# A Retraction



## greenbaggins (Mar 29, 2010)

I have retracted my statement that I believe Wilson to be upholding _sola fide_.


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## KSon (Mar 29, 2010)

Though my understanding of the FV issue is far from being as deep and wide as most, I, as one who holds tenaciously to sola fide, am grateful that the Lord has raised up men like you Lane, in times such as these, who are willing to engage these things forcefully, yet in a manner worthy of the Gospel.


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## Tim (Mar 29, 2010)

Are there any links that we might view?


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## Gage Browning (Mar 29, 2010)

Tim said:


> Are there any links that we might view?


 
Click the word "retracted" in Lane's opening statement.


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## Scott1 (Mar 29, 2010)

I'm certainly not an expert on the intricacies of this errant teaching (federal vision, new perspectives).

One thing the Bible teaches us about sin- it is blinding. 

Those who refuse to heed the discipline of the Church (including counsel, admonition, as well as forms of accountability) will wax worse and worse. Their rebellion and pride will become more and more apparent, leading to more and more error.

That's part of the deceitfulness of sin, and why we must all repent early and repent often.


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## Romans922 (Mar 29, 2010)

Lane,

I have been waiting for this for sometime.


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## Gage Browning (Mar 29, 2010)




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## greenbaggins (Mar 29, 2010)

Romans922 said:


> Lane,
> 
> I have been waiting for this for sometime.


 
Well, you're not the only one. 

I don't mean to be too serious, I couldn't think of the right emoticon.


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## PuritanCovenanter (Mar 29, 2010)

Wow Lane,

That discussion went off the rails quickly. Just like most arguments, if you change the topic slightly the content won't be discussed.


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## lynnie (Mar 29, 2010)

For what it is worth, coming from a person who does not have the theological training or depth of most of the people here, I find you to be just about the most helpful and clarifying writer on this subject ( justifying faith and obedience) I know of. I put you in a small category with Piper and Pink, but they are more wordy and you are briefer!! 

As you know we went through the whole Shepherd thing, and have had ongoing discussion with brethren over the years, including FV sympathizers. A great deal of the justification writings in our opinion sound antinomian, and even some of the most stalwart Presbyterians I know will admit they sound antinomian. I know the people writing them are not antinomian at all, but that is how they sound. And I think they help push people into FV as they seem so off in the other direction.

I think you manage to hit the biblical balance perfectly, and I have come to highly respect and appreciate your writings on this, and hope God uses you as people stuggle to fit justification by faith and obedience together.


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## SemperEruditio (Mar 29, 2010)

You gotta love the amalgamation...



> which we’ll call Golawspel.


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## PuritanCovenanter (Mar 29, 2010)

Lane, 

All I can say is... You have to be full blooded Scot. If not, you surely are mostly Scot to put up all you do and put up with it's work. BTW, I am doing a Church History report on Samuel Rutherford. Great trials bring greater blessing and fruit. Is that what you are aiming for, or what God is doing? You are much better man than I am. Praise God for the workers of the vineyard. 

BTW, we need another pic of your Tartan here. Have musket in hand so others can slander. LOL We might even call you a Cameronian. A look out kinda for us in the field. 

In Fact you probably out to change your Greenbaggins to The Cameronian.


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## TimV (Mar 29, 2010)

I think the best way to honor people like Pastor Keister and the others is to use what they teach. He helped me out several months ago with the big FV guru in our area, even though his time is valuable, and I've been paying close attention to GreenBaggins, and for the last two weeks there's been an email debate between me and the local prophet, and I'm frankly kicking his butt. 

It takes a lot of concentration and thought and reading, but when the pieces come together, you really feel empowered, and confident.

So the moral is that you never know who you are helping when you put the kind of sweat into a subject like several of the men here do. The Keisters, Grecos, Scotts Buchanans and others are true Doctors of the Church, and they're truly worthy of the double honor.


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## CNJ (Mar 31, 2010)

Thanks for being this voice, Greenbaggins. I also heard you on the last four Heidelcast podcasts.


