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Folks, these are wolves. Truth be told, I oftentimes lay awake at night trying to figure out how I can get rid of wolves.
We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so, the next few statements that I'm going to make, I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.
We are polemical and polarizing, Jesus style.
I would first say that to characterize what we do as fashion is itself fashion. It's not hate. It's history. It's not fashion. It's the Bible. Jesus said, Woe to you when men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way, as opposed to blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
It is on. We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle.
The topic tonight is the Auburn Avenue Theology. And before I begin, I'd like to give you just sort of a cast of characters so you have some idea who is involved in promoting this theology. I suppose at the head of it we ought to list Steve Wilkins since he is the pastor of the Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church in Monroe, Louisiana.
For which this theology has been named the Auburn Avenue Theology. The church is a congregation of the PCA and Steve Wilkins is a teaching elder in good standing in the PCA. And there are others in the Louisiana Presbytery of which his congregation is a part that share his views.
In addition to Steve Wilkins, perhaps another name would be Douglas Wilson. Perhaps that's more familiar to some of you in the Pacific Northwest. Wilson is pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. He's also sort of the guru of a theological ecclesiastical complex there.
They have not only the church but a school, a college, a publishing house, and I've forgotten if there's anything else or not but at least four different institutions. Cannon Press is the name of the publishing company.
I think it's Lagos School and New St. Andrews College. And he is the head guru of all of those. One of his employees is Peter Lightheart. Now, Wilson is not in the PCA. Wilson is in the CREC, or the CRESH, I don't know how they pronounce it.
C-R-E-C. It's the Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches. They recently changed their names from the C-R-E to the C-R-E-C. And one of his employees is in the PCA, Peter Lightheart. And we'll be talking a little bit about Peter Lightheart tonight.
Peter Lightheart is a graduate of Westminster Seminary and also holds a doctorate from Cambridge University in England and is a very prolific author, has had many of his books published by Wilson's publishing house, as of course Wilson has himself.
Another name is Steve Schlissel. Steve Schlissel is from Brooklyn, New York. He is pastor of Messiah's congregation there. They used to be affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church, but they left the Christian Reformed Church, and I'm not sure which group the congregation is affiliated with now.
Some other names of men in the PCA, Jeffrey Myers, pastor of a church in the Midwest. Mark Horn is in the PCA, H-O-R-N-E. Another fellow named Jeff Steele. Rich Lusk, L-U-S-K, who was assistant pastor at Wilkinson's church down in Monroe.
I believe he has left the PCA, if I am properly informed, and has joined Wilson's group, the C-R-E-C. Randy.
Booth,.
David Bonson, these people are less prominent than some of the others, but Bonson is the son of Greg Bonson. John Barrack, I'm not sure how he pronounces his name. If anybody knows, please correct me, B-A-R-A-C-H.
He's in the URC, the United Reformed Church. James Jordan, who is in the background. Tom Traubhorst,.
OPC.
Pastor from New York. He is a promoter of these ideas. He used to be one of Schlissel's elders at Messiah's congregation, now he's an OPC pastor in Schenectady, New York. Then a couple surprises that people may not think of.
Junior Sproul, R .C. Sproul Jr., is a promoter of these ideas. If you go to his website, you'll see his list of recommended links. It includes James Jordan, Douglas Wilson, and various other outlets on the web for these ideas.
When he was editor of Table Talk, he hired Douglas Wilson to write a monthly column for three years and invited Steve Schlissel and others, Steve Wilkins, to write an occasional piece. He introduced those men to an audience that they might not otherwise have had and has done his best in promoting those ideas.
Another man affiliated with Ligonier Ministries is Keith Matheson, who has had his books published by Canon Press. I didn't mention that Junior Sproul is in the RPCGA,.
Which is a.
Micro-Presbyterian denomination, the Reformed Presbyterian Church General Assembly. Most of those, some of them are obviously more prominent than others, more prolific than others. Perhaps the most prolific writers are Wilson and Lightheart and James Jordan, of the ones we've mentioned.
They are very prolific. One other name I forgot is George Grant, who is currently writing for Table Talk. George Grant earned some distinction in 1997 by writing a favorable review of N .T. Wright's book, What St. Paul Really Said, for World Magazine.
That was as long ago as 1997. And now he's writing a monthly column for Table Talk. These men are zealous. They are not keeping their opinions to themselves. They are promoting their ideas through books, many books, through conferences.
The Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church holds several conferences a year. Perhaps its most famous is the January Annual Conference, the Pastors Conference, at which it has its speakers come in, and pastors come from all over the U .S.
Typically they will have an attendance of 100 -150 pastors at their conferences. Through newsletters. There are several newsletters published by these men. And through websites. The World Wide Web is a replete with essays, commentary, blogs, whatever promoted by these men.
The Auburn Avenue conferences have been going on for several years. I think they started in 1997 or 1998. I attended one of the early ones, the 1999 conference, and I haven't been back since. It was held at the Auburn Avenue Church.
And perhaps you've heard people who have been to these conferences comment on the wonderful singing at the Auburn Avenue Church. I know in the book that Cal Beisner put together, the Auburn Avenue Theology Pros and Cons, and if you haven't read anything, this is probably about as good a source as any for understanding what they actually believe.
In the book, Steve Schlissel mentions how wonderful the singing is at the Auburn Avenue Church. He says it's like you've gotten into heaven without being required to die first. But what is sort of amusing about that is that the Auburn Avenue building is a former Christian science structure.
And the Christian scientists pay particular attention to acoustics when they construct a building. And the building has extraordinary acoustics. So what would sound like just run-of-the-mill singing in any other building in this building because of the acoustics sounds just wonderful.
And people mistake that for spirituality, like Steve Schlissel. They think that because the singing resounds off the ceiling, the ceiling is curved and off the walls, that somehow this indicates a higher level of spirituality than anywhere else.
The acoustics are so good that the speakers, although they ordinarily don't do so, the speakers can stand up front and speak without a microphone and be heard all over the building. And the room is many times the size of this particular room.
Well, the speakers the year I went were Wilkins, Wilson, Schlissel, and a man named Derek Thomas who was excellent. Derek Thomas was on the faculty of Reform Seminary at the time. I'm not sure where he is now.
And I made the mistake of praising him, I guess, to Steve Wilkins, and he was never invited back to speak. But they did invite of course Schlissel and Wilson back to speak. This year, this past January, the two featured speakers were N .T. Wright and Richard Gaffin.
And we've talked about both of those men earlier in this week. N .T. Wright, the Anglican bishop, and Richard Gaffin. I did not attend the conference, but I've read the transcripts thoroughly of the entire conference.
And what is striking about the conference is not that they said anything new, I don't think they did, but that Dr. Gaffin, who has sometimes been regarded as a critic of Dr. Wright, took no opportunity to criticize him.
In fact, when Dr. Wright was questioned about his views of scripture, particularly the doctrine of inerrancy, Dr. Gaffin tried to offer a verbal formulation to get him off the hook. Very interesting display.
It was as if they were trying to find as much common ground as they possibly could. Of course, N .T. Wright denies inerrancy. At the conference he said something like he dislikes all those words beginning with I-N.
And I suppose that would include inspired and inerrant and intelligible. But that was his statement. He dislikes words beginning with I-N. I'd like to give you a list of about 21 contrasting views. And I will comment on these as we go through them and try to explain how they fit into what's going on and what we've studied earlier this week.
First statement is simply a statement from Gresham Machen in 1924. Now this statement was made 80 years ago in a somewhat different context. As you recall Machen had published his book Christianity and Liberalism in 1923 in which he argued that liberalism was not a distortion of Christianity but a completely different religion.
