Why we use the First London Baptist Confession (instead of the 1689)

Sometimes I feel the weight of the world fall

down on my voice with some

good pepsi, shoe polish.

And I hit the YouTube link, don't say hit that sounds violent, and I feel my troubles all better.

He's not.

Your Calvinist Podcast is filmed before a live studio audience.

Welcome back to Your Calvinist Podcast, my name is Keith Foskey and as always, I am Your Calvinist.

The keen observer out there may notice that I'm not in my regular office today, I'm actually in my church office.

I normally do the podcast from my home office where I have all my movie posters, but behind me today is not my

movie posters.

In fact, if you look right over my shoulder, you'll actually see my black robe.

I don't use it very much, but I do have one and I do preach from it from time to time.

So I'm going to be doing the podcast today because I've been out of town for the last week.

And I wanted to come into the office and get some things done today.

And one of those things was to record today's podcast.

Let me talk for a minute about the conference, it went really well.

I was at the Reformata Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Where Claude Ramsey is the pastor, you all probably know.

Claude, he's with the Here I Stand Theology Podcast.

Wonderful podcaster, wonderful pastor, wonderful brother in Christ.

And I have to say something about the church there, because not only did they host the conference well Not

only did they give tremendous hospitality and just do a wonderful job.

But on the last day as I was leaving to come home, my wife and I got up at 6 o 'clock in the morning.

Put the kids in the van, and our van electrical system began to go haywire, things were

just going crazy.

And come to find out the alternator had gone bad.

And one of the elders from Reformata Baptist Church came to us.

And he replaced the alternator right in the driveway.

And it was such an amazing thing for me to watch a skilled man doing something he's

good at.

Because I'm not a good mechanic, I'm not good at working on cars.

And I jokingly said I felt like a 5 -year -old watching my dad work on a car again.

Because all I did was hold the flashlight and he did all the work.

But I was so grateful, Claude's wife came and brought my kids breakfast.

And they just took care of us while they were working on our car.

Such a blessing, so thank you Kenny for doing the work, for April for bringing us breakfast.

And just the sweetness of fellowship that we had with the Truth and Love Network brothers that were there The Laborers

Podcast brothers that were there doing the conference together.

And then to have what started out as a really bad day.

To come to find that it was actually getting an opportunity to see someone

do a wonderful job.

And minister to you in a way that was unique.

So my wife and I again, super grateful for all that we were able to be

blessed with by that church.

So with that in mind, I want to just mention a few other things before we get started on today's topic.

Again, don't forget 1689 Cigars, they are offering a coupon

code SuperiorTheology.

If you go and purchase cigars from there, you'll get a discount off.

Also, I want to remind you about Fellowship Studios.

They're the ones who put together our new website, KeithFoskey .com.

If you want to go and find information about me and about the ministry.

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You can just go to KeithFoskey .com.

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You can send me questions, comments, ideas for videos.

And I enjoy all of it.

And I try to respond to everything as much as I can.

Also, while I'm mentioning this, I want to also just say thank you to all of the supporters.

From BuyMeACoffee .com.

There's been so much of a blessing.

Those of you who have been supporting the show.

Going to BuyMeACoffee .com slash YourCalvinist.

I'm just so grateful for everyone who is supporting.

Some are supporting one -time things.

Some have actually become monthly supporters.

And that's huge.

Because all of that just goes to help continue to

bless our family.

As we're making these videos and putting out this content.

And I'm very grateful.

Most of all, I'm grateful for Sovereign Grace Family Church.

Because this is a ministry of Sovereign Grace Family Church.

I'm the pastor I serve with two other pastors Brother Andy and Brother Mike.

And I'm grateful that the church continues to support the podcast.

And if you are in the Jacksonville area Please come visit us at Sovereign Grace Family Church.

And you can find out more about us at sgfcjacks .org.

Now, one other thing before I get to the topic I know I've got a lot going through Is at the very end of today's video

I'm going to include an interview I did While I was at the Laborers' Conference.

It's an interview with Imago Dei Ministry.

They are an abolitionist group that's seeking to save babies.

And so if you want to learn more about them And maybe even begin to support them.

There's going to be a 10 -minute video at the end of today's podcast.

I encourage you to please watch that to the end.

So that you can learn more about them And the ministry that they're doing.

All right, well, without further delay I want to go ahead and move into the topic for today.

And today's topic really is chosen by you all.

Because last week I did a show On how I was almost fired once for being a

Calvinist I told the story about how I had written my resignation letter.

I even read the resignation letter to you all.

Which actually became more of a resolution letter Rather than a resignation letter.

Because I was able to stand resolutely And make a

stand for the faith And what I believe the Bible teaches.

And I talked about how Tom Askell was a blessing in that regard.

And a few of you actually asked If I would be interested in interviewing Tom Askell.

And he liked the tweet where his name was mentioned.

And so I reached out to him.

And hopefully that will actually happen soon.

If you think that's a good idea, leave it in the comments.

Tell me some questions you might want me to ask Dr. Askell If he is willing to come on the show.

And I think he will be.

I've done some work with the founders.

I did a video with them a couple of months ago Scott Callaham, who is the

leader of the Institute of Public Theology Which is their teaching arm of the Founders' Ministry.

So I'm pretty sure he's going to be coming on.

And I'm looking forward to having him do that.

So again, if you have a comment or something you'd like me to say.

Or if you just think it's a great idea for me to have Dr. Askell on the show Please leave that in the comments.

But during that video Many of you said that you were very interested In why our

church chose to go with the 1646 London Baptist Confession

Rather than the 1689 London Baptist Confession.

