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245 LIST A'brakel, Wilhelmus the Christian's Reasonable Service
LIST 245 1. A’BRAKEL, The Christian’s Reasonable Service. S.D.G.-1992. d.w’s. 4 £ 45.00 Wilhelmus volumes. ills. 2. ADAMS, J. E. The Time is at Hand. Prophecy and the Book of Revelation. £ 3.95 Timeless Texts-2000. lfpb. 16+138pp. 3. ADAMS, J. E. A Theology of Christian Counselling More than Redemption. £ 4.95 Zon.-1979 lfpb. 338pp. 4. ADAMS, J. E/FISHER The Time of the End. Daniel’s Prophecy Reclaimed. Timeless £ 3.95 Text-2000. lfpb. 120pp. Frwd. by R. C. Sproul. 5. ADAMS, J. G. The Big Umbrella. (Christian Counselling) BBH.-1975. lfpb. £ 4.50 265pp. 6. ALLISON, D.C Jesus of Nazareth Millenarian Prophet. Fortress-1998. lfpb. £ 4.50 255pp. 7. ALTHUSIUS, J. (1557 Politica. An abridged translation of Politics methodically set £ 8.50 -1638) forth and illustrated with Sacred and Profane examples. Trans. by F. S. Carney. Liberty -1995. lfpb. 62+238pp. From 1614 edition. 8. ALVARDO, R. A Common Law, the Law of Nations and Western Civilization. £ 3.50 Pietas-1999. lfpb. 161pp. 9. AMBROSE, Isaac Looking Unto Jesus. A View of the Everlasting Gospel etc. £ 8.00 Sprinkle-1986. hb. 694pp. Large volume, Puritan devotional classic. 10. ANON The Truth of the History of the Gospel Made Out by Heathen £ 22.00 Evidence. Edin.-1741. 38pp. XL. Pam. 11. ANON Queries Concerning the Reasonableness of Reclaiming the £ 22.00 Corporation Test Acts as Far as They Relate to Protestant Dissenters. Lon.-1732. 23pp. XL. Pam. Scarce. 12. ASHTON John F. Edt. In Six Days: Why 50 Scientists choose to Believe in Creation. -
Report of the Synodical Study Committee on the Federal Vision and Justification
Report of the Synodical Study Committee on the Federal Vision and Justification Table of Contents I. Background A. Mandate and Composition of the Study Committee B. The Committee’s Work and Approach to its Mandate II. A Brief Sketch of the Emergence of the Federal Vision III. Characteristic Themes of the Federal Vision A. The Doctrine of the Covenant 1. Covenant and Salvation 2. Covenant and Election 3. The Pre-Fall Covenant 4. Law and Gospel in the Covenant B. The Doctrine of the Church and Sacraments 1. The Distinction Between the “Visible” and “Invisible” Church 2. The Efficacy of the Sacraments (Baptism) 3. Children at the Lord’s Table C. Assurance, Perseverance, and Apostasy 1. Assurance of Salvation 2. Perseverance and Apostasy D. Evaluating these FV Emphases 2 1. Covenant, Election, and Salvation 2. The Pre-Fall Covenant 3. Law and Gospel in the Covenant 4. The Doctrine of the Church and Sacraments (Baptism) 5. Assurance, Perseverance and Apostasy IV. The Doctrine of Justification and the Federal Vision A. The Biblical and Confessional Doctrine of Justification 1. “ Justification”: A Judicial Declaration of Acceptance with God 2. “By Grace Alone”, “On Account of Christ Alone”: The Basis for Free Justification 3. “Through Faith Alone”: The Instrument of Justification 4. Faith and Works (Justification and Sanctification) 5. Justification and the Sacraments B. An Evaluation of the FV Revisions of the Doctrine of Justification 1. Justification as the “Forgiveness of Sins” 2. The Basis for Justification: Christ’s “Passive Obedience” Alone 3. Biblical and Confessional Evidence for the Imputation of Christ’s Entire Obedience 4. -
The Trinity Review
THE TRINITY REVIEW For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare [are] not fleshly but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. And they will be ready to punish all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled. (2 Corinthians 10:3-6) Number 357 Copyright 2020 The Trinity Foundation Post Office Box 68, Unicoi, Tennessee 37692 April, May 2020 Email: [email protected] Website: www.trinityfoundation.org Telephone: 423.743.0199 Fax: 423.743.2005 Did John Calvin Teach a Doctrine of Secondary Justification? Refuting Steven Wedgeworth on Secondary Justification By Daniel H. Chew Editor’s Note: The following article first appeared in a version of a “judgment by works” by theologians such as much briefer form at the author’s blog, Daniel’s Place – Mark Jones,2 who has likewise defended John Piper puritanreformed.blogspot.com, February 16, 2020. It from the charge of works-righteousness.3 According to has been expanded by the author, an M.Div graduate of Jones, all that Piper has striven to do was to defend the Westminster Seminary California. It has slightly been necessity of works for salvation, which he asserted was edited for The Review. taught by Reformed theologians and the Reformed faith.4 Works lead us to the “possession of life” not the Introduction “right to life,” and therefore for Jones there is nothing In the modern -
Report on Justification, Presented to the Seventy-Third General Assembly
