I have said it before that many Calvinists are devoted to the system of theology rather than what the Scripture says, and a comment i received from a post i wrote a few weeks ago is just one other example. Under the “I Don’t Know Nothin’ ‘Bout Debatin’ Nobody!” post, someone left a comment last night, responding to something that i had said in the post.

I said:

“we can and should affirm that God desires the salvation of all the non-elect”

And in response to that, an anonymous blogger (there are too many of those, if you ask me) said:

Most Calvinist Churches cease to be Calvinist through the normal erosion of time (and theology).

If Calvinists allowed and encouraged this kind of talk, it would accelerate that process.

Very nice. The highest and greatest concern for this person is staying Calvinistic—who cares if what we say is actually biblical, so long as we’re still good Calvinists! Oh, how very, very sad that is.

Let’s completely ignore the circumstances through which Calvinistic thought and practice took a nose-dive.

Let’s ignore the fact that the natural progression in almost every case where Churches (e.g., Congregationalists in New England and the PCUSA in the lat 19th century) and individual congregations have left Calvinistic thought and practice is because they first began to develop their “Calvinistic” thinking in such a “High Calvinism” that they either became Hyper or flirted with it, and then many people began to see how very extreme that kind of thinking is and reacted in the other direction of dropping it altogether.

Let’s ignore the fact that the view of conversionism brought about by the revivalism that men like Gilbert and William Tennet and Jonathan Edwards gave rise to a “personal experience” mentality and a gradual progression in the view of how God relates to sinners.

Let’s ignore the fact that a disregard for what Scripture actually says and a development of systematic and logical models in its place slowly displaced what Scripture actually says about the sovereignty of God together with man’s responsibility (this is true of both the New Divinity of New England and the Liberalism of the PCUSA).

So, you tel me who is more likely to leave the Reformed Faith: the one who is tenacious to keep it balanced and stayed upon the Word of God;or the one who, at all costs, must keep the tradition and wants to take “Calvinism” to whatever “logical ends” that seem right and able to keep it “consistent” enough to stay in place?

This is proof positive that politicians think they can do anything they want to, and as long as they are smarmy and mealy-mouthed enough, no one will care. They’re right, most of the time, really. Most people don’t care what politicians do or say as long as they make sufficient promises that make people think they’ll solve all their problems. But there are just some things that are beyond forgiving or forgetting in the political arena. I’d say a current US Congressional Candidate speaking at a birthday celebration for Hitler (!) last month is one of them.

No, seriously, this is a *REAL* news story.

It has taken me a while to post this, primarily because i have decided not to pursue further interaction with TurretinFan. His anonymity is very problematic. He can say or so anything he desires, and there is no way for anyone wronged to see recourse and correct his behavior other than trying to contact him through his blog. My personaly view is that this kind of hiding behind false names does not lend itself to open debate and discussion. Children of light not not seek the darkness as a place to hide while they discuss the things of God. It also does not seem to me that TurretinFan is at all interested in learning anything at all, but only with “proclaiming” his view, cursorily “refuting” the other person’s (with whom he disagrees), and claiming that he has summarily answered it and done battle for the Kingdom of God. Well, that’s not what i call doing work for the Kingdom of God. Bludgeoning people with your views is not what any Christian is called to do—and it would be ridiculous to call that “standing for the truth.”

So, here are the questions that TurretinFan asked, along with my answers to them. I think they are pretty clear as to what my views are, and i believe that i am simply following in the line of the best and broadest vein of Reformed thought—and it is far from what anyone might term “Amyraldism.”

Try to explain in what sense you think it is appropriate to say that Christ died “for” each and every person.

- Do you mean that Christ’s death had an intrinsic worth that was sufficient (if it were to be applied) for the atonement of the elect and reprobate together? If so, you’ll find us in agreement.

