorporation into Christ is the only means of salvation and entrance into His body, the church.
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I don't think you can reverse that order. Paul said, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is new creation.
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Old things are passed away. Behold, all things have become new.
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Paul said, in Him, in Him, you trusted by faith, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom, having believed,
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Paul said, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.
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When you read the Greek New Testament, this phrase, in Christu, it occurs some 76 times in the
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New Testament, indicating that union with Christ is absolutely central to the biblical doctrine of salvation.
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Its equivalent phrases in reference to Christ all occur approximately 81 times, and also these places where we find that the word in Curio, in the
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Lord, it occurs some 48 times. It is union with Christ that incorporates us into the church and constitutes us as members, not vice versa.
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And I think this is a very important point. It is not the church that places the believer in Christ.
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It is God who incorporates the believer into his son's body, the church, by faith in Jesus Christ.
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Now, in contrast to the New Testament emphasis, it is this aberrant view of ecclesiology that drives the federal vision's view of the sacraments.
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They're attempting to ground the believer's assurance of salvation, and this is a pastoral concern.
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We all understand it. There are times when people have difficulty with the assurance of their salvation, and so they're trying to ground the believer's assurance of salvation in external rites rather than in internal grace.
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And for the most part, I want to contrast their views with Calvin. For example, one of them says, it is sub -confessional then for Presbyterians to view baptism as a mere picture of something received in another way.
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It is also inadequate to suggest baptism is merely a strengthening and assuring ordinance rather than a saving ordinance.
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Well, leaving aside for a moment the question -begging nature of that particular assertion, earlier in the same chapter, the same writer is critical of the
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Westminster position on the covenant of works. And he says, Calvin's attempt to integrate faith and reason in the first book of the
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Institutes almost overcame the medieval dualism, but it crept back in with Reformed scholasticism, particularly through the covenant of works doctrine.
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And what they're arguing is that the covenant of works was a later development in Reformed theology from that of Calvin.
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And there's truth that it did get a lot more development following Calvin.
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But Richard A. Mohler, who is certainly, I would say if there's an expert on Calvin today,
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I would say he's one. And he has argued that the notion of a covenant of works is intimated by Calvin in his works.
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He said if Calvin did not typically speak of the prelapsarian state, that is the state of Adam in the garden prior to his fall, if he did not typically speak of the prelapsarian state as bounded by covenant, he certainly assumed that it was governed by law.
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Moreover, the Westminster Confession in the seventh chapter makes reference to the covenant of works.
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The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works. And it's also described as a covenant of works in chapter 19 of the
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Westminster Confession. My question is, if I am sub -confessional because I do not agree with their interpretation of the standards in respect of the sacraments, who's being sub -confessional now in the rejection of the term covenant of works?
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Well, they say, well we accept it and we accept it with all these nuances. So, I can accept things in our standards as well that are nuanced.
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I just think there's a double standard there. When the one hand they want to use this charge of being sub -confessional, they need to own the same thing for themselves.
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The same man says that for Calvin, regeneration began at the font.
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Yet Calvin said, and I quote him, I then infer that children have need of regeneration, but I maintain that this gift comes to them by promise and that baptism follows as a seal.
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Again, this man writes, we are very much children of revivalism and the enlightenment as we have already seen.
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Thus, we often treat baptism as a picture or symbol of grace that is actually received in some other non -sacramental fashion.
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Well, I don't know what they're talking about, the preaching of the word. I understand it to be a sacrament. For example, some would compare the sacrament to a street sign or to a billboard.
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Yes, and Calvin spoke of it that way too, but such a definition is terribly incomplete.
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Baptism does more than picture the absent grace of Christ. Calvin repeatedly claimed the sacraments perform what they picture, and he's right to a certain extent.
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That in them, God accomplishes what he signifies. The sign is not the thing signified.
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That's a good distinction, but neither can the thing signified ordinarily at least, and here's where this language gets thrown in.
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Ordinarily, or sometimes they use the word normally, but ordinarily at least, it cannot be had apart from the sign.
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They are distinguishable, but inseparable components of a sacrament. What Calvin taught is that in the sacraments, there's a sacramental union between the sign and the reality which is signified by the sign, but Calvin was careful to say that the reality of the sign is not necessarily imparted at the time when the sign is given.