And so what I have decided to do is In response to all of the people who said Hey,

tell us that story, tell us why you did that.

I've decided today to make this show About why our church adopted the

first London Confession Rather than the second.

And I also want to make another announcement about that David K. Martin is an audiobook

narrator.

And he's been on the show a few times Promoting some of the books that he's done And talking to me about them.

He was on very recently about a book he did by B .B. Warfield.

Well he and I talked this last weekend.

And he is going to record The first London

Confession In audiobook format Which it's not really long But it's going to be

great.

Because it's going to be something That I'm going to publish on our YouTube page

And make available to all of you.

So if you're a person like me Who really enjoys listening As well as reading

And having the opportunity to hear things Maybe while you're driving Or while you're working around the house

We're going to be making available for free Through our YouTube page The first London

Confession of Faith 52 articles of faith.

And it's going to be in just a couple weeks We'll have it done, published and ready to go.

Really super looking forward to that.

Because David has that buttery voice Golden throat.

And he's going to be doing that for us As a blessing to our ministry.

And I'm so thankful for him.

And again, if you're looking for audiobooks And you want a great narrator Or if you have a book that you want to

get narrated Look up David K. Martin.

And he's a wonderful brother in Christ And a wonderful person to work with.

Alright, so here we go on to the topic Why did we adopt the

1646 Confession Rather than the 1689 Confession?

Well, let's kind of talk about Why we wanted to adopt a confession

altogether.

Like, why did our church do this?

Because we were not previously a confessional church Even though we had identified ourselves

As Baptists and Calvinistic Baptists And sometimes even Reformed Baptists Even though my buddy R. Scott

Clark would say We certainly were not.

We had always identified ourselves as that.

Because we held to Calvinistic soteriology And we were Baptistic

in our view of the ordinances And things like that.

So we decided a few years ago As we were

considering updates That we wanted to make to our church constitution.

And by the way, a church constitution Is basically just a document Which outlines how business is going to

operate Within the church.

Obviously the governing document of the church Is the Bible.

And there is no other authority higher than the Bible.

But there has to be rules on how money is handled.

There has to be rules on how membership works And things like that.

And so the church constitution Typically is a document that outlines How the church

functions in regard to leadership In regard to choosing its leaders In regard to handling money In regard

to those things.

And typically within that document There will be some form of a statement of faith.

And ours did.

It had a statement of faith in it.

And it was 13 articles.

Up until I think somewhere around 2015 -2016 We

adopted a 14th article on the subject of marriage.

It was after the Obergefell decision with the Supreme Court.

And we decided to adopt an article among those That outlined that we believe that

marriage was Between one man and one woman.

And was not something that should be seen in any other way.

And so if anybody wants a copy of our church constitution We actually do make it available.

It is available on our website Sgfcjax .org.

And you can see those 14 articles.

See how that was outlined.

And if I remember correctly And I think I do I believe we actually got the wording for the marriage

one Out of the...from FIRE.

Because we're a part of FIRE Fellowship.

And we have been a part of FIRE Fellowship Since 2015 -2016 I think is when we...

Somewhere around then Around the same time Is when we joined FIRE.

And FIRE Fellowship is great.

If you are a church that's looking for fellowship To be a part of.

It seems like I'm endorsing a lot of things today.

I guess I'm just in the mood to endorse things.

And I do endorse wholeheartedly FIREfellowship .org.

The men who lead that Brian Borgman is one of them.

You've heard me talk about him.

How much I love him And am encouraged by him.

Well, Brian's one of the leaders.

And it's a great fellowship of churches.

And we receive a lot of encouragement from them.

It gives us opportunities to meet people To learn from them To have conferences.

And also gives us the opportunity To meet missionaries That we may not otherwise get connected with.

So there's a lot of benefit To being part of a small association of churches.

And again, FIRE stands for The Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals.

So if you're interested, it's FIREfellowship .org.

So we were part of that.

We had our own statement of faith.

We had our own constitution.

But we did not have.

We were not a confessional church.

Because we did not have a confession That we had adopted.

And so we decided We wanted to adopt a confession.

And we began to investigate What confession most adequately described

What we teach and believe Here at Sovereign Grace Family Church.

And we had elders Who had come from other churches.

Brother Andy, Brother Mike Had come from other churches.

And they had brought with them Their own experiences from their other churches And their own teaching And theology and everything.

And as we began to grow together And learn together Things that we knew we wanted.

We knew we wanted to have a Baptist confession.

And there are several.

A lot of people are really only familiar with the 1689.

And that's the one.

But there are other confessions that are available.

Philadelphia Confession Which again is obviously closely connected.

It's the 1689 It just has some additional articles.

And then the New Hampshire Confession And some others.

But we began As we were looking at the confessions We began to look a little further back

And we began to see That there was a confession That is often overlooked.

And it is the First London Confession.

You'll often If you talk about the 1689 You'll often

see it referred to as the 2LBC While the 2LBC stands for The Second

London Baptist Confession.

Well if there's a Second London Baptist Confession Then that means there obviously was a first one.

And actually The Second London Confession Is really sort of the third one Because the first one

was published in 1644 And then almost immediately Had to be

edited Because there were some pushback.

There was some issues of lack of clarity.

There were even some areas Where there were some parts That just did

not read correctly.

And so there needed to be some clarification And even some additions.

There needed to be some editing Some addition to it.

So in 1646 The second edition of the First London Confession Was

published And that's the one we have adopted as a church.