Yes, i do mean that. However, even this is a point that needs to be explained. It’s one thing to say, with Owen, that there *WOULD* be a sufficiency *IF* God had chosen to elect more people, but it’s quite another to say (not so precisely, but still very clearly), with Spurgeon, God save your elect and elect some more! Of course, we know that the number of the elect does not change; that, of course, wasn’t Spurgeon’s point. One of the points, though, of what he said was that Christ’s death was really and actually sufficient here and now not only for the elect but also for many more and anyone else. This can’t be true if, as some people explain, God put on the crucified Christ the particular sins of particular people and no others. This is what has been come to be known by many Calvinists as “limited atonement,” but here again, reading older theologians will show us that that kind of limited imputation (Note: you can hold to limited atonement without holding to limited imputation; and that’s the heart of this debate) not only is not warranted from Scripture, it destroys any kind of view of real sufficiency in the here-and-now—for, how could Christ’s work be really and truly sufficient for any person who is not elect, if their sins were never “paid for” in any sense, even provisionally? There couldn’t be. So, at least part of this debate is one in which we can establish the logical ground for saying that we hold to a real sufficiency in Christ’s atoning work for all men.

Now, someone might object, “But we don’t know who the elect are, so we certainly can make an offer of Christ to someone who may turn out not to be elect, and we can just know that it would be sufficient if he were elect.” But this doesn’t help the situation. In fact, it is a dodge, because the whole issue of the free and well-meant offer of the Gospel is not that *WE* are well-meaning in the offer of Christ that we present to sinners; the point is, as the title of Dr. Dabney’s essay so cogently demonstrates, God’s indescriminate Proposals of Mercy: As Relating to His Power, Wisdom, and Sincerity. In other words, when we speak of the well-meant offer, we are speaking of it being well-meant on *GOD’S* part, not ours. Take Jonah, for instance. I don’t get the impression that our racist father in Israel was well-meaning in his preaching and offer of mercy to the Ninevites, do you? But that didn’t change the fact that *GOD* was well-meaning—and even the Ninevites could tell the difference, since they repented in sackcloth and ashes and sought the face of Jehovah.

The point is that God is the one ultimately who offers anything through the preaching of the Word. That is one of the great affirmations that the Reformed writers and theologians of the past emphasized, namely that when God’s men preach the Word, they are receiving not some word of man, but the very words of God through the agency of a man. This is key to understanding the nature of the offer that is made, that it is not man who is making an offer (though that may or may not be true; Jonah was different in this respect than, say, Whitfield or Wesley were), but rather it is God himself. And thus, as the one who is offering Christ sincerely, he must have a real substance by which to say, “If you come, you will be saved.” If there were nothing in Christ for the non-elect, nothing of his work applicable to them, then when God offers salvation to the non-elect through his ministers, he would be lying. Perish the thought.

- Do you mean that Christ’s death was to no eternal benefit to the reprobate, but only (from an eternal standpoint) increased their guilt by making them in essence doubly guilty. If so, you’ll find us in agreement.

Yes, i would say this is true as well (though i might word it a bit differently). But here again, there is a logical implication to saying that that sinners are doubly guilty for rejecting Christ: had there been nothing in Christ or what he did for them or that was applicable to them, then they rejected nothing. I think we both agree that God has decreed to apply Christ’s redemptive work to the elect alone and to no others; that is not in disbute at all. The question is whether, in any way, Christ’s work is “for” even those whom God has chosen not to save by applying Christ’s work through faith. You see, in order to be truly guilty of rejecting Christ, there must be something that is rejected in some manner, something he could have had (even just logically), had he not rejected.

Take dogs, for instance. Dogs aren’t answerable for failing to come to Christ, and they accrue no guilt for rejecting him. That’s ridiculous example, you might say. I know; it is—not only because dogs aren’t rational beings, but also becasue they’re not willful sinners. But the point still remains that Christ died in *NO* sense for dogs. The question is whether non-elect men have as much access to Christ’s redemptive work as dogs do. If the strict particularists are correct (i.e., like those whom Dabney opposed, who said that, had God elected more, Christ would have had to suffer more for those in particular; their scheme being a “so much for so many” kind of commercialism), they are in no different relation to Christ than dogs are, since Christ did absolutely nothing “for” them in any sense, and so his work has not relation or applicability to them. And if that’s true, then they would be no more guilty than dogs of trampling under foot the blood of Christ, because it never had anything to do with them any more than it did dogs. INow, they certainly are more guilty than dogs, simply because of the guilt of Adam, which dogs don’t share in—but the non-elect would be no more guilty, let alone “doubly guilty,” for rejecting Christ if Christ intended nothing for them in any sense to begin with.