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However, if I understand this proponent of the federal vision correctly, he's saying yes, it does ordinarily attend the time when the sign is given, if I understand him correctly.
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But in contrast, he says the things can't be separated. Here Calvin, he said hence that distinction, if it be duly understood, often noted by the same
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Augustine, between a sacrament and the matter of the sacrament, for the distinction signifies not only that the figure and the truth are contained in the sacrament, but that they are not so linked that they cannot be separated.
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And that even in the union itself, the matter, that is the reality, must always be distinguished from the sign, that we may not transfer to the one what belongs to the other.
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And then Calvin, he goes on to give a quote from Augustine.
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In fact, in the Institutes, Calvin gives this citation from Augustine at least three times.
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And in spite of the footnotes that reference Augustine, I have not been able to find this exact quote from Augustine in his writings.
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But nonetheless, I do believe that was Augustine's view, whether he specifically stated it in this language or not, but it was certainly
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Calvin's view in representing Augustine, that he, Augustine, he says, speaks of their separation when he writes, in the elect alone, the sacraments effect what they represent.
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In other words, the sacraments, what they represent, they only are effectual for the elect.
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Simply put, I would say that they're imputing the efficacy of the reality signified by the sacrament to the sign itself.
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And I think, to be consistent, the federal visionist would have to say, Calvin, you're not being sufficiently objective here.
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If you're just applying those things to the elect alone, then you're not being sufficiently objective.
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So I think it's the very thing that Calvin warned against when he wrote some three years before his death.
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Calvin died in 1559. This is what he said. I believe this is from a letter in 1556.
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As the words import, and he quotes God's promise, I will be thy
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God and the God of thy seed after thee. Unless this promise had preceded, certainly it would have been wrong to confer on them, that is on the children of believers, baptism.
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Now I ask whether the word of God is sufficient by its intrinsic value for our salvation or whether some aid must be borrowed elsewhere to supply its defect or help its infirmity.
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If this promise is not believed to be efficacious in itself, not only the virtue of God but also his grace and truth will be attached to the external sign.
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Thus, those men, while they strive to honor baptism, cast serious ignominy on God.
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Now what will become of so many passages in which Christ is represented as satisfied with faith alone?
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Calvin anticipated this very argument. Hence, if they want to complain about the negative influence of enlightenment and the rationalistic mindset on our day, then they need look no farther than the mirror when they read into Calvin and the
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Westminster standards a position which I think Calvin and the standards explicitly repudiated by insisting that the reality of the sacrament ordinarily attends the time when it's given.
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Our reformers were careful not to say that. As Burkoff noted of the full reform, do we have
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Burkoff? Yeah, I'll let you read that quote rather than taking the time to read it myself.
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But Burkoff noted that there was different views there and they saw that there was a problem with insisting that infants are regenerated by baptism.
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Moving on now, Calvin said this. Now our opponents ask us what faith came to us during some years after baptism.
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This they do to prove our baptism void, since it is not sanctified to us except when the word of promise is accepted in faith.
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To this question, we reply that we indeed, being blind and unbelieving for a long time, did not grasp the promise that had been given to us in baptism.
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Yet that promise, since it was of God, ever remained fixed and firm and trustworthy.
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Even if all men are liars and faithless, still God does not cease to be trustworthy.
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He's talking about God's promise in baptism. Even if all men are lost, still
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Christ remains in salvation. We therefore confess that for that time baptism benefited us not at all in as much as the promise offered us in it, without which baptism is nothing, lay neglected.
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Now when by God's grace we begin to repent, we accuse our blindness and hardness of heart.
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We who were for so long ungrateful toward his great goodness, but we believe that the promise itself did not vanish.
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Rather, we consider that God, through baptism, promises us forgiveness of sins, and he will doubtless fulfill his promise for all believers.
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The promise was offered to us in baptism. Therefore, let us embrace it by faith.
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Indeed, on account of our unfaithfulness, it lay long buried from us. Now therefore, let us receive it through faith.
