Category: ecclesiology

Horror and the Modern Church

“Modern critics can not understand the genre of Horror because they can’t understand the Enlightenment, and they can’t understand the Enlightenment because they are inside it so to speak, espousing its goals; the critics, virtually to a man, espouse its values so completely they can’t conceive of any alternative to it as the project which orders their lives.”

E. Michael Jones
Monsters from the Id — pg. 296

There is something in this quote that the modern Church needs to hear as a principle. The modern Church, like Jone’s critics, too often are of little use to Christians today because the modern Church has swallowed the Enlightenment core principle of Egalitarianism. The modern Church can not fight where the fight is of most import because the modern Church is inside the Enlightenment and holds as dear to God the Enlightenment’s most core principle. This does not mean that the modern Church can never give profitable counsel. It DOES mean that any counsel the modern Church gives pertaining to the most animating issue of our time (Egalitarianism) — an issue owned by the enemy — is counsel that smells of the sulfur that besots our enemy. In the words of Pogo, In the modern Church “we have met the enemy and he is us.”

In time the modern Church will overwhelmingly fall on the sodomite marriage issue, on the Confederate flag issue, and on the Transgender issue because the modern Church owns as a principle of Christianity the core principles that drive those issues. Borrowing from Jone’s, “Egalitarianism is the project that orders their lives.”

McAtee Contra Van Drunen Regarding The Family

A response to this

http://www.modernreformation.org/default.php?page=articledisplay&var1=ArtRead&var2=1618&var3=main&var4=Home

“Rather than being an additional fourth life sphere alongside these (church, state, and culture), the household or family is the foundation and the model of these other three life spheres. The family possesses a religious moral element in its piety, a juridical element in its parental authority and sibling affection, and an element of culture in family nurture. All three life spheres lie embedded within the family in a complex way, and each is connected to the family. Since the Kingdom of God consists of the totality of all goods, here on earth one finds its purest image and most faithful representation in the household family.”

Herman Bavinck
“The Kingdom of God, The Highest Good.”

In a recent “Modern Reformation” article R2K Maestro Dr. David Van Drunen (Hereinafter DVD) concedes that the the family is important, while at the same time warns Christians to not get too hung up on family changes that are occurring within our broader culture. DVD informs us that there is a real danger that we Christians would emphasize the importance of the institutional family so much that we might fall into the danger of forgetting the importance of the institutional Church. DVD writes this article in order to make sure we don’t make that mistake.

What DVD doesn’t tell the reader explicitly is that DVD does not believe in the idea of the “Christian family.” Oh, DVD hints at this conviction, but he does not come right out and say, “the idea of the Christian family is a myth.” Yet, it is precisely because DVD does not believe in the reality of Christian family that allows him to warn against those who are warning about the impact of the demise of the Christian family. For DVD, while family is important, the incremental destruction of the Christian family model, while unfortunate, is not something, that Christians should get too ginned up about, especially if that means that care for the institutional church suffers because of too much concern for the institution of the family.

At this point, already, DVD introduces a false dichotomy into his “reasoning.” He posits that the Church Institution is more important then the Family institution, thus suggesting that the two institutions are somehow in competition, when in point of fact these two Institutions are complimentary. Together they are the left leg and the right leg of Christian walking and the demise of either institution is the demise of the ability to walk without crutches.

That the two Institutions can not be separated the way that DVD is seeking to do is seen in the way that God has ordained that the health of the Church is derived from the root of its supporting Christian families. In Scripture God has given us an integrated model where the Christian family and the Christian Church, while being distinct jurisdictions, cannot be divorced from one another. This is seen in the reality of our covenant theology. God has ordained that the Church is built up by His faithfulness to the family in their generations.

“He remembers his covenant forever, the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations…” (Psalm 105:8)

“That those generations are thought of in terms of the family is seen in the commentary of Psalm 105:8 in Psalm 103:17,

“But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children…”

Indeed when God promises the vast blessings of salvation to Abraham, He does so in terms of “all the families of the earth.”

 Gen.12:3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

This indicates that God thinks that family is important.

This relation between Church as institution and family as institution is put on display every time a Christian family brings their child to be baptized by a Christian minister in the context of God’s Christian Church. God’s faithfulness to His Church as institution is guaranteed by His faithfulness to His covenant as dwelt in by the Christian family. To mark the kind of false dichotomy between the two such as DVD enters into is both un-scriptural and unnatural.

