Richard Gaffin, Jr., the New Perspective on Paul, and Union with Christ

Dr. Richard Gaffin, Jr.

From this perceptive, the antithesis between law and gospel is not an end in itself.  It is not a theological ultimate.  Rather, that antithesis enters not by virtue of creation but as a consequence of sin, and the gospel functions for its overcoming. The gospel is to the end of removing an absolute law-gospel antithesis in the life of the believer [emphasis Cunha].  (38)  [Direct quote from Richard Gaffin's book, By Faith, Not By Sight].

Where there is smoke there is fire. Camden Bucey and Gaffin both admit that his work has been accused of the NPP view. And Gaffin admits that he was influenced by N. T. Wright and that he wrote his book in response to the New Perspective on Paul. Further, in this discussion, both Bucey and Gaffin downplay justification by faith and emphasize union with Christ. Justification by faith, according to Gaffin, is a redundancy. They both dance all around to explain away Gaffin's errors. But also in the talk, Gaffin mentions that John Murray was his instructor and Murray was a supporter of Norman Shepherd. What Gaffin does not mention in the discussion is that Norman Shepherd was his supervisor when he did his Ph. D. at Westminster Seminary.

I got this audio from the Reformed Forum, hosted by Camden Bucey.  Click here to listen.  To see the original webpage click here.

For an opposing opinion, you can click here to read Dr. Paul Elliott's criticism of Gaffin's views on Paul:  Richard Gaffin's New Perspective on Paul.  Also, there is a book by Stephen Cunha called, The Emperor Has No Clothes:  Richard B. Gaffin, Jr.'s Doctrine of Justification.  And the God's Hammer blog has articles on Gaffin's departure from confessional orthodoxy as well:  Richard Gaffin, Jr.:  Missing the Mark.   Note also that Gaffin is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Sean Gerety: The Federal Vision Connection

Sean Gerety openly admits that he had not heard this lecture on the Justification Controversy and the Federal Vision until he was driving down to meet up with fellow libertarians.  [Actually there are five lectures under the section titled, The Justification Controversy.  I think Gerety is referring to the lecture, The Theology of Richard Gaffin and Norman Shepherd.]  Amazing that someone who purportedly knew John Robbins personally has never even heard this lecture before.  Gerety says,

While driving from Portales to Amarillo this past week for meetings, and with a little over two hours to kill, I had forgotten that I had put a John Robbins lecture on my Sansa Clip (the anti-iPod) dealing with the justification controversy.  This particular lecture, and one I hadn’t heard before, zeroes in on the aberrant and deadly theologies of Richard Gaffin and Norman Shepherd.   The Federal Vision Connection.

I have heard all of Dr. Clark's lectures and the audio book, What Presbyterians Believe, multiple times.  I have also been listening to Dr. John Robbins' lectures over and over for several years.  That's because, like Robbins, I want to understand difficult discussions and lectures.   I have found that what I might miss in one hearing I might learn something new or less focused upon in a second hearing.

I can tell you that in reading both Clark and Robbins neither would have endorsed Sean Gerety's compromise with libertarian political philosophy that advocates a divorce between the Bible and political philosophy.  All knowledge is to be deduced from Scripture and any political philosophy deduced from Scripture that results in the legislation of laws that are essentially in agreement with anarchy and antinomianism is not biblically deduced.  It is a contradiction.  Anyone reading Dr. Clark's book, What Is the Christian Life?  can immediately see that Clark would not approve of immorality.  Further, Clark's books on ethics nowhere endorse homosexual marriage, pornography or fornication.  Gerety has apparently gone off the deep end and does not know Robbins' or Clark's theology or presuppositionalism as well as he has pretended to know.  (See: Sean Gerety and Co-belligerency with Van Tilians, Libertarians, Secular Humanists and Atheists . See also:  Scripturalism, Libertarianism, Relativism and Sean Gerety).

That being said, I agree with what Gerety has said in regards to the Federal Vision controversy in the article linked above.  The fact of the matter is that the Presbyterian Church in America and most of the Reformed seminaries, including Reformed Theological Seminary (various campuses), Westminster Seminaries (PA and CA), Mid-America Reformed Seminary, and other so-called conservative Reformed denominations and seminaries/colleges, have bascially sold out the fundamentals for a neo-orthodoxy that has no propositional revelation left.

This morning I heard Dr. Don Sweeting, a professor at Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, Florida give a sermon surveying the Bible in 45 minutes.  Dr. Sweeting affirmed the Bible as meta-narrative and never once mentioned propositional or logical revelation, plenary verbal inspiration, or biblical inerrancy.  It was truly disappointing.  Further, Dr. Sweeting talked about the fall of Adam and the curse of sin as if they just happened out of the blue and had nothing to do with God's decrees.  The text read for the sermon was Ephesians 1:3-12.  That's a great passage but not once did Dr. Sweeting even mention the doctrine of predestination.  Any deist or Arminian could have preached the sermon I heard today at River Oaks Presbyterian Church, Lake Mary, Florida.

The problem is that biblical illiteracy is everywhere.  The post modernist de-emphasis on logic and rationality is part of the problem.  But Sean Gerety and Don Sweeting are just as bad because neither of them are consistent with the system of theology revealed in propositional form in the Holy Scriptures.  That is just my opinion.  But if Dr. Gordon H. Clark were around today, I think he would agree.