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And then Sinclair Ferguson, in an address at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh this year, prior to the meeting of the
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PCA General Assembly, he noted that the Westminster Divine's approach to baptism, particularly with respect to infants, was what could be a covenant conscious approach, rather than a presumed regeneration approach.
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And that understanding was that the warrant of baptism was not knowledge of an individual's regeneration, but the relationship of the individual to the administration of the covenant preserved them, that is the
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Westminster Divines, from a great deal of confusion. And then Dr.
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Ferguson goes on to critique this view of the covenant as a container. He says, the way we apply the covenant and its promises to our children is that we communicate to our children the message of the covenant.
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And the message of the covenant is repent. Repent of your sins and cleave to Jesus Christ as the only hope of your salvation.
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Now another writer in the book, The Federal Vision, he insists that, quote, being in covenant with God means that being in Christ, those who are in covenant have all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places.
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Union with Christ means that all that is true of Christ is true of us.
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So far so good. But then he goes on to insist that that's how we're to regard every single baptized person.
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In other words, all the baptized, elect and non -elect alike, are said to be regenerated and possess all spiritual blessings in Christ.
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But interestingly enough, while this is consistent with what is predicated of the elect, the one spiritual blessing withheld from the non -elect,
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I thought all blessings were conferred on all the baptized, but the one blessing withheld from the non -elect is the grace of perseverance.
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Now then I ask, is that a Westminster view of the regenerate?
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The Westminster Confession says, chapter 3, as God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so he hath by the external and most free purpose of his will foreordained all the means thereunto.
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Wherefore they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his spirit working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only.
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The elect only. Thus this view of baptismal regeneration is set forth by this advocate of the federal vision sounds more like a
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Lutheran position on the sacrament of baptism where all the baptized are regenerate but the non -elect fail to persevere.
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Now if I and other Presbyterians are being baptized in sub -confessional in our view of the sacrament simply because we don't agree with their view of baptismal efficacy, then they are being
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Lutheran and sub -confessional in their view of the sacraments.
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So there is an overt double standard I would argue at play here in their criticisms of other
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Reformed Christians. In his dispute with the Lutheran Westphal, John Calvin pointed out that Westphal, quote, holds the necessity for baptism to be so absolute that he would sooner have it profaned by illicit usurpation, and he was talking about lay people and women practicing baptism, that he would have it profaned by that then omitted when the lawful use is denied because they believed it was necessary for salvation.
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The thing that offends him he immediately after discloses.
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It is because we, Calvin speaking, we give hopes that infants may obtain salvation without baptism because we hold that baptism instead of regenerating or saving them only seals the salvation of which they were previously partakers.
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As I have elsewhere refuted these gross errors at full length, I shall here be brief with my answer.
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If the salvation of infants is included in the element of water, then the covenant by which the
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Lord adopts them is made void. As one of his concluding observations in his paper addressing this controversy,
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Pastor Richard Phillips said, quote, the federal vision emphasizes indeed relies upon a grace that is external to the recipient, hence the importance of sacramental means of grace.
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This is what gives objectivity to the covenant and to the Christian. In reaction to the morbid introspection purportedly rampant today, it seems to me that the federal vision has overreacted in such a way that its fundamental reliance on a sacramental grace that is external and objective flies directly in the face of the
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Bible's constant demand for grace that is inward and subjective by means of the
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Holy Spirit's work. And so it appears from our standpoint that having lost confidence in the objectivity of inward spirituality, they have retreated to the outward signs of the sacraments legitimately ordained of God.
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Yes, but at the same time coming. So it seems to me dangerously close to what
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Kevin warned against when he said, but although the sacraments are in earnest by which we may be rendered secure of the promises of God, I however acknowledge that they would be useless to us did not the
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Holy Spirit render them efficacious as instruments, lest our confidence being fixed on the creature should be withdrawn from God.
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Nay, I even confess that the sacraments are vitiated and perverted when it is not regarded as their only aim to make us look to Christ for everything requisite to our salvation and whenever they are employed for any other purpose than that of fixing our faith wholly in Him.
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Now we heard last evening very clearly that God speaks in baptism. I give to that declaration a hearty amen.
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God does speak in baptism, but this is what God says.