DVD insists that it is the Church as institution which is the centrality in our Christian lives. If one did not know better one would swear, that with such a statement, one was listening to a Roman Catholic Priest and not a Reformed Doctor of the Church. Rome long taught and still teaches the “centrality of the church in our Christian lives.” To disagree with this DVD conclusion is not to dismiss the importance of the Church as institution but merely is to note the Protestant emphasis that insisted the centrality of God in the totality of our Christian lives. The centrality of God in our families, the centrality of God in our Churches, and the centrality of God in our social orders. By insisting on the centrality of the Church in our Christian lives vis-a-vis the centrality of the family DVD both creates a false dichotomy  (dare we say a hyphenated dualism?) — in our Christian lives and gets very close to not realizing that God alone is to be central in all our doings.

In his article DVD damns the family with feint praise. For all that DVD does in speaking up the family he undoes it all with his insistence that there is no such thing as a Christian family. DVD goes so far as to suggest that family life, unlike Church life, is not part of the Kingdom of God. With such a sentiment DVD clearly circumscribes the Kingdom of God to the Church. And yet we have all those Kings (Rev. 21:24) and Nations (Rev. 22:2)  in the new Jerusalem, a reality that cannot exist without retaining extended family categories. Kings don’t make sense without Nations and Nations don’t make sense without blood families. When DVD insists that our family relations do not follow us into the eternal Kingdom one wonders if DVD is saying that in the eschaton we will no longer be sons, daughters, Fathers, or Mothers, Aunts or Uncles, Husbands or Wives? I assume though that DVD agrees that the Son of David remains sitting on the throne? If we do not retain these familial identity markers maybe we should go all the way and dismiss the idea of other identity markers such as a retention of maleness or femaleness in the eschaton? But, again, we have “Kings” in heaven, and that also requires Maleness as well as family connections. DVD’s eschaton begins to sound like a Gnostic excitable dream.

DVD makes this explicit when he writes, “This brings us to another reason why the church is ultimately more important than the family. While family relationships are temporal, relationships in the church are permanent. To put it another way, family relationships are natural and belong to this present age, while relationships in the church are eschatological and extend into the age to come.”  Is DVD saying that when I bump into my earthly Christian family member in the eschaton the relation we had as family members will be forgotten while what is remembered is that we attended and were part of the same visible Church?  Others may disagree, but I invoke the charge again of creeping gnosticism. All that matters in the DVD’s eschaton are spiritual realities. The corporeal realities on earth are no more.

DVD rightly notes that our allegiance to God must be higher than our allegiance to family. This is true. What DVD does not say is that our allegiance to God must also be higher than our allegiance to the institutional visible Church. All because or allegiance to God must be higher than or family allegiance in no way proves that our allegiance to the visible Church must be higher than our allegiance to our family … unless of course one is identifying the visible institutional Church with God.  Isn’t it good to know that a Reformed Doctor of the Church would never make that kind of basic reasoning and category error?

DVD’s confusion on this issue is magnified by a quick look at Scripture. When God desires to give His people symbolic speech in order to understand His person He often uses the language drawn from the family. The God of the Bible compares Himself not only to a Father who taketh pity upon His children (Ps. 103:13), but He also compares Himself to a Mother who cannot forget her nursing child (Is. 49:15). In Hebrews 12:6 God chastens like a Father, while in Isaiah He comforts like a Mother (Isaiah 66:13). In Matthew 6 we are taught to address God as our Father in Heaven.

When DVD writes, “Family is clearly not the most important thing in Scripture. Our relationships to and within the church are ultimately more important than our family relationships,” he puts the cats among the pigeons. First, we might ask, “What if the Church is comprised of a series of extended and related family units?” There was a time when that was not as far fetched as it is today. Second, it is not clear that the relationships within a Christian Church are more important than the relationships to and within Christian family.  It is certainly not clear when the Christian church in question has departed from the faith as much as the Church in the West has done. Thirdly, as God alone is absolute, loyalty to Him trumps both loyalty to the family or to the visible institutional Church when there is a contradiction between God and family or God and the visible church.