And this is the statement he made. The plain fact is that two mutually exclusive religions are being proclaimed in the pulpits of the Presbyterian Church. And Machen and those who supported him when they left the Presbyterian Church a dozen years later had the expectation that thousands of Presbyterians would understand this and follow them into separate institutions and they were sorely disappointed because the liberals had so carefully used the language of scripture in promoting their view that many were fooled.
Well this new theology that has come about is as insidious as anything that Machen faced 80 years ago. And here is the first contrast I'd like to draw. In the new theology we're told that because of the infinite gulf between creator and creature, to say nothing of sin, man cannot think God's.
Thoughts.
The Christian view is that by propositional revelation God has clearly communicated his thoughts to his people for their understanding belief and guidance. The first is a denial of revelation, of propositional revelation, and the second is an assertion of it.
Now we talked a little bit last night about the theology of Cornelius Van Til. Van Til was just a bundle of paradoxes and he held the new theological view here. Man cannot think God's thoughts and I gave you half a dozen or more quotations from Van Til in which he says this thing.
At no point is there any identity of content between the reformed confessions and the divine system in the mind of God. At no point, he says it repeatedly and emphatically, at no point is there any identity of content between the reformed confessions and the mind of God.
But he also said, and he also used a phrase that some of his students remember which is excellent. He said, we are called to think God's thoughts after him. Now one cannot have it both ways. If we cannot think God's thoughts, we certainly can't think God's thoughts after him.
But that is the Christian position, thinking God's thoughts after him. He reveals his thoughts in scripture and we receive those thoughts and we can understand them and we think them. So God thinks that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and when that proposition is revealed to us, we think that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Or God thinks that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea and when he reveals that proposition to us, we think that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea. We assert, the Bible asserts that it is an, in fact, a revelation, as the Confession chapter 1 says, a revelation of God himself.
He has revealed himself to his people and he does it in propositions. He does it in words. And every one of those words is inspired by God and every one of those propositions is inerrant and infallible.
That is a contrast, there's a chasm between these two views. Either we can think God's thoughts or we can't. And if we can't, then we might as well all go home because this is all a hoax. Christianity is all a hoax.
If we cannot think God's thoughts, it's all a hoax. Well, let's continue. I'll probably elaborate on that in a little bit. Here's a second contrast between these views. Human language cannot adequately or accurately express divine truth.
We went over this the other night when we talked about the views of Hermann Bavink, for example. And I quoted Bavink, a few paragraphs from Bavink's book, The Doctrine of God. The Christian view is that human language is a gift of God to man and it can and does adequately express divine truth.
In the garden, God created Adam with language so that Adam could speak to God and that God could speak to Adam and both could understand each other. Language is not something that bubbled up from animal grunts and squeals.
It's not something derived from our sensations. It is a divine gift. It is innate in man. And man thinks God's thoughts and converses with God. We can pray and God can tell us. He can reveal himself to us in Scripture.
God gave man language so that man might understand and communicate with God. That is the primary purpose of language. Also, we can understand and communicate with each other. But the primary purpose is vertical so that we can understand and communicate with God.
And because of that, we can understand and communicate with each other. Again, two contrasting views, only one of which can be true. Either language is adequate or it's not. Either language can accurately express divine truth or it can't.
And the Bible says it can. The Bible claims to be divine truth. Divine truth in human.
Words.
And if you think about specific occurrences in the Bible, you can see how important this is. For instance, we're told when Paul was on the road to Damascus that the Lord intercepted him and spoke to him in what?
Does anybody recall what language he spoke? He heard him in the Hebrew tongue. The Lord spoke Hebrew to Paul on the road to Damascus. When Jesus walked on earth, presumably he spoke Aramaic and Greek and Hebrew.
When he read from Isaiah, presumably he read in Hebrew. He may have read the Septuagint, that would be Greek. But here you have the second person of the Trinity reading in human language, no complaints about the words cannot express what I'm trying to convey.
The words express accurately and adequately exactly what he's trying to convey. Let's go to the third point. It's related to this one that we just discussed. All language about God is metaphorical. All language about God is metaphorical.
Now this is not a new doctrine. In fact, if you read Gordon Clark's book, Language in Theology, you'll see that many religious thinkers have argued that all language about God is metaphorical. This is not something new to this Auburn Avenue theology.
In fact, hardly any of this is. They have simply seized on several errors that have been committed before and adopted them as their own. At the 1999 conference that I attended down at Auburn Avenue, Wilson spoke three times and he spoke on what he called poetic epistemology.
And the thesis of his talks was that there's no such thing as literal language, that all language is metaphorical. He even went beyond this. It's not just language about God that's metaphorical, but all language is metaphorical.
There is no literal language. Now, of course, that point of view is self-defeating because Mr. Wilson wants us to understand him literally. If all language were metaphorical, then we should say to him, well, I'm glad you agree with me, Mr. Wilson, that all language is literal.
It is self contradictory to argue that all language is metaphorical. Not only that, but we recognize that there are metaphors in Scripture. And if all language is metaphorical, we cannot distinguish between literal and metaphor.
If all language is metaphorical. So we say, the cross is metaphorical. It stands for something else. What does it stand for? Well, it stands for the love of God. The cross. The cross of Christ. It stands for the love of God.
Well, if all language is metaphorical, what does the love of God stand for? Let's go back another step. And as you can see, we're not going to make any headway because we're never going to get beyond metaphor.
We will never know what anything stands for if all language is metaphorical. Well, the Christian view is that God's revelation is literally true. This doesn't mean that everything in Scripture, such as Christ's statement, I am the door, is literally true.
That's a figure of speech. Christ is not an oak panel three feet by nine feet high and two inches thick. That's not his meaning. But we can translate the metaphor into literal language. In fact, we must if we're going to understand Scripture.
If we cannot translate it into literal language, we don't know what it.
Means.
We have no idea what it means. So when you read Scripture, when you come across a figure of speech, a metaphor, whatever, figure out if you can, what the literal meaning of.
It is. What does he.
Mean when he says I am the door? Or I am the vine? Or any of the other figures of speech in Scripture. If you do not know, if you cannot express what they literally mean, then you don't know what they mean.
And you'll have to do further study to figure it out. Metaphors trip theologians up all the time. It tripped Luther up. Luther believed that when Christ said this is my body, he was speaking literally.
He didn't realize it was a metaphor. He didn't realize it was a figure of speech. And theologians make this mistake all the time. Mistaking metaphors for literal statements. Christ told parables. I mentioned this the other night.
Parables are extended figures of speech. And we have the impression, sometimes learned in Sunday school, that Christ told metaphors for the purpose of explaining his ideas in simple, homely terms so that everybody could understand what he meant.
That's precisely the opposite of why he spoke in parables. The disciples ask him. They're the Gospels. Repeatedly. Why do you speak in parables? And his answer is to confuse people. Because it is not given for them to know.
But to you it is given to know, and I will speak to you plainly. So he takes the disciples aside and explains in literal speech the meaning of the parables.
But to the.
Crowds he speaks in figures of speech. In parables. So that they will be confused. The direct opposite of what you might have learned in Sunday school about the purpose of parables. In John's Gospel he does this, and the disciples are ecstatic.
They say, now you're telling us plainly what you mean. They're grateful for this. Because they don't have to puzzle through the parables to figure out what means what. They're grateful for the literal statements that Christ.
Makes.
Well, continuing with this list, here's a fourth one, a related one. All of these relate to the idea of revelation. God's logic, if we can speak of God's logic, is different from human logic, which is created by God.
Now this was a teaching of Van Til, among others, that human logic is created by God. That's the position of the New Theology. The Christian position is that God's logic is man's logic, for there's only one logic.
Logic is the structure of God's own thought. Rational man is the image of God. In the first chapter of John we have the statement that Christ, the Logos, is the light that lights the mind of every man.
Here you have the doctrine of the Divine Logos, lighting the mind of every man. This is the image of God. It is his rationality. God has the same logic that man does. That's why communication is possible.