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He doesn't say anything different in baptism than he does in the biblical gospel.
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God communicates to us His grace. And when our baptism is something that is lifelong and it can be applied to us, and we heard last night that the back burners begin to kick in, well
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I don't really have any problem with that. I'll tell you that this baptism is not some mystical kind of grace.
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It's the message of baptism. And the message of our baptism is repeat and believe in the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Calvin says that if your sacrament, if it's employed for any other purpose than that of fixing our faith wholly in Him, he says then something is terribly amiss.
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For Calvin, the theology that exalts the sacraments is not a biblical theology of the sacraments.
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For their efficacy under the blessing of God is to fix our faith wholly in Christ and not in the sacrament.
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And when one's confidence is attached to them, then they are vitiated and perverted according to Calvin and thus rendered useless.
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The Westminster Confession of Faith tells us the grace of faith whereby the elect are enabled to believe that the saving of their souls is the work of the
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Spirit of Christ in their hearts and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the
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Word, by which also and by the administration of the sacraments in prayer it is increased and strengthened.
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Now as Pastor Richard Phillips has argued in his paper, Covenant Confusion, and if you want to read that, you can find it on the internet.
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Simply go to Google and click on the advanced search and type in the exact phrase
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Covenant Confusion and you can read it. But he's argued in that paper when it says that the grace of faith is strengthened, it's increased and strengthened, he argues that quote is, that is true even for infants who come to faith sometime after their baptisms.
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In short, there seems to be evidently among the adherents of the federal vision a loss of confidence in the work of the
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Spirit of Christ which the Westminster Confession says is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the
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Word. Their writings leave us, at least me, with the distinct impression that Jesus died to offer us the sacraments that by them we might be saved.
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And in their zeal to exalt the sacraments, it seems rather obvious to me that they tend to confuse the means of grace with the very fountain of grace.
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Westminster Confession chapter 27 tells us the grace which is exhibited in or by the sacraments rightly used is not conferred by any power in themselves.
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I'm glad that that was acknowledged last night. Neither doth the efficacy of the sacrament depend upon the piety or intention of him that doth administer it, but upon the work of the
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Spirit and the word of institution which contains together with a precept authorizing the use thereof a promise of benefit to worthy receivers.
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In chapter 28 of the Confession, the efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered, yet notwithstanding by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, you see there, there's the promise of God, but really exhibited and conferred by the
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Holy Ghost to such, whether of age or infants, as that grace belongeth unto according to the counsel of God's own will in his appointed time, which may not necessarily be the time when the sign is applied.
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Briefly put, it seems to me that there is at the heart of their criticisms this unbalanced approach to their representations of Calvin, Zwingli at times, although I haven't shown that,
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I'm convinced of that, I don't have time to argue it today, but we see it also in their representations of our confessional standards.
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One writer has pointed out, by contrast, the Reformed tradition has always held that the
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Christ who is offered through word and sacrament does not happen in the word and sacrament.
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To make that claim would be to identify sign and reality too closely, mistaking the means of grace for grace itself.
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You see, we must never, never confuse the means of grace with the fountain of grace.
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As Calvin warns us yet again, we must beware lest we be led into a similar error through what was written a little too extravagantly by the ancients to enhance the dignity of the sacraments.
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He's talking about the early church fathers. That is to think that a hidden power is joined and fastened to the sacraments by which they of themselves confer the graces of the
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Holy Spirit upon us as wine given in a cup, while the only function divinely imparted to them is to attest, this is what
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Calvin says, the only function divinely imparted to them is to attest and ratify for us
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God's good will toward us and thereof no further benefit unless the
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Holy Spirit accompanies them. He did not presume the Holy Spirit would.
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For he it is who opens our minds and hearts and makes us receptive to this testimony.
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In this also varied and distinct graces of God brightly appear for the sacraments as we have suggested above are for us the same thing from God as messengers of glad tidings or guarantees of the ratification of covenants are from men.
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They do not bestow any grace of themselves but announce and tell us and as they are guarantees and tokens ratify among us those things given us by divine bounty.
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The Holy Spirit whom the sacraments do not bring indiscriminately to all men.