When DVD writes, “Family is clearly not the most important thing in Scripture. Our relationships to and within the church are ultimately more important than our family relationships,” it is like saying that “Our Right legs are clearly not the most important thing in walking. Our relationship with and to our left legs are ultimately more important than our relationship to our right legs.” It is a false dichotomy. It presupposes a false dualism. It is a false creation of a hyphenated life. One needs to note here that it is in the family where catechism is supposed to happen (Deut. 6).  It is the family where children first learn about covenantal government. In the family children begin to form an idea of God via God’s parental covenant representatives. The home is the child’s first notion of heaven. None of this is to say that the Church is less important than family. It is only to say that the family and the Church are equally ultimate before God who is alone absolute. DVD’s insistence to the contrary has introduced a false dichotomy in the thinking of Christians.  This is the fruit of R2K thinking where the Kingdom is only applicable to Church life.

No one doubts the passages that DVD cites as teaching that loyalty to the Lord Christ is above loyalty to family but what DVD glosses over in those passages he cites is that those passages are not teaching loyalty to the visible Church as being equal to loyalty to the Lord Christ. They are teaching loyalty to Christ above the highest competing loyalty in existence imaginable, whether that loyalty would be to family or to the visible Church. It is interesting though that Christ chose “loyalty to family” as the highest competing loyalty in existence imaginable that might conflict with loyalty to Himself as opposed to choosing membership in the “Israel of God” at that time.  My objection here is that DVD is conflating loyalty to the visible institutional Church with loyalty to the God of the Bible. In these time they are seldom the same. Really, to put this kind of emphasis on loyalty to the visible institutional Church, apart from seriously needed qualifications borders on a cult like loyalty towards the visible institutional Church.

If family is only penultimate vis-a-vis the Church then what are all those genealogies doing in the Bible? God’s inspired writers certainly saw that family was important.  If family is disintegrated in heaven then why does Jesus tell a parable where Lazarus cries out for relief to “Father Abraham” who is in heaven? If family is only penultimate how was it a source of comfort when the prophetess Huldah told Josiah he would be “gathered to his fathers” (2 Kgs. 22:20)? What comfort would there be if he could not recognize his “fathers”? Was he to dwell in eternity, among his own family, as a total stranger? If family is penultimate then why are the leaves of the trees, in the eschaton, for the healing of the Nations? If family is penultimate why is it important that, in the eschaton, the Lord Christ remains “The Son of David?”

Consistent with this observation is the desire of DVD to have it both ways. On one hand family relationships disappear in the eschaton, while on the other hand DVD still insists that in the eschaton we will still think in familial categories. DVD offers, “There will be only one family in heaven, made up of millions of brothers and sisters—with Jesus as our husband (Eph. 5:25-32) and brother (Heb. 2:11-12).” But if family is only temporal, per DVD, then how is it that we will still be able to think in temporal categories in the eternal realm? Words like “Brothers” and “sisters,” and “husbands” don’t retain any meaning unless their originating referent point remains operative.  In a eschaton where familial categories no longer exists thinking of someone as a “Husband” or a “Brother” is the same thinking of them as a “dxils” or a “mizeek.”

When DVD says, “Every Christian will enter heaven single” I hear more of John Locke then I do St. John. How very Libertarian of him. Now, let no one mistake me to be saying that our salvation is not by Grace alone. Instead let me be heard to be saying that such a anarchistic atomization and individualization of heaven as offered here by DVD could only happen to someone who has both been stripped of their Reformed covenantal sensibilities and has bellied up to the bar for too many Boilermakers at St. Locke’s bar and grill.  Scripture teaches we are gathered to Christ because the promise was to the Fathers and to their children (that embarrassing family language again) and as many as the Lord God called. Gathered by households on Earth there is no reason to think the idea of household disappears  when entering the eschatological household of God.

It is not often when one can read a piece by a Reformed Doctor of the Church that is both too Romish, too Libertarian and too Gnostic all at the same time but DVD has accomplished just that.  Of course all of this is primarily driven by DVD’s

1.) R2K theology that commands that families cannot and must not be considered “Christian.”

2.) R2K theology which insists that the “Kingdom of God” is limited and defined only in the context of the Institutional Church.

3.) R2K hard dualism that sees little or no continuity between this life and the life to come.

4.) Embrace of Lockean social theory as extended to defining the eschaton where atomized individuals only exist

Much much more could be said in refuting  DVD’s article. I think I could easily squeeze three more essays in refuting the details of his meanderings but enough has been said in order to point out the errors in this R2K version of Christianity.  In the end, if we fail to emphasize the Biblical model of the Family, given the times we are living in it will not only be the Christian family that goes into a long dark age but it will be the Christian Church also that continues in its already long established dark age residency.

 

 

 

 

 

Why is it so hard to talk about why it is so hard to talk about homosexuality — II

Continuing, in this second entry, to examine this article

seeking to respectfully point out the errant thinking, inconsistencies, contradictions, and misinformation contained therein.