And I want to show you some of the literature That I brought with me today.

Another reason why I did this podcast from my office Is because I have all these books in my office.

I didn't have these at my home.

The first one is the actual book That we give out to members.

This is produced by Particular Baptist Press.

And you can order these I think they're $3 or $4.

We order these and we send these out.

Or we give these out to all of our new members.

Actually you have to read this Before you become a member.

So we give this to anyone Who's considering becoming a member.

And this is the It's the First London Confession of Faith 1646 edition with an appendix.

And the appendix is wonderful too.

Now we The appendix is by Benjamin Cox.

And we teach As we're teaching through this book.

We teach the appendix as well.

But we do distinguish it from the actual confession.

The confession itself is 52 articles And there's a tremendous little bit of

history In this book I'm going to read to you just This is the publisher's

introduction.

I'm not going to read the whole thing Because it's a few pages.

But I want to read just the first little bit Of this publisher's introduction.

What has come to be known As the First London Baptist Confession of Faith Of 1644 was revised and reprinted Two years later

in 1646 And followed the same year With an appendix by Benjamin Cox After the publication of the

Second London Baptist Confession in 1677 Which was reprinted in 1682, 1688, 1689

And used as the basis for the Philadelphia Confession of 1742.

First printed in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin.

The First London Confession fell into undeserved obscurity.

That was the part I wanted to get to.

There was a lot of dates there.

I hope that wasn't too confusing.

But basically what it's saying is.

As the.

As there were more confessions And as the confessions began to spread abroad And obviously come to

the United States This little confession fell into obscurity.

In fact, I've talked to a lot of people Who didn't even know that it existed Or have never read it.

Even if they did know, they've heard of it But never read it.

And I really just I appreciate this.

Let me see if I can see this here.

In speaking of this confession It talks about how valuable it is

Even though it is admittedly Smaller and less complete than the 1689.

But like this paragraph here It says, William Lumpkin Was of the opinion that perhaps no confession of

faith Has had so formative an influence on Baptist life as this one.

And this one is referring to the First London.

And the publisher says, we would agree.

We also believe its historical importance Is second only to its Christ -centeredness.

And this calls for its reprint In a new and more familiar format.

And that's where this book comes from.

So this little book is helpful.

I encourage you If you do have an interest in In learning more about

this confession More than I'm going to be able to do In just a one -day podcast I do

encourage you to order this book From particular Baptist press.

Now there's another book That I want to mention to you as well.

And that is this book right here.

And this is a little bit more of a beefier book.

This is James Renahan's For the Vindication of the Truth.

This is Baptist Symbolics Volume 1 A Brief Exposition

of the First London Baptist Confession of Faith.

And what it has in it that's really great.

Is it has actually both Of the First London and the edition

The 1644 and the 1646.

Let's see if I can turn To maybe show this to the camera.

So right here It says, you know, in this regard Regarding the Doctrine of Christ Which is Articles 9 through 20

It's the 1644 Confession And the 1646 Revision.

And you can see both of them on this page.

And it's like that throughout the book He gives a tremendous history.

Obviously James Renahan is a historian And teacher of Baptist history.

And so if you really want to know more About the history of this document

And the sort of the thoughts Of the minds of the men who

wrote it And more about them This book, For the Vindication of the Truth Baptist Symbolics Volume 1 Put out

by the Founders Ministries Certainly would be one That I would encourage you to

get.

If you look at mine You'll see it's marked.

I don't know how to not mark up a book.

So I write all in it.

The only thing that I would say As a church that adopted the First London I would say as I was reading

Dr. Renahan on this I would say the only thing That perhaps, maybe not disagree But

maybe would emphasize differently.

Is that he tends to emphasize the At least in certain portions Of this book.

He tends to emphasize the fact that The First London is In some ways

incomplete.

I want to see if I can find How he says it here.

Have it outlined.

Let's see Had it here a moment ago.

Yeah, it's basically.

What he's saying is that Without the Second London

This one isn't enough.

The way it reads Is essentially that If you read the First London And you don't have the Second London There's going to be areas

Where there are There are just areas that are incomplete.

And I would give an example of that The First London says very little About the Lord's Supper.

And so if you're wanting to Find a more robust Doctrine of the Lord's Supper Certainly

you could look to The Second London And draw more from that Than you're going to

get In the First London.

In fact, in the First London Really the only thing It refers to

about the Lord's Supper Is that baptism precedes Participation in the Lord's Supper.

And that's typical in Baptist churches That a person would be baptized first Before receiving

the Lord's Supper.

But it doesn't give a doctrine Of what the table

is.

And so in that sense One could argue that It doesn't give a full doctrine Of the table.

And I don't think it intended to.

One of the things that's very clear About this document Is just like any other historical document

It's written in a time In a place where its intention Is to

make the arguments That it's concerned with.

And like the Second London Confession It begins I'm going to pull up The first article here.

It begins with the statement That we're not Anabaptists.

I was talking when I had R. Scott Clark on recently We talked about this.

This is the way it opens A confession of faith Of seven congregations Of churches of Christ That's not

the Church of Christ The denomination But of seven congregations Or churches of Christ in London

Which are commonly But unjustly Called Anabaptists.

And the argument is We're not Anabaptists We are

We're Baptists.

And there is a distinction That needs to be made.

And so again This is the A little bit of the history

here And a little bit of the time And when these things were given.

And so what I want to do now Is I want to move to The question of Why did we

affirm this one?

Why not just affirm the 1689?

And I just mentioned We would use the 1689 at times Especially if we're teaching on Something that the First

London Doesn't necessarily address.