That's why revelation is possible. That's why prayer is possible. In our arithmetic, 1 plus 1 is 2. In God's arithmetic, 1 plus 1 is 2. In God's logic, if all dogs have teeth and spaniels are dogs, then spaniels have teeth.
In our logic, if all dogs have teeth and spaniels are dogs, then spaniels have teeth. The forms, the rules, are the same in God's logic and man's logic. Otherwise, communication is impossible. In fact, thought is impossible, not just communication.
This is in striking contrast to some of these Auburn Avenue theologians. For example, let me quote from a lecture that Doug Wilson gave and is published in this book. I'll read his exact words so I don't mislead you.
Here's what he writes. He says, G .K. Chesterton, my favorite papist, once said that when we are confronted with two apparently contradictory truths, we should insist on keeping both of them. We are not to make it easier for ourselves to hold on to one by letting go of the other.
Well, if they're only apparently contradictory, that's fine. But what Wilson goes on to say is we are not to resolve them. He says repeatedly in this essay, Let God do the math. By which he means, let God figure out how these two truths fit together.
As far as really contradictory truths, there can be no such thing. If something is a proposition, its contradictory has to be false if the proposition is true. With contradictions, with contradictories, one has to be false and one has to be true.
There cannot be two contradictory truths at all. Wilson also has another essay, The Great Logic Hopes, in his book, God's Padilla, I think it is. You might want to look that up and read that sometime because it's a very interesting attack on logic.
The title is The Great Logic Hopes. And among other things, he says in there that the proposition 2 plus 2 is 4 is not true. 2 plus 2 is 4 is not true, according to Douglas Wilson. The whole essay is an attack on precision in thought, on rationality, and even on excellence in one's scholarship.
He ends the essay by advising Christian school teachers to lighten up and not to expect so much from their students, which is bizarre, but that's the way he ends the essay. But here you have a different view of logic than Till taught that logic was created.
It was not something that is the structure of God's thought, but simply that logic is created. Well, let's go on to number 5 here. This is a statement you've probably seen many times. It was in the bobbing quotes I gave.
The New Theology says the finite cannot grasp the infinite. Christianity says precisely because God is all powerful and all-knowing, he can and has revealed himself to men so that they can and do understand him.
Precisely because God is all-powerful and all-knowing, he can reveal himself. He can say exactly what he means, and he can ensure that we understand him. If God cannot talk, then again, we ought to close up shop and go home.
In a discussion the other day, someone raised the question, what about Calvin's language of God lisping to us? My response was God doesn't have a speech impediment. A lisp is a speech impediment, and Calvin should never have said that.
It is an attack on God's ability to communicate truth to men. This has nothing to do, really, with us. We are creatures, and God can make his creatures understand him if he wishes. It has to do everything with God's ability.
It's precisely because God is omnipotent and God is omniscient that he can reveal himself.
To men.
Far from being an impediment to his revelation, it's the ground of his revelation. Well, here's another contrast. Revelation is non-propositional. Revelation is only propositional. Again, we talked briefly about this earlier in the week.
The new theology holds, and again, this is not unique to the Auburn Avenue folks. They are simply adopting a series of errors taught before them in the churches. They may believe that revelation consists of events.
We talked about that last night. Or that revelation consists of experiences, or of emotions, or of images. Mystical religious experiences perhaps are revelation for some like N .T. Wright. Anything, anything it seems to be the case, except propositions.
Because propositions are aimed at the mind. They're aimed at the understanding. And they think such a religion is Gnostic. Such a religion is Rationalist. And these are words they use. Gnostic and Rationalist.
Schlissel even uses the word, what is it? Propositionalist. He says this is Propositionalism. And, of course, Schlissel has a hard time expressing himself without using propositions, but he attacks Propositionalism.
And he says that revelation consists of knowing a person, not a proposition. Well, we've heard all this before, folks. This was one of the core doctrines of liberalism a hundred years ago. No creed, but Christ.
No creed, no proposition, no system, just Christ. We have to focus on the person. And a hundred years before that, we heard it from Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, who says the object of faith is not a doctrine.
Because.
If that were the case, it would be important not to botch the doctrine or we would be lost. He says the object of faith is not a teacher with a doctrine because in that case, it would still be important not to botch the doctrine or we would be lost.
He says the object of faith, and you can read Kierkegaard yourself, the object of faith is the reality of the teacher.
That's what he says.
Not doctrine, not even a teacher with a doctrine, but the reality of the teacher. That's the object of faith. And this is cropping up again. It crops up every generation. And in this case, the Auburn Avenue folks are promoting the idea that the truth is a person rather than a proposition.
And the object of faith is that person rather than a proposition. On that whole point, I'd urge you to read Dr. Clark's book, What is Saving Faith? Because he does something that no other commentator has done to my knowledge.
He actually goes through the Gospel of John and sees how John uses the word logos. He doesn't stop with the first chapter, but he sees how John uses the Greek word all the way through the Gospel. And he explains in that way why John uses the same word to refer to Christ and his teaching.
Christ says he's going to give you his logos, his doctrine. Well, that's the same word John used in chapter 1 to refer to Christ himself. And the exegesis of the point in the Gospel of John is that there is no gap between the logos with a capital L and the logos with a small l.
There's no gap between the doctrine and Christ because Christ is the truth. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And he's telling us truths when he speaks in the Gospel of John. He's giving us his mind.
And that's why Paul writes, we have the mind of Christ. Well, let's go on here. The new theology is that knowledge is not necessary for salvation.
What's.
Necessary is having the right relationship, however that's defined,.
To either.
A person or to a church. So if you're baptized, as these men say over and over again, and I hope I'll get to quote their words in a few minutes. If you're baptized, you enter into a new relationship with Christ, a relationship that gives you all the benefits and blessings that Christ obtained for his people.
We baptize infants precisely because they cannot know anything and they receive salvation apart from knowledge. Now, this of course, again, has nothing to do with Christianity. Salvation is coming to the knowledge of the truth, as Paul writes and as the author of Hebrews writes.
And without that knowledge of the truth, despite what Soren Kierkegaard said, we're lost. Those who have not heard of Christ and therefore cannot believe are lost.
How.
Shall they believe unless they hear and how shall they hear unless there's a preacher? The knowledge is indispensable. As far as infants being unable to know, what basis is there in Scripture for that?
We have examples in Scripture of infants knowing. John the Baptist, before he was born, leapt in his mother's womb for joy when he learned that the mother of his Lord was there visiting. Jeremiah says the same thing, that he knew before he was born.
Where did we get the idea that infants don't know, that they don't understand? Most of us in here, I would guess, are parents. As a parent, I'm sure you realize that infants understand much earlier than they can express their thoughts.
We sometimes make the distinction between being able to know and being able to articulate something.
Infants.
Understand very well. They can understand the Scripture say before they're born. And this goes right along with the doctrine of man created in the image of God, because man does not have a blank mind.
He is created in the image of God. He has innate ideas. His mind is not blank when he comes into the world. Well, let's continue here. Moving into the doctrine of salvation, we find a statement on faith.
Saving faith is not assent to propositions. The Christian view is saving faith that is belief is assent to propositions revealed in Scripture. If a person doesn't know those propositions, if he's never been instructed, if he's never heard the Gospel, he cannot be saved.
Saving faith is not some mystical experience.
It's.
Not something that people obtain apart from understanding. Saving faith is more than belief or assent. It is faithfulness,.
Obedience.
And you see this through the Auburn Avenue theology. They try to redefine the word faith as faithfulness. The Christian view is saving faith is merely assent to understood propositions. Faithfulness and obedience are results of believing, not parts of believing.
They're results of believing. They're effects of believing. They're fruit, to use the biblical metaphor, of believing. But the faith itself is simple belief, the saving faith. It's simple belief of the Gospel.
