God's Two Kingdoms and the Public Square

I'm currently reading David VanDrunnen's scholarly book, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms (Eerdman's, 2009). It effectively demolishes the neo-Calvinist claim that the doctrine of natural law and its application to the civil realm is a product of the Enlightenment, and instead establishes that it was the accepted view of nearly all of the Reformed world until the Twentieth Century. In a recent series of lectures delivered at Amoskeag Presbyterian Church (OPC) in New Hampshire, Dr. VanDrunnen further fleshed out how the natural law relates to the historic Reformed "two kingdoms" worldview.

Brian Schwertley Vindicates My Thesis in Judicial Warfare

In his latest lecture on the subject of Christian Reconstructionism and the Federal Vision, Brian Schwertley has not only followed much of my line of thought in the 2009 edition of Judicial Warfare (a copy of which he has in his possession), but he even uses many of the same quotes that I used from Herman Bavinck, Charles Spurgeon, and others to buttress his assertion that Rousas John Rushdoony and Greg Bahnsen were at least partially responsible for the wide acceptance of Shepherdism within the Theonomy camp. Precisely as I did in Chapter Four (Theonomy and the Covenant of Works), Schwertley focuses on the denial of the historic doctrine of the Covenant of Works found in the teaching of both Rushdoony and Bahnsen and criticizes their implicit (and in Rushdoony's case, explicit) monocovenantalism. As I did in Chapter Five (Theonomy's Doctrine of Covenantal Nomism), he also discusses Bahnsen's endorsement of Shepherd and his problematic definition of "working faith." Unfortunately, Schwertley lets both men off the hook at the end of the lecture, claiming that Bahnsen in particular misunderstood Shepherd and would have denounced the Federal Vision movement (despite the evidence which Bahnsen's own son, David, has provided to the contrary on his website).

Oddly enough, Schwertley even acknowledges in his discussion of Christ's active obedience that the law functioned in at least some capacity as a covenant of works - the very point on which he accused me last year of teaching "modified Dispensationalism."

After carefully listening to his latest offering, it seems rather obvious to me that the only real difference between Schwertley's position and mine is our eschatological presuppositions - he is a Postmillennialist and I am an Amillennialist. This affects how we view the extent of the Scripture's applicability to the civil realm. When it comes to how the moral law is to be used by the Christian in his personal sanctification, our views are basically the same despite Schwertley's repeated attempts over the last four years to label me a "natural law antinomian" and other such nonsense. My account of the entire dispute may be read HERE.

Will Schwertley ever come to acknowledge this and retract what he has written and preached against me? That's probably as likely as Schwertley submitting himself to the jurisdiction of a legitimate presbytery. The so-called Westminster Presbyterian Church in the United States continues to be a "presbytery" of just one man, which makes it the equivalent of the "para-church organizations" which he criticizes in his lecture.

An Excellent Source For Christian Apologetics

I recently found the Giving An Answer website to be an excellent source for Christian apologetics. They have a lot of good information on cults and world religions, with conversations with various experts. Check out their broadcast listing HERE.

A Brief Response to Steve C. Halbrook's Defense of Daniel F.N. Ritchie

Stephen Halbrook recently posted a video on YouTube in which he attempted to defend Daniel F.N. Ritchie from the charge of covenantal nomism. While denying that Ritchie is teaching "justification on account of good works," Halbrook does admit that Theonomists such as Ritchie believe that "the Covenant of Grace is conditional and faith is the condition of the covenant." As I discussed in Chapter Five of Judicial Warfare, Bahnsen and Rushdoony in particular adopted Daniel P. Fuller's redefinition of faith as "obedience." Echoing Norman Shepherd's insistence that faith and works are essentially the same thing, Bahnsen wrote that faith and obedience are "two sides of the same coin." Elsewhere he stated, "Continued blessing for Adam in paradise, Israel in the promised land, and the Christian in the kingdom has been seen to be dependent upon persevering obedience to God's will as expressed in His law." Contrary to Halbrook, such a teaching is a departure from the Reformed teaching that obedience flows out of, and is therefore distinct from, saving faith. A Christian's standing before God is not conditioned on his obedience, but on Christ's obedience in his behalf. To insist, as Ritchie does, that a Christian's eternal destiny depends on his "keeping the covenant" and "striving to obey the law," is a clear perversion of the Gospel.

God, the Only Source of Happiness For the Soul

The soul of man has a natural desire of happiness: nothing can make it happy but what is commensurable to its desires, or capable of affording it a full satisfaction. Nothing less than an infinite good is such: and God Himself only is an infinite good, in the enjoyment of which the soul can rest, as fully satisfied, desiring no more. Now, since by reason of the vast capacity of the soul, nothing but God Himself can indeed satisfy this its desire of happiness, the which is so woven into the very nature of the soul, that nothing but the destruction of the very being of the soul can remove it; it is evident, that it is impossible the soul of man can ever find true rest, until it return to God, and take up its rest with Him; but must still be in quest of, or desiring its chief good and happiness, wherein it may rest, and this in reality is God Himself only; though the practical understanding being blinded, knows not that, and the perverse will and affections carry away the soul from Him, seeking the desired good and happiness in other things. It is so consistent with man's nature, that it will remain forever in the damned in hell; a chief part of whose misery will lie in that this desire shall ever be rampant in them, but never in the least satisfied; they shall never be freed from this scorching thirst there, nor yet get a drop of water to cool the tongue. - Edward Fisher, The Marrow of Modern Divinity, page 246.