Report on Justification Presented to the Seventy-third General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church Committee on Christian Education Orthodox Presbyterian Church Box P Willow Grove, PA 19090-0920 Prefatory Statement In response to an overture from the Presbytery of the Midwest, the Seventy-first General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church adopted the following Declaration on Justification: The Seventy-first (2004) General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (i) declares its continued commitment to the teaching of the Word of God, the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms with regard to the doctrine of justification by faith alone; (ii) reaffirms that faith, which is a gift of God, is the sole instrument of justification; and (iii) reaffirms the following beliefs: a. “Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone” (WSC 33). b. “Those whom God effectually calls, he also freely justifieth; not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on him and his righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God” (WCF 11.1). -
Baptism and the Benefits of Christ
The Confessional Presbyterian A Journal for Discussion of Presbyterian Doct rine & Pract ice Table of Contents . Editorial Articles . Baptism and the Benefi ts of Christ : Th e Double Mode of Communion in the Covenant of Grace By R. Scott Clark, D.Phil. Severing the Dragon’s Tail: Th e Reject ion of the Mass and the Adoption of the Reformed Pract ice of the Lord’s Supper during the Scottish Reformation By T. J. Phillips . Presbyterian Due Process: A Scottish and American Recovery of Procedural Canons By Stuart R. Jones . Liberty of Conscience in the West minst er Confession and its Application to Modern “Worship Wars” By John (Jack) Allen Delivuk, Th .D. An Analysis of Open Th eism By W. Gary Crampton, Ph.D. Francis Makemie and the Meaning of American Presbyterianism By D. G. Hart, Ph.D. Critical-Realism & the Relation of Redemptive Act to Revelatory Word By James J. Cassidy . Th e Regulative Principle of Worship: Sixty Years in Reformed Literature. Part One (–) By Frank J. Smith, Ph.D., D. D. with Chris Coldwell . Reviews & Responses (see the detailed listing on page ) . Psallo: Psalm . In Translatiōne: John Brown of Wamphray: Th e Universal Visible Church . Antiquary: T. & J. Swords. Part One. Printers During the Federal Period to Doct ors, Scientist s, Friendly and Calliopean Clubers, and other New York Literati, as well as High Churchist s, and the Occasional Presbyterian . Bibliography Addenda & Errata . Th e Editor and Contributing Editors In Brief (see page ) Contributing Editors: Th e Revs. Richard E. Bacon, Th .D., W. Gary Crampton, Th e Confessional Presbyterian, Volume (). -
Tim Keller June, 2010
WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT THE PCA Tim Keller June, 2010 My first General Assembly was the PCA’s third, held in Jackson, Mississippi just under thirty-five years ago. Ever since then, I’ve seen a lot of conflict in our communion. My friends in other denominations ask, ‘isn’t there something inherently wrong with a denomination that is filled with such tensions?’ Now church fights are always fueled in part by ego and spiritual immaturity, and we must all share responsibility for that. But I propose that these struggles are also a sign of something good, even uniquely good, about our denomination. I believe our conflicts lie in that we are one of the few Presbyterian denominations that hasn’t pruned of one or more of its historic branches. Within the Reformed churches, there has always been a tension between what George Marsden calls ‘the Reformed branches’--the doctrinalist, pietistic and culturalist impulses.1 (Please read this footnote.) To understand the PCA today, we must trace out the history of these branches in American Presbyterianism. Spiritual revival and the ‘sides’ of Presbyterianism Reformed Christianity puts a high value on the objective—on theological soundness and creedal subscription. But it has also historically given a lot of attention to the subjective. Reformed soteriology holds that salvation is not a human product—it is God’s work. This emphasis has drawn attention to the 1 I am going to use George Marsden’s terminology to describe the Reformed Branches, even though they are rather bland, and each on is bit negative. -
Union with Christ and the Sacraments: Clarifying the Federal Vision Theology of Douglas Wilson and Peter Leithart