The jailer asked, what must I do to be saved? And the response is, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Jesus, when he's teaching Nicodemus in John 3, tells him that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes on him.
Shall be saved.
Whoever believes on him shall be saved. Of course, this confuses Nicodemus, but we don't need to get into that. He should have understood this. And Jesus says so, and Jesus tries to humiliate him by saying, are you the teacher of Israel and you don't understand these things?
Whoever believes shall be saved. It is not faithfulness. That is the effect of the belief. The obedience, the good works, are the effect of the belief. They are not part of the belief. Paul, when he talks about salvation in Romans 3 and 4, he talks about justification.
And he says, we're saved by belief apart from the deeds of the law.
We're saved.
By faith apart from the works. He uses that word apart a good deal in those chapters. So works and deeds of the law and faithfulness and obedience cannot be part of faith. Because we're saved by faith apart from the deeds of the law.
Well, continuing here, number 10, the new theology says faith alone justifies because faith includes obedience. Or faith is faithfulness. So it alone justifies. They will say yes, we believe in justification by faith alone.
Because they've redefined faith. Faith is faithfulness. Christianity says belief alone justifies apart from works. This is very offensive to many people. It was very offensive to people in Paul's day because one of the charges raised against the gospel was that it's antinomian.
Well, we have no motive to keep the law then. We have no motive to obey the Ten Commandments if we're saved apart from keeping the Ten Commandments. And Paul deals with that in his letter to the Romans.
He deals with it very thoroughly. My advice to pastors sometimes is, look, if you aren't accused of being an antinomian, you're probably not preaching the gospel. Because that's one of the effects the gospel is going to have.
That's one of the accusations made against Paul. If you aren't being clear on this point, if you're sort of smuggling in works through the back door, you can avoid the charge of antinomianism. But you avoid it at the expense of distorting the gospel.
Or even obscuring the gospel. Well, one of the things that the new theology denies is the covenant of works. And Christianity has always taught that God, because he's absolutely holy, has always required perfect obedience.
In the garden there's a requirement of perfect obedience. And if there isn't perfect obedience, there's punishment. If there is perfect obedience, there's reward. This again has enormous consequences for theology.
Because you do away with the idea of the covenant of works, and what you end up with is saying God has lowered his standards and he's satisfied with our imperfect obedience.
And.
That's why Paul emphasizes in Romans that in the doctrine of justification we establish the law. We do not undermine the law. We establish the law. And Christ himself is the only one who has kept the law.
James teaches us, as I emphasized last night, that if we keep the whole law and offend in one point, we are guilty of all. Perfect obedience. God has not lowered his standards. And he never will. Well, let's continue here.
New theology, because there was no covenant of works, God did not earn the salvation of his people, but he was himself saved, and we participate in his salvation through union with him. Now, this may sound a little bit odd, but it's in Dick Gaffin's book, Resurrection and Redemption.
He speaks at length in there about the salvation.
Of Christ.
About his justification, his redemption, his sanctification, his adoption, his glorification. And it's because Christ is saved that we are saved because we are united to Christ. Christian doctrine is that Christ earned salvation for his people by his perfect life and obedient death.
Christ himself did not need salvation, and he was not saved from sin. The doctrine of union with Christ, as it shows up in this theology, has not only pushed justification aside, but it's also pushed aside the role of Christ as mediator, as our substitute and our representative.
If you're going to have union, as Horatius Bonar says in The Everlasting Righteousness, a book on the table there, if you're going to make union the centerpiece of your theology, then you've done away with substitution.
Again,.
You can have one or the other, but it can't be both. Christ's righteousness is not imputed to believers, is the new theology. They are saved by union with him and possess all that he is in the inner man.
This is a quote from Dick Gaffin. I read it to you last night. It's in his book Resurrection and Redemption. And just to make sure I'm perfectly clear, not the first part of the sentence, but the last part.
We are saved by union with him and possess all that he is in the inner man. And Dr. Gaffin goes on to say, of course, that's why God declares us righteous is because we're already.
Righteous.
And if you're familiar with the history of theology, you know that's Roman Catholic doctrine. Christ's righteousness is imputed to believers through faith alone, and it is the only ground of their fellowship with God.
It's not union, but imputation. Or as Dr. Gaffin calls it, existential or experiential union. If somebody wants to argue legal union or intellectual union, I'll agree with him wholeheartedly, but not experiential or existential.
Here's the words again that Dr. Gaffin uses. Saving union with Christ is existential or experiential. The Auburn Avenue folks say it's also.
Ritual.
By being baptized, you're baptized into Christ. You're united with Christ in baptism. When you eat the Lord's Supper, you are eating Christ, and you are united to him in that way. Now that's sort of an ongoing union.
Christianity says saving union with Christ is legal and intellectual. Legal because he's our representative and our substitute. He's the federal head of his people. These are all legal terms. Christian doctrine places the law of God at its core.
This is again why St. Paul says we do not undermine the law, we establish the law. All of these terms are legal terms. And it's intellectual because we have the mind of Christ. God has revealed himself in the Scripture in propositions that we can understand and believe.
It's an intellectual relationship. The metaphor used in Scripture is the relationship between Christ and his people is the marriage relationship. And that metaphor is used because that's perhaps the closest thing that might be used, but actually the union, the intellectual union between Christ and his people is much closer than that between a husband and a wife.
It's much closer because they're both thinking the same thoughts. You know, after maybe 30 years of marriage, a husband and a wife can finish each other's sentences because they're thinking the same way.
Well, our union with Christ ought to be the same way. That we can finish his sentences. That we have his word so drilled into our minds that we know what he's thinking. That we have hid his words in our hearts.
That we know what God thinks on a particular subject. Well, in the New Theology, the elect are the baptized. The elect in Christianity are those for whom Christ died and each is given the gift of faith.
Millions who have been baptized are lost. And of course, the New Theology says, well, they're covenantally elect. They're not decretally elect. But we call them elect nonetheless. They're covenantally elect.
Well, this goes back again to the doctrine of the covenant. Who is a member of the covenant? And this is a crucial issue in this Theology. Who is a member of the covenant? In the next hour, I will try to explain that to you from their point of view, that they think that all the baptized, everyone who is baptized using the Trinitarian formula, is a member of the covenant.
And that's not the view of Scripture and that is not the view of the Westminster Confession. The last overhead I put up had the contrast between who the elect are. The elect are the baptized and the elect are those for whom Christ died and millions of the baptized are lost.
I'll interrupt my list here with a statement from the Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church. They adopted this statement in 2002 as an official statement of their position. The congregation didn't, but the session did.
And notice what they say. All covenant members are invited to attain to a full and robust confidence that they are God's eternally elect ones. Starting with their baptisms, they have every reason to believe God loves them and desires their eternal salvation.
Baptism marks them out as God's elect people, a status they maintain so long as they persevere in faithfulness. So they can maintain their status as elect so long as they persevere in faithfulness. And it's baptism that marks them out as God's elect people.
I'll give you a couple other quotations from the Auburn Avenue Church. This is Article 7. By baptism one is joined to Christ's body, united to him covenantally and given all the blessings and benefits of his work.
Now that phrase is crucial. Given all the blessings and benefits of his work by baptism. This does not, however, grant to the baptized final salvation. Now, do you see the problem here? That means final salvation is not one of the benefits and blessings of Christ's work.
He gives you an initial salvation. He gives you an initial justification but not final salvation. That's the only way you make sense of this. Unless these people are just uttering one contradiction after another, which is always possible.
This does not grant to the baptized final salvation, that is all the blessings and benefits of Christ's work. Rather, it obligates him. Rather than giving him a gift, it obligates him to fulfill the terms of the covenant.