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Calvin, where is your objectivity here? The Holy Spirit whom the sacraments do not bring indiscriminately to all men but whom the
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Lord exclusively bestows on his own people is he who brings the graces of God with him, gives a place for the sacraments among us and makes them bear fruit.
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Now then I want to close this morning and as I do, I don't even know what time it is, I hope
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I can wrap this up. But I want to offer some concluding remarks now on the doctrine of justification by faith alone and here at this point
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I do want to make it abundantly clear that I am not addressing the theology of my brethren in the
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Auburn Avenue movement in particular but I am addressing now all of us in general.
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You and I are living in a day wherein there is strong pressure to conform to the ecumenical spirit of our age and there are many who are seeking to minimize and I think ultimately compromise the essential truths of the gospel that many of our forefathers resisted unto blood and for which they died rather than renounce that gospel which had freed them not from any human tyranny mind you, but freed them from the tyranny of their own sins which were threatening to condemn them to everlasting perdition and suffering and torment.
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And you need to know where I am coming from when I speak as I do about these things. I disagree in the strongest terms possible with any ecumenical suggestion that the reformation was illegitimate, unnecessary, or a great catastrophe in the history of the church.
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I do not believe that the reformation was a tragedy of history.
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On the contrary, the only tragedy is that it was necessary.
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It was necessary. And today more and more non -Protestants and Protestants are talking about unity but inevitably it seems to me it is always a unity that minimizes and relegates the truth of the gospel to the place where it is compromised.
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The Lord Jesus Christ never told us that we are to seek unity at the expense of divinely revealed truth.
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And there can be no doubt but that in his epistle to the Galatians the Apostle Paul exalts the truth of the gospel as this norm, this rule, this standard of unity.
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And in the mind of the Apostle whenever that standard is compromised, whenever it is perverted, be it at the hands even of another
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Apostle or even an angel from heaven, then there can be no unity because one party stands under the very anathema of God.
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To compromise the gospel is to call down upon oneself the very anathema of God.
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Paul said, I marvel that you are turning away so soon from him who called you to the grace of Christ to a different gospel.
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You say, well David, there it is. It's gospel. It's just a different gospel. But isn't it gospel?
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Just like a true Christian is the same as a false Christian or a false Christian.
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They're both Christians. Paul says to a different gospel, verse 7, which is not another.
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But there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed.
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Let him be anathema. As we've said before, now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.
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If he says it one time, it's important. But when he says it the second time, you think the apostle
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Paul is trying to underscore something for us? I'm convinced that the
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Reformation was a mighty movement of the Spirit of God. That it was indeed one of the greatest revivals that the church has ever witnessed.
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If you are familiar at all with the progression of ecclesiastical history, then it will have struck you that there is a break in continuity.
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There is an intermittency of decay and restoration in the church.
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You see, the record of the progress of the gospel in the world is not one of steady growth, but one of growth mingled with spiritual decay arrested by periodic and successive renewals, special occasions of intensified outpourings of the ordinary work of the
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Holy Spirit, which we historically have referred to as revivals. And dear people, that's what the
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Reformation was all about. On at least two occasions in his writings,
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Calvin referred to the Reformation as the revival of the gospel.
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The gospel of the gospel was at issue for the Reformers, and what we need today more than ever before is a movement from God, not human -induced revivalism.
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I'm just as much against that as I am some of these other things. Not even the exaltation of God -ordained means such as Israel did with the bronze serpent, fashioned by no one less than Moses himself as a
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God -ordained means to point Israel to the remedy for their disobedience, but which in Hezekiah's day, he broke into pieces when the people took it and abused it with idolatry.
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We don't need a theology of the sacraments that points us to the sacraments.
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We need a theology of the sacraments that point us to Christ. What we need is a genuine revival of the biblical gospel of Jesus Christ, and we need, you and I, to be crying out for such a movement in our own generation that we may be actively engaged in seeking just such a refreshing from heaven by an outpouring of the
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Spirit of God, the Spirit of grace that calls men, women, boys, and girls to living faith in Jesus Christ, and who justifies them, not on the basis of works of righteousness which they have done, but by faith in Christ, which involves what
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Calvin described as imputing the righteousness of Christ to them as if it were their own.
