>

Martyred for the Gospel

Martyred for the Gospel
The burning of Tharchbishop of Cant. D. Tho. Cranmer in the town dich at Oxford, with his hand first thrust into the fyre, wherwith he subscribed before. [Click on the picture to see Cranmer's last words.]

Daily Bible Verse

Thursday, October 25, 2012

R. Scott Clark: In by Grace, Stay in By Faithfulness? | Heidelblog

Reformation Day is coming up on October 31st.  R. Scott Clark wants to rehearse the basics again:

We’re coming up on Reformation Day again this seems like a good time to cover the basics again. The medieval church came to teach that we enter a state of grace through baptism. According to the medieval church, we remain in a state of grace by the exercise of our free will, which we were said to have retained after the fall, in cooperation with grace. This consensus was confirmed at the Council of Trent and became Roman Catholic dogma.

The idea that our faithfulness keeps us in the covenant is not the Reformed or Protestant view but the papist view.  Although R. Scott Clark is a Van Tilian and inconsistent on the doctrine of Scripture, he gets the doctrine of justification by faith alone right.  Would that Van Tilians would learn that the creature/Creator distinction does not justify denying the univocal nature of God's revelation in the plenary verbal inspiration of Scripture.  Without propositional truth the equivocation of so-called Calvinists on the issue of justification by grace alone through faith alone is not only a real possibility but extremely likely.  If Scripture is at no single point the very words of God on our creaturely level, the implication is that there is no way we can know if justification is infused (Roman Catholic view) or imputed (Protestant view and Scriptural view).  If we cannot know what God reveals in the Bible is the same propositions that God knows, then we can know nothing at all.  Doctrine is not only relative but impossible.  Van Til's compromise with neo-orthodoxy is obvious, though R. Scott Clark, Mike Horton, and other promoters of compromise refuse to acknowledge said compromise.

 To his credit, R. S. Clark quotes from the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion:

Article 11 of the Anglican Articles (1552, 1563, 1571) confesses:
We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works or deservings. Wherefore that we are justified by faith only is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort; as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Justification.  [See Article XI and the Homily of Justification].
Of course, this is just a summary of biblical teaching on justification and Scripture is merely an analogy of God's revelation, not the revelation itself.  At least that's what the theology of paradox would have us believe.  Or just maybe God intended revelation to be rational and logical on the creaturely level?
 
 To read the rest of the article click here:  In by Grace, Stay in By Faithfulness? | Heidelblog

No comments:

Support Reasonable Christian Ministries with your generous donation.