When we left off last time we began to deal with the accusations of “homophobia” which Rev. Nydam said was “so present in our gay-unfriendly culture.” Rev. Nydam in the same context raises an implicit objection to patriarchy. It seems that Rev. Nydam is convinced that as a culture we value the masculine above the feminine. Rev. Nydam offers no facts to support this bald assertion. The good pastor goes on to lament how our culture condemns men with feminine traits. And yet we must keep in mind that the Scripture teaches,

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,

Now, perhaps the Pastor is correct in saying that we shouldn’t condemn those with feminine traits but surely given the teaching of God’s word we should meet Christian men who are overwhelmed with feminine traits with some disapproval.

We already mentioned, but it bears mentioning again, that Rev. Nydam is not up to date concerning the false narrative of the Matthew Shepherd case. In the last entry we pointed out an investigation which has been done in this case which demonstrates that Shepherd was not murdered because of his homosexuality but rather Shepherd was murdered in the context of a meth drug deal gone bad. In point of fact the man convicted for Shepherd’s murder had previously had sodomite relations with Shepherd. Like the Roe. vs. Wade false narrative from 1973, the Matthew Shepherd narrative was completely contrived in order to gain legislative sympathy for the sodomite agenda. Rev. Nydam completely missed this in his article. With this article by Rev. Nydam I have to conclude that Rev. Nydam may have a severe case of Hetero-phobia as seen by his symptomatically high egalitarian fever.

I agree with Rev. Nydam and that is the necessity to come alongside and support those Christians who are struggling with the temptation of homosexuality.  I agree that we have need to confess our sin so that we do not come across as self righteous prigs to those who are genuinely struggling to put off the old man of homosexuality and put on the new man of heterosexuality or who are seeking to be celibate in the context of what they recognize as sinful appetites. At the same time we need to enter careful self-examination to make sure we are not watering down the word of the Lord Christ in order to be able to fit into the zeitgeist. We have need to name the sin of compromise with this present wicked age in order to help those who are struggling. This is a very difficult spiritual challenge.

I also agree with Rev. Nydam that we must be friendly with those who are struggling against the sin of sodomy and lesbianism. We must come alongside them and encourage them to honor our Lord Christ by remaining chaste. We must advocate for before God’s throne in prayer asking that increasingly they will be able to quit finding their identity in their sexuality and instead find their identity in Christ. We must never push away repentant people who were once LGBT but now are in Christ. We must remind them though they were once Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and  Transgender they have been  washed, and sanctified, and justified, in the Name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. By coming alongside them and encouraging them in their new identity in Christ we can together rejoice over the Grace that has delivered each one of us from our sin and misery. In just such a manner the love of God gets to them just as God intended.

So as the CRC continues in the conversation concerning pastoral ministry among those redeemed out of the LGBT lifestyle, those struggling with the sin of LGBT-ism and the sin of continuing to identify as a LGBT person even after they’ve embraced Christ how can we best prepare ourselves for this conversation?  Several recommendations come to mind.

1.) As Rev. Nydam said, “we must continue our commitment, once again together, to a careful, thoughtful hearing of the biblical text. Scripture must speak to us.” This means guarding ourselves against novel readings of the Scripture that conclude what nobody in 2000 years of Church history have concluded. It’s possible that for 2000 years the Church has gotten something this significant wrong but extraordinarily unlikely.   So,  as Rev. Nydam offers, “we must not give in to the temptation, the exegetical error, of reading our wishes or beliefs into the text.”  
2,) We must affirm a biblical definition for human sexuality. This means, in terms of marriage, that one boy goes with one girl. It also means understanding that given the way our sexuality is tied up with how we are God’s image bearers that it only makes sense that Lucifer is going to seek to overthrow God’s design at just this point. This also means that we have need to be sensitive to the fact that this kind of sinful behavior could well be a sign of God turning people over to their reprobate desires (Romans 1:18-32). Becoming more comfortable with the way God speaks about sexuality will give biblical wisdom to our responses.

3.) We need to allow the Scriptures to shape our understanding of gender roles. Scripture teaches that men are to  love their wives, and wives are to submit to their husbands. Scriptures teaches that men are to lead and women are to be silent in the Church. Scripture teaches that we all have the fruit of the Spirit as that fruit demonstrates itself in the roles God has assigned to men and women.