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## JonathanHunt (Mar 31, 2010)

Doug Wilson responds:

Three Reasons Why the Keepers of the Reformed Flame Don't Understand Their Own Tradition


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## Semper Fidelis (Mar 31, 2010)

JonathanHunt said:


> Doug Wilson responds:
> 
> Three Reasons Why the Keepers of the Reformed Flame Don't Understand Their Own Tradition


 
Who, precisely, has missed the point here? Lane has not decried the third use of the Law in the Law/Gospel distinction but is drawing a clear distinction at the point of justification:

1. Are we justified by faith?
OR
2. Are we justified by faith_fulness_?

This issue is completely unaddressed in Wilson's response. Consequently, his is no response at all on substance.


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## TimV (Mar 31, 2010)

The Theonomists were the first denomination to point out that these guys are mislead at best and heretics at worst. Sorry, but that old technique of fishing for our support won't work.

And some of those from certain seminaries should keep in mind if the decide to pick a fight with us at the same time as the FVers, it's not *only* bad strategy. Just sayin'.


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## Herald (Mar 31, 2010)

Semper Fidelis said:


> JonathanHunt said:
> 
> 
> > Doug Wilson responds:
> ...



Being a Baptist, I really don't a dog in this hunt; the dog is still sitting on the porch making sure a stranger doesn't come into our yard. But having read Lane's retraction (and noting that Wilson did not deal with faith and faithfulness, as Rich pointed out), I can't help but see a troubling similarity to Roman Catholicism. Or is it just me?


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## timmopussycat (Mar 31, 2010)

I see what Bill saw.


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## Scott1 (Mar 31, 2010)

> *Herald*
> Being a Baptist, I really don't a dog in this hunt; the dog is still sitting on the porch making sure a stranger doesn't come into our yard. But having read Lane's retraction (and noting that Wilson did not deal with faith and faithfulness, as Rich pointed out), I can't help but see a troubling similarity to Roman Catholicism. Or is it just me?



We all have a dog in this hunt.

The historic Protestant (evangelical) doctrine of sola fide, and justification by faith in Christ's righteousness alone are at stake.

While Mr. Calvin said the Scripture teaches the law is a mirror of what the Christian life should look like, he never said our obedience to it was, in any sense, a basis of our justification before a Holy God.

This is not even distinctly reformed.


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## Herald (Mar 31, 2010)

My comment about not having a "dog in this hunt" has more to do with process. If this works its way through Presbyterian channels it becomes an internal fight. I certainly am interested in the outcome. That's why I said I'm sitting on the porch making sure it doesn't come into my yard. Baptists already have the NPP infiltrating certain sectors. That's why Piper wrote his defense on justification by faith alone. My faithful Presbyterian brethren have had their hands full with the FV. I am praying that the Lord will pluck these false teachings out like a weed, and dispose of them.


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## Wayne (Mar 31, 2010)

> That's why I said I'm sitting on the porch making sure it doesn't come into my yard.



Bill:

Wonderful mental picture. I can see you sitting there in the rocking chair, an Irish settler to your side and a shotgun resting in your lap, ever vigilant. Slowly you lean forward as a car approaches down the driveway. . . .

[I suddenly feel the urge to watch Secondhand Lions again]


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## Herald (Mar 31, 2010)

Wayne,

I love that movie, and I know just the scene you're thinking about. Hub sure handled those salesman, didn't he?


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## Herald (Mar 31, 2010)

Wayne, not an Irish Setter. I want a German Short Hair Pointer. They alert better than an Irish Setter.


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## kvanlaan (Apr 3, 2010)

> Being a Baptist, I really don't a dog in this hunt; the dog is still sitting on the porch making sure a stranger doesn't come into our yard. But having read Lane's retraction (and noting that Wilson did not deal with faith and faithfulness, as Rich pointed out), *I can't help but see a troubling similarity to Roman Catholicism.* Or is it just me?



Every time I read about FV-type stuff, this comment comes in somewhere; that the FV is the Reformed road back to Rome. 

Yikes.


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## Puritan Scot (Apr 3, 2010)

Bill Brown is absolutely right when he states - *"I can't help but see a troubling similarity to Roman Catholicism."*

FV might not have been around per se over a quarter of a century ago when the late Gordon H. Clark was lamenting on the then *Evangelicalism, the Charismatic Movement, and the race back to Rome* 

He firmly stressed the absolute necessity of doctrinal integrity and the upholding of Biblical Protestantism as an antidote against the "falling away" of his own day which had remarkable similarity to what we are encountering with FV in our own day and generation, albeit a different branch but nonetheless having the same defectice root and source.

