Law and Gospel

[Semper Fidelis]

I cannot see how anything other than the gospel can change anything in this fallen world. If you know of anything, Rich, please let me know what it is.

I did not state that. I asked you if you believed that those who distinguish certain principles differently than yourself deny that the Gospel changes everything. You seem to indicate that they deny these things wholly.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

I genuinely appreciate Rev. Winzer taking the time to help me (and others?) flesh this topic out. The time zone differences do make the conversation slow-going.

This statement is something I have seen spoken in almost the same manner by proponents of The Exchanged Life movement, a distant cousin of Keswickianism:

I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. It is not my life I am living; it is Christ's life; it is nothing less than the life that is promised in the gospel -- LIVE, and do this!

Now I assume that Rev. Winzer is no friend of that movement, a movement whose proponents blur the distinctions between justification and sanctification. This item recentlt crossed my desk:

Paul Miller on Becoming the Gospel - Desiring God

Wherein Miller writes related to the slogan of his Sonship course:

...we believe and become the gospel. Not that we literally become the gospel, but we tend to miss the grand Pauline theme of entering into Jesus. The gospel isn’t something simply abstract that you believe, it is something that you enter

Miller goes on to explicate Colossians 1:24 to teach...

It isn’t that complicated. Jesus’ death for my wife Jill is finished. It is a once-for-all death. Now for Jill to understand and experience the gospel in her life, I need to live a dying life in relationship to her. Jesus can’t die again for her, but I can—in hundreds of big and small ways that range from a tender compassion that understands her world to a thoughtful honesty that risks her disapproval. The result is that my life is characterized by dying and resurrection (Philippians 2:1-11). The result? An obedient life that reflects the image of Jesus

I am hoping Rev. Winzer can distinguish between these views and the one he is helping me to come to grips with in this thread.

AMR

 

[MW]

You seem to indicate that they deny these things wholly.

Where do I "seem" to indicate this? I have explicitly stated otherwise. Please consult post 33: "I do not regard him as Antinomian but I regard this one particular emphasis of his teaching as Antinomian."

 

[MW]

I am hoping Rev. Winzer can distinguish between these views and the one he is helping me to come to grips with in this thread.

Truth be told, I have very little regard for the higher life spirituality and irrational mystcism of what calls itself the "Desiring God" movement. I certainly distance my view from the view that sanctified gospel living is in any sense a means of grace. It is not. Word, sacraments, and prayer, are the especial outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicates redemption to the elect. That said, there is an element of truth in the portion you have quoted, and I am fairly sure we will all agree with it. The truth is to be found in the fact that we are not called to believe propositions but a Person. Salvation is not by mere assent in categorical statements but by the added element of rest upon and reception of the Glorious Person and all sufficent work of "our Lord Jesus Christ." It is here that the apostle distinguishes his gospel from the so-called super apostles, insisting that there is a gospel work of the Spirit whereby Christ Himself is revealed in the soul, 2 Cor. 3:18; 4:6. In this sense and under this restriction reformed theology insists upon a mystical union without which the gospel is as much a dead letter as the law is without the Spirit.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

You seem to indicate that they deny these things wholly.

Where do I "seem" to indicate this? I have explicitly stated otherwise. Please consult post 33: "I do not regard him as Antinomian but I regard this one particular emphasis of his teaching as Antinomian."

In the post I first referenced, your post conveyed to me (at least) that you believed others denied the full substance of your post. Thank you for clarifying.

 

[timmopussycat]

Please note none of the above was said in a role as a board moderator; only as a fellow board member and brother in Christ; also, the bulk of this message is not aimed chiefly at this thread, but in consideration of the numerous recent threads on the topic.

Thank you for making this distinction. I think it might help some discussions if some of your your more active colleagues followed your lead here as sometimes it has not been clear which hat a mod was wearing.

---------- Post added at 09:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:34 PM ----------

If modern Protestantism did not have the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons, I doubt whether "bringing into captivity every thought" would cause so much consternation. Such an action would probably be regarded as an essential part of faithful ministry.

Dear Rev. Winzer

Is there an unnecessary "not" in your first sentence?

 

[discipulo]

I’ve been following with great interest the related debates on this matter on Law

and Gospel

(I actually prefer the Law - Grace expression for reasons not important now)

as it’s making me think a lot with great personal profit.

Although I have not much so far to contribute that could add to the debate, I

would like to suggest a couple of things that eventually may be useful.

As I studied the Reformatie articles of Klaas Schilder (not agreeing with him on

several matters, like his famous aversion to, in his words,

“the so called covenant of works”)

I believe that Schilder made a terminological precision that can be imported

with profit to this sort of debate.

Schilder made the vital difference between

Theological differences within Confessional Boundaries

(namely in his interaction with Hoeksema on the conditionality of the covenant

of Grace, Hoeksema saw Schilder as going on the neonomianism direction and he

was not the last one as we know – CJPM from the WTS camp surely maintains

that charge and I think personally it is a correction done in a good respectful

spirit).

I believe this Theological vs a Confessional demarcation is more than a word

game.

It may well keep us from going too far or too short on a theological correction,

by maintaining confidence in a Theologian’s orthodoxy (in this case Horton

or the WTS on their reading of the Law Gospel hermeneutics).

Stating theological differences while asserting our trust that a specific Camp

remains within Confessional Truth, in spite of straining a certain doctrinal stand

to an eventual and undesirable edge or even error,

(again I’m far from sure this is the case with Horton’s teaching on Law vs Gospel)

may allow those with a godly zeal for the Biblical Reformed Truth

to wound in order to heal.

Surely some errors need that therapeutically surgically controlled cut of the

bistouri.

While certainly no one here on the PB wishes to create a wounded distance with

confessional reformed brothers.

It's not about casting stones, since till Glorification we are certainly not error

free, but about mutual edification in the Whole Counsel of God.

 

[Oecolampadius]

We should learn from the Lutherans.

The following quote is from the article "Looking into the Heart of Missouri: Justification, Sanctification and Third Use of the Law" as published in the journal for Concordia Theological Seminary. The author, Carl Beckwith, is a Lutheran minister and a professor of church history at Beeson Divinity School.

David Yeago, like Chemnitz, sees the larger theological implications of a denial of the third use. He has nicely demonstrated how Lutheran scholarship, influenced by Werner Elert and his rejection of a didactic use of the law, used the law-gospel distinction to organize and structure all theological reflection: a theological construct, as Yeago shows, that leads to antinomianism and a rejection of dogma itself. It leads to antinomianism because if the law-gospel distinction is understood as the ultimate horizon for theological reflection, then any commandment or ethical exhortation for the ordering of a person's life is, by definition, the imposition of the law from which the gospel has freed that person. This theological construct naturally leads to gospel reductionism; as Murray puts it, "every theological issue is reduced to the Gospel or not-the Gospel." Since the narrative context of this law-gospel construct is the experiential situation of the troubled conscience, weighed down by the moral demands of the law, the penitent must be set free from the unmanageable burden of the law by the gospel. Any recourse to the moral order set forth by the law, that is, any appeal to a didactic use of the law, threatens the penitent's freedom in the gospel and risks, once again, burdening the conscience.[emphases mine]"

Please take note that, in the article, Beckwith points out how David Yeago compromises the doctrine of justification with his conclusions on theosis. However, in the quoted portion above, Beckwith is laying out Yeago's defense of the Third Use of the Law. I see no evidence of disagreement between the author and Yeago on the point made in the quoted portion.