Acts 10:34
"ct" ,
Thanks for your comment. I assume that you are the same c.t. that posts at Plain Path Puritan. My comments above shouldn't be taken as a whole-hearted endorsement of Dr. White's view of the text of Scripture, or even of every single comment that he makes the video series above.
That said, I cannot believe you would be so naive as to believe that on each and every point Dr. White was wrong and Hovind was right.
Unlike Dr. White, I happen to be a person who prefers the KJV to the modern translations ... at least in regards to many of the instances where they differ.
I'm also a critic of some of the core assumptions of modern textual criticism, as I've noted at other places in my blog.
-Turretinfan
Turretinfan is apparently too clean and respectible to post my comment (these Reformed churchians are respecters of persons to a very refined degree), so I suppose I'll have to supply what he is responding to:
To speak of a critical text sophist and propagandist like White in anything approaching a positive manner regarding the Word of God shows you to be more than merely lukewarm on this foundational subject. You have a fear and reverence of man that exceeds your fear and reverence of God, if indeed your desire to be seen as acceptable to liberal academics leaves any room for any degree of fear of God within you at all.
See, that wasn't so painful.
23 Comments:
Meant to post here instead of the previous spot...
You need to understand, as you have stated before, that it's a matter of regeneration.
The Holy Spirit bears infallible witness to the TR/KJV, and you may be as infallibly certain that he who accepts a "bible" which omits "God" in 1 Timothy 3:16, as well as numerous other Scriptures, is INFALLIBLY unregenerate.
As Bunyan said, the world is going to be SHOCKED at the "notables" who are shut out of heaven.
Take the ignoramuses at Pyromanics; they post a piece from Spurgeon on the Bible, but when a poster equates Spurgeon's every own comments to preservation, they jump on him and warn him, even though he never said a word about the KJV.
But then, when others begin to disparage him and the KJV, instead of receiving warnings, the pile-on begins, and supposed error after error of the KJV is submitted without a single rebuke.
Such is the hypocrisy of the unregenerate.
Of course, suffice it to say that the "errors" are non-existent, but that's what you get with ignoramuses who can't even pronounce Greek properly, let alone speak it.
The fact is, that blog is nothing but a cessspools of unregenerates, as is the leader of their church, an unregenracy which his own testimony utterly confirms.
In short, they don't know the Jesus I know, nor the Jesus that Spurgeon knew, or Bunyan knew, that Whitefield knew, et cetera, and it could not possibly be clearer to the truly regenerate.
The Latin Vulgate text which underlies modern "bibles" was condemned by the Holy Spirit AND the Reformers, the Puritans, the Nonconformists, the Great Awakeners, et al, and NOBODY who is indwelt by the Holy Ghost would adhere to that text.
It just ain't possible, as ALL who are truly regenerate know.
Lamblion
http://www.lamblion.net
If you havn't seen it one of those Pyromaniacs debated Kent Brandenburg on preservation:
http://kentbrandenburg.blogspot.com/2008/04/debate-on-preservation-of-scripture.html
On the debate site itself the debate is complete, but somewhat awkward to navigate. It's all there though.
The Pyro guy, Frank Turk, obviously didn't know what he was in for.
As I said, they are both ignorant of even BASIC facts in evidence, as well as demonstrating every time they open their mouths that they know nothing of regenration.
Tozer's statement fits them like a tee, and it especially fits MacArthur --
"There isn't anything quite so chilling, quite so disheartening as a man without the Holy Spirit preaching about the Holy Spirit." The Tozer Pulpit, Vol I
Just a quick clarification --
When I said above -- "they are BOTH ignorant" -- I wasn't referring to the individual who defended preservation; I simply meant "both" in the sense of being ignorant AND in the sense of being unregenerate.
Turretinfan, who I really have nothing against other than his lukewarm defense of the traditional, received, text and the Authorized, King James, Version, says he could sue me (or something) for reproducing his comment, but he'll 'let me go' this time. OK. I'll put my lawyers on 'stand by'.
If you claim, though, to be able to see the truth then act on it. Defend the truth.
Don't keep on enabling "Dr." White.
If Turretin were standing next to you now he'd tell you you apparently wouldn't know a counter-Reformation style Jesuit if he had you by the throat, or some other part of your body. Thank God Turretin and his Reformer forebears had more discernment and fight in them.
You can't be lukewarm regarding the Word of God. There's no in-between regarding the Word of God and the Word of man (or Satan).
But, you know, there has to be divisions so that people can see the truth by contrast and comparison. I'm sure the Bible says something about that, though I suspect I'll be accused of a non-Magisterium interpretation there...