The Secret Cause of Atheism

...[B]efore a man believe God's love to him in Christ, though he may have a kind of love to God, as He is his Creator and Preserver, and gives him many good things for this present life, yet if God do but open his eyes, to see what condition his soul is in, that is, if He do but let him see that relation that is betwixt God and him, according to the tenor of the covenant of works, then he conceives of Him as an angry Judge, armed with justice against him, and must be pacified by the works of the law, whereunto he finds his nature opposite and contrary; and therefore he hates both God and His law, and doth secretly wish and desire there were neither God nor law. And though God should now give unto him ever so many temporal blessings, yet could he not love Him; for what malefactor could love that judge or his law, from whom he expected the sentence of condemnation, though he should feast him at his table with ever so many dainties? - Edward Fisher, The Marrow of Modern Divinity, page 194.

Glenn Beck, Mormonism, and Islam

Worldview Radio recently discussed Glenn Beck, and the similarities between his Mormon religion and Mohammed's Islam.

Paul and Covenantal Nomism

Michael S. Horton writes an insightful piece on the heresy of covenantal nomism, which tries to avoid the charge of legalism by teaching that one enters the covenant by grace alone. Of course, that is not where the problem lies, but rather in the second part of the proposition: that one remains in the covenant by obedience - or, in the words of R.J. Rushdoony, "Justification is by grace; sanctification is by law." That is precisely what the medieval Church taught and was the very point on which the Reformers opposed them.

Avoiding the Extremes of Antinomianism and Legalism

The law as a rule of life steers a middle course between antinomianism and legalism. Neither antinomianism nor legalism are true to the law or the gospel. Antinomianism stresses freedom from the law's condemnation at the expense of the believer's pursuit of holiness. It accents justification at the expense of sanctification.... [A]ntinomianism fails to see that abrogation of the law's condemning power does not abrogate the law's commanding power.

By contrast, legalism so stresses the believer's pursuit of holiness that obedience to the law becomes something other than the fruit of faith. Obedience becomes a constitutive element of justification. The commanding power of the law for sanctification suffocates the condemning power of the law for justification.

Legalism denies in practice, if not in theory, the Reformed concept of justification. The Reformed concept of the law as a rule of life helps the believer safeguard, both in doctrine and in practice, a healthy balance between justification and sanctification. Justification leads to and finds its proper fruit in sanctification. Salvation is by grace alone and cannot help but produce works of grateful obedience. - Joel R. Beeke, "Publisher's Introduction," in John Colquhoun, A Treatise on the Law and the Gospel (Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 2009), pages xxii-xxiii).

Sanctification is By Faith, Not Law-Keeping

One great mystery is, that the holy frame and disposition, whereby our souls are furnished and enabled for immediate practice of the law, must be obtained “by receiving it out of Christ’s fulness,” as a thing already prepared and brought to an existence for us in Christ, and treasured up in Him; and that, as we are justified by a righteousness wrought out in Christ, and imputed to us, so we are sanctified by such an holy frame and qualifications as are first wrought out and completed in Christ for us, and them imparted to us. And as our natural corruption was produced originally in the first Adam, and propagated from him to us; so our new nature and holiness is first produced in Christ, and derived from Him to us, or, as it were, propagated. So that we are not at all to work together with Christ, in making or producing that holy frame in us, but only to take it to ourselves, and use it in our holy practice, as made ready to our hands. Thus we have fellowship with Christ, in receiving that holy frame of spirit that was originally in Him; for fellowship is, when several persons have the same things in common (1 John i.1-3). This mystery is so great, that notwithstanding all the light of the gospel, we commonly think that we must get an holy frame by producing it anew in ourselves, and by forming and working it out of our own hearts. Therefore many, that are seriously devout, take a great deal of pains to mortify their corrupted nature, and beget an holy frame of heart in themselves, by striving earnestly to master their sinful lust, and by pressing vehemently upon their hearts many motives to godliness, labouring importunately to squeeze good qualifications out of them, as oil out of a flint. They account, that though they be justified by a righteousness wrought out by Christ, yet they must be sanctified by a holiness wrought out by themselves. And though, out of humility they are willing to call it infused grace, yet they think they must get the infusion of it by the same manner of working, as if it were wholly acquired by their endeavours. On this account they acknowledge the entrance into a godly life to be harsh and unpleasing, because it costs so much struggling with their own hearts and affections to new-frame them. If they knew that this way of entrance is not only harsh and unpleasant, but altogether impossible; and that the true way of mortifying sin, and quickening themselves to holiness, is by receiving a new nature out of the fulness of Christ; and that we do no more to the production of a new nature, than of original sin, though we do more to the reception of it — if they knew this, they might save themselves many a bitter agony, and a great deal of misspent, burdensome labour, and employ their endeavours to enter in at the straith gate, in such a way as would be more pleasant and successful (Walter Marshall, The Gospel-Mystery of Sanctification [Edinburgh: James Taylor, 1887], pages 43-44).