The Link Between Total Depravity and Imputed Righteousness

[Reformed Covenanter]

Here is a post on my blog based on John Owen's book on Justification:

The Link Between Total Depravity and Imputed Righteousness « Reformed Covenanter

 

[yeutter]

thanks for the link

 

[greenbaggins]

Hi

Last year I read Ralph Allan Smith’s

On Paradox and Truth: Rethinking Van Til on the Trinity and

Eternal Covenant, how the Trinity reshapes Covenant Theology.

The Trinitarian Covenantal formulation of Smith, while comparing Van Til,

Plantinga, and Kuyper is quite interesting and it develops from Kuyper and

Van Til’s approach.

That is how I read it, while disagreeing with him and maintaining the

strong conviction that the Bible teaches a Covenant of Works.

So I read Guy Prentice Waters : Federal Vision and Covenant Theology and

only followed part of the exchange of net answers from Ralph Smith.

Of course I totally agree that denying the Covenant of Works is a major step

on the way to deny the Imputed Righteousness of Christ in His obedience

and fulfilment of God’s Holy Law.

So thank you for your link to your blog and that precious excerpt from Owen.

We all know what comfort did Gresham Machen derived on his deathbed

from that simple yet so deep truth, expressed in his final telegram to his

friend and colleague John Murray.

«I'm so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it.»

But while Ralph Smith clearly denies again and gain the covenant of works,

yet he still doesn’t seem to deny sola fide on soteriology.

Maybe I should see it in a different way, but that's the way I read it.

So I figured that he is in the same position like many orthodox theologians

that had their moments when they were pressing forward in an unexpected

way.

For instance John Murray was on the line as a covenant revisionist

concerning the law, while Meredith Kline never accepted his formulation.

As Meredith Kline defends that A Foedus Legale and a Foedus Gratiae is even

seen present together in Exodus 19-24 one for the Nation and the other for

Individual Salvation.

Wasn’t John Owen a bit «avant garde» in his time, and what time it was, with

expressing the Trinitarian Ordo Salutis, the Covenant of Redemption?

So can’t this be like a Voetius vs Cocceius controversy between

systhematics and hermeneutics

and then Witsius comes along and gets a bit of both, so to speak.

And what to make of Luther’s clash with Zwingli on the Sacrament.

After a common agreement on all matters with several swiss reformers on

that meeting, Luther was so out of proportion on that doctrine, to the point

of saying he couldn't call them brothers in the Lord anymore.

Gordon Clark with Van Til, Hoeksema with Klaas Schilders,

sometimes greater clashes come from closer stands.

I may sound quite Hegelian here,

lets go for the middle ground and all be friends : (

I certainly don't mean it as a compromise but as mutual understanding.

So can you please try to explain why Ralph Smith is such a threat

and can’t be someone who is bringing a healthy reflection and debate?



For instance I find it a bit inconsistent to put NPP and Federal Vision on the

same thread / foot here.

Because obviously N T Wright or Dunn should go back to Galatians and

Romans, humbly this time, and keep in mind how Luther wisely and

prophetically said Justification is The doctrine by which the church stands or

falls. (often Luther’s stubbornness was also a blessed one indeed : )


But Ralph Allan Smith ( I didn't read other FVs so I just mention his case)

doesn’t seem to me to be such an heretic, or is he?

I would appreciate your help in this matter.

Thank you for your post and looking forward to your reply.

Ralph Smith's Trinitarian theology is highly problematic, as it very much approaches a social Trinity. By defining the covenant as part of the existence of the three persons, he implies that without the intra-Trinitarian covenant, the Trinity would not be the Trinity, that it is a sine qua non, which position denies the self-existence of the Trinity. In saying this, of course, I have no wish to deny the love among the persons of the Trinity.

The other problem with Smith's formulations is that he connects this to the Adamic situation before the Fall and to Christ's situation in a way that eliminates the distinctions between these various situations. He flattens out redemptive history in such a way that Adam before the Fall, Adam after the Fall, and Christ in His two-fold nature all achieve the goal in the same way, because the Trinity's very existence depends on this agreement being worked out the same way.

 

[Scott1]

discipulo
Puritanboard Freshman

what to make of Ralph Allan Smith?

See, César...
I told you we were going to have a lot of fun here.

 

[discipulo]

Richard D. Phillips on FV & Ralph Smith

Hi

I believe I found what I was looking for on Ralph Smith but relevant for FV in general too.

Eventually you may want to take a look. It is a bit old but old doesn’t mean less good...

definitely in Reformed Theology

blessings