Monthly Archives: November 2007

About Steve Wilkins and SJC

Doug nails it.

That leaves us with failure to indict. The SJC can find that in their judgment there was probable cause, and that charges should have been brought. So if that is what they find, what is the appropriate redress in a situation like that? Someone would have to bring charges. When those charges are brought, Wilkins would then be tried in some venue, and he would have the full presumption of innocence in that trial. The prosecution would have to prove that he was not in conformity with the Confession, instead of doing it the Internet way, which is to baldly assert that someone is out of conformity with the Confession, leaving him to try to prove his way back into conformity.

So this would be a real debate, a real confrontation, requiring real arguments. The accused would have the advantage, instead the current slander system, where the prosecution has the advantage. At the same time, genuine theological experts from both sides would be called to testify. It would be the trial of the century. Finally we would have a setting in which we all could define our terms and settle the matter. It would be fantastic. Throw us into that briar patch.

One other thing: bringing to a complaint against one’s own presbytery, for failing to indict, when all one had to do is file charges oneself, makes no sense at all.  SJC has painted themselves in the corner of presuming the guilt of a presbyter in good standing because they received complaints from Louisiana Presbytery rather than directing those presbyters to press charges themselves.

If the proper order had been followed, we would have had 1) a bona fide public trial with records and witnesses and the possibility of the accused confronting his accusers 2) a basis for one party or the other to appeal to SJC if necessary.

For whatever reason, SJC has moved into unprecedented and unimagined “space” in which they have no restraints.

Everything about this case shows that Steve Wilkins’ opponents know that Steve would be exonerated by anything but a political machine.  This is simply the follow up to the shamelessly biased FV committee.  The very process serves as evidence of Steve’s uprightness in this matter.

Baptism versus? Faith

This great post reminded me of the great Reformed theologian, Francis Turretin, who wrote:

Although the sacraments are external means and instruments applying (on the part of God) the promise of grace and justification, this does not hinder faith from being called the internal instrument and means on the part of man for receiving this benefit offered in the word and sealed by the sacraments [16.7.20].

The question is not whether faith alone justifies to the exclusion either of the grace of God or the righteousness of Christ or the word and sacraments (by which the blessing of justification is presented and sealed to us on the part of God), which we maintain are necessarily required here; but only to the exclusion of every other virtue and habit on our part…. For all these as they are mutually subordinated in a different class of cause, consist with each other in the highest degree [16.8.5].

Election

The Bible speaks of, about, and uses the term election many times. For example, Moses speaks for God in Deuteronomy 7:

For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today.

And again in Deuteronomy 14:

You are the sons of the Lord your God. You shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

Both these statements go back to a generation earlier at the foot of Mount Sinai as recorded in Exodus 19:

The Lord called to him out of the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel: You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”

The Apostle Peter ties all this together saying that the Church of both Jew and Gentile is elect just as the nation of Israel once was.

As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen [eklekton, elect] and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture:

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen [eklekton, elect] and precious,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,

“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone,”

and

“A stone of stumbling,
and a rock of offense.”

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

But you are a chosen [eklekton, elect] race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

So, for Peter, all professing Christians are elect as Christians just as Israel was elect as Israel. They are all chosen for the covenant. And, indeed, because all things are under God’s sovereign care, anyone who finds himself as part of God’s covenant family, the elect race and royal priesthood, knows that he is only there by God’s merciful choice, not his or her own. Arminians and Pelagians, whether semi- or full may think otherwise, but Calvinists know that the only original reason they are members of the Church is because God chose them to be such. All those privileges and responsibilities are theirs only by God’s election. God may not have called them audibly as he called Abram, but they can still only ascribe their membership in God’s people to God’s own sovereign and merciful choice.

But this is not the only election the Bible talks about, and it needs to be pointed out that this is not identical to being chosen to infallibly inherit eternal life. The Israelites were chosen, but they needed to respond in faith rather than drift into unbelief and idolatry.

Thus, when Israel rejected the faith, their election to closeness with God became an election to perdition. God said through the prophet Amos (ch 3),

You only have I known
of all the families of the earth;
therefore I will punish you
for all your iniquities.

This is a reference to the election of Abraham as written of in Genesis 12. God said to him:

Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.
And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse,
and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

But there are other ways to express what is happening. Amos’ point that election turns from a means of blessing to a curse is not the only way the Bible speaks about unbelief among the elect nation. It can also speak of those who are elected to belief amid an unbelieving nation. The Apostle Paul does this many times, summing up in Romans 11, “Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened…”

Here there is an election within the election. If we see the Church going insane with unbelief and apostasy, we must not think our ability to recognize the idolatry is due to our inherent superiority. We must attribute it all to God’s mercy in rescuing us from an evil generation.

While the Apostle Paul does speak of election to eternal life, he does not think that every one chosen to profess faith is necessarily elect to that destiny. In Romans 11, in fact, he warns those very people who he describes as “elect” in verse 7:

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.

(By the way, for those who have read N. T. Wright’s generally excellent commentary on Romans: Were you satisfied with his comments on this passage? I felt I was suddenly back in college hearing a fundamentalist minister assure me of some rather crude version of “once saved, always saved.” Maybe I’m being to severe, but that was my impression.)

In any case, much more could be said, and I don’t have time to say it all tonight.  Here is something I wrote on the subject.  (I taught it as a Sunday School lesson.)  And here is something that John Calvin wrote about it.

By the way, it has become fashionable in some circles to claim to teach this about election is to “violate the Standards.”  I caught wind of this awhile back, but never thought that such people would actually get anywhere. I’m really at a loss to explain how all our intelligent and faithful teachers are being bypassed (John Frame, Vern Poythress, etc) in order to bring about the destruction of Steve Wilkins.  Nor can I really understand how the entire PCA is willing to play the role of David at the news of Abner’s death, though David didn’t hear of it until Abner was already dead and we’re seeing this stabbing take place before us by inches, and doing nothing to object or stop it from happening.

A couple of book announcements

Long long ago I wrote a tract for my website entitled, “Why baptize babies.” I actually started to blog the content at one point, but instead asked the good people at Athanasius Press if they wanted to publish it. After making alterations and variouis edits, it was deemed suitable for publication and is now available. (As soon as the cover art is online, I’ll let you know.”

I wrote this to be the perfect, one-stop-shop, handy-dandy, explanation for why Reformed churches baptize the infants of at least one Christian. It is only $5.00 (and probably less if you want to buy in bulk. Give them a call to see if you can work something out.)

While the content has been tweaked, this is still basically the same essay that many have told me they found useful and that several churches have used. If you know any Christian struggling with this issue or with a friend who struggles, I think you will find this book helpful.

faithneveralone.jpgAnother book is also available, one to which I have only contributed to in a small way, but that also contains essays by excellent scholars and ministers like John Armstrong, Don Garlington, Peter Leithart, Rich Lusk, Andrew Sandlin, and Norman Shepherd. This is a response to a highly inflammatory and highly inaccurate book by Westminster Seminary in California. But with these quality writers, the book is worth getting for it’s own sake. (And, since you’re buying it anyway, you should take a look at my essay as well.)