THE FAITH PURE, BOLD, PRACTICAL
Fear God,
it is the
beginning
of wisdom.
When you
fear only God
you don't
fear man
(and man's
opinion
of you),
which enables
you
to pursue
wisdom.
What are the conditions of admission into Christ's Kingdom? Simply practical recognition of the authority of the sovereign.
- A. A. Hodge
The individual who wrote this post is considered one of the high intellectuals of the Federal Visionaries Movement. It is easily in the top five of the most moronic things I've ever read on a Christian or so-called Christian internet site. This is the cartoonish level of doctrinal sophistry these FVists are able to get away with among their followers.
Five solas, doctrines of grace, covenant of redemption (Covenant Theology is not the servant of infant baptism), Traditional Text, King James Version only; doing the two great commandments of Christ at the practical level (i.e. actually doing them); and recovering by degree the full image of God. This is the foundation I stand on and build upon.
ESSENTIAL I ~ II ~ III ~ IV ~ V ~ VI ~ VII ~ VIII ~ IX ~ X ~ XI ~ XII ~ XIII ~ XIV ~ XV ~ XVI ~ XVII ~ XVIII ~ XIX ~ XX ~ XXI ~ XXII ~ XXIII ~ XXIV ~ XXV ~ XXVI ~ XXVII ~ XXVIII ~ XXIX ~ XXX ~ XXXI ~ XXXII ~ XXXIII ~ XXXIV ~ XXXV ~ XXXVI ~ XXXVII ~ XXXVIII ~ XXXIX ~ XL ~ XLI ~ XLII ~ XLIII ~ XLIV ~ XLV ~ XLVI ~ XLVII ~ XLVIII ~ XLIX ~ L ~ LI ~ LII ~ LIII ~ LIV ~ LV ~ LVI ~ LVII ~ LVIII ~ LIX ~ LX ~ LXI ~ LXII ~ LXIII ~ LXIV ~ LXV ~ LXVI ~ LXVII ~ LXVIII ~ LXIX ~ LXX ~ LXXI ~ LXXII
STICK DRAWINGS & DIAGRAMS 1 (Note on 1) ~ 2 ~ 3 ~ 4 ~ 5
--Fuse the Word of God into Memory, Will, and Understanding Prayer and Fasting -- (of --) Acute Warring of the Holy Spirit with the carnal spirit -- (storms struggled through; extending limits to glorify God by doing it when it's most difficult) |
(Short Essay On My Reading History)
The practical, experimental level of the faith (the Puritans called it experimental Calvinism) is for those ready to leave off laying the foundation over and over and begin building the house (see Calvin's commentary on Hebrews 6:1).
Psalms 27:11 Teach me thy way, O LORD, and lead me in a plain path...
"God examineth with trials, the devil examineth with temptations, the world examineth with persecutions."
- Henry Smith
"The word of God . . . is the light to our paths, the key of the kingdom of heaven, our comfort in affliction, our shield and sword against Satan, the school of all wisdom, the glass wherein we behold God's face, the testimony of his favour, and the only food and nourishment of our souls."
- Geneva translators, 10 April 1560
"When the heart is cast indeed into the mould of the doctrine that the mind embraceth - when the evidence and necessity of the truth abides in us - when not the sense of the words only is in our heads, but the sense of the thing abides in our hearts - when we have communion with God in the doctrine we contend for - then shall we be garrisoned by the grace of God against all the assaults of men."
- John Owen
"Where the Puritans excelled was at bringing this high view of God
down to the level of ordinary life. One Puritan woman - the wife of a
soldier in Cromwell's army - defined Christianity as
'that universal habit of grace which is wrought in a soul by the
regenerating Spirit of God, whereby the whole creature is designed up
into the Divine will and love, and all its actions designed to the
obedience and glory of its Maker.'
By defining the Christian faith in this way, she was making a
connection between the doctrines of grace and daily experience."
- the Doctrines of Grace,
Boice/Ryken
"Previously, men had looked to the Church for all the trustworthy knowledge of God obtainable, and as well for all the communications of grace accessible. Calvin taught them that neither function has been committed to the Church, but God the Holy Spirit has retained both in His own hands and confers both knowledge of God and communion with God on whom He will."
- B. B. Warfield (from his essay Calvin as a Theologian)
A plain path puritan. That means the faith that is pure, bold, and practical. Five solas. Doctrines of Grace. Covenant of Redemption. Experimental Calvinism. No clericalism, ritualism, formalism, or moralism. The devil's nightmare.