Union with Christ and the Sacraments: Clarifying the Federal Vision Theology of Douglas Wilson and Peter Leithart by Steven Walker An Integrative Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Reformed Theological Seminary In Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Master of Arts Degree Approved: Thesis Advisor: _______________________________ Dr. Howard Griffith RTS/Virtual President: ________________________________ Andrew J. Peterson, Ph.D. March 2007 ii iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION………… ……….…………………………..……………………1 STATEMENT ………………...……………………………………..………………...…1 2. SUMMARY OF THE FEDERAL VISION………………...…………….….………..2 I. I NDIVIDUAL REDEMPTION ...…………………………..……………………………..2 A. Election …………………………………………………………….…...................2 B. Effectual Calling…………………...……………………………….……………...3 C. Justification……...…………………………………………………..……………..4 D. Faith………………………………………………….…………………….…..…..7 E. Assurance…………………………………………….……………….…………..11 F. Sanctification……………………………………….…….....…………………….12 G. Perseverance……………………………………….……………………………..13 II. C ORPORATE REDEMPTION …….………………..….…………….………………..14 A. Election ………………………………………………….….…………..……….14 B. Covenant…………………………...…………………….………………………15 C. Covenant Membership..…………………………………………………….……17 D. The Church..……………………………………………………………………..18 E. Justification……..………………………………………………………………..20 F. Apostasy…...……………………………………………………………………..21 3. SACRAMENTAL UNION WITH CHRIST…………………………………….………24 I. S ACRAMENTS AS SIGN AND SEAL ………………………………….….…………...24 A. Federal Vision……………………………………………………………….…...24 B. The Broader Reformed -
The Problem with Christian Reconstruction Paul Mcdade
The Problem With Christian Reconstruction Paul McDade December 24 th 2014 The reform movement in the Christian church, known as Christian Reconstruction or Christian Reconstructionism, is a multi-faceted attempt at the application of Christian faith and ethics to the problems of society. As American society, at the dawn of the 21 st century, degenerates into chaos in the implications of it’s past century and a half of paganism, nothing could be more needful than the success of such an attempt. Sadly, however, the work is fatally flawed by the failure of many of it’s leading proponents to understand and apply true biblical theology to the situation. Without doubt the movement was spawned in the writings of Cornelius Van Til (1895-1987) in apologetics. Van Til sought a consistent application of the Reformed Faith - the faith of the Heidelberg Catechism, Belgic Confession, Westminster Confession and the Larger and Shorter Catechism’s of that assembly - by men witnessing to the truth of the gospel. His critique of the methods employed by nominally ‘Reformed Theologians’, The Defense of the Faith , is a classic and enlightening work. Van Til pointed out that the view of man’s fallen nature, implied by the methods the theologians use, was not consistent with the Reformed theology they claimed to believe. Asking a man dead in sins, to judge on a series of evidences the one witnessing presents, without ever challenging the legitimacy of his judgment, never gets to the heart of the matter of man’s fallenness. In seeking to illustrate this, Van Til went back in the history of apologetics to show the origin of such thought, in the synthesis between Christian and Aristotelian philosophy in the Romanist Church of the 13 th Century. -
By J. V. Fesko Introduction
MJT 16 (2005) 83-114 CALVIN ON JUSTIFICATION AND RECENT MISINTERPRETATIONS OF HIS VIEW by J. V. Fesko Introduction WHEN ONE SURVEYS the history of the Reformation the central issue that arises is the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Among the many Reformers who treated this subject, John Calvin (1509-64) towers above most of his peers, though this is not to say that his treatment is prescriptive for the Reformed tradition.1 Nevertheless, surveying Calvin’s understanding of justification is helpful for three major reasons: (1) his treatment of justification is one of the more well-known; (2) as of late some within the Reformed community have appealed to Calvin’s doctrine of justification because of the emphasis he places upon the doctrine of the believer’s union with Christ; and (3) because of the supposed divergence between Calvin and Martin Luther (1483-1546), specifically in the use of the adjective alone, in respect to faith. It is the contention of this essay that recent interpretation of Calvin that emphasizes the believer’s union with Christ at the expense of the imputed righteousness of Christ, and those who claim that there is a great divergence between Calvin and Luther and their respective explanations of justification, are incorrect. Rather, central to Calvin’s doctrine of justification is 1 For a critique of the idea that Calvin is the sole source of Calvinism see Richard A. Muller, After Calvin: Studies in the Development of a Theological Tradition (Oxford, OUP, 2003), 63-104; J. V. Fesko, Diversity Within the Reformed Tradition: Supra- and Infralapsarianism in Calvin, Dort, and Westminster (Greenville: Reformed Academic Press, 2001), 299-302; cf. -
Peter Leithart and the PCA's Failure to Deal with the Federal Vision