Let me quote what he had to say "The sixteenth-century rediscovery of the Bible's objective message of justification by faith alone invaded the consciousness of men with divine power and changed the course of history. The Protestant Reformation was founded upon a restoration of the primacy, supremacy, and all-sufficiency of the Bible and justification by faith.
No one would want to contend that the Protestant Reformation completely recovered the purity of faith and practice which existed in the apostolic church. The Reformers did not always agree among themselves. They were not always consistent in every area. The church did not all at once abandon every error of the Dark Ages. But in spite of differences and inconsistencies, the Reformers were absolutely united on the importance of Scripture and justification by faith - its objective meaning and its absolute centrality in the Christian Faith.
There is a tendency in sinful human nature to gravitate from the objective Gospel to religious subjectivism, to shift the central focus from Christ to Christian experience. This is what happened in the great "falling away" in the early church. And the same evolution has taken place within the Protestant movement"

Luther and the Protestant Reformers stood firmly for the cardinal doctrine of "Justification by faith alone" - let us do likewise.


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## Parsifal23 (Apr 4, 2010)

All I can say to Lane is thanks for doing the right thing but does denial of The Law Gospel distinction apply to anyone who would denies it (what about Mennonites or Anabaptists who hold to The Five Points?) or only Federal Vision advocates? As far as how I relate to this (being a Baptist) I see the Presbyterian and Reformed denominations as the proverbial Canary in The Coal Mine if there not doing well I shutter to think what's happening to Independent Baptists or Reformed Baptists


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## KMK (Apr 4, 2010)

Scott1 said:


> > *Herald*
> > Being a Baptist, I really don't a dog in this hunt; the dog is still sitting on the porch making sure a stranger doesn't come into our yard. But having read Lane's retraction (and noting that Wilson did not deal with faith and faithfulness, as Rich pointed out), I can't help but see a troubling similarity to Roman Catholicism. Or is it just me?
> 
> 
> ...


 
I think the RB has less to worry about from FV because our confession makes Christ's active obedience very clear:



> LBC 11:1 Those whom God effectually calls, he also freely justifies, not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone; not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but *by imputing Christ's active obedience unto the whole law*, and passive obedience in his death for their whole and sole righteousness by faith, which faith they have not of themselves; it is the gift of God.



It is hard to imaging the FV trying to get over the fence and into our yard.


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## toddpedlar (Apr 4, 2010)

KMK said:


> It is hard to imaging the FV trying to get over the fence and into our yard.


 
Typically the FV doesn't go over the fence, but burrows through the dirt under it... but I agree it's hard to imagine given their distinctives. One thing that seems to me to be a point where FV teachers might try to connect is their teaching of a true union with Christ that they claim is effected through baptism and the baptist teaching of regenerate church membership.


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## VictorBravo (Apr 4, 2010)

I'll add that I know of one fairly large RB congregation that suffered a major split because of this issue. It was insidious because there were members who were "teaching" behind the scenes and undermining what was being taught from the pulpit.


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## Scott1 (Apr 4, 2010)

KMK said:


> Scott1 said:
> 
> 
> > > *Herald*
> ...


 
Maybe this is an oversimplification, perhaps even a benefit of not having had the sophisticated argumentation of some theologians, but this has always been clear to me.

When the Westminster Standards use the term "obedience" it means the whole of Christ's obedience, which includes both His active and passive obedience.

Because Christ obeyed God, He met God's perfect standard of righteousness, and faith in that saves us.

'Federal vision' at best, would confuse this simple truth, which undermines God's promises and our assurance. At worst, it denies it. 

Few things could be more damaging than that.


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## Mushroom (Apr 4, 2010)

> There is a tendency in sinful human nature to gravitate from the objective Gospel to religious subjectivism, to shift the central focus from Christ to Christian experience.


The truth of that statement is profound. The local quasi-FV congregation is full of folks who are there not because they understand the implications of the theology, but because they like the 'atmosphere'. Sadly though, that is true even of my own Church.


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