Holy Bible, AV1611
Iliad & Odyssey - Homer
On War - von Clausewitz
Wealth of Nations - Smith
Fourth Way - Ouspensky
Lives - Plutarch
History of the Peloponnesian War - Thucydides
"The fearful are in the forlorn of those that march for hell; the violent and valiant are they which take heaven by force: cowards never won heaven. Say not that thou hast royal blood running in thy veins, and art begotten of God, except thou canst prove thy pedigree by this heroic spirit, to dare to be holy despite men and devils."
- William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour
"As among all the doctrines of the gospel, there is none opposed with more violence and subtlety than that concerning our regeneration by the immediate, powerful, effectual operation of the Holy Spirit of grace; so there is not scarce anything more despised or scorned by many in the world than that any should profess that there hath been such a work of God upon themselves, or on any occasion declare aught of the way and manner whereby it was wrought... yea, the enmity of Cain against Abel was but a branch of this proud and perverse inclination."
- John Owen, A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit
The antithesis of vanity is: faith. The antithesis of worldly pride is: repentance. The antithesis of self-will is: descent-of-the-dove God's will.
3 Comments:
In case this genius decides to pull his post due to volume of laughter here it is:
__________________
Denying the gospel
[Theology - Creation | Link | Print]
Every week, I confess the Nicene Creed, and I actually believe it.
I also confess that sinners are saved by trusting in Jesus, God's Son, who saves out of sheer grace.
Yet I, with many of my friends who confess the same things, are accused of denying the gospel. What's the sense of that?
We can only make sense of this charge if we recognize that for a certain kind of Reformed theology, the gospel is not gospel unless it comes second. For all the talk of the "primacy of the gospel," this version of Reformed theology actually believes in the secondary character of the gospel. For the gospel to be good news, it must be added to something more foundational, and it has to be set off in contrast to that more foundational something. Usually, this foundational something is law, or perhaps the contrast is one of nature and grace, or demand and promise.
Whatever the formulation, it is assumed that the gospel cannot be gospel unless it stands in a binary opposition to that foundation. To deny the opposition is to deny the gospel itself, because the gospel is defined by that opposition. The Yes of the gospel only makes sense on the basis of a preexisting No. To deny that there was a preexisting No is to blur the pure gratuity of the Yes.
This sounds plausible enough on the surface of things. After all, the gospel is good news to fallen Adam and his seed, and is a response to the situation of the fall. It is historically secondary. Before God promised a redeemer, He had issued a command. Law comes first.
While this is true from a certain perspective, it ignores the prior words of God in Genesis. God spoke the world into existence by the Word of His power: Was that a Word of demand or promise, law or gospel? It seems clear that it was both. God's first words of command were simultaneously life-giving good news: "Let there be light" was a command, yet it was a command that brought light into existence. Before God prohibited Adam from eating the tree of knowledge, the Eternal Word had already spoken Adam into existence. Before God's No He had already spoken a preexisting Yes, and the Yes set the context for the No. The sheer fact that there is something rather than nothing is testimony to God's prior Yes.
Every No from that time on is set within the context of God's Yes: God says Yes to Noah, and then commands him not to eat blood. God says Yes to Israel in bringing them out of Egypt, and then issues the Ten Words. Every command that God issues presupposes His preexisting Yes, because unless God was committed to preserving a people He would not warn them off the way of death.
For a certain brand of Reformed theology, such talk amounts to denying the gospel because it denies what is thought to be the sub-stratum on which the gratuity of the gospel depends.
The Federal Vision controversy is, from this angle, more about creation than about soteriology or sacramental theology. Far be it from me to accuse those who oppose the Federal Vision of "denying creation," but they are, in my view, failing to work through a fully creationist theology. Dare I say, they have failed to think through a fully evangelical theology of creation.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, May 20, 2007 at 03:56 AM
I often wonder how many heresies resulted from people "free- associating" different concepts and then running off at the bit without any discipline or precision.
My 2 favorite examples: a) Perpetual Virginity of Mary (Ezekiel 44:1-4). b) Mormon heaven in 3 levels (Celestial, Terrestrial, Telestial) based on 1 Co 15:40-41.
This guy seems to be confusing God's grace in general with the gospel in particular. Or implying that since Creation preceeded Fall, we are not fallen in some sense?
Yes, I just read Leithart's post again. It's even more moronic than it was the first time through.
Obviously too he's just playing games. He's not serious about doctrine. He doesn't value sound doctrine, as the Bible puts it.
FVists are basically trolls. They troll churches, they troll denominations, they troll internet forums and blogs and other venues. They are of the mockers of the end times.
But I add this: it's a judgment from God that they are able to do this in Calvinist environments. Formalism, ritualism, clericalism, and moralism in Calvinist/Reformed environments is being judged by God. Only God could make such mocking clowns as these FVists able to troll to the extent and depth they've been able to troll.
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