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.