Embracing these blessings by faith, repenting of sins and persevering in faithful obedience to God. One can only fulfill the terms of the covenant by faith, not by works. And even this faith is the gift of God, lest anyone should boast.
So, they will use scriptural phraseology in order to mask what they're saying. In baptism, you receive all the blessings and benefits of Christ's work but not final salvation. This goes back to the doctrine of justification as we discussed it earlier, where they have an initial justification and a final justification.
Let me give you another statement here from the Auburn Avenue position papers. This is article 8. God has decreed from the foundation of the world all that comes to pass, who would disagree with that, including who would be saved and lost for all eternity.
Included in his decree, however, and you always have to watch for these howevers and these buts that they put in, is that some persons, not destined for final salvation, will be drawn to Christ and his people only for a time.
These, for a season, enjoy real blessings purchased for them by Christ's cross and applied to them by the Holy Spirit, by the word and sacrament. Now, do you see what favorite Calvinist doctrine goes down the tubes here?
It's the doctrine of definite atonement, that Christ died for his people. Those who are not finally saved, not destined for final salvation, nevertheless, enjoy real blessings purchased for them by Christ's cross.
Christ died for people who are reprobate. Well, let's go on here. Here's another, article 10 of the AAPC position. The biblical narrative, however, appears to draw no distinction between Saul's initial experience of the Spirit, Saul being King Saul in the Old Testament, and the experience of those who obtained final salvation.
Notice how this phrase keeps appearing. Final salvation. While God, no doubt, predestined Saul's apostasy, since he foreordains all that comes to pass, God was not the author of Saul's apostasy. Saul received the same initial covenantal grace that David, Gideon, and other men who persevered in faith received, but he did not receive the gift of perseverance.
Now notice that. Saul received the same initial covenantal grace that David, Gideon, and other men who were saved received, but he did not receive the gift of perseverance. So he received the initial covenantal grace of what?
Regeneration. Adoption.
All.
The blessings and benefits of Christ's work, except for final salvation. See what they're teaching? That you can be regenerate, you can be adopted, you can be justified, you can be sanctified, and you can go to hell.
And they claim this assures people of their salvation because they have an object of assurance in their baptism. There's no assurance in this at all, of course. Let me see if there's another one here.
Ah, here's another good one.
It appears.
That the Bible speaks of salvation more often than not in relational and covenantal categories rather than in metaphysical ones. Salvation is not a thing we possess that can be lost and found like car keys.
It is a matter of being rightly related to God through Christ. But notice then what they go on here. They say, salvation can't be lost and found like car keys. If we understand that correctly, I suppose most of us would agree with that.
It's not changeable. Once you're saved, you're saved. If you're not saved, you're not saved. But notice what they go on to say. Relationships, they've said salvation is a relationship. Relationships are not static, unchanging entities.
They are fluid and dynamic. Our salvation covenant with the Lord is like a marriage. If we persevere in loyalty to Christ, we will live with him happily ever after. If we break the marriage covenant, he will divorce us.
Now, the confession summarizes, the confession is the best summary of Scripture that has ever been done by a council, and it summarizes the doctrine of justification by saying that, as we saw the other night, a person who is justified can never fall from the state of justification.
The confession correctly summarizes Scripture as teaching that Christians sin, and they incur what the confession calls God's fatherly displeasure, and their fellowship with God is interrupted by their sin until they repent, but it says they can never fall from the state of justification.
But the doctrine of the Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church is, God will divorce them. Two different theologies. Well, let's see if I have another one here. Here's another one from an end note. God mysteriously has chosen to draw many into the covenant community who are not elect in the ultimate sense, and who are not destined to receive final salvation.
There's that phrase again, final salvation. These non-elect covenant members are brought truly to Christ, united to him in the church by baptism, and receive various gracious operations of the Holy Spirit.
Corporately, they are part of the chosen, redeemed, spirit-indwelt people. These are people who are finally lost. It says they're truly brought to Christ, united to him in the church by baptism, and receive gracious operations of the Holy Spirit, and they're part of the chosen, redeemed, spirit-indwelt people.
Well, let's continue with a list, and maybe I can get through a few more of the contrasts here. The next one fits right in here. The Christian can lose his election, justification, and salvation. Christianity teaches, the Bible teaches, election, justification, and salvation are irrevocable.
The new theology says that the final justification of Christians depends on their lifelong performance. And Christianity teaches that the final justification of sinners occurs at the moment of first belief of the gospel, and depends solely on the righteousness of Christ.
Romans 8 .1, there is therefore now no condemnation. The new theology says God accepts our faithfulness, our imperfect obedience, as partial ground or as an instrument of our justification. Norman Shepard, as we saw, denies that he teaches that our obedience is the ground of our justification, but it is an instrument of our justification.
Just like faith is. And Christianity says the sole ground of our justification is the righteousness of Christ, and the sole instrument of justification is belief of the gospel. God has not lowered his standards.
It's still perfect obedience. Number 19 has to do with the covenant of grace. The new theology teaches that the covenant of grace is made with all the baptized. They become members of the covenant when they're baptized.
Christianity says the covenant of grace is made with Christ and the elect. In Christianity, the covenant is efficacious. It's effective. People in the covenant, without exception, are saved in Christianity.
But in the covenant that has been constructed by the Auburn Avenue theologians, many of them are lost. You can be regenerate, you can be adopted, you can be justified, and you can go to hell. Question 31 of the larger catechism asks this question, With whom was the covenant of grace made?
And here's the response. The covenant of grace was made with Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed. The covenant of grace is not made with the baptized. The covenant of grace is made with Christ as the mediator, and in him with all the elect as his seed.
That's who the parties to the covenant of grace are. In the Auburn Avenue theology, the role of Christ as mediator almost disappears. The covenant is a bilateral relationship between us and God, and we have to fulfill the terms of the covenant or we're in peril of losing our salvation.
In the new theology, good works are necessary to retain our justification. In Christianity, believers are irrevocably justified apart from all works. They can never fall, the confession says, from the state of justification.
And finally, the last one I'll put up is has to do with the discipline of biblical theology, which we talked a little bit about last night. Biblical theology is prior to and superior to systematic theology, and in Christian theology, systematic theology is both logically and chronologically prior to biblical theology.
God's word is forever settled in the heavens. His decree is the source of all the universe. Christianity is an historical religion, but it is not based on history. History is based on the decree of God.
The decree of God is prior to history. Christ is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The doctrine of the atonement and the whole plan of redemption is in the mind of God before creation, and to say that history is somehow superior to or more basic than systematic theology is to get things precisely backwards.
It's the focus on the order of the revelation rather than the content of the revelation. Well, there's one other gentleman that I did want to say something about, and that is Peter Lightheart, and then I'll open it up for questions.
But Peter Lightheart, as I said, he's a teaching elder in the PCA. He's also a teacher at New St. Andrews College. Very prolific author, has 10 -12 books in print. One of them is titled Against Christianity, and there may be an essay on the back table there by that title.
It's a review of his book. And, again, no matter what your views are, whether you agree with me or agree with the men I've been criticizing, I hope you'll read Peter Lightheart's book. Because he makes it about as plain as anyone can what's happening.
And I'll give you some quotes from Peter Lightheart's book, Against Christianity. This is what he writes. The Bible never mentions Christianity. Well, that may be true. The word Christianity doesn't appear in Scripture, perhaps.
Neither does the word Trinity, so I'm not sure what we're drawing from this. It does not preach Christianity. Now that's a more serious charge. The Bible does not preach Christianity, nor does it encourage us to preach Christianity.
Paul did not preach Christianity, nor did any of the other apostles. During centuries when the Church was strong and vibrant, and you can all guess when those centuries were, she did not preach Christianity either.
These men in Moscow are medievalists. They think the centuries when the Church was strong and vibrant were the times of darkness when the Roman State Church ruled Europe. That's when the Church was strong and vibrant.