And we find agreement In the Second London.

We might be able to use that In teaching.

So why not just adopt The whole thing?

Well, we wanted to be able To affirm a confession That we could

hold to Without any asterisks.

And what we mean by that is Oftentimes what you find In churches that

claim to be 1689 or Westminster or whatever That hold to a certain confession.

You'll find that there are Exceptions within those

confessions.

In fact, you can be ordained.

I believe you can be ordained In the Presbyterian church While still holding exceptions

To certain parts Of the Westminster Confession.

And so the same thing Can be said of the 1689.

I know of some churches That hold to the 1689 Confession.

But they hold to the 1689 Confession With exceptions And as a church.

They make those exceptions known.

They put asterisks in Their copy of the Confession.

They say we don't hold To this particular point.

Or we allow for differences On these particular points of doctrine.

And so we didn't want to do that.

That was something that The three of us, the elders Who were serving together

Decided that we wanted to Have a document that we felt like We could affirm every line Of the

document Without having to put any asterisks in.

Now, I'm in no way saying That if your church does Hold to the 1689 But you have exceptions

That you're in some way wrong.

I'm just saying That's not what we wanted to do.

We sort of had a concerted effort In the beginning.

We want to find one.

We can affirm completely.

And like I said.

We looked at everything We even looked at the Abstract of Principles.

We were trying to find something That was concise That was not necessarily simple But was

able to be Held to without having to have Any

exceptions.

And if you If you look at a lot of 1689 churches

They hold the whole 1689 Without exception.

In fact, some hold the 1689 So much that I remember recently I had a conversation With a friend of mine And he's a pastor of a

1689 church.

And I asked him I said, well, what's your position On the Millennium?

You know, because we were just talking And he said We believe what the

Confession says.

So it's like, you know That's fine, and that's great.

If that's a confessional church You should hold to the Confession.

And that's what it means To be confessional.

You're holding to That particular confession.

And so we wanted to have a confession That we could hold to And not have any

exceptions.

And what we found In studying the 1646 Was that we could affirm every line.

There was no need to add Any exception clauses or anything.

There was really only one part of it That even raised any questions among us As to its meaning.

And there's a part in it Where it refers to The terrors of the law

Not using the terrors of the law.

And so we studied that out Agreed that we could affirm What that was

saying Regarding the law.

And so we didn't have to Add an asterisk to that line or anything.

We were able to affirm the entire thing.

So if a person comes to join our church That person knows We hand them, again, this little book.

We say, here's the book for you to have And read it.

We affirm the 52 articles.

And the other thing we liked.

And this may seem like a Kind of maybe oversimplified thing to like.

But we liked the fact that it was 52 articles.

Because we are able to Throughout the course of a year Read

the Confession in worship One Sunday One article

a week For every Sunday.

So with 52 Sundays in a year 52 articles in the Confession.

And we did that.

We did that two years in a row.

We're actually taking a little break right now.

We're doing something a little bit different right now.

We're reading through some.

We're doing some different scripture readings That we're doing.

But we're going to revisit it In fact, we may revisit it.

A person sent me A modern version Of the Confession.

And we're going to look it over Make sure there's nothing strange Or odd about it.

And if it does We may read through the Confession In a modern language Because it does use

some Older language in the original.

So I know Possibly one of the questions That you may have.

Well, what are the areas That you disagree with the 1689?

And this is Something I've not been shy about Talking about in the past.

And I realize that there are those Who might Very vehemently disagree with me On

some of the things I'm about to say.

So I do want to just mention From the outset.

I believe that what we're going to Move into now Are secondary issues.

There's nothing primary.

There's no primary point of doctrine That I would necessarily disagree with.

1689 on.

But issues of secondary matters Would cause me

to have Some areas of disagreement.

The first thing is It's very clear That the 1689 puts forward A

covenant theology.

That is not the covenant theology That we would hold to At our church.

And this is, again May come as a surprise to some of you.

But I don't hold to Classic covenant theology.

Neither do I hold to 1689 federalism.

And so let me give you Sort of the breakdown of those.

Classic covenant theology Is what is found In the Westminster Confession And it is typically

described As one covenant of grace With different administrations.

And so You have the covenant of redemption Which took place in eternity past.

You have the covenant of works Which was with Adam in the garden.

And then everything After the covenant of works Is a different administration Of the covenant of

grace Beginning of course With Adam himself Receiving

the promise That the woman Would

have the child And he would crush The head of the serpent.

So.

When you look at it that way The Abrahamic covenant Mosaic covenant The Davidic covenant All of these

covenants Are simply administrations Of the one covenant of grace.

And it Including the new covenant They're all administrations

Of the same covenant.

And so That is where Things like infant baptism Would draw from

that.

Because the idea of covenant community The idea of covenant families

Flow out of that view Of covenant theology Which is fine.

That's the view that is held By my Presbyterian brethren.

And while I would Distinguish from some of it I think Much of it is good.

I would disagree With certain aspects of it 1689 federalism And I

hope I describe this well.

For those who hold this position If I say anything wrong It's not intentional.

I'm still learning.

And so as I'm seeing The different things They would agree with me On this aspect That the

new covenant Is actually the covenant of grace And the preceding covenants All point forward to that.

And I think the real debate Is over the Abrahamic covenant How it relates to the covenant of grace.

And so that is The distinction Between Baptist covenant theology

And classic Presbyterian covenant theology Is where and how

The covenant of grace Is to be understood.

