RSSLatitude in the Right Place
Can the gospel be a stake depending on where you are? Before proceeding, let me start by affirming my belief in the imputation of the active obedience of Christ, and so I’m cool. But let me add that I don’t believe, just as John Owen didn’t believe, that denial of it amounts to a denial of the gospel. Here’s why.
Unless we are far gone in sectarianism, the gospel is the same gospel wherever you go in the world. It is not possible to give the Lutherans a pass on their failure to affirm the imputation of the active obedience of Christ while nailing Presbyterians who don’t affirm it. It is possible to frame the gospel more or less accurately, more or less fully, and more or less confessionally. But if one group scores 87% on their gospel purity test, and another group scores 87%, and it was the imputation of the active obedience of Christ part of the test that tripped them both up, then it is not possible to flunk the one and pass the other. If the gospel is at stake in Presbyterianism, then it is at stake across the board. If it is not at stake across the board, then the gospel is not at stake here. If we grade the tests differently, then one of two things is happening. Either this is old-fashioned favoritism (the religious form of which is sectarianism), or it is some form of postmodern relativism.
This does not mean that debates cannot or should not occur. But it means that the stakes of the debate should be represented accurately. Differences should concern whether or not the position is fully scriptural, or confessional, or right in the theological details — something ramped down. But if the Westminster Assembly contained men who disputed the imputation of the active obedience of Christ, and it did, and the language of the Confession was deliberately framed in such a way as to allow these men to subscribe it anyway, and it was, then it seems to me that faithfulness to the Standards today would require the same latitude. Moreover, this latitude would not land us in the unseemly position of saying that the Lutherans were denying the Reformation, and the gospel to boot.
Like the majority of the men at the Assembly, I affirm the imputation of the active obedience of Christ. And also like the men at Westminster I do not believe that questioning it is a denial or rejection of the gospel. Who’s with me on this?
Anthony Cowley
October 1st, 2007 at 12:10 am
Well put. I’m with Wilson, whose dad said that he tells people just what he is doing, and gets in trouble for doing so. Maybe that’s the method to the madness of Jeff Meyers too.
D Hart
October 1st, 2007 at 7:30 am
Doug, it all depends on why you reject active obedience. If you do so for Rollock’s reasons, I can live with it, though I’d need to see more. If you do so simply for liberty of conscience reasons, I still don’t know what you believe about the gospel. And my suspicion is that those who deny it have something else up their sleeve, like a strong dose of Norman Shepherd. (More on that later.)
W.H. Chellis
October 1st, 2007 at 8:05 am
A further note. The gospel would be destroyed if Christ’s righteousness for His people were taken away. Short of that, it is tough to say someone has denied the gospel. In fact, with the high stakes involved, I would prefer to leave to God who believes the “gospel” and who does not.
The real question is Reformed boundries. I love C.S. Lewis. I love his book Mere Christianity. If someone who taught theology the way Lewis did came to my Presbytery, I would vote against him. Not because he is not a Christian, but because he stands outside our boundries.
Therefore, I will say that I am with you. Are you with me?
James Jordan
October 1st, 2007 at 9:31 am
What is the gospel? In the Bible the gospel is the theocratic message that whereas in the old time only one nation was baptized and discipled under the loving teaching of Yahweh, now all nations are to be baptized and discipled under the enthroned Incarnate Yahweh. That’s clear in Matthew and Acts and everywhere else. Ordo salutis is not the gospel; it’s been around since Genesis 3. The gospel is the message that history has changed, that Satan has been defeated, that now all nations, every single one, is destined for transformation. Not just white nations. All nations. That’s the new good news. Sometimes the gospel is called postmillennialism. They are synonyms.
I’d say that in terms of what the Bible means by gospel, a whole lot of people in the presbyterian world today are actively hostile to it. But that does not mean they are not saved. We are not saved by understanding what the gospel is (though it’s clear as day in the Bible), but by trusting God. Yet, since this conversation began with the question of what supposed FV people have to say to modern conversative Reformed people, this is certainly one of those things. You’ve pretty much abandoned the gospel of the enthroned kingship of Jesus Christ, the New Man, over all the nations; you’ve pretty much abandoned any notion of present and progressive glorification/theopoesis in Christ. We’d like to see you come back to the historic catholic and Reformed faith.
W.H. Chellis
October 1st, 2007 at 9:58 am
My response to James Jordan: We do disagree. When I speak of the gospel I refer to Christ crucified for our sins and raised for our justification. Your link between postmillenialism and the gospel suggests that by gospel you are talking about liberalism’s false gospel of progress. Modernism indeed.
pduggie
October 1st, 2007 at 10:06 am
How can we speak of a “Christ” crucified and raised from the dead without theocracy. Jesus was not just “some guy” who died and was raised for our sins, and who also happens to be a king. He is the crucified Messiah the King.
W.H. Chellis
October 1st, 2007 at 10:16 am
Hey, I am a Covenanter! I glory in the Kingship of Christ over church and nation.
Still, how Christ’s mediatorial reign (by which He applies His gospel to His Church) implies some kind of postmillenial cult of progress is beyond me. This is the heart of modernist three-age gnostism.
Have two centuries of post-millenial “isms” and golden age eschatologies not been enough? Have the “virtuous” not slaughtered enough people in their quest for heaven on earth?
I know that I am hitting you with more than you are advocating. I know that I am attacking a secularized version of what you look for… yet, I am convinced that there is not a great deal of distance between Cromwell and Robespierre, 5th Monarchy Men and Maoism.
Caleb said we need some Eliot. I will take his little essays “The Idea of a Christian Society” and his “Notes towards the Definition of Culture” over the whole corpus of R.J. Rushdoony any day of the week.
May Christendom be saved from the radicals.
D Hart
October 1st, 2007 at 11:55 am
So, James, it all comes back to theonomy? But even older theonomists would have talked about the gospel in ways that Old WTS, Old Princeton, Samuel Davies, John Knox and John Calvin did — that is, with Christ and his benefits for sinners at the forefront. I find it incredible that anyone could read the confessions of the 16th century and come up with your rendering of the gospel. I know of no question and answer in either the WSC or Heidelberg, in fact, that would substantiate your idea of the gospel that all nations are to be baptized and discipled. I do, however, see any number of questions and answers having to do with the ordo.
DWilson
October 1st, 2007 at 11:58 am
Bill, sure, I am with you on this one. Many of the men I have learned most from are outside the confessional boundaries of our church, and so I would vote against them if they tried to get credentialed in our presbytery. But I would not use the language of heresy, or assault on the gospel, etc. as I did so. And I would not send them over to another denomination to stand for the gospel, while pretending that if they were in my denomination they would corrupt the gospel.
And when Jim calls the salvation of the world “the gospel,” he has a good example. “And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed” (Gal. 3:18).
W.H. Chellis
October 1st, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Doug, heresy is a terrible word that looses it terror through indiscriminate use.
I hope my comments have been reserved on this… suggesting only where positons could end up in heresy or assaults on the gospel.
I am sure every man here is a brother in Christ. How we relate to the boundries of the historic Reformed faith my be another matter.
James Jordan
October 1st, 2007 at 1:02 pm
The gospel, in the Bible, is a covenant historical announcement: that the Second Adam has removed the curse of sin, has been enthroned king, has defeated Satan, and now is going to rule the world. Like it or not, that’s the NEW good news. Reducing all of that to an ordo for individuals may be “anti-modernist,” but it’s also unBiblical.
I’m well aware that people commonly use the word “gospel” to mean the Four Spiritual Laws and other ways of approaching individual sinners with grace. I don’t mind that, until it comes up in a discussion like this, where Biblical categories do indeed matter.
The fact that there is no Q&A in Heidelberg or WLC about this is TOTALLY IMMATERIAL. Fact is, those men took theocracy and postmillennialism for granted.
Rev. Chellis, Please drop the Joachimite charges, would you? It’s nonsense, and if you don’t know that it is, you should. And if you don’t know that Christian Reconstructionism was anti-political and exhaustively proclamatory in its method, then you know nothing about it and your statement that you have any familiarity with Rushdoony is called into question.
Associating me with modernism is not quite going to work, since I am vastly more conservative and take a vastly more strict approach to the Bible than any of my interlocutors in this discussion. It’s the OPC and PCA that have moved in gnostic modernist directions with their anti-temporal readings of Genesis 1 and their rejection of Biblical chronology, just to mention two of many dimensions.
Perhaps I should say that those who move from Rushdoony to Kirk, from Biblical Law to Natural Law, and from Reformation eschatology to Augustinian neo-platonism are ON THE ROAD TO ROME!! Would you say that was fair of me?
You-all asked where those who have been bunched as “FV” people have criticisms of latter-day Reformed thinking. Well, I’ve tried to give some. Just trying to be honest here, and answer your question.
D Hart
October 1st, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Doug, Paul talks about justification and faith Gal 3:18. I still find James’ statement a caricature if that is your reference.
Peter
October 1st, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Darryl, but justification is NOT mentioned in the passage Paul quotes (Genesis 12:3; the Galatians quotation is from 3:8, btw). Yet Paul says that this passage is a pre-preaching of the gospel.
Anthony Cowley
October 1st, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Theonomy, Dr. Hart? Postmillennialism, Rev. Chellis, J.D.?
Well, Jim did call postmillennialism the gospel. I happen to agree that it is the gospel truth - Christ’s death and resurrection is for sinners out of the nations, and for the nations themselves. If you wish to call it theonomy, go ahead. But, is it more than that - is is the presupposition upon which the Westminster Confession was written: The Solemn League & Covenant between England, Scotland and Ireland - the three nations, was the basis upon which our Scottish forbearers went to the Assembly of Divines. They were, to a man, establishmentarians. Most were Presbyterians, some were Erastians, some were Independents, but they all saw the Gospel as a public proclamation to the nations. The Episcopalians were the Same. The Romanists and Eastern Orthodox the same. THe Lutherans didn’t reject it. Only the anabaptists held to what is being said by some here. I’m glad to have such strong Presbyterian sectarians on my side!
We’ve already been here, and done this before, back when Dr. RS Clark was, quite ironically, mocking the idea that the Nations were under the Covenant of works! Over on Hart’s Secular Faith discussion. One of the posts (my response) can be seen here, but the rest will pop up if you go here too:
http://deregnochristi.org/2007/03/31/the-covenant-of-works-and-the-state/#comment-575 (I suppose you may have to copy and paste it into your browser).
The Gospel is for the nations as well as families and individuals. De Regno Christi, Brothers!
D Hart
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Peter, I was quoting Doug, who was apparently quoting Gal. 3:8. I never claimed to be a biblicist. Anyway, what kind of hermeneutic would not take the latter passage as a fuller treatment of the former? I thought that was the point behind all of the recent study of Paul.
Anthony, we have been through this before. I’ve never denied that the gospel should be preached to the nations. I’m still struggling though with what it would mean for a nation, not a family, but a civil society tasked with bearing the sword, with laws, courts, rulers, a constitution and the like, to rest and receive the passive and active obedience of Christ.
D Hart
October 2nd, 2007 at 2:22 pm
James, our Lord seemed to put a lot of weight on forgiveness as essential to the Christian ministry (Jn. 20:23 — I hope I have that right, Peter). What place does forgiveness have in your understanding of the gospel?
James Jordan
October 2nd, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Please understand: I’m saying that what the NT calls “the gospel” is a covenant historical fact: the ascension of Jesus Christ, in a nutshell, after the accomplishment of His work on our behalf. Forgiveness is not new news. At the same time, it is with the cross that forgiveness of sins can be said to “arrive” in history, the ground of it having been accomplished in history (1 Cor. 15:3).
The notion that God saves sinners who put their trust in Him alone is clear from Genesis 3 and from the First Word of the Ten Words. That “ordo” fact is not news and is not the gospel that arrived with the ascension of Jesus. What did arrive in the first century is fulfillment of the BASIS of that ordo salvation — but also a lot more.
AS I said before, I don’t really care if someone uses the word “gospel” for the Four Spiritual Laws or any other individualistic call to salvation. I don’t care until that common notion is used to deny what the NT actually means by the word “gospel.” Then the matter has to become important. Right?
D Hart
October 2nd, 2007 at 3:44 pm
James, I find it confusing that the FV seems to consist of a host of individual interlocuters engaged in an exegetical and theological conversation, making it impossible really to talk about FV as a corporate entity. But you deny that salvation or the gospel is individual. That must make it corporate or inclusive of some group.
So I assume that you think Heidelberg Q&A 1 should be written to affirm “the earth’s (should it be cosmos?) only comfort in life and in death is that the earth is not its own but belongs cosmically and universally to the earth’s faithful savior Jesus Christ. . . ” You see many more Christians than Campus Crusade for Christ use the language of individual or personal salvation.
James Jordan
October 2nd, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Darryl, you write: “James, I find it confusing that the FV seems to consist of a host of individual interlocuters engaged in an exegetical and theological conversation, making it impossible really to talk about FV as a corporate entity.” Well, that’s what we’ve been saying for five years, Darryl!!
“But you deny that salvation or the gospel is individual.” I deny no such things. I said that the meaning of “gospel” in the NT is an historical event, the coming of the kingdom. I’ve never said that salvation is not for individuals. I’m a trinitarian: One and Many.
Heidelberg Q. 1 is not a definition of the gospel. It is an answer to the question “what is your (s.) only comfort in life and death?”
D Hart
October 2nd, 2007 at 5:58 pm
James wrote: “the gospel is the theocratic message that whereas in the old time only one nation was baptized and discipled under the loving teaching of Yahweh, now all nations are to be baptized and discipled under the enthroned Incarnate Yahweh.”
I’ll take Heidelberg 1. So has the church.