First off, if you got his words from a blog of his, or some other public domain, he could waste his money and FILE a lawsuit against you, but it won't get past the first ten seconds of a judge's scrutiny.
Secondly, lukewarmness is worse than outright opposition. There is much more of the spirit of Iscariot in the lukewarm than there is in outright opposition.
Those who adhere to the TR/KJV simply because they PREFER it, rather than from Holy Spirit CONVICTION, are just as lost as those who oppose the Traditional Text.
Again, the key thing to understand here is simply this --
The Holy Spirit HIMSELF bears witness to the veracity of the TR/KJV, and the Holy Spirit HIMSELF condemns the Latin Vulgate and the "bibles" that are based on it.
You can take it as aximotic that -- where there is a choice -- that he who is not SUPERNATURALLY convinced of the veracity of the TR/KJV, and he who is not SUPERNATURALLY opposed to modern "bibles" and the Latin Vulgate text they are based on, is he who is INFALLIBLY unregenerate, who is INFALLIBLY NOT born again.
The Holy Spirit HIMSELF bears witness to "God" in 1 Timothy 3:16 and to numerous other verses, as he did with the Reformers, Puritans, et al.
You can see the first entry in my chart for a CLEAR example at --
http://www.lamblion.net/Articles/patristic_chart.htm
For ALL genuine revelation is based on "God was manifest in the flesh," as Owen and virtually all of the others stressed.
In short, he who has a problem with the TR/KJV and who likewise does NOT have a problem with modern "bibles" and the Latin Vulgate text they are based on, is he who is completely devoid of the Holy Spirit, and as the Scripture says --
"Now if any man have NOT the Spirit of Christ, HE IS NONE OF HIS." Romans 8:9
I agree. And I see it as being as stark as that too. One area that may separate different cases or categories of people is those who are still genuinely innocent regarding the issues and truth involved and those who set themselves up as teachers and even aggressive evangelizers of the falsehood. The latter know enough to know better and to be convicted. The former will come to see the truth in time if they truly value the Word of God and engage it and gravitate towards the pure and whole real thing as born again believers do eventually. But those who evangelize for the corrupt manuscripts and the versions based on them are in dangerous territory. They've yet to be broken in their vanity, worldly pride, and rebellious self-will.
And most of it for these types these days is wrapped up in the juvenile cult of academia. They'll call you "anti-intellectual" the moment you say that, but the fact is most born again Christians either have experience of that world and can see it for what it is (a John Calvin type) or have enough everyday, practical common-sense experience of life and human nature to not be caught up in or impressed with its illusions (a John Bunyan type). And a Christian regenerated by the Word and the Spirit knows the limits of man's intellect compared to the discernment and illumination given by the Holy Spirit.
Knowledge is not understanding. Knowledge plus the Holy Spirit - when you can fear God solely and not man - is the beginning of understanding, and even then you look like a fool to the world still.
Newborns, or those who may not have been exposed to the various translations and texts, are no more responsible than is a newborn baby in the flesh for feeding itself.
However, after a short while the Holy Spirit will begin weaning and feeding those whom he has truly regenerated with more than just baby milk.
I was born again reading the KJV, but afterwards, because the pastor of the church I started attending used the RSV, so did I...
...but only for a short while, for the Holy Spirit was not in the RSV. The Holy Spirit who came upon me an regenerated me did not bear witness to the RSV.
So, after a short while, I got on my knees and sought the Lord very earnestly about which Bible to use, and the Holy Spirit truly lifted up a standard and bore INFALLIBLE witness and COMMANDED me to stick with the KJV.
At that time, I had absolutely no clue about the Bible version issue. I knew that the "learned" recommended anything BUT the KJV, but I also knew that the Holy Spirit had spoken, and had spoken INFALLIBLY, and that he did NOT speak to me in other "bibles" but that he MOST DEFINITELY spake to me in, by, and through the KJV.
And of course, that's usually the way it is with the Holy Spirit -- i.e., he FIRST commands, then, AFTER we obey -- and I stress the AFTER -- AFTER we obey, THEN he shows us WHY he commanded such and such in the first place.
I have never met a SINGLE person whom I knew was born again who didn't IMMEDIATELY, upon seeing the differences, switch to the KJV, if they weren't already using it. And I mean IMMEDIATELY.
Not one.
Those who are unregenerate have no clue as to what I'm talking about. They are clueless as to what it really means to have the Holy Spirit bearing witness, for they have never HEARD the voice of Jesus, but for those of us who are regenerate, that witness is more certain and more sure than the very gates of hell can prevail against.
And yet, just to make sure their damnation is complete, God makes it so clear that even the unregenerate can see the irony, such as the FACT that modern "bibles" are based on the VERY Latin Vulgate text that the Holy Ghost HIMSELF rejected, and the VERY Latin Vulgate text that the Reformers, Puritans, Nonconformists, Great Awakeners, et al, utterly rejected.
Not to mention all the other insurmountable evidence condeming modern "bibles" and the Latin Vulgate text they are based on.
Thus, they are without excuse.
As I said, they don't know the Jesus I know, or the Jesus that Bunyan knew, that Owen knew, that Whitefield knew, that Spurgeon knew, et cetera.
And they never will as long as they continue to kick against the pricks.
And as I also said, you will never hear a single one of them preach in demonstration of the Spirit and with power, for they are not indwelt by the Spirit, and they have not an iota of power with Jesus Christ. Not an iota.
In fact, the wrath of God abides upon them still, and those who denigrate the TR/KJV have no clue that God is actually storing up wrath against them for this SPECIFIC wickedness.
The Holy Ghost HIMSELF so testifies.
Scott
http://www.lamblion.net
From your page of quotes (which is an epic page of quotes I must say)
http://www.lamblion.net/Quotations/quote_page.htm
I found this to be worth bringing over here regarding regeneration:
"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." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit - John Owen
I've certainly run into a whole lot of that...
It's very revealing that you should bring up that particular quote, because that quote goes to the heart of the whole issue, and few people perceive the significance of that quote.
I may say, in fact, that ALL who are truly regenerate have substantial empathy with that very quotation.
Moreover, there is great wisdom in that quotation, and great wisdom was (and is now in heaven) in the man who wrote it.
Scott
http://www.lamblion.net
I engage in some internet forums here and there - or did in the past - regarding the current 'Federal Vision' movement that is annoying Reformed churches and denominations and so on, and one thing that defines the Federal Visionists is their opposing with "violence and subtlety" the notion that anybody is born again by the Word and the Spirit. (They might believe in some kind of ritual regeneration or corporate regeneration, but not the real thing, no way.) The problem for the Reformed Christians trying to fight off the Federal Vision movement is they share that antipathy, for the most part. Hence I call their battle a Village of Morality civil war (using Bunyan's language).
There IS responsibility for born again Christians to recognize the true despair a person may feel who to whatever degree, in whatever way, feels or thinks they have yet to be regenerated by the Word and the Spirit (which might be a strange despair, I admit, i.e. usually it's the farthest thing from a person's mind until God regenerates them despite themselves), and for me the response is to say that the Word of God itself is the wild card in the process. You can't regenerate yourself, it's an act of God, but you CAN move close to God so that He, as He states in James 4 and elsewhere, will move close to you, and you do this by engaging directly His Word. So I do my: "Read the Word of God complete, once, three times, seven times! Do it humbly, not filtering it and confuting and so on. Make it an actual goal. Force the issue. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God."
And humble yourself to the Word that has God's authority in it, not the more comfortable authority of man (scholars).
I always like that response you sometimes see on forums where the TR-KJV issues are being debated; somebody will say how can anyone say one version is more correct/pure/etc. than any other, and somebody responds: "the real thing is the one you most don't want to engage." Yes, fallen man knows. Just as the atheist only really has a problem with Christianity, despite the lip service of antipathy towards Islam, Judaism, etc.
I sent turretinfan this note:
"This is for your reading rather than posting obviously, but I wanted to say I obviously appreciate your writing and understanding of apostolic biblical doctrine (Calvinism, etc.), and I think my response came across as terse and mean. I know I'm an untouchable, I make myself so with my language, purposely in many ways.
So not posting my comment is understandable from your point-of-view.
But, the fact is, White needs to be called to the carpet by people like yourself who are capable of dealing with him on the level he so loves to operate on. I mean, I can't believe you can read his King James Only Controversy and NOT see every fallacious bit of sophistry you would gun down if you saw the same in a book by an Arminian or JW or what have you. Giving White a pass is strange."
The problem with internet forums, and even blogs, is that it usually boils down to each person trying to win their point.
Very, very few posters ever respond with the intention of tyring to actually help those with whom he's conversing.
Moreover, the unregenrate aren't going to be won over through these types of arguments, especially those who already THINK they're born again, but aren't, which comprises the vast, vast majority of those who profess to be Christian.
When I post, I post with the intention of trying to enlighten, but at the same time, of course, I don't compromise, nor do I mince words.
However, I don't spend a lot of time on the net for the simple reason that it takes away from my time with the Lord and with my personal evangelism.
As I've stated many times, and as Bunyan and others have stated, it will be shown on the day of judgment, not only how FEW, comparatively speaking, will be saved, but it will likewise be shown that the vast, vast majority of those who ARE saved, were saved one-on-one by the personal witness of one regenerate Christian.
Scott
http://www.lamblion.net
In reading some of your introductions to the various theologians (etc.) whose quotes you have put up I found what you said of Thomas Boston's Human Nature in its Fourfold state to state what I've seen in it as well. I've said in parts Boston comes through as even Shakespearian in power (probably due more to the foundational themes, but still; the writing itself though is powerful too in its plainness). That book, I've read somewhere, was once a folk classic (known and read among everyday people) on par with Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. It is also a book one can put in the category of histories of redemption.
I am going again through Boston's "A View Of The Covenant Of Grace" and I must say it is one of the two or three MUST reads for any regenerate Christian, even above his "Fourfold State", and right up there with Bunyan's "Heavenly Footman" and "The Strait Gate" (both of which can be found in PDF on my site under eBooks.
Anyway, there is so much glory in this treatise by Boston that you have to stop and just praise the Lord Jesus and wonder at him on almost every page, and I am not exaggerating. The treatise can be found in Volume 8 of his "Works" (a twelve volume set), but I'm not sure if it exists anywhere else. I am going to try to find a way to get it online, for it is an absolute MUST read.
Now then, how synchronously the Lord works, for I am udating portions of my Quote Page, and right now I'm going through Tozer.
Notice how relative to our discussion are these quotations by Tozer that I've just added. In the last quote, you will see that Tozer states EXACTLY what I have said in the posts above...
"Evangelical rationalism will kill the truth just as quickly as liberalism will... This evangelical rationalism will kill the truth just as quickly as liberalism will, though in a more subtle way... The evangelical rationalist today is still wearing our uniform. He comes right in wearing our uniform and says what the Pharisees said while Jesus was on earth, and they were His worst enemies... They have the text and the code and the creed, and to them that is the truth. So they pass it on to others. The result is we are dying spiritually... There is a divine inward illumination the Holy Ghost must give us or we don't know what the truth means... The body of truth, the inspired text, is not enough -- there must be an inward illumination... I have no doubt that we try to ease many people into the kingdom, so called, who never get into the kingdom at all. They are jockeyed into believing in the text, and they do, but they have never been illuminated by the Holy Ghost. They have never been renewed within their being. They never get into the kingdom at all." The Tozer Pulpit, Vol I
Now notice EXACTLY what I was talking about...
"Paul says (1 Cor. 2:4-5) 'My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.' Now the theological rationalist understands that in this way: he says that your faith should stand not in the wisdom of man but in the Word of God: But that is not what Paul said. He said that your faith should stand in the POWER of God. That is quite a different thing." The Tozer Pulpit, Vol I
These unregenerate rationalists of our day, such as the imposters who promote and defend the Latin Vulgate text of modern "bibles", have ZERO power with the Lord Jesus, ZERO power with God, and as Tozer also said, there isn't anything quite so chilling as to hear them preach for they are not indwelt by the Spirit.
But they are without excuse, for the Scripture is replete with examples of the new birth and the filling of the Holy Spirit, beginnning with Pentecost, and with regard to the Bible version issue, the Holy Spirit has spoken so clearly that a man must be willfully blind in order to miss it.
Finally, I can't go without giving one of Tozer's innumerable comedic quips a hearing --
"Many a husband has learned to say, 'Yes, dear, yes dear', but when the wife is not there, you should hear what he says to the goldfish." The Tozer Pulpit, Vol I
Scott
http://www.lamblion.net
A View of the Covenant of Grace is available on google books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=IDUAAAAAMAAJ&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#PPA3,M1
Typically long google books link. But it can be searched and found.
Straight Federal Theology. The spine of which is the two Adams. The only confusing thing is how each Federal theologian chose to write about the Covenant of Grace, i.e. to include in it the eternal covenant or to distinguish the eternal covenant of redemption as a covenant unto itself. Flavel seems most on-the-mark of the Puritans to me in clearly setting for the three covenants (Redemption, Works, Grace), not that he is alone in that. But Boston discourses on the Covenant of Redemption but just as it is a part of the Covenant of Grace.
Boston also sees how the Covenant at Sinai is a republication of the Covenant of Works, for Jesus (of which the nation of Israel was a type) to be born under and to fulfill to a 't'. Of course for fallen man what is a covenant of works for Jesus is part of the Covenant of Grace for man.
It's not difficult, but alot of people seem to stumble all over the place regarding it all (and false teachers love to get in there and muck it up in six different ways to dissuade people from sola fide and on and on. They do this by piously denying works, but it is Jesus' works they deny and push people to their own works for their salvation. It can get complicated, and it doesn't help that modern Reformed theologians seem to want to be seen as original and use different and new terminology rather than explaining it clearly, if they are able, which many of them aren't.
The entire plan is to effect an internal re-orientation - after regeneration of course - from self-will to acting from God's will. To connect. Unio mystica, the heart of Calvin and Owen's theological approach. Thus both had the nickname 'theologian of the Holy Spirit'.
My last paragraph is too broad a statement "the entire plan is to...", but it follows when you see God's plan of redemption via classical covenant - federal - theology - i.e. how the Bible presents the plan of redemption - that that turning from self-will to the more subtle, acting from above, God's will is what the eternal and celestial mechanics of the entire plan sets up. That possibility, or reality, by God's grace (the acknowledging of which is *part* of the internal turning.
It could be said differently and from different angles, but union with Christ is the point where the practical reality of the plan of God manifests.
Yeah, I am aware of the technicalities, and especially the rationalists who try to make hay out of them, but I don't get too conerned when I'm reading Flavel or Boston or Owen and so on, for I know that their foundation is absolutely solid, and I'm not convinced that any semantics that are attached to each one can be demonstrated.
Rather, I focus on the meat of what they are clearly conveying. Naturally, I have small disagreements with any of them, but the disagreements are so minor that they aren't even worth mentioning.
I should also have stated, by the way, that Owen's Christologia is a MUST read, and that treatise probably shows forth the glory of Jesus Christ more than any other treatise outside of the Bible.
Good to know about the google link. I'm going to give it a try.
Scott
http://www.lamblion.net
Here's a more readable edition of Boston's A View of the Covenant of Grace at googlebooks:
http://books.google.com/books?id=yQVKAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA377&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=0_0#PPA379,M1
It's the one contained in googlebooks Complete Works of Boston rather than an individual volume.
The first link is not the View, only a tiny portion of it. The second link appears to be the complete View, but it is missing the last page, which is no big deal.
I'm glad to have it. Thanks.
Scott
http://www.lamblion.net
Above I wrote this:
"But, the fact is, White needs to be called to the carpet by people like yourself [Turretinfan] who are capable of dealing with him on the level he so loves to operate on. I mean, I can't believe you can read his King James Only Controversy and NOT see every fallacious bit of sophistry you would gun down if you saw the same in a book by an Arminian or JW or what have you. Giving White a pass is strange."
I really meant that last sentence: giving White a pass is strange. Well, here's the answer, and I had no idea of this connection when I wrote the above:
http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=2727
Turretinfan has apparently been a regular in White's
'channel' (which he polices quite aggressively) and is now being made a regular on White's all-important (I guess) blog.
Talk about selling out something infinitely valuable for a small amount of pocket change...
Really, Turretinfan, lukewarmness is one thing, but this is crazy. White's King James Only Controversy is a prime example of the kinds of argumentation you love to, as I stated, gun down. You're being a respecter of persons. And lukewarm. You need to step back and survey what is really important...
White reads this blog, and by announcing what he's announced about Turretinfan now he is playing the devil saying: "We not only have him on our side, but I am arrogantly announcing it now in the face of all the current talk about so-called 'regeneration' and being so-called 'born again' and the public challenging of him to take me on. See my power over him? See how powerful our side is? We will defeat your 'God' as well. You live in our world now too. Can you feel our power over you? Of course you can. Get use to it."
Yeah, we're scared.
The witness of the Holy Spirit trumps the witness of man. Not one single soul who is genuinely born again can be deceived by their arguments.
Like I said above, the witness of the Holy Spirit to me when I was a newborn utterly trumped all the learning of the learned, and so it is with ALL who are genuinely born of the Spirit.
Instead of being troubled by it, especially since it's their right to follow whomsoever they will, just step back and follow the wise words of the Lord Jesus --
"Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." Matthew 15:14
Wait for the leading of the Holy Spirit before you jump into a fight. Joshua did not go up against the enemy until he asked the Lord, "Shall I go up..."
Use the intervening time to pray and be endued with power from on High. The Holy Spirit will pick the time and place for lifting up the standard.
Scott
http://lamblion.net
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