You can find them here.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
,
Peter Leithart
This entry was posted on October 11, 2011 at 9:45 pm and is filed under Heresies, Peter Leithart. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
God's Hammer 
October 12, 2011 at 2:28 pm
One wonders what Crampton or Elliott think of such.
Pat, email me: hughmc5 hotmail.com
October 12, 2011 at 5:55 pm
Gang,
Extra credit for who said this (no fair looking it up!):
The Bible doesn’t beat around the bush here. Whatever baptism accomplishes, the sign and seal (water and the Word) are inseparably* linked to the reality (washing of regeneration) itself (Titus 3:5). John the Baptist’s baptism was was still an Old Testament ritual washing. The Jews had many such washings, usually rituals of rededication after lapses. The Baptist informed his converts, “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Matt. 3:11). In other words, the Coming One will do more than offer rededication ceremonies. He will actually unite believers to Himself through the work of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, this new baptism will need no repetition; the Holy Spirit himself will be given in this baptism. But he will also baptize with fire. This refers, of course, to judgment, as the next verse makes clear: “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Thus, there are, as it were, two fonts — the font of salvation and the font of damnation. Christian baptism, when joined by the Word and faith, assures us that our baptism will be of the former type.
Baptism is, in effect, a “sprinkling by his [Christ’s] blood” (1 Peter 1:2). “God. . . made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:5-6). The apostle Paul further described this New Testament rite:
Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?. . . in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too may live new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection (Rom. 6:3-5).
In other words, Christ was baptized with God’s wrath so that we could be baptized with God’s grace. In baptism we are identified with Christ and united to him. He as truly saves us from God’s wrath as Moses saved the Israelites while condemning the Egyptians in the Red Sea.
The apostle Peter compared baptism to Noah’s ark: In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also — not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand — with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him. 1 Peter 3:20-22.
And the apostle Paul compared baptism in Christ to the Isarelites’ wilderness experience when “They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor. 10:2). That cloud was the presence of God following and guiding the children of Israel (Exod. 33:8-11) and the sea, of course, was the Red Sea. Baptism for the apostles, then, was the descent of the indwelling presence of God and the “proof of purchase,” guaranteeing that we have already escaped the raging waters of divine wrath. While there are, of course, exceptions (for instance, the thief on the cross), the general rule is “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved but whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16).
If we refuse baptism, we are refusing the promise God makes and seals to us and to our children. While we are saved by grace alone through faith alone, it is impossible to separate baptism and salvation, as though we can have gift, but refuse the box in which it comes. We are justified by grace alone through faith alone; baptism nevertheless promises the new life of the convert or child of the believer and attests to the fact that God has come to nurture us even in our earliest days.
* Hint: This word ‘inseparably’ is dropped in the latest edition of this work.
October 12, 2011 at 6:08 pm
Isn’t the historic ordo:
Rome -> Anglican -> Presbyterian -> Postmillennial -> Theonomic -> Reconstructionist -> Federal Vision -> Rome?
Half kidding.
October 13, 2011 at 12:06 pm
The above are not *necessary* conclusions, but merely an all-too-often downgrade fallen into by too many.
October 13, 2011 at 12:34 pm
Some forget that the first denomination to sound the alarm against FV was Joe Morecraft’s Confessionally Post-Mill and Theonomic RPCUS.
…and it is the A-Mill, R2K denominations that cannot seem to do anything about their FV troubles.
October 13, 2011 at 1:13 pm
Mr Glaser,
Yessir. But some of us do not believe that the WCF is the final word in theology, good as it is. No document of man can be.
No one can deny that Leithart & Lawrence & Van Til & Bahnsen & Rushdoony & Morecraft & plenty of others are/ were Westminster confessors.
Much of Presbyterianism as well as many other of Calvin & Luther’s heirs have not moved far enough away from Rome in various areas of thought.
October 14, 2011 at 5:08 am
Mr. Glaser said,
“Some forget that the first denomination to sound the alarm against FV was Joe Morecraft’s Confessionally Post-Mill and Theonomic RPCUS.”
And they are to be praised for this!
“…and it is the A-Mill, R2K denominations that cannot seem to do anything about their FV troubles.”
I fail to see a connection. Correlation /= Causation, after all.
October 17, 2011 at 5:48 pm
I am a little confused. Was this a trial ruled on by the SJC or was it just a PNWP ruling? I thought the verdict of not guilty on all five counts was ruled on by the SJC.
October 17, 2011 at 6:46 pm
It was just the commission of the PWNP. The case hasn’t made its way to the SJC yet.
October 17, 2011 at 8:50 pm
Ruling on whether or not one’s views are in accordance with the WS is very different from ruling on whether views are in accordance with the Bible. Two different results. As was stated in the ruling, when it comes to the WS, TE’s are given lots of charity and latitude on differing interpretations. That is a political cop out. It allows the wolf to remain in the pulpit by hiding his true identity under his broad-as-a barn interpretation of the WS sheep’s clothing.
At least we can now say that the PCA is officially on record as a denomination that teaches a false gospel. A false gospel that leads back to Rome. It appears that this case pretty much closes the book on any further attempts to rid the denomination of this awful teaching. I congratulate Jason Stellman for his courageous defense of the Gospel.
We are reminded once again that God is not in the business of saving denominations and political structures but rather nurturing and protecting His church, His bride. Now it is up to PCA members and TE’s who are true believers to do some soul searching. They have a choice of violating their conscience by remaining and condoning a false gospel or having the courage and boldness in the Holy Spirit to leave the PCA. We can personally testify that leaving the PCA and my husband’s giving up his pastoral position and ordination was one of the most difficult things we have ever had to do. But we rejoice in God’s faithfulness and grace. The truth of the Gospel is so worth it, folks!
October 17, 2011 at 8:53 pm
Sean,
So this case isn’t over yet? Will Jason appeal it to the SJC?
October 17, 2011 at 9:10 pm
I’m quite sure that the case will be appealed to the SJC. Of course, depending on how the SJC decides in the Meyers and the Lawrence case what they do in Leithart’s case might been moot. If Meyers’ exoneration is allowed to stand (which could happen) then I would agree that the PCA is officially on record as a denomination that teaches a false gospel.