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This we call, he says, the righteousness of faith. Namely, when a man made void and empty of all confidence in works, feels convinced that the only ground of his acceptance with God is a righteousness which is wanting to himself and is borrowed from Christ.
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Reformation was just such a revival because in the zeal of the reformers to return ad fontes, to the fountain, to the source of the church's faith, the
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Holy Scriptures, they rediscovered and thus recovered the truth of the gospel for the church of Jesus Christ, which over the centuries had become corrupted by traditions of human invention.
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The same thing had happened to God's old covenant people through the trappings of Judaism, which were addressed by none other than our
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Lord himself in the days of his flesh. The reformation of the 16th century was not contra the claims of certain
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Roman apologists, a defamation or revival of heresy, but rather it was a rejection of heresy.
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By the rediscovery and recovery of the truth of the gospel, it restored to the church the precious truth of the biblical gospel by calling the church back to her moorings, the
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Holy Scriptures, which are able, declared Paul to Timothy, to make us wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ.
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Now I am getting the signal, but I am wrapping up. Give me three or four more minutes.
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It is said of Calvin that the gasping words of this poor pain -wracked body were heard all around the world.
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Why? Why? It was because the light of God had dawned upon him and his fellow reformers and all the burden and fear of trembling before the sentence of a broken law that could not save rolled from their shoulders into the empty tomb of the
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Lord Jesus Christ and they were set free from the weight of guilt and sin. The reformation, because it came to understand afresh the doctrine of justification by faith, at the same time became a reformation of preaching, of emphasizing the ordinary means of grace.
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And here and there in Wittenberg and Strasbourg and Zurich and Geneva and elsewhere across much of the face of Europe, men were raised up by the
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Spirit of God to proclaim, as it had not been done for centuries, the everlasting gospel of God's grace in the
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Lord Jesus Christ. And I would suggest to you this morning as I close for our own consideration and reflection that the degree to which we, you and I, understand and are ourselves invigorated by, the doctrine of justification by faith alone is also the degree to which, with heart and soul and mind and strength, we who are heirs of the reformation have been called to testify to the gospel of Christ, do in fact bear witness to it with joy to a dying world.
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Calvin understood, as did his fellow reformers, that the light of the world is the
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Lord Jesus Christ and the only way to apprehend, to lay hold of all that God offers us in his
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Son is by faith and faith alone. One more quote from Calvin and I'll wrap it up.
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He said, The schools of the sophists have taught with remarkable agreement that the sacraments of the new law, those now used in the
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Christian church, justify and confer grace. Calvin says they do not do that.
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He said how deadly and pestilential this notion is cannot be expressed.
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And that's why Calvin said, moreover, in the Catechism of the Church of Geneva concerning the sacraments,
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I mean that we are not to cleave to the visible signs so as to seek salvation from them.
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And so as I've already intimated, the reformation was a revival of joy and spiritual release and no wonder when a man has walked for years bowed down to the ground with the weight of his sin and the burden of a law that can never bring life and in all of us sudden he sees that the just shall live by faith.
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He has joy in the gospel of the reformation, the gospel of the reformers, the gospel in a paramount sense of course of the
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Lord Jesus Christ as revealed in Holy Scripture. That gospel is a gospel of righteousness and peace and joy in the
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Holy Ghost, of rejoicing in the sin -bearing, blood -letting, life -giving death of the
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Lord Jesus Christ and His mighty resurrection from the dead. Thank God for the reformation.
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And as sons and daughters of the same, we thank God for men like Martin Luther and John Calvin, but even more, we thank
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God for this glorious truth which they rediscovered and recovered as a rich heritage for you and for me.
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You see, the only thing that will stand the gaze of an all -holy and all -just
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God in the last day is the perfect, all -sufficient righteousness of Christ who is altogether holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and that which
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He wrought by His impeccable obedience to the holy law of God and His obedience even unto the curse -bearing death of the cross on behalf of sinners who had broken it.
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The only way to lay hold of that, the only way to lay hold of Jesus and all that He has accomplished on behalf of sinners is by faith.
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It is in the language of Paul to gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.
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That, my dear friends, is what makes the gospel the good news.
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For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith.