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Michael Horton on the invisible church

A Permanant Address:

Augustine, one of the key sources for this invisible-visible church distinction, can be improved on by reference to eschatology. In other words, the proper distinction is not between two types of churches, one “inner” and another “outer,” but rather two eras of the one church’s existence: “this present age” and “the age to come.” This is the import of the parable of the wheat and weeds: Jesus will sort things out in the end. But for now, the visible church is a garden of wheat and weeds and sometimes we cannot tell them apart. In this age, the church is compromised; in the next, it is glorified — completely purged of being, as we lament in the hymn, “by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed.” The distinction between the present and the future condition of the church is the corporate analogue to the paradoxical life of the individual believer as “simultaneously justified and sinful.” But just as we are definitively new creatures in Christ, despite our continuing battle with sin, the church really is the site of God’s covenantal grace. Like any family, it has its problems, but because it is Christ’s family, “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). To this church Christ has entrusted the keys of the kingdom, so that “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (v. 19). Just as the individual believer is a work in progress, so corporately the church even in its weakness is the place where the age to come breaks in on this present evil age. It is not because of anything intrinsic to the church itself, but because the ministry of the keys has been entrusted to her. It is through its ministry of Word and Sacrament, as well as discipline, that the Spirit makes us taste the heavenly reality of God’s sabbath rest. Even the nonelect in the visible church experience through this ministry some measure of the kingdom reality, as they have been “enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come” (Heb. 6:4-5) [emphasis added]

Can We Be Confessional & Catholic?:

At the same time, the kingdom of Christ is not an entirely future reality, but has dawned in history. Denominational committees for ecumenical relations are not mere bureaucracies that are to be trodden under foot by grassroots efforts, but they are hallways in the courts of Zion. We cannot use the so-called invisible church and grassroots ecumenism as a cop-out for ignoring our commission to realize visibly, in concrete if imperfect ways, that unity that will be finally and fully consummated at the end. [emphasis added]

And finally, more pious bias from Dr. Clark.

By the way, the “permanant address” article by Horton is simply outstanding. If it disappears anytime soon, or if certain passages suddenly disappear, as has been know to happen in other faithful anti-FV crusader documents, let me know and I’ll post my .pdf document of the website

Puritans: sidebar to the debate

“This is another appalling caricature.”

OK, I’m not commenting on the entire brouhaha, but want to briefly make a point about the defense of the reputation of the Puritans from allegedly being caricatured. If I have time I’ll at some point go through the boring process of proving what anyone knows, but for now I’ll stake my territory:

The “pro-puritan” faction is just as immature and childish as R. T. Kendall’s historiagraphy ever was. It used to be quite common to play Calvin off against the Calvinists. No, I’m not talking about modern Barthians. I’m talking about nineteenth-century Presbyterian stalwarts who sided with the later Calvinists. This “It has been utterly disproven” mantra, is about as accurate as saying that John Gerstner was a world-class Jonathan Edwards scholar.

Which brings me to my point. As much as the “TR” crowd likes to claim that it is the broad Evangelicals that appeal to intellectual sloppiness and emotionalism, their publishing industry is just as much prone to one-sided sloganeering and appealing to popular prejudice as any other group you can name. In a culture that approves of rhetoric like this and this, I don’t see much honesty in sudden demands for scholarly rigor. Seems like a double standard.

Trying to distinguish between fact and myth is a good thing, whether in the face of demonization or hagiography, shaking things up or strengthening the status quo.

Temporary forgiveness?

One possible way this could be a coherent concept is if one believes that people deserve immediate punishment. For example, if Jesus’ killers deserved immediate punishment and Jesus averted this by asking God to forgive them, then a very real penalty would have been pardoned for each and every one, regardless if they went on to find full forgiveness or not.

They were all forgiven, some for the better and some for the worse.

Whether that’s what happened or what the Bible teaches is another question. I’m simply asking if this is coherent as an explanation.

What Wilkins believes

Pastor Steve Wilkins believes in unconditional election to eternal life. The lovely table here is rather incomplete.

As he has made quite clear, Steve Wilkins believes (and I also, for what it is worth) that:

1. God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

2. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet hath he not decreed anything because he foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.

3. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death.

4. These angels and men, thus predestinated, and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or diminished.

5. Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen, in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith, or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him thereunto; and all to the praise of his glorious grace.

6. As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the eternal and most free purpose of his will, foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore, they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his Spirit working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power, through faith, unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only.

7. The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy, as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by; and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice.

8. The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care, that men, attending the will of God revealed in his Word, and yielding obedience thereunto, may, from the certainty of their effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal election. So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God; and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the gospel.

Winzer & FV

There is some gleeful wondering as to why I liked this post so much. Well, obviously, because it has some really basic Reformed 101 statements that everyone should already know.

Of course, it also ends with false statements about other Reformed believers currently being wrongfully separated from their Reformed brothers under the label “Federal Vision.”

The problem with the FV formulation of the teaching is that it supposes “saving graces” are communicated by virtue of this temporal election, contrary to what John Owen teaches above.

Well, these sorts of false statements are regularly manufactured and circulated, especially at the website where Rev. Winzer has decided to post. I am used to this by now and didn’t think I should allow it to spoil the rest of the post for me. Misrepresentations are too common to worry about these days. Common sense and common knowledge about the Reformed heritage on the other hand, are worth linking.

The election of Abraham, the election of the world

Now the Lord said to Abram, “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.”

If you come to this passage with the categories of election and reprobation in your mind, you might misunderstand this passage.  Abraham is not being chosen for salvation here (though he was so chosen before the foundation of the world) but for a new covenantal relationship and calling to bring salvation to the world.  Genesis 12.1-3 is the Old Testament’s version of John 3.16.  God loves the world (desires to bless all the families of the earth), therefore he calls Abraham.

That’s why this calling can be used by God not as the basis for absolutely guaranteed blessing for Israel, but rather for their punishment:

You only have I known
of all the families of the earth;
therefore I will punish you
for all your iniquities (Amos 3.2)

A note on God-honoring exegesis

Lets take a couple of “problem texts”:

For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins (Second Peter 1.9)

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction (Second Peter 2.1).

I’m not raising these passages because I want to “explain” them.  Nor because I think they present a true challenge to Reformed Orthodoxy (unconditional monergistic salvation as part of comprehensive absolute fore-ordination etc).

Rather, I just want to point out that any explanation worthy of a Christian must admit that the Holy Spirit was not inspiring Peter to say anything that would mislead people into believing a false doctrine.  Any explanation that makes these passages into rare instances of abnormal speech ends up, as far as I can tell, with an Apostle writing in a way that he knows can only confuse Christians.

Of course, it is not impermissible to paraphrase these statements into other words.  That can be done with all intelligible speech.  What is a mistake is to lead people to believe that other language is appropriate and this language is inappropriate.

Every Scripture is God-breathed.

Two witnesses

Moses says, “And I commanded Joshua at that time, ‘Your eyes have seen all that the Lord your God has done to these two kings. So will the Lord do to all the kingdoms into which you are crossing. You shall not fear them, for it is the Lord your God who fights for you’” (Deuteronomy 3.21, 22). These two kings were also two giants, the text tells us. A generation earlier Joshua and Caleb were two witnesses (against ten) saying that they need not fear the giants in the land. Now we have two giants as witnesses by example, just outside the Land, that God will fight for them.