THE TRINITY REVIEW For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare [are] not fleshly but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. And they will be ready to punish all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled. 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 Number 283 Copyright 2009 The Trinity Foundation Post Office Box 68, Unicoi, Tennessee 37692 April 2009 Email: [email protected] Website: www.trinityfoundation.org Telephone: 423.743.0199 Fax: 423.743.2005 Peter Leithart and the PCA’s Failure to Deal with the Federal Vision Sean Gerety Editor’s note: the following is taken from the forthcoming book According to the Westminster Confession 8:2 the Covenant Can the Presbyterian Church in America Be Saved? by Sean of Works promised life “to Adam, and in him to his posterity, Gerety, which will be available later this year.The life span of upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.” Whereas, denominations that stay true to Biblical Christianity is growing the Covenant of Grace offers to sinners “life and salvation by shorter and shorter in this present day. Despite strong Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him, that they may be statements against the Federal Vision in the PCA’s report by saved; and promising to give unto all those that are ordained the Ad Interim Study Committee on Federal Vision, New unto life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to Perspective, and Auburn Avenue Theologies, the PCA has believe.” You’ll notice that in both cases, and in opposition to still not effectively dealt with the problem of the Federal Vision Leithart, both the “Adamic and post-lapsarian covenants” within its own ranks. -
BLURRING the “FEDERAL VISION”: a REPLY to MICHAEL HORTON by Rich Lusk for Years I Have Respected the Work of Michael Horton
BLURRING THE “FEDERAL VISION”: A REPLY TO MICHAEL HORTON By Rich Lusk For years I have respected the work of Michael Horton. Though sometimes having to disagree with him, I considered him a valuable gift to the church and a faithful defender of Reformed theology. In particular, I’ve appreciated his high view of the church, including reverent liturgy, the efficacy of the means of grace, and the importance of the office of the ministry. His desire to recover classical Reformational theology and practice in the modern era is admirable. His trenchant critiques of pop evangelicalism have usually been right on target. While his latest article in Modern Reformation (“Déjà vu All Over Again,” July/August 2004, pages 23-30) does not change my overall assessment of his scholarship, I found the piece sadly lacking in charity and accuracy. This is not Horton at his best. Horton criticizes my contribution to the book The Auburn Avenue Theology: Pros and Cons , edited by Calvin Beisner (“A Response to ‘The Biblical Plan of Salvation,’” pages 118-148). I believe Horton has misrepresented and misunderstood me. Caricaturing and even slandering advocates of the so-called “Federal Vision” is nothing new, of course. It’s become something of an internet hobby for some. Horton had an opportunity to give fair and helpful criticism, but unfortunately he missed it. While his article generally avoided the intense rhetoric of some hotheads with keyboards, there is still very little constructive in his piece. My view of covenant theology may in fact have problems, but I daresay they are not the problems Horton saddles me with. -
Federal Vision-2006F
RCUS Study Committee on the Federal Vision’s Doctrine of Justification GENERAL INTRODUCTION The purpose of the Federal Vision from its inception was to interpret Scripture and the world by means of a covenant perspective, hence its name. This was a laudable goal, but what emerged from the 2002 pastors’ conference sponsored by the Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church (PCA) of Monroe, Louisiana, was anything but praiseworthy. Its main tenets were extracted from Norman Shepherd, N.T. Wright and John Williamson Nevin, and were informed by a post-Kantian philosophy, with no two proponents of the Federal Vision offering the same formulation. The New Perspectives on Paul, baptismal regeneration, and paedocommunion, for example, are both affirmed and denied among its supporters. Because of this diversity, some Federal Vision advocates have argued that the Federal Vision is neither a movement nor a theology. Of particular concern to this committee was the Federal Vision’s doctrine of justification. Most of the key personalities supporting the Federal Vision would insist, and many have insisted, that they unequivocally affirm this important Biblical teaching. Yet their writings demonstrate that the doctrine they teach is not the biblical doctrine as understood and taught by the historic Reformed standards, but is something quite different. Our investigation presented us with some unique challenges, and it is our hope that the following introduction will help the members of Synod appreciate the difficulty of our work. This introduction is divided into four parts. The first part is a condensed history of the Federal Vision. The second part provides some biographical information for those men whose views are presented and critiqued in this paper.