# An excellent essay from Dr. Clark regarding Piper's statements on Wilson/Wright



## Archlute (Jun 25, 2009)

Here

Didn't have time to figure out which forum to place this in, so please move where appropriate.


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## ubermadchen (Jun 25, 2009)

YAY! I was soooo hoping he'd have a comment or two about this matter! 


Signed,

Fan Girl


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## timmopussycat (Jun 25, 2009)

Archlute said:


> Here
> 
> Didn't have time to figure out which forum to place this in, so please move where appropriate.



A very good comment from Dr. Clark, especially his exegesis of the super-Apostles text and how FV advocates are a modern parallel.

I have one question and two comments. Not being familliar with the ins and outs of NPP/FV let alone where Wilson's views unite and differ with the standard NPP/FV position, has Wilson ever repudiated the NPP/FV's "the radical re-definition of 'justification' to a socio-religious boundary marker" in favour of the “forensic declaration by God that a sinner is accepted by God on the sole basis of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness and received the faith resting and receiving alone?” 

My first comment is that Piper seems to be reading into Wilson's neo-Presbyterian view of covenant membership through the lens of Baptist ecciesiology as if they were the same thing. But they aren't. 

My second comment is: beware double negatives! Dr. Clark wrote ""Both groups still deny that, after all this time, after all these pixels and all the ink spilled, their critics still do not understand them!" Perhaps he meant to write: "both groups still affirm...their critics still do not understand them?"


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## AThornquist (Jun 25, 2009)

He said panoply.


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## greenbaggins (Jun 25, 2009)

timmopussycat said:


> Archlute said:
> 
> 
> > Here
> ...



On your question, I would say that Wilson affirms that justification is a forensic declaration by God that a sinner is accepted by God on the sole basis of the imputation of Christ's righteousness, and received by faith alone. Where it becomes trickier is in his denial of the law/gospel distinction as normally formulated (he believes that law and gospel are not two categories of Scripture itself, but rather two applications that can come from any Scripture), and also the nature of faith itself, both of which issues factor in heavily and create confusion when they are not articulated clearly. He is too close, in my opinion, to Shepherd's formulation that we are justified forensically by a living and active faith, as if the living and active part of faith was the reason that we are justified. Still, if one places him on a teeter-totter, he is still on the orthodox side, in my opinion. But he does not have the clarity of the WCF on this.


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## timmopussycat (Jun 25, 2009)

*Shepherd's formulation*



greenbaggins said:


> On your question, I would say that Wilson affirms that justification is a forensic declaration by God that a sinner is accepted by God on the sole basis of the imputation of Christ's righteousness, and received by faith alone. Where it becomes trickier is in his denial of the law/gospel distinction as normally formulated (he believes that law and gospel are not two categories of Scripture itself, but rather two applications that can come from any Scripture), and also the nature of faith itself, both of which issues factor in heavily and create confusion when they are not articulated clearly. He is too close, in my opinion, to Shepherd's formulation that we are justified forensically by a living and active faith, as if the living and active part of faith was the reason that we are justified. Still, if one places him on a teeter-totter, he is still on the orthodox side, in my opinion. But he does not have the clarity of the WCF on this.



Now I am no fan of Shepherd (I think he did a poor job of supervising Bahnsen's MTh thesis) but I have not studied his recent views in detail.
I fully affirm that works have no place in justification whatever, but isn't the statement "Faith alone justifies but the faith that justifies is never alone" essentially making the same point as saying that the only "faith" that will in the end result in justification is a living and active faith? Or does Shepherd mean something else by his formulation?


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## greenbaggins (Jun 25, 2009)

timmopussycat said:


> greenbaggins said:
> 
> 
> > On your question, I would say that Wilson affirms that justification is a forensic declaration by God that a sinner is accepted by God on the sole basis of the imputation of Christ's righteousness, and received by faith alone. Where it becomes trickier is in his denial of the law/gospel distinction as normally formulated (he believes that law and gospel are not two categories of Scripture itself, but rather two applications that can come from any Scripture), and also the nature of faith itself, both of which issues factor in heavily and create confusion when they are not articulated clearly. He is too close, in my opinion, to Shepherd's formulation that we are justified forensically by a living and active faith, as if the living and active part of faith was the reason that we are justified. Still, if one places him on a teeter-totter, he is still on the orthodox side, in my opinion. But he does not have the clarity of the WCF on this.
> ...



Shepherd means what the Roman Catholic Church means: justification cannot happen unless the faith is formed by love. In other words, the living-ness and the active-ness of faith is the reason it justifies, rather than the fact that it lays hold of Christ's righteousness. Of course, they will respond that it cannot lay hold of Christ's righteousness unless it is alive. Yes, of course. But that is different from saying that it is faith's aliveness that is the instrument, rather than the nature of faith itself. Hope this is clear. Shepherd is a false teacher.


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## matt01 (Jun 25, 2009)

> Wilson being examined by his own presbytery in his own denomination is like the pope being examined by a college of cardinals whom he has appointed!


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