Over at the Aquila Report an article has appeared about the recent abscondence of the Presbyterian Church in America on its responsibility to discipline heretics in its ranks. The Federal Vision error is something worse than Arminianism because it teaches what can only be called a blatant confusion of faith and works and the idea that membership in the visible church is what saves. All this is due to the influence of another wolf in sheep's clothing named Tom Wright. The man is openly promoting pelagianism under the guise of the New Perspectives on Paul.
R. Scott Clark and the rest of the "orthodox" Presbyterians are strangely silent. We wouldn't want to make too many waves, would we? Let's keep this thing quiet so we don't let truth divide the church. Well, actually, it is heresy that is supposed to divide. But in this case, the remnant of true believers and conservatives have been marginalized and run over roughshod.
Jason A. Van Bemmel comments:
Think about the facts:
1. In 2006, we appointed a PCA Study Committee on the Federal Vision theology. Their findings were overwhelmingly adopted by the GA [at the 2007 General assembly]. One thing that strict and “good faith,” conservative and progressive PCA folks seemed to agree on was that the Federal Vision represented a serious threat to the essence of the Gospel.
2. Peter Leithart has been a strong public advocate of Federal Vision theology for many years. His views are well known and a matter of public record in books, articles, conference addresses, etc. The list of nine resolutions on the Federal Vision adopted by the PCA GA in 2007 reads like a point-for-point condemnation of Leithart’s theology.
3. Many of Leithart’s colleagues in the Federal Vision movement withdrew from the PCA after the 2007 GA, men whose views are identical to Leithart’s. Leithart, rather than withdraw when his theology was point-for-point condemned in an overwhelming vote at GA, decided to stay and fight a battle of equivocation.
4. Leithart’s tactic in defending himself in trials has been to deny that the language he uses means what everyone for hundreds of years has agreed that it means. When he was called out for teaching baptismal regeneration and basically every single point condemned in 2007, he responded by saying that every significant theological term he uses (justification, union with Christ, regeneration, covenant, etc.) means something different when he uses it than when anyone else has ever used it in history.
5. Even the Pacific Northwest Presbytery cautioned Leithart that his use of language was confusing and unwise. Yet the books have been written and published, many people have been led astray into a sacramental/Roman Catholic-style “Gospel” and even more people are still more confused than ever following the trials.
6. The SJC overwhelmingly supported Pacific Northwest Presbytery’s decision to clear Leithart and leave his PCA teaching elder credentials intact, despite a long record of writing and teaching things which have, at best, caused massive confusion and which, in fact, have been specifically condemned by the PCA.
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11 comments:
"The man is openly promoting pelagianism under the guise of the New Perspectives on Paul."
Well the dirty little secret is Pelagius himself was no Pelagian in the Calvinist sense. That is, he didn't deny the need for grace in salvation; he only denied the need for a special zapping grace that enables belief. Grace, to Pelagius, kicked in at baptism which followed belief (He was a credobaptist) and did not come before belief; but he still taught about grace. And the even dirtier secret is he was right, and that this essentially all credo-baptists agree to some extent whether they truly recognize it or not. And since cred-baptists outnumber you silly baby-baptizers, you will ultimately cease to exist. And after every last baby-baptizing "church" has gone the way of the dinosaur, then Calvinism will begin to be dismantled in the credo-baptist churches too. You guys are screwed.
As if you can tell God what He will do? God's judgment against the PCA is cursing them with unbelief and heresy. And in case you didn't know, the Federal Vision error teaches that Christians are made by regeneration in baptism and joining the visible church. That's not the biblical view at all. The true church is invisible and signs don't regenerate anyone. Joining a church does not save anyone.
The proof that baptism does not save is the fact that Jacob and Esau were both circumcised. It wasn't circumcision or faith that saved Jacob ultimately. It was unconditional election.
God will preserve His church:)
Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. 6 And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work. 7 What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks; but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded. 8 Just as it is written: "God has given them a spirit of stupor, Eyes that they should not see And ears that they should not hear, To this very day." 9 And David says: "Let their table become a snare and a trap, A stumbling block and a recompense to them. 10 Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see, and bow down their back always." (Romans 11:5-10 NKJ)
Baptists supposedly think that baptism does not regenerate but they act as if everyone who walks the aisle and is baptized is truly saved. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Jacob and Esau were both saved. Anyone with brains enough to read the passages Paul has quoted out of context in Romans 9 in their Old Testament contexts would know that the text in the OT says "Jacob I have loved and Esau I have hated and laid his land bare" -- its not that Esau was damned but that he was given the crappier land.
Land isn't mentioned in Romans 9. It says before they did good or evil and before birth, God hated Esau.... Context:)
The context that matters is that of the Old Testament where Paul took the quote from. The fact that Paul took it out of context does not invalidate the context--it invalidates Paul's argument!
All Scripture is inspired of God, including Paul's epistles... (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation-- as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, 16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures. (2 Peter 3:15-16 NKJ)
Paul's not talking about himself when he says "All Scripture is inspired of God"--he's talking about the Old Testament that he loves to twist. And did I need Paul the liar to tell me that the Old Testament is inspired? No. I don't need the solid to be validated by the worthless.
No, but Peter calls Paul's writings "Scripture." And 2 Timothy 3:15-16 applies to the OT and by deduction to all the NT...
Whoever wrote the Pauline epistles also wrote the Petrine. It doesn't count as any kind of validation.
Peter is not Paul, and Paul is not Peter. Obviously Paul wrote the letters attributed to him. And Peter wrote the 2 letters attributed to him. But it is God who inspired both to write Scripture.
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