- Do you mean that Christ’s death had some temporal, incidental benefit to the reprobate, as the benefits of Christ’s death for the elect’s sake overflow to the rest of mankind? If so, you’ll find us in agreement.

Yes, i’ll go there with you, as well. But i do not find this to be, as some might want to make it, the primary way in which Christ is “savior of all men,” namely, that he preserves their temporal lives. Clearly Paul makes a distinction between Christ being savior of all men and being savior for all who believe, but even while he makes that distinction, there is obviously some overlap in the core of his meaning, which is to say that it is a difference in degree of salvation (i.e., available as savior as opposed to being an effectual savior), not a difference in kind of salvation (i.e., temporal “salvation” vs. eternal salvation). In other words, Paul says in 1 Timothy 4:10, “[Christ] is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe”; he does not say, “Christ is the Savior of all people, but he is the Savior of those who believe in a completely different way.” In fact, many of the earlier Reformers do not take the typically Puritan stance that “Savior” in this regard simply means “temporal preserver of natural life,” or even that “all men” or “all people” really means (if we read between the lines) “some of all types” (which itself would destroy the whole point of the hierarchical distinction between being a savior of all, but especially those who believe); but they in fact favor of interpreting it as an affirmation that Christ is the only Savior available to men through whom they might be saved (i.e., akin to the affirmation in Acts 4:12; he is the Savior of all people precisely in the sense that “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” So if someone is to be saved, it will only be through Christ, or else no one else, and he will remain lost, which is a point i’m sure we agree upon).

So, that’s the end of that. On to more important things.

TurretinFan has posted an entry on his blog concerning Baxter and the free offer. I wanted to say a few things and then to respond to the questions he posed there.

First, he mentions the fact that Phillip Johnson, in the article on ordered decretalism i linked to in my last post, lists Anglican Puritan Richard Baxter as an Amyraldian and says that he considered himself to be in agreement with Amyraut. This is a question of historical theology, and in many ways, people differ in how they read some folks and their theology in their place in history. From what i have read in Baxter (exerpts of Catholic Theology), it seems to me his purpose was to find the common ground among all Christians based on the fact that we all share a single faith and that all of our theological eccentricities in our various “camps” are simply (over-?)emphases of particular aspects of Christian truth. Further, though he explicitly said that he shared many views with Amyraut, i don’t think that Baxter saw this the way we do looking back: as a distinct school of Christian thought, separate from being (in Phillip Johnson’s terminology) “thoroughgoing Calvinis[m].” I am convinced that Baxter saw himself as a Calvinist who happened to agree with Moise Amyraut on many points. I don’t see that Baxter held to a distinctively Amyraldian ordered decretalism (for that matter, there is a question of whether Amyraut himself held to it, but that’s a different discussion, and the theological terminology comes to us as it does).

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are lots of things on which i don’t agree with Baxter. While i respect his attempt to synthesize Christian doctrine in such a way as to be as inclusive as possible (would that more Reformed men would try to be so charitable and scrupulous about the fact that Christ’s Church is larger than any particular branch of it so as to try and make that a visible reality through their life and ministry the way Baxter did), the way he fleshed it out was, i believe, flawed, and it led to many of the problems that we see in the English and Scots Churches with Neo-nomianism. Here again, even disagreeing with some particulars of their theology, i am strongly in favor of the stance of the Marrowmen who so heavily influenced the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, which is still so dear to me.

