#questiontime
#oldschool_vs_newschool
Question:
But did you really depart from the Reformed
faith? Or u were just analysing it correctly? Coz you're still teaching the 1689
LBCF in your church, not only once, but 3 times. If you have departed from the
Reformed Baptist faith, why did u teach the 1689 LBCF 3 times over the last 30
years?
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In essence, I went back to the faith held by the old
school baptists who gave us the 1689 CoF.
The new school
baptists like the Reformed Baptists have departed from what is faithfully
summarized in the 1689 CoF - hijacked by the RBs as their Doctrinal Standard.
I have studied and
written extensively on the 1689 CoF... pointing out the glaring errors of the
RBs.
Here is an example
on how the new is so different from the old:
The new: you believe
in order to be justified by God;
The old: you believe
because you have been justified by God.
Here is a classic
example:
On Faith.and
Justification
Dr John Gill:
1697-1771, was an old-school particular-baptist theologian, universally
esteemed by his contemporaries of various denominations, and also by Dr Robert
L Reymond (1932-2013), who was a renowned reformed theologian.
Dr Reymond said of
John Gill:
"Gill
(1697-1771), a Baptist puritan pastor, writes a thorough defence of Calvinistic
theology."
- the above is
listed under "Selected General Theological Bibliography" on page 1137
of Dr. Robert L Reymond's "A New Systematic Theology of the Christian
Faith" Nelson, 1998.
Dr John Gill on
faith and justification:
"Faith is not
the cause, but an effect of justification; it is not the cause of it in any
sense; it is not the moving cause, that is the free grace of God... nor even
the instrumental cause... it is not in any class of causes whatever; but it is
the effect of justification... Now if faith is not the cause, but the effect of
justification; then as every cause is before its effect, and every effect
follows its cause, justification must be before faith, and faith must follow
justification."
- A Body of
Doctrinal Divinity Book II, Chapter V, section II. (1769)
Dr Robert L Reymond
on faith and justification:
"The New
Testament everywhere makes it plain that faith in Jesus Christ is the
instrumental 'precondition' [in italic] of justification before God...
Therefore, faith in Jesus Christ... must precede justification as its logical
(not chronological) prius... Thus we have the order: effectual calling... and
faith in Jesus Christ, justification, and glorification."
- A New Systematic
Theology of the Christian Faith, page 707. (1998, Nelson)
How vast is the
difference between the old-school and the new-school theology - it is a gulf
unbridgeable!
If the words of Mr
Luther - "the doctrine of justification is the article of a standing or
falling church" - were true, then how many of the reformed churches are
standing churches today?
Is your church standing?