That's what they long for, is another situation like that. When the Church was strong and vibrant, she did not preach Christianity either. Christianity, like Judaism and Yahwism, is an invention of biblical scholars, theologians, and politicians.
And one of its chief effects is to keep Christians and the Church in their proper marginal place. The Bible speaks of Christians and of the Church, but Christianity is Gnostic. And the Church firmly rejected Gnosticism from her earliest days.
Christianity is the heresy of heresies, continuing with.
The quote,.
The underlying cause of the weakness, lethargy, sickness, and failure of the modern Church. Now, I'd forgive you if you thought that the lack of Christianity was the cause of the failure of the modern Church, but Dr. Lightheart, teaching elder in good standing in the Presbyterian Church of America, says Christianity is the heresy of heresies, and the reason for the failure of the modern Church.
And what does he mean by Christianity? He means the theology.
Of Scripture.
That's what he means by it. After I published my review of his book last May, he was kind enough to put on his blog comments about my review, in which he acknowledged that I had understood him perfectly.
It's very helpful when authors will acknowledge that a critic has understood them perfectly, because the charge is usually, well, you misunderstood what I said. But I didn't misunderstand what he said.
And he said so. This is precisely what he's aimed at. He's aiming at Christian theology. It's the heresy of heresies. He continues. He says, well, let me make my own comments here. He cannot abide by the notion none of these men can, for example, that that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.
Quoting John 3. Do not marvel, Jesus said, that I said unto you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes.
So is everyone who is born of the spirit. What these men want is control over the spirit. What they want to say is that in ritual baptism, in water baptism, we, in fact, regenerate people. They're teaching baptismal regeneration.
The idea that the spirit regenerates when and where and whom he wishes is Gnostic. They scorn this idea. The idea that the spirit acts immediately on the minds of men. He always acts, they say, through God's authorized representatives in the churches.
It's really a form of magic. They want to control the spirit by their incantations. Well, what is Dr. Lightheart's gospel? We talked about N .T. Wright the other night. Here's what Dr. Lightheart says.
Since the gospel is about the restoration of the human race in Christ, the gospel is a social gospel from the very outset. The gospel is sociology and international relations. The gospel is politics. If we are going to stand for this gospel, he says, these are his words, if we are going to stand for this gospel, we must stand against Christianity.
Let me see if I can find a couple more quotes from his book for you. He says, the Bible is not a theology text or a catechism that arranges doctrines in systematic order. Paul's epistles have often been treated as mini-textbooks, but they are manifestly not.
They are epistles and cyclicals addressing specific issues in the churches. Form cannot be stripped away without changing content. Now, that's a very important statement. He says, form cannot be stripped away without changing content.
And when Paul's various statements on, say, justification he just happens to think of justification are removed from the epistolary and ecclesiastical context and organized into a calm and systematic and erudite doctrine, they become something different from what Paul taught.
Now, shall I read that again? When Paul's various statements on justification are removed from his letters and their context and organized into a calm and systematic doctrine, they become something different from what Paul taught.
This is a direct attack on the Reformed Confessions. The Westminster Confession is precisely a calm and systematic doctrine, a systematic organization of what Paul has to say not only on justification, which is the example Dr. Lightheart uses, but everything else in Scripture.
And he says what's in the Confessions is different from what Paul taught, because the principle is form cannot be stripped away without changing content. Just to make sure that we don't misunderstand, you know, Dr. Lightheart is very obliging in this way.
He makes it very clear. He says, theology tells us that God is eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. Does anybody know where that came from? He doesn't put quote marks in the book, but if you're familiar with the Confession of Faith, you know it's chapter 2, the Confession.
He says that's what theology tells us. Then here's what he writes. The Bible, however, tells us that God relents because he is God, that God is shrewd with the shrewd, and he rejoices over us with shouting, and that he's an eternal whirlwind of triune communion and love.
The Bible has a different message, different from what the Westminster Confession says in chapter 2. See, by taking it out of the context of the letters, by taking it out of the historical context, and arranging it into a catechism, or arranging it into a confession, the content has changed.
That's what he says. Form cannot be stripped away without changing content. So what he means by Christianity is a systematic arrangement of the doctrines and scriptures such as we find in the Westminster Confession.
This is the heresy of heresies,.
To use his.
Words. Well, I won't continue with Dr. Lightheart's quotes, but if that essay is back there, please pick up copies and read it. It's simply titled Against Christianity. If you can borrow a copy of his book called Against Christianity, please do so.
Now, what is most striking ecclesiastically about this book is that he is confident enough that no one in the PCA will bring charges against him or remove him from office otherwise he wouldn't publish a book with this title and this content.
It's a brazen attack on Christian doctrine. It's a brazen attack on the Westminster Confession and all confessions, for that matter.
He publishes it under his own name, confident, confident, that no one will discipline him for it. And so far as I know, that is still the case. As far as I know, he is still a teaching elder in good standing in the Presbyterian Church of America.
This book came out two years ago, published by Doug Wilson's Cannon Press. Well, at this point, I think I will rest and ask you for your comments and your questions, if you have any. And I'll close with just one final comment.
The question is, who will win in this battle? Who will win? Because there is a battle going on in Presbyterian churches. And who will win? And my response is, if the pattern of history is any indication, the heretics will win.
J. Gresham Machen was defrocked, thrown out of the Presbyterian Church, PCUSA. He lost. The heretics won. The reformers lost. Luther was excommunicated. He wanted to reform the Roman Church. He failed.
The church turned its full might against the Reformation, slaughtered thousands of Christians. And the only reason that the reformers succeeded to any extent was because they set up separate institutions, apart from the Roman Church.
And if these historical cases are any indicators of the future, that's exactly what's going to happen today. People who hold to the biblical doctrine will be forced out of the PCA. They will be forced out of the OPC.
And these doctrines will hold sway. Now, we pray that that isn't the case. We pray that enough members of the OPC, that enough members of the PCA are informed, or make themselves informed, and take action against these men.
After all, it's the members that pay their salary and keep them in office. And they can be voted out of office. If the presbyteries will not act, the members should. They should at least vote with their checkbooks and stop supporting any pastor, or any presbytery, or any denomination that teaches these things.
It's a sin to write a check to a denomination that teaches this doctrine. It is an attack on Christ. That's one of the messages that John gives when he's writing to the elect lady. He says, if anyone comes to you and doesn't bring this doctrine, don't even receive him into your house.
Give him no support whatsoever. That's her instruction. She can't go out as a missionary or as a itinerant evangelist or anything else, but what she can do is refuse financial support for these teachers.
And that's what should happen. Christians who are informed of this should write their checks to Western Reform Seminary, to organizations that support the Christian religion rather than the new theology.
That's what should happen. But whether it will happen, I don't know. As I said earlier, when Machen left the Presbyterian Church in 1936, he had high hopes about thousands of people following him. And it didn't happen.
The first meeting of the what was then the PCA had about 136 people at it. Very few. And that's both elders and laymen in that number. Well anyway, go ahead sir, you had a question.
I'm just going to tell you that Blight Park has a church now over there.
Over in Moscow? Yeah.
He has a church over there in a different location not too far from Doug Willison's place. I don't know how many he's had.
Well, I understand. Wilson's church is very large. What, 800 people? And is Light Hearts in the same group, or is it a PCA church?
Well, I don't know about that. From what I've heard, they kind of get started with Doug Willison, and then when they get really intelligent, the intelligentsia goes to Blight Park. He's the main elder.
Of Doug Willison's church.
He used to be a member of his church right here. He's now an elder.
In Blight Hearts church. Is that right?
I'll look into that and tell you.
One of the comments that Steve Schlissel makes in one of his essays in this book, and this book by the way is published by Knox Seminary, and you can get a copy from Knox Seminary if you're inclined. But one of the comments he makes is that look at our success.