And so you have You still have within it The covenant of redemption The covenant of works And the covenant of grace.

The question is Where does the covenant of grace land?

And within 1689 federalism The view is the new

covenant Is the covenant of grace And all other covenants Point forward to that Covenant of grace.

And you'll see My position is pretty similar But not exact.

I would hold to a position Our church holds to a position Which would be most in line With what now is

called Progressive covenantalism.

Now let me clarify We are not progressive In the sense that you might be thinking Because the word progressive

Typically has a negative connotation.

And it's the idea of like liberal That is not what this is referring to.

Progressive covenantalism Is the idea that God has progressively

Worked with his people Through covenants Down through the ages.

And we are now in the covenant Called the new covenant And that is the covenant That

God's people are in now.

But if we back up And we walk through The various covenants of scripture We will see that

God has worked He has administered his covenants With his people.

And so we could talk about The covenant of Again the covenant with Abraham

And then the covenant with Moses Which included the giving of the law And before

that the covenant The Noahic covenant.

And each of those covenants Have within it Their own covenant structures And their own

things That they were accomplishing Through that.

But all of them Point forward to Christ That every one of the

Previous covenants Have their telos Or their purpose In

the new covenant That they all point forward To the work of Christ.

And therefore it takes A very Christocentric view Where Christ is the center Of everything.

And that's the More of the view That our church would hold.

And if you want to know More about that view There's a book called Kingdom through covenant

By Stephen Wellam And Peter Gentry.

I think Yeah Wellam and Gentry.

It's southern seminary professors Who explain that position Very well.

Now that book's pretty thick.

So there's another one Called God's kingdom Through God's covenants I think.

And it's the It's the abridged version.

So if you're wanting To be introduced to this You can go to The abridged version.

Now prior to that There was something called New covenant theology And new covenant theology.

Was.

There was a book by Blake White And there were some other books.

Fred Zaspel did some work on this John Rissinger did some work on that.

And new covenant theology Was distinguishable From progressive covenantalism.

And there was a time when You know we would say here We would probably be more in line With new covenant

theology.

There are some distinctions though.

And this is where You know the nuances Are sometimes hard to describe And even define.

But ultimately New covenant theology Is really not Is not used as much anymore

As far as the language used now Is more the progressive covenantalism Even though there is some distinctions.

If you read the first edition Of kingdom through covenant though If I remember correctly I think Wellam did describe His position

as a form of New covenant theology.

But again The bad thing that happened As far as I understand With new covenant theology

Was there was There was a lot of Antinomianism creeped in And a lot of what was being

Pushed online That was considered to be New covenant theology Was actually very

antinomian Which means against God's law And saying there was essentially No law for the Christian.

And that's not What anyone like John Rissinger or Fred Zaspel Or any of these guys Have ever

ever Tried to put forward.

The idea was that Christ is the standard.

Christ is the one Who shows us how we ought to live And he gives us our marching orders Because he is the

captain of our soul.

And so That would be more in line With new covenant theology.

And what was originally being taught And expressed by those men And think

of his name.

There's a guy that I've interviewed On the show.

Doug.

Oh goodness.

Somebody knows.

Somebody's screaming it.

At the screen right now.

I know if you're listening to this.

It's not Doug Moo.

Obviously.

Goodness.

Doug I'm sorry I can't remember your last name.

But he has great lessons On this particular subject If you want to know more.

Another big issue though With that was the question Of the covenant of works.

And what actually happened With Adam in the garden.

Could it really be defined As a covenant structure Of what he was dealing with In the garden.

And.

Was there The question of a probationary period Whereby he was kept.

From the tree of life.

And.

If he would have overcome That probationary period Could he have gained access To the tree of life.

And would he have gained access To the tree of life Through some form of His own righteousness.

So there's a lot of questions And thoughts That come into this.

And if I've left anyone behind I hope I have And I'm really trying to Do my best to explain to you Where all the issues are.

Because when it comes to The subject of covenant theology I was very thankful When I interviewed Dr. Clark A few weeks

ago Where he actually said There's various forms Of covenant theology.

I'm glad he recognized that.

Like covenant theology Is not monolithic There's not one type.

There's obviously I just explained Differing views Of what would all be Covenantal theologies.

So you have classic covenant theology.

You have 1689 federalism.

You have progressive covenantalism.

And normally What that's distinguished against Is like dispensational theology.

And what's happening though.

Is there actually Is more of a coming together.

Because within Progressive covenantalism You also have Progressive

dispensationalism That's also coming together.

And there are little increments Of drawing

closer together To kind of find Where the agreements are And where the disagreements are.

So having said all that If somebody says Where's your major issue.

With 1689.

Well the first would be We don't hold to the same Covenant theology.

And this is where Some people would say Well then you're wrong For holding to 1646 Because those men held To the same

form Of covenant theology They may very well have.

But if you read the document It's not expressed clearly.

The document itself Is what we are adopting.

We're not adopting All of the things That the men who believed it Taught Or the men who wrote it Taught and believed.

Because when you adopt a document Yes it does have a history It does have a context.

But when you read it It says what it says.

And so this is where Maybe my disagreement Would be with some.

Because when we hold to this We can say we can affirm All 52 of these articles As they are plainly stated.

Is there a history behind them?

Is there a covenant theology That undergirds them?

Potentially.

But it doesn't violate anything That we are holding to.

Nothing it says Violates anything we believe Or teach.

And this brings me To my next issue on this.

And that is the issue Of the Sabbath.

One of the main differences Is particularly with the 1689 That I would have On

a practical level Would be how we understand The doctrine of the Sabbath.