So, i regard Richard Baxter as a bright light among Protestant scholastic theology, primarily for his methodology, not the particular content of what he believed and taught. Too many people dismiss everything he wrote (except for the The Reformed Pastor, which Banner of Truth still publishes and sells to the great enthusiasm of many Reformed Pastors everywhere, including myself) for the sake of disagreement with various points of theology, but i believe that attitude is uncharitable and really does throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Second, even though i don’t agree with Baxter’s views on everything (including the way he fleshes out the redemptive work of Christ) his standing for the worth of Christ’s sacrifice and its applicability to all men is a place we stand together (even if i nuance it by saying that it isn’t equally applicable to all men the way Baxter held). So, quoting Baxter is not, in that sense, an endorsement of all the details of his arguments, but rather a use of thoughtful and cogent arguments in the direction of the universal aspect of the redemptive work of Christ (note i said “aspect” to delineate the fact that the universal part is not all there is to Christ’s work, as the Arminians hold, since i hold that there is a particularistic intention actually to atone the elect and not the non-elect) because they have merit and are equally as applicable as arguments for my view as they were for Baxter’s view, precisely because Baxter, who read theology under John Owen for some months in his younger years, was arguing against the same strictly particularistic view that i am arguing against. The only difference, in that respect, is that my view is a more moderated version of what he advocated, being the middle point between equal applicability to all under the Amyraldian view (or something like it) and the other extreme of the strict particularist view of many High Calvinists, that Christ’s work has only applicability to the elect in any sense at all.

So, i believe it is a mistake to read into the use of such arguments an agreement with Baxter of his view en toto. That would be sloppy scholarship, similar to the PRCers who read into Murray and Stonehouse’s essay on the free offer an agreement with Arminians, because they make use of some arguments that sound like points Arminianism make in terms of divine grace shown toward all men and the place of man’s own will and choice in coming to Christ (or failing to do so). It is clear that these men were not Arminians, because their view of the human will and God’s grace toward all men was and is vastly different than the Arminian scheme involving prevenient grace or natural grace. However, their arguments are similar at points to arguments made by Arminians against certain forms of Calvinism that downplay and de-emphesize (or outright deny) God’s grace toward all men alike (i.e., common grace) and man’s will and choice in all aspects of his life, but particularly in his coming (or failing to come) to Christ.

Third, i am very uncomfortable with the Shibboleth kind of attitude being displayed in this case. I have noted this before, but there are lots of folks in the Reformed world who present the attitude that if a person does not cross his Ts and dot his Is in just the way i think he should, they note him as departing from the Reformed Faith and dismiss anything that he has to say. This is similar to the way they treat men of the past who held and wrote views that were not exactly mainstream Reformed (like Baxter or Grotius or Cameron), but it is applied to people in the current theological milieu of the Church in such a way as to cut off debate. It is really a sophisticated version of the “poisoning the well” fallacy or the “appeal to ridicule” fallacy. For instance, if someone of a strict particularist persuasion (i.e., someone who holds that Christ died for the elect only in *ANY* sense whatsoever) were to ask me “Did Christ die for all men?”, i would be duty-bound to answer that simple question with a “Yes,” but then to qualify it. However, any such qualification would be meaningless to the person, because their Shibboleth is “Christ died only for the elect,” and anyone who does not flesh that out just the way they do is held out to ridicule for his view or is pigeonholed as being Amyraldian or Arminian. (Incidentally, this is precisely what i warned Mark, AKA “Tartanarmy” for doing on the Unchained Radio message boards, and he was banned more than once for his refusal to understand how to engage in respectful debate and discussion without resorting to name-calling.)

Now, i understand that i have opened myself up to the same accusation from the other side. Tony and i have, of late, strongly castigated Dr. White for failing to express God’s desire to save all men, and that may appear to some as holding out a Shibboleth for him and condemning him when he fails to do it just like we expect or would ourselves. I grant the similarity, but i believe what makes this different is what has been the mainstream of Calvinistic thought down through the centuries, and even before the Reformation in the history of the Medieval and Patristic Church. It is out of accord with all of these major movements in the history of Christ’s Church not to admit any kind of desire in God or Christ to see all men be saved, so this is a proper place to hold up that standard (and, TurretinFan’s Romanist commenter proves this fact with his very cogent and compelling answer; for the record, i agree with him). It is not, however, out of accord (far from it, and much to the contrary, as a matter of fact) to claim that Christ died in a very real sense for the non-elect, even if not with the full intention to save them eternally.