He says, we don't have little congregations of 15 or 20 people. He says, we have this wonderful singing at Auburn Avenue and Doug Willison's church is growing so fast they have to move the walls out every couple years to accommodate more people.
Well, if that's a sound argument, let's all go back to Rome. The Pope has a billion adherents. I mean, let's not be satisfied with 800. If church growth is the criterion of spirituality and orthodoxy, then Rome has us beat many times over.
But whoever discovered truth by counting noses, truth is revealed in Scripture, not by where the crowds are flocking. Any other comments or questions?
You mentioned Dr. Machen being defrocked. Well, Dr. Brumbaugh, the first pastor of this church, was also defrocked. My mother was at his trial and she said that they did not give him an opportunity to say one word in his own defense at that time.
Thank you for mentioning that, ma 'am. I did not know that. I knew that Dr. Brumbaugh was affiliated with Dr. Machen in the independent board, but I didn't realize that he had suffered the same ecclesiastical fate.
Well, of course, according to the theology we've studied tonight, their being excommunicated means they go to hell. Dr. Machen and Dr. Brumbaugh. Because, as Dr. Lightheart says, there's no salvation outside the church.
And the Presbyterian church in 1936 excommunicated them, so it follows that they're in hell. And if you believe that, that's a consequence of their theology. Yes, sir. Go ahead.
Thanks for speaking tonight, Dr. Robbins. There's one thing that's not sitting quite well with me. I want to at least make a statement and have you respond to it, so it won't really be a question. I found that, both with respect to your doctrine of Scripture and tonight with your doctrine of faith, that actually what you presented as the Christian doctrine departs from the Christian doctrine.
You mentioned that saving faith is an assent to propositions revealed in Scripture, merely assent to understood propositions. The Westminster Larger Catechism, however, says justifying faith is a saving faith wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and Word of God, whereby he not only assenteth to the truth of the promise of the Gospel, but receiveth and resteth upon Christ and his righteousness.
Therein held forth for pardon of sin, etc. Of course, these three things, if anyone's familiar with the history of theology, will understand that they're referring to notitious, census, and fiducia as the three distinct parts of faith.
So, I wonder how you respond to that, that being the Christian doctrine, which is so divergent from the Westminster doctrine.
Okay. Good question. The gentleman, and I should have mentioned this myself, but the gentleman has brought up, if you read the Reformed theologians, or some Reformed theologians anyway, you will find that they analyze faith in the three things.
Fides, they say, consists of notitious, census, and fiducia. No Reformed confession says that, and the passage you just read doesn't say that. No Reformed confession says that, although you find some Reformed theologians saying that.
What you see in that passage you read, I think, is a misunderstanding of what the passage said. When the Westminster theologians wrote that passage, they were not focusing on psychology. What they wanted to make clear was what is necessary to be believed.
So, it's not only assenting to the promise of the Gospel, but it's also assenting to the means of salvation, which is the person and work of Christ. Receiving and resting is a metaphor. We talked about people taking metaphors literally earlier and making that mistake.
It's a metaphor. To receive and to rest is a metaphor. What does it mean, literally? Well, what it means is what the confession says there. It's assenting. And it's assenting not just to the promise of the Gospel, but to the person and work of Christ and his imputed righteousness.
They're making very clear in that passage exactly what truths have to be believed in order to be saved. It is not sufficient to believe in the promise of eternal life. You also have to believe that the reason for eternal life is the work of Christ.
They're not making some statement about the psychology of faith. They're focusing on what truths you have to believe. And in our subjectivist mindset, we misread that very passage. And we think they're talking about psychology when what they're talking about is which truths we have to believe to be saved.
If you want to read it again, it will become obvious. Would you read the passage again, please? And tell us where it is found.
It's found, as I'm finding it, in the larger catechism, question and answer 72.
72, okay.
So, I didn't mention anything about psychology.
Incidentally. No, I know you didn't, but the whole analysis of faith into three things is just a psychological.
Analysis. Well, nor did Turretin or Aquinas or anybody else that mentions it either. This new idea of psychology is not in the mind of Turretin either. No, no.
They didn't use the word psychology, but that's what they're talking about. We use the word psychology, but that's what they're.
Talking about. Fair enough. Question and answer 72, in part, it's not the whole thing. What is justifying faith? Justifying faith is a saving grace wrought in the heart of the sinner by the spirit and word of God, whereby he, ellipsis, not only assenteth to the truth of the promise of the gospel, but receiveth and resteth upon Christ and his righteousness, therein held forth, for pardon of sin and for the accepting and accounting of his person righteous in the sight of God for salvation.
See, they make very clear that they have to believe the imputation of the righteousness of Christ in order to be saved. It's not enough to believe in the promise of the gospel, but they have to believe in the righteousness of Christ.
They're not making a point about the psychology of faith at all. They're making a point about which truths you have to believe to be saved.
So I guess the only last thing I'll say, and then I'll just be quiet, is your reading of that seems to betray a singular lack of sensitivity to the history of the discussion of faith.
Oh no, I'm very sensitive to it, and I think the history of the Latin is completely misleading. Scripture is not written in Latin, and when Protestants start exegeting the meaning of faith by using those Latin terms, they sound more like Rome.
They sound like they're exegeting the Vulgate. They should be talking about pustuo, not fetus. And that's precisely what Clark does in his book. He examines the incidents, the usage of the word pustuo, belief, and believing, and shows exactly how the scriptures use those words.
And it's quite different from this Latin analysis of faith. Latin has not been a boon to theological study, to say the least.
Yes, sir.
Thank you. I read your treaties on justification, and I talked to you earlier about that in your explanation of imputation, which I tremendously appreciated. But what followed those papers was sanctification.
And you put that, I feel, in balance, like the Westminster Confession does. But in some of your other writings, it seems like because of the battle that you're in with justification, you don't always show them, you don't mention that sanctification is necessary.
In other words, we vindicate our justification by our works, if I understand. That may be.
The case. James. Depending on the opposition, of course, you're going to have to emphasize different things. And that may be the case, but those essays that you're referring to, anybody can go to our website and read them, because we talk about the relationship between justification and sanctification, and why sanctification is a necessary consequence of justification.
So it's all in there. Just as Paul does, when he talks about the relationship between the two, one being a necessary consequence of the other. Yes, sir. Is there another question back there?
Yeah, Dr. Robbins. I'm a little bit dismayed at hearing some of your comments. It seems like you really draw dramatic points. I don't believe that your portrayal of Auburn Avenue theology is accurate.
And, you know, I quit taking notes because it was really just kind of daunting. One of the points you made was a correlation between Auburn Avenue and Kierkegaard. I don't think that any of the Auburn Avenue proponents would agree with that.
I don't think any of the Auburn Avenue proponents would agree with any one of your 21 propositions of what they.
Believe. You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but some of those were direct quotes from the Auburn Avenue people. And I interrupted the series of 21 propositions by giving you direct quotes from the Auburn Avenue Summary Statement of Faith, in which they said, the baptized are the elect, and in baptism you receive all the benefits and blessings of the work of Christ.
However, you can go to hell because you don't receive the gift of final salvation. That implies, among other things, final salvation is not one of the benefits and blessings of the work of Christ. Final salvation is received by our own performance.
They're very clear.
On that.
Please do. Please read Richard Lasky's, I don't know if I mentioned him or not earlier, but he's.
Always a good one to read. He needs to be tried also, and I mentioned that at Synod. They need to draw up charges against him because what he said here is heresy. This justification requires no transfer or imputation of anything.
It does not force us to re-fry righteousness into something that can be shuffled around in heavenly accounting books. Rather because I'm in the righteous one and the vindicated one, I am righteous and vindicated.