4.) We must learn more about homosexuality in general. For example, repeated studies demonstrate that in a overwhelming percentage of cases where boys become homosexual it is due to some kind of molestation or Father-Son dysfunction in early development. If this is true then it is likely also true that people do not choose aberrant sexuality the way they might choose what flavor of ice cream to have. This is a fallen world and people can be fallen quite apart from self consciously deciding how their fallen-ness is going to manifest itself. Studies have given us very little evidence that LGBT-ism is a genetic predisposition.

5.) We must be sympathetic and empathetic. This sympathy and empathy must be for both God and His authoritative word and for those struggling with LGBT-ism. We must be tender where there is a spirit of repentance or anguish on their part. We must sincerely care about those who want to give this lifestyle up to follow Christ. Let it never be said of Christians that we added burdens of hatred upon and for those who are already bearing the terrible burden of a self-loathing because of the sin they struggle so mightily against.  Let it never be said that we failed to encourage those who have been redeemed from this lifestyle to remember their identity in Christ.

6.) For those of us who have friends who have come out of the homosexual lifestyle we must continue to show ourselves kind and generous. This means having them over for a meal and making them welcome. This means taking their phone calls at midnight in order to help them past temptation.

 

 

Presbyterian Church of America’s Original Reason For Existence Outlined

John Edwards Richards was one of the founders of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). The PCA split off from a more liberal Presbyterian denomination (PCUS) in 1973.  Richards wrote a book titled. “The historical birth of the Presbyterian Church in America.” In Chapter 2 of that book titled, “Causes of Separation in 1973″ Richards listed the following realities present in the larger denomination that they were seceding from which the newly founded PCA was seeking to get away from. This is some of that list, 
 
“The Universalist, who proclaims that all men are saved. Therefore, there is a great oneness of all men because redemption is Universal.
 
The Socialist, who declares all men are equal. Therefore, there must be a great leveling of humanity and a oneness of privilege and possession.
 
The Racial Amalgamationist, who preaches that the various races should be merged into one race and differences erased into oneness.
 
The Communist, who would have one one mass of humanity coerced into oneness by a totalitarian state and guided exclusively by Marxist philosophy.
 
The Internationalist, who insists on co-existence of all peoples and nations that they be as one regardless of ideology or history.
 
The Romanist, who declares there is one true church under on Pope and all men should become one in it.
 
The Christian Organizationalist, who believes all branches of the Christian Church should be united under one ecumenical organization.
 
The Humanist, who believes that man is basically good and that he can work out his own salvation, and that he will achieve this in part through unity and oneness.
 

The Sentimentalist, who would incubate a warm feeling toward everyone without depth of perception or concern for man’s chief end.”

Clearly the Founders of the PCA were recoiling against the Unitarian sentiment that found the Mother Church they were splitting off from drifting towards the Non-Christian creed and practice of Uniformitarian oneness. I can say that these founders were prophets in seeing the threat that this drive for Uniformitarian oneness was to the Gospel and to their people they were charged to protect as under Shepherds in Jesus Christ. Today, 40 odd years later, the Unitarian impulse with its drive to amalgamate all is ubiquitous in the Modern Church and the broader culture. I would even go so far as to say that this de-facto Unitarianism is the greatest threat to the Church today in the West.An example of what Richards was seeing over 40 years ago in the Church is seen in the broader culture in this 2008 speech by then French leader Sarkozy,

“(…) the objective is to meet the challenge of “métissage” – the challenge of “métissage” that the 21st century is confronting us with. The challenge of “métissage”, France has always been familiar with it, and by meeting the challenge of “métissage” France remains faithful to her history. Moreover, it is consanguinity that has always provoked the end of civilizations and societies. In the course of centuries, France has always known “métissage”, France has always been “métissée”.France has crossbred cultures, ideas and histories. France, who was able to crossbreed these cultures and these histories, constructed a universal language, because France herself is universal in the diversity of her origins.Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the last thing: If republican will power does not function, it will be necessary for the Republic to resort to even more forcible methods.But we don’t have a choice. Diversity at the base of the country must be reflected by diversity at the head of the country.It is not a choice. It is an obligation. It is an imperative. We cannot do otherwise at the risk of finding ourselves faced with considerable problems.

We must change, so we will change.

Clearly the Unitarian impulse remains strong and as Christians we have every bit the need to resist that impulse now as Richards and the PCA in its foundation resisted then.

Richards’ book can be accessed here.

Addendum — Other quotes from John Richards, one of the Founders of the PCA.

