Barb has an interesting appraisal of this thread responding to Rich Lusk’s catechism. Aside from the weird paranoia displayed in general against a guy simply asking a question, I thought Dr. Clark’s analysis was extraordinary since he didn’t answer the original question even though he certainly could have explained it, given his confessional stance.
The question arose from this Q&A:
Question 62. What did the death and resurrection of Jesus do for you?
Because I trust in the crucified and risen Jesus, I am now regenerated (which means I am born from above and share in Jesus’ resurrection life), I am justified (which means I am right with God and forgiven by him), I am adopted (which means I am God’s child and heir), I am reconciled (which means I am at peace with God and he calls me his friend), I am sanctified (which means I am a priest to God, and he promises to make me grow in holiness and obedience), and I am glorified (which means I have the Holy Spirit living in me and will be conformed to Christ’s image) [emphasis added].
Now here is the beginning of Article 24 of the Belgic Confession of Dr. Clark’s own denomination:
We believe that this true faith, produced in man by the hearing of God’s Word and by the work of the Holy Spirit, regenerates him and makes him a “new man” [2 Cor. 5:17,] causing him to live the “new life” [Rom. 6:4] and freeing him from the slavery of sin.
Rich is not “teaching Arminianism” as some so desperately wish to believe. He is simply utilizing language of the Belgic Confession which is still a doctrinal statement in use today in existent Evangelical Reformed denominations.
But don’t miss the real lesson here.
Time and again we hear false accusations about “traditional language” being subversively “redifined” and given “new meaning’ that is at odds with “traditional understanding.” The Belgic Confession is not traditional? In what universe?
The Belgic Confession is not only traditional, but it is still current. Rich is not reusing archaic terms as is sometimes contended (as if learning from the pre-seventeenth-century Reformers was somehow suspicious), but he is honoring a standard Reformed confession. Like it or not, “regeneration” is a word used in different ways in Reformed orthodoxy as it now is confessed in our Reformed churches.
Wow, Mark, thanks for the link to that catechism. I hadn’t run across it before but it looks quite helpful.
Hey Mark,
That the idea that one is regenerated in baptism implies “Arminianism” is a pretty funny example of (mis)reading a text by insisting on categories not shared by the author.
Still, I guess I don’t get the equivalence you claim between the two confessional statements. Clark wasn’t asserting Arminianism (that was another poster), but seemed to me to be claiming that Lusk’s answer left open the implication of “ex opere operato,” an implication not left open in the passage from the Belgic Confession, with its invocation of the Spirit and the Word.
Right on all counts Jim (of course, I do think the “charge” relating to baptism is answerable and easily so).
I was simply expressing puzzlement that Dr. Clark didn’t answer the original question regarding the statement about faith and regeneration. He chose to ignore that (and his knowledge of his own doctrinal standards) so that no one has pointed out the correlation.
At least, that is what I meant to express.
It is interesting to compare Article XV of various editions of the Belgic Confession online. Some read ‘regeneration’; others read ‘baptism’. I would love to know the history behind that.
The original Belgic Confession by de Bres certainly used “Baptism”. This was the word accepted by the Synod of Antwerp and endorsed by the Great Synod of Dordt.
I can only find the versions used by small splinter denominations in the USA that use “Regeneration”, I do not know when that change was made or by whom.