My in-Christ-ness makes imputation redundant. I do not need the moral content of his life of righteousness transferred to me. What I need is a share of the forensic verdict passed over him at the resurrection.
Union with Christ is therefore.
The key.
Yes, and he's a good disciple of Dick Gaffin. That's precisely Gaffin's theology. Union with Christ is the key. We don't need imputation. It's redundant.
It's only mentioned 11 times in the fourth chapter of Romans.
Only 11. Yes, sir.
So, how does.
Alden, you have in your.
Eulogies, explain how the Lord, Jesus Christ, was vindicated and how he was saved? That there's a union?
Well, Dick Gaffin is the fountainhead of most of this stuff. And the gentleman just read from Richard Lusk is simply one of Dick Gaffin's students repeating what he says and drawing out some of the implications.
And the central idea, as we talked about last night, was the resurrection of Christ. The resurrection is the vindication of Christ. In the resurrection he is adopted, he is sanctified, he is justified, and eventually glorified.
And because we're united to the resurrected Christ existentially, we too are justified and adopted and sanctified and glorified. And as the quote from Rich Lusk makes clear, if the union with Christ, with the risen Christ, has this effect then imputation is redundant.
It's unneeded. It's superfluous. But that's how they teach about how Christ is saved. Gaffin talks explicitly about Christ being redeemed. And we are redeemed because we are in him and he is redeemed.
We are existentially and experientially in him. I should make that clear. I'm not at all sure that these theologians would agree with my statement that we are legally and intellectually in him. Because they want to use words like experientially and existentially.
Legally and intellectually sounds like, to use N .T. Wright's phrase, a cold piece of business. Well, if that's a cold piece of business, then they need to readjust their idea of what coldness is. Because that's what Scripture teaches.
They want something warm and fuzzy, I guess.
I'm trying to dredge up the pronunciation. I think it's bearish. Is it bearish? Okay. If I recall correctly.
I don't know.
My question is, can you make a distinction between children of the covenant and those that are actually in the covenant?
Can I make a distinction? Or does Scripture make a distinction?
Would you give me what you understand Scripture's...
Well, we baptize children of believers because we're commanded to do so by Scripture. But that doesn't mean that the children are in the covenant of grace. Abraham was commanded to baptize all his children, but Ishmael was not in the covenant of grace.
If you go back and read the account in Genesis, you'll find that God says, first He promises these earthly blessings to Ishmael and they would take, these theologians and the Reconstructionists, would take these earthly blessings as signs of salvation but they're obviously not because He says, I'm going to bless Ishmael in this way, but I will make my covenant with Isaac.
Go back and read that passage. Now both Ishmael and Isaac are circumcised, but the covenant is made only with Isaac, not with Ishmael. So we cannot conclude from the fact that a person bears the sign of the covenant that he is in the covenant.
It simply doesn't follow. And that's why the question 31 says, the covenant is made with Christ as the mediator and in Him with all the elect as His seed. There is no promise in Scripture that all the children of believers will be saved.
These men keep harping upon the fact we've got to believe the promises of Scripture, we've got to believe the promises of Scripture. There is no promise in Scripture that says all the children of believers will be saved.
In fact you have throughout Scripture examples of children of believers who are not saved. Ishmael's just the start, or maybe not even the start, perhaps we should start with Cain. But there are many children of believers who are not saved in Scripture.
To say that God promises salvation to all the children of believers and then to see in Scripture that there are some children of believers who are not saved is to say that God breaks His promises. This is the very question that Paul deals with in Romans.
Is God unfaithful to His promises? Because the Jews at that time were of the opinion that we have Abraham as our father. We're saved.
Remember what.
John the Baptist said about that in the opening chapters of Luke? He says don't even think to say that you have Abraham as your father. He says don't even think it. He says God can raise up children of Abraham from these stones.
What's the point? Salvation is not biologically inherited. And some Presbyterians particularly in the Auburn Avenue group make the same mistake that the ancient Jews did in thinking that salvation is biologically inherited.
It isn't.
That's taught very clearly in the first chapter of John. To whom is salvation given? Not to those who are born of blood or of the will of man, but to those who believe, to those who receive. It's not a biological inheritance.
And sometimes I fear for even some Presbyterians who don't go along with this stuff because they think that somehow their godly heritage is going to save them. Their godly heritage isn't going to save them.
Now it's good to have a Christian family and it's good to have a godly heritage. But salvation comes through faith alone. It doesn't come from baptism. It doesn't come from church attendance. It doesn't come through participation in the Lord's Supper.
It comes through belief of the gospel. And belief of the gospel alone. There was another question up here. Oh, in the back there's a question.
In my mind I can't totally understand this and maybe you could comment on this. God calls Israel his people. Not all in Israel as you just mentioned, Ishmael, were saved. So in my mind this is some of the confusion between the two sides it seems to me.
Do you think it is possible for us to be called God's people by God and not be his elect?
Well, this illustrates once again the importance of carefully defining terms. One of the things that the critics of the Auburn Avenue theologians charge them with is confusing national election with individual election.
Or the other way around. And because Israel as a nation was disowned by God that individual believers can also be disowned by God. That the two elections are alike. That there's a corporate election and there's an individual election but essentially they're the same.
Both are losable. Both are keepable if they persevere but both are losable if they don't obey. And I think that's a fundamental error is to see the corporate election of the nation of Israel in the same terms as the individual election of individual believers.
And when Paul deals with the question he points out in Romans 9 that all along God's promise has been to a remnant. And God has never been unfaithful to his promises. That he always fulfills his promises.
And that in the remnant that is believing in ancient Israel at Paul's time in the year 2005 God fulfills his promises. In the most accurate sense election is always individual in the most strict sense.
Any other comments or questions? I see one there.
Thank you Dr. Robbins. A couple of years ago at an Auburn Avenue conference, Doug Wilson remarked that we should in reference to those who claim to be Christians who have fallen away either from the faith in doctrine or in their practice even extending that to those of the Church of Rome, that we should grab them by their baptisms.
In a sense to hold them accountable to their claim. What do you think of that?
Grab them by their baptisms. Well the baptism of Rome is not a valid baptism. Now I know all you people are going to say well John Calvin thought it was. Well John Calvin was wrong. I don't happen to believe in the infallibility of John Calvin.
You should read Thornwell on Roman baptism if you want to read a good theological discussion of Roman baptism. Calvin saw very clearly that the Roman mass was anti-Christian to the core. But on the issue of baptism he didn't see that at all.
But for the same reasons that the mass is not Christian the Roman baptism isn't Christian. For the same reasons. It doesn't matter that the Trinity is intoned in Roman baptism. It's intoned in Mormon baptism.
It's intoned in the baptism of the Presbyterian Church across the alley. And that's not Christian baptism either. In Roman baptism so many elements are added to the ritual of baptism that it's a parody of Christian baptism.
Far from being the real thing it's a parody. It's making fun of it. So they add salt. They add chrism to the water. They pronounce that this child is absolved from all sins. This is not Christian baptism even if they use the name of the Trinity.
It's not Christian baptism. It's blasphemous for them to use the name of the Trinity.
In this.
So to appeal to a Romanist on the basis of his baptism is to admit that yeah his church was right. It's to undercut everything you're trying to do in presenting the gospel to him. It's admitting that the Roman church in its baptism has in fact saved him.
If you're going to grab him by his baptism. What needs to be done is the preaching of the gospel. Paul makes it very clear. He says I didn't come to baptize. I came to preach. So that means that baptism is not going to save these people.
Only the preaching of the gospel will. I came to preach the gospel. And I see we're out of time. I'm sorry. But I thank you for your kind attention. I thank you for coming this week to hear my lectures.
As Dr. Battle or Chris has said, they're on tape. They should be available worldwide in a couple of weeks. I hope that you will make some use of some things I've said this week and it will be of use to you in both your life and your ministry.
Thank you.