Now if you've never seen My video Where I debated Rob

Hamm Who is a Presbyterian minister On the subject of the Sabbath.

If you want to know.

My position on the Sabbath.

Go watch that.

It's a two hour debate.

I know that's a lot to ask.

But if you really want to know Why I hold the position I do on the Sabbath I explain it As best as I ever have.

Or probably ever could.

That debate.

Sort of solidified Where our church stood On the subject of the Sabbath.

We do not believe that Sunday Is the Christian Sabbath.

We believe that the Sabbath Pointed forward to Christ.

That it was a shadow That finds its substance In the work of Christ And in Him.

We find our rest Not in a particular day.

Even though we do hold to What we would call Lord's Day observance Meaning we hold to Sunday As the Lord's Day.

Because this is the day That Christ rose.

This is the day that Christ His disciples worshipped on.

We see this in the scriptures The first day of the week.

And so we hold to the Lord's Day But not the Sabbath.

And you say Well what's the difference?

Well the difference Would be for us The same as the difference Between Passover And the Lord's Supper.

It's interesting.

There's only two things That have the Possessive Lords In the New Testament.

The first is the Lord's Supper.

The second is the Lord's Day.

And there's only two things That are mentioned as the Lords With that possessive term.

And both of them Are a fulfillment.

Or a New Testament example Of something from the Old Testament.

The Lord's Supper Is the New Testament example Of what was done in the Passover.

You have the Passover meal.

We don't do the Passover anymore.

We now have the Lord's Supper.

In the Old Testament You have the Sabbath.

And in the New Testament We have the Lord's Day.

Which isn't even on the same day.

The Sabbath was on Saturday.

And the Lord's Day is on Sunday.

And I definitely I respect men That disagree with me on this.

I recently had Dr. Sam Waldron On the show.

We talked about the Sabbath.

He's obviously a godly man.

I was thankful to hear That he said that I could Be a member of his church.

Even holding the position That I hold That we would hold A different position.

And yet he still Would affirm me In his church as a member.

So that was an encouraging thing to hear.

And so on the subject of the Sabbath The one thing I would say is this.

I remember one time Being in a meeting.

It was with a group of pastors.

And I heard a guy say something That was very disheartening.

He said well the only reason People do.

I forget how he said it exactly.

But basically he essentially said The only reason why people do this Is they

don't want to keep the Sabbath.

They don't want to keep the Sabbath.

And I thought that's One, that's assuming That you know

someone's heart This is not My position on the Sabbath Is not because I don't want to keep the Sabbath.

My position on the Sabbath Is not because I mean basically I treat Sunday The way most Sabbatarians do I

worship.

I don't do a lot of extra work Or extenuating work.

I don't do much of anything Except for go to church Eat together

And go home and rest.

So I treat it in very much The same way a Sabbatarian would treat it.

I just don't think it holds the same laws As the Old Testament Sabbath.

And again if you want to hear why.

Go listen to the debate.

But to assume that it's just because I just don't want to keep the Sabbath.

No I have a different doctrine.

My doctrine of the Sabbath Is that the Sabbath points to Christ.

And Christ is our rest.

And so that's where.

Really what was very important When we were adopting a

document.

We wanted a document.

Not for me.

But because this is what we teach This is what all three of our elders agreed to.

This is what our church teaches.

And we wanted a document Which would affirm that.

And so we found In the 1646 Confession A document that we believed We could affirm

from the top down.

And again if someone came to me later And said well I argue with you Because the men who

held it Held to the Sabbath I would say okay.

That may very well be true.

I don't know.

I know that there have been Various views of the Sabbath Historically Even within reform circles There has been the

Continental Sabbath view And different things.

So saying they absolutely held To the exact same view.

And you know that for certain I think is a little hard to say.

But even if they did It's not in the Confession.

We can affirm all 52 articles Of the Confession.

And we can do so Without having to put any asterisks Beside it.

And that was what we wanted To be able to do.

It wasn't about not wanting To keep the Sabbath.

It wasn't about that.

And it wasn't about necessarily The things in the 1689 That we

would hold To different views on.

We just wanted to hold.

We wanted a document We could hold to.

Because there are other areas Of the 1689 Confession That we would disagree on.

There's views on Like for instance The Pope being the Antichrist Is one that many people

Provide an exception to.

Because that view is not As popular as it was During the time When that document was written

As far as being the Antichrist The capital A Antichrist.

And if you want to know more About the 1689 Confession I do happen to have I grabbed it while I was Looking at my books today.

This is a new exposition Of the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689.

So if you want to learn more About what it means You can look and get a copy Of a

confessional commentary.

And this is one here That was edited by Rob Ventura.

And there are other ones.

Dr. Waldron has one I believe Dr. Renahan.

I'm not sure I'm pretty sure There's a volume two Of Baptist Symbolics Is the Second London Confession.

So you can get those as well.

But again I'm pointing you To resources today Trying to say Hey here you go.

Here's why we did what we did.

And again you may disagree With why we did what we did.

But this is the conviction That our elders came to.

This was the desire of our hearts Was to hold a confession That we believe we could affirm.

And again I can't help but Point to this little book As a huge resource And very helpful

In that this little book Has a short history Of the confession And has the entire

confession Written within it As well as again The appendix

by Benjamin Cox.

Alright so I just want to make sure I'm looking over my notes.

I did make notes for today's show So why did we adopt the confession?

We agreed with it 52 articles.

It's clear.

It's true.

It's not exhaustive.