Of course, these issues go inherently together, along with the free offer of the Gospel, but my point here is that we need to have a more wholistic and (dare i say) “catholic” understanding of theology that actually takes seriously one of the core tenets of Confessional Calvinism, namely man’s depravity and inherent sinfulness, even after his regeneration. If all men are sinful, then that sinfulness will lead, many times, to misunderstanding, or at least to a failure to fully understand all aspects to an issue, which in turn leads to our need to learn and grow in our faith. Setting up artificial standards for what is acceptable and what is not in such an overtly sectarian way is completely out of place in a civil and rational discussion among men who are called by Christ to “love one another” as he loved us, and called to encourage each other’s growth in grace, not be an impediment to it.

In the next post, i will endeavor to answer, in the best way i know how, the questions TurretinFan posed in his post linked above.

If it comes to it, i suppose i’d be willing to do this. But only for the good of the whole family.

Our little man is turning six months old today. He and LilliAna have been playing outside (he in his stroller just basking in the sun and LilliAna playing on her bouncy horse and with her ball). However, Will has already taken a spill, when LilliAna tried to push the stroller with locked wheels. Poor thing! What a birthday present!

We’re so blessed to have him in our lives. He’s a handful, especially for Angela, but he’s still a joy to have. Most of all, he’s a baptized member of Christ’s body, the Church. May he continue in the faith his life long and grow into the man of God that he is called to be.

If it has been a long time since you winced at someone singing, here’s your chance. If you’re like me, it will take a good bit of self-discipline just to make sure you listen to the whole thing. There may be something a little off about this fellow that would explain it; i don’t know. But one way or another, there should be some verse in the Bible that says “Brothers, let not many of you presume to lead worship….”

So, without further ado, i now present to you, “O-Mazing Grace.”

It is interesting that Calvin acknowledges two different senses in which individuals can be the “seed” of Abraham. What is more interesting, though, is that Calvin’s affirmation of these two senses aren’t discreet categories that never meet, but that one understands the “spiritual seed” through the “natural seed,” unless those who are the natural descendants of the faithful “cut themselves off” from the faith of their fathers. The way Calvin resolves this tension, however, is not to peer out the secret decrees of God, but simply to look to Christ. Those who profess faith in the promise of God and one in whom that promise comes to fruition (i.e., Christ Jesus) should not be doubted to be among the sons of Abraham.

The question now occurs, concerning what seed the promise is to be understood. And it is certain that neither the posterity of Ishmael nor of Esau is to be taken into this account, because the legitimate seed is to be reckoned by the promise, which God determined should remain in Isaac and Jacob; yet the same doubt arises respecting the posterity of Jacob, because many who could trace their descent from him, according to the flesh, cut themselves off, as degenerate sons and aliens, from the faith of their fathers. I answer, that this term seed is, indiscriminately, extended to the whole people whole God has adopted to himself. But since many were alienated by their unbelief, we must come for information to Christ, who alone distinguishes true and genuine sons from such as are illegitimate. By pursuing this method, we find the posterity of Abram reduced to a small numbers that afterwards it may be the more increased. For in Christ the Gentiles also are gathered together, and are by faith ingrafted into the body of Abram, so as to have a place among his legitimate sons.

John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis 15:4.

I wonder if anyone would venture to ask Calvin the ridiculous question, “But doesn’t that threaten the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints?” Or even worse, “But how much sin did those sons have to commit to cut themselves off?”

We’ve all seen those commercials on TV that go through a whole sequence only to be advertizing something that seemed to have nothing to do with what you saw leading up to the end. Well, in some shopping i was doing online, i ran across this picture as part of a website selling something.

I challenge you, just looking at the picture, to try and figure out what the website is selling. Then, take a look at the link to the site where the picture appears (i’ll put it under the comments section), and see if you even had a clue.

Here’s a video of our little boy, Will. I’m holding him, and Angela is making him laugh. He’s got the cutest dimples and laugh.