“The vast majority of good thinking people prefer to associate with, and intermarry with, people of their respective race; this is part of the God-given inclination to honor and uphold the distinctiveness of separate races. But there are many false prophets of oneness, and many shallow stooges, who seek to force the amalgamation of the races.”

“No human can measure the anguish of personality that goes on within the children of miscegenation… Let those who would erase the racial diversity of God’s creation beware lest the consequence of their evil be visited upon their children.”

These quotes can be accessed here,

https://web.archive.org/web/20120418030847/http://www.waysidechurch.org/pcadoc.htm http://theaquilareport.com/the-fortieth-anniversary-of-journal-day-1972/ http://www.pcahistory.org/findingaids/concerned/bulletin24.pdf http://www.pcahistory.org/findingaids/concerned/bulletin20.pdf http://www.pcahistory.org/findingaids/concerned/bulletins.html http://www.zoominfo.com/p/John-Richards/3079917

Bojidar Writes That Calvin, Warfield, Owen, Dabney, etc. Should Have Received Death Penalty

Recently Bojidar Marinov has spoken

“I only said that pagan religions taught in the name of Christianity got the death penalty in the OT. And cessationism is a pagan religion taught in the name of Christianity.”

Clearly what Mr. Marinov is saying here is that if we had been operating under a Christian framework all those who taught the discontinuation of the signs and wonders gifts of the Scriptures should have been visited with the death penalty.

Here are some of those from Church History that Marinov would have had visited with capital punishment.

“[The] gift of healing, like the rest of the miracles, which the Lord willed to be brought forth for a time, has vanished away in order to make the preaching of the gospel marvelous forever… [Healing] now has nothing to do with us, to whom the administering of such powers has not been committed.”

John Calvin
Institutes of the Christian Religion, Bk IV:19, 18

Bojidar pronounces death upon Calvin.

 “Gifts which in their own nature exceed the whole power of all our faculties, that dispensation of the Spirit is long since ceased and where it is now pretended unto by any, it may justly be suspected as an enthusiastic delusion.”

John Owen (1616-1683)
Works IV, 518

Bojidar pronounces death on John Owen

“Sure, there is as much need of ordination now as in Christ’s time and in the time of the apostles, there being then extraordinary gifts in the church which are now ceased.”

Thomas Watson (c 1620-1686):
The Beatitudes, 140

Bojidar pronounces death on Thomas Watson

 Speaking of the “gift of tongues,” he said, “These and other gifts of prophecy, being a sign, have long since ceased and been laid aside, and we have no encouragement to expect the revival of them; but, on the contrary, are directed to call the Scriptures the more sure word of prophecy, more sure than voices from Heaven; and to them we are directed to take heed, to search them, and to hold them fast…”

Matthew Henry (1662-1714):
Preface to Vol IV of his Exposition of the OT & NT, vii

Bojidar pronounces death on Matthew Henry

Of the extraordinary gifts, they were given “in order to the founding and establishing of the church in the world. But since the canon of Scriptures has been completed, and the Christian church fully founded and established, these extraordinary gifts have ceased.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758):
Charity and its Fruits, 29

Jonathan Edwards

 “…the karismata, the miraculous gifts conferred on the primitive church…have long ceased…”

George Whitefield (1714-1770):
Second Letter to the Bishop of London, Works, Vol. IV, 167

Bojidar pronounces death on George Whitfield

“The miraculous gifts of the Spirit have long since been withdrawn. They were used for a temporary purpose.”

James Buchanan (1804-1870):
The Office and Work of the Holy Spirit, 34

James Buchanan

 “After the early church had been established, the same necessity for supernatural signs now no longer existed, and God, Who is never wasteful in His expedients, withdrew them…miracles, if they became ordinary, would cease to be miracles, and would be referred by men to customary law.”

Robert L. Dabney (1820-1898):
“Prelacy a Blunder,” Discussions: Evangelical and Theological, Vol. 2, 236-237

Bojidar pronounces death on R. L. Dabney

 “These gifts were…distinctively the authentication of the apostles. They were part of the credentials of the apostles as the authoritative agents of God in founding the church. Their function thus confirmed them distinctively to the apostolic church and they necessarily passed away with it.”

Benjamin B. Warfield (1851-1921)
Counterfeit Miracles, 6

Either Mr. Marinov, according to his own words, believed these men should have received the death penalty or else he is just plain ignorant.

You decide.

Hat Tip — Clive Sanguis