It gives room to breathe a little.

But what it says.

It says well.

And so that was our reason For doing it.

Arguments against it.

Well it's incomplete.

We know that it's incomplete.

We still hold the We still have the 14 articles.

I think I remember this.

If I remember saying this earlier.

We still have our original Confession of Faith Which was 14 articles.

Remember the one I mentioned That has marriage in it.

Because this document Doesn't say anything about that.

So we wanted to keep that And hold to this as well.

So we are confessional.

In that we tell people We hold to the First London Confession.

But we also have 14 articles of faith That clearly express Some things that are Not

in the confession And say we hold to these things as well.

We also tell people And we try to be very clear about this That all of these things Are subservient to Scripture.

The confession will never rise above Scripture.

No other document No constitution in our church Ever will rise above Scripture.

Scripture will always be paramount.

And everything that we do We try to do Because it's what the Scripture says.

Not because it's what the confession says.

Even though we believe The confession agrees with the Scripture.

We want to do it.

Because that's what the Bible says.

And we want to focus on saying We believe this confession.

Because we believe That it agrees with the Bible.

So.

Let me just make sure I have all my notes here.

One last thing When we adopted the confession We adopted the confession With the idea

That We were going to put in our Statement of faith Or rather

not our statement of faith Our constitution That we hold this confession.

With.

The.

With it being Something we subscribe to But not absolutely.

And that Even though we agree With all 52 articles We endorse all 52 articles And we preach and teach And say these things are

true.

Ultimately The authority Is in the Scripture.

And I've already I guess I've already said that But I just wanted to clarify again That when a church becomes confessional

We still have One governing document That is above all.

And that is The Scripture.

The only absolute The only absolute authority Is Scripture.

We are sola scriptura.

Scripture alone Is the only infallible rule.

That's key.

And I just preached on this At the conference This last week.

It's not that it's our only It's not that it's our only Document that we look to.

We look to history books We look to confessions And we look to things like that.

But there's only one infallible rule.

There is no infallible confession Not even this one.

There is no infallible creed.

But there is one Infallible Theopneus Scripture.

And that is The God -breathed Word of God The Scriptures.

And so that is Our standard.

I hope this was helpful for you.

I hope that by walking through Our reasoning And what we did.

And again You can disagree with us.

That's fine.

We still be brothers in Christ And come to differences On certain things.

But if you have a question Or a comment Or something you want me to expand on In a future episode Please

leave your comments below.

And I will try my best To do that.

So now As we are finishing up today's show I left a little bit of time Here at the end Because I

want to introduce you To the Imago Dei Ministry And what they're doing To help save babies.

So once that ends This episode will end.

I want to thank you again For being a part Of Your Calvinist Podcast.

My name is Keith Foskey.

I've been your Calvinist.

But don't turn it off.

Watch this interview.

Please May God bless you.

Hey guys.

It's Pastor Keith.

And I am here at the Laborer's Conference In Knoxville, Tennessee.

And I'm sitting down today With Jeff and Sammy.

And they are talking about.

At their booth.

They are focusing on the subject Of abolition.

But the reason why I wanted to Sit down with you guys Is just kind of talk about.

What got you started doing this.

What is the ministry about.

And I was hoping that.

Maybe in this conversation.

We might could.

Define the difference Between pro -life And abolition.

Typically when you talk about The subject of abortion It's the subject of You have the pro -life And the pro -choice And that's the

only two sides That people really understand.

So you guys are abolitionists.

How did you get started?

How long have you been doing it?

And then we'll talk about.

What it means.

So we got started back in 2019 When I started going To the abortion clinic

In Tennessee and Bristol.

And it was on the corner.

Of Slaughter Street.

Is that literally the name.

Of the street?

It was literally The name of the street.

Was Slaughter Street.

Wow.

So we stood on the corner.

Of Slaughter Street.

And found out about abolitionism Through the people That we talked with there.

And it was 2020 February of 2020 Was my first abolitionist conference.

And then that's After that conference Is when we launched The Imago Dei.

And the Imago Dei.

And that's what this is.

This is the Imago Dei ministry.

So initially it was just.

Sidewalk slash.

Like doing online outreach Through the moms Who were posting In abortion support groups.

And now it's more Sidewalk online when we can.

And doing conferences To engage and educate Other Christians.

Now I want to ask.

A quick question.

Because you guys are Obviously married.

How long have you been married?

Ooh.

How long have you been married?

Thirteen.

Eleven, thirteen.

Wait a minute.

I think we're doing the lottery.

It's like five, eleven, thirteen.

Thirteen years.

I told you.

Okay.

So who got into this first?

She did.

I did.

I thought I was crazy.

Okay.

Well that's kind of.

What I was going to ask.

Is alright.

So you came along after her.

Yes.

But what made you.

And grab the mic.

What made you.

Catch the passion.

Because you're here.

You're wearing the shirt.

You're sitting behind the booth.

Oh I was.

You know I had to repent Of what I thought was right.

You know.

And it wasn't.

And.

She kept talking about The difference in abolitionism.

And seeing it in the Bible.

You know.

Just that it.

Coming straight out of God's word And there's no denying You know What it

says.

But yeah She's pretty much Wanted to turn me On to it.

Well let's talk about.

The.

So the ministry started out.

Of your going to the Abortion clinics.

And that was something That you started with.

And then that affected you.

And you both started Doing it together.

Imago Dei.

Came out of that.

How long have you been.

Now doing this.

2021 was our first conference.

And it was at Abolitionist Rising.

We were just doing.

