Category: Theology

Wherein A. W. Pink Face-Plants David Van Drunen on the Noahic Covenant

“ [the Noahic Covenant] concerns ordinary cultural activities (rather than special acts of worship or religious devotion), it embraces the human race in common (rather than a holy people that are distinguished from the rest of the human race), it ensures the preservation of the natural and social order (rather than the redemption of this order), and it is established temporarily (rather than permanently)”

~ David Van Drunen, LGTK, p. 79.

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A.W. Pink commenting on Scofield’s view of the Noahic covenant as a common covenant pertaining simply to temporal matters:

“It seems pitiable that at this late date it should be necessary to labor a point which ought to be obvious to all God’s people. And obvious it would be, at least when pointed out to them, were it not that so many have had dust thrown into their eyes by carnal “dispensationalists” and hucksters of “prophecy.” Alas, that I myself once had my own vision dimmed by them, and even now I often have to exert myself in order to refuse to look at things through their colored spectacles. That there were temporal benefits bestowed upon Noah and his seed in Jehovah’s covenant grant is just as sure as that Noah built a tangible altar and offered real sacrifices thereon. But to confine those benefits to the temporal, and ignore (or deny) their spiritual import, is as excuseless as would be a failure to discern Christ and His sacrifice in what Noah presented and which was a “sweet savour” unto God.

Yet so dull of spiritual comprehension are many of God’s own people, so prejudiced and stupefied are they by the opiates which false teachers have ministered to them, we must perforce proceed slowly, and take nothing for granted. Therefore, before we seek to point out the various typical, mystical, and spiritual features of the Noahic covenant, we must first establish the fact that something more than the temporary interests of this earth or the material well-being of its inhabitants was involved in what God said to our patriarch in Genesis 9. Nor is this at all a difficult matter.”

Pink
Divine Covenants

Does Total Depravity Look the Same in All Peoples?

When Calvinists speak of humans as “totally depraved,” they are making an extensive, rather than an intensive statement. The effect of the fall upon man is that sin has extended to every part of his personality — his thinking, his emotions, and his will. Not necessarily that he is intensely sinful, but that sin has extended to his entire being. So, total depravity is extensive, not intensive. Not all total depravity looks the same. People and / or Nations can remain totally depraved and still be morally superior to other people and / or Nations who are also totally depraved. Total depravity does not mean that everyone is equally depraved. Total depravity most certainly is not the moral leveler that Cassidy contends. People and / or Nations who are totally depraved can be morally superior though that moral superiority lends no salvific aid.

Reformed Baptist Ironies (or) Things we’d Like Reformed Baptists to Think About

There is an inescapable irony to tell people that grace is irresistible and unconditional only to tell people that infants can’t be baptized because they aren’t old enough to meet the condition of showing that irresistible grace wasn’t resisted.

Corporeality & Covenantal Standing … A Question From Bulgaria

“Is there anything in the material composition of man which defines and determines his covenantal standing before God — be it salvation,etc. … ? If a person says, “yes, there is” he is a heretic and he must be excluded from Christian fellowship.”

 

Bojidar Marinov
2015

Note that Bojidar has said here that those who believe in the absolute necessity of Jesus Christ for salvation are a heretic. You see no one can be saved apart from the material composition of Jesus Christ being very man of very man. The Scripture teaches expressly that all of our covenant standing before God is dependent upon the material composition of man. If Christ is not very man of very man we are without hope.

Furthermore, as God only saves Adam’s race my covenantal standing before God and so my salvation is absolutely dependent on my material composition. God does not save spirit beings. God, in Christ, only saves men, — body and soul. Nobody saved is non-corporal and immaterial. If I am not a material being I cannot be saved.

Then there is the whole matter of covenant theology which does teach that our children, in their material composition, are members of the covenant precisely because they are the children of believers. The fact that children of believers are children of believers in their material composition does determine their covenantal standing before God as in the covenant, and that as ordered and commanded by God.

Obviously, nothing about any of this denies “Grace alone.” It is just to affirm that non-corporeal, material beings can not be saved

So … who is the heretic and who needs to be excluded from Christian fellowship?

A Few More Words on Baptism

So, the children of Reformed parents are Baptized with the presumption of charity as to their children’s covenant identity.

Following the conviction of “no neutrality” we understand that if we do not Baptize our children we are then presuming either they are not sinners and so have no need of the sign and seal of the washing of regeneration or we are presuming that our babies do indeed belong to their Father the devil and so are counted seed for Lucifer. Holding to neither of these presumptions, we presume, following Scripture, a charity regarding our children’s covenant identity and so following Scripture we baptize our children as God’s children.

We see in this passage in Genesis 17:7 that God has always required the sign of the covenant to be placed upon those who dwell in the Household of God. In the Old Covenant, that sign … that mark … was circumcision. A bloody cutting of that agency which produces life. In the New Covenant, with all bloodletting being fulfilled by Jesus Christ, who was bloodily cut off as God’s agency which produces life, the sign of the covenant is now water which throughout Scripture speaks of life and purification.