The Abolitionist Rising conferences.

But then I started going Other places.

We've been G3 We've been here The White Calvinism conference.

Deeply rooted We tried to get into The SBC conference.

And they denied me twice.

So.

Really.

Yeah.

They won't let us in Any reason.

Why.

Did they tell you why.

They wouldn't tell me Why the first time And the first time Whenever I applied We were actually Members of an SBC church.

I think it was.

I'm not.

They have an application And I put what type Of a ministry we were And I think it's because Of the ministry Is why.

And we're very vocal About some of the things In the SBC And the URLC.

So that might be Some of it.

Oh okay.

Okay So.

When we talk about The subject of Abolition versus pro -life.

I'm going to give you my.

When I'm teaching.

And you tell me.

Since you guys are the experts.

I'll let you tell me.

If you think I'm.

Tell me if you think.

I'm explaining this correctly.

The pro -life movement Has for.

You know.

Decades.

Been.

What we would call.

The anti -abortion movement.

But the issue is.

There have always been Exceptions.

And there have always been.

Particular exceptions In regard to.

Like.

Issues of.

The mother's guilt.

And I see that And I even see.

It's not on the camera But on your.

On your poster over here.

There's a question.

Should moms who.

Willingly abort their babies.

Be charged with murder.

Right.

That's I've seen a lot of people.

Especially You mentioned the SBC.

I've seen a lot of Leaders come out And say that should never happen.

The mom should never be charged.

But that's not.

The only distinction.

That's one distinction.

But.

But I think That's the one that tends To get the most.

Like.

The most vitriol.

Yes.

People don't like it.

People don't want the idea Of the mother being.

They want her to be a victim Not to be an accomplice To the crime.

And we believe.

That abortion is a crime.

Right.

So.

Outside of that.

Major distinction.

What are some of the other Distinctions.

Between.

Because I would say things Like I said I was going to say what I said.

But I want to hear you guys too.

I would say things like.

The.

Like heartbeat bills.

And stuff like that.

You're still dealing With a living being.

Right.

So.

Another.

Another difference Between the pro -life And the abolitionism It seems like they are more Incremental.

They have.

Like I said Like it was six weeks.

For the heartbeat.

The heartbeat bill.

And now.

It seems like since Trump Has came out With the whole 12 to 15 week thing.

A lot of your.

Some of your pro -life Organizations Like governors Are now wanting to be like.

Well.

Maybe we need to relax.

A little bit more.

On.

These abortion bans.

And do a 12 to 15 week.

So.

Incremental.

And then Charging the mother.

And then also Life of the baby.

They think that If there's Something going on With the baby.

That.

The baby may or may not live.

You should be able to Abort your child then.

I think the biggest Pushback we get Is the criminalization Of the mother.

And I honestly think When you call Somebody a victim.

It's.

What do they have to repent of?

You're denying them.

The gospel.

Which is what they need.

They need the gospel.

More than anything.

And.

Jesus.

Can save And he does save.

Even murderers And liars And thieves.

And that's what I would think.

And then IVF.

IVF.

And the Abolitious movement.

Pro -life.

Is very different.

IVF is very much Condoned and.

Supported in.

The pro -life movement.

And in Most of your Church circles.

There's a lot.

Of wickedness And evilness In the IVF as well.

A lot of children.

Are murdered.

Through that.

Okay.

Did you have any.

Thoughts brother?

Want to add?

Yeah.

Just As she was saying It's gospel Centered Everything we do Has to be

gospel Centered If we don't put The gospel out In front.

The.

Woman that Chooses to Not abort Her child This time.

Might.

Choose To abort The next baby.

You know We can't Just put a band -aid on And talk Her out of something We need to share The

gospel You know And I think That's probably The biggest Difference between Pro -life

Is it's not As gospel Centered If it is Gospel centered At all With pro -life.

You have to be a Christian anyways.

To be an abolitionist.

One of the Top things With being abolitionist.

Is you're a gospel.

Centered And Jesus Is the head So it is Church driven And you can't say.

That a lot.

With all these Pro -life movements Who are predominantly.

Catholic.

And stuff.

And so.

It's very important.

To us.

And especially In who we partner With That.

They have to know The gospel If they're not.

Christian.

Like if you want To volunteer For our ministry You have to apply.

And part of that Is you have to tell me What the gospel is.

Are you a Trinitarian.

I want to know What church you go to.

And who's your pastor.

And can I call them To make sure That you're on the Up and up.

Because I can't stand Beside you or trust you To get the gospel.

I don't want to do Ministry with you.

Yeah I can't be Unequally yoked.

We take that.

Very seriously.

Yeah.

Okay.

Alright so.

Last thing.

I know people Are starting to come back in.

So we'll finish this up.

If people want to.

Get a hold of you guys.

If people want to.

Reach out to you.

If they want to.

Support what you're doing.

Or like you said Partner with you.

How do they get in Contact with you.

And what can they do.

You can go to Theimagoday .com.

Can you spell that.

For everybody.

T -h -e -i -m -a -g -o -d -e -i Dot org I said

dot com The first time.

Dot org.

Or you can email us At his image At theimagoday .org.

Perfect.

Which I think.

All that's on the.

Website too.

Well great.

That is Something we've We are striving.

If it's God's will We would like to be.

Missionaries.

For the pre -born.

You know.

Steady.

Every day Full time But as of yet That's not happening.

Yep.

Alright.

Well wonderful.

Thank you guys.

For being a part.

Of the show.

And we'll get the Video out to everybody.

Thank you.

God bless you.