Couple Gospel Quotations From Ebenezer Erskine

‎”O then for the Lord’s sake, and for your own soul’s sake, let me call all hearing me to come away from Mount Sinai to Mount Zion; come away from the law of works which condemns the whole race of Adam in bulk, and receive the law of faith; take the benefit of these acts and edicts of grace that are emitted in the gospel from a throne of grace!”

‎”What the law teaches preceptively the gospel teaches effectively. The law enjoins the duty, the gospel furnishes with grace to obey it. There is no duty the law requires but there is suitable furniture in the gospel promise to discharge it. Doth the law require us to know the Lord which is the first precept in the moral law? Well here is suitable grace provided in the gospel, ‘I will give them an heart to know me that I am the Lord’. Doth the law require us to trust in him at all times? Well the gospel promise is suited unto this, ‘They shall trust in the name of the Lord’ (Zeph iii 12). Doth it require of us to love the Lord our God with all the heart soul strength and mind? Here is gospel grace to effect it, ‘I will circumcise their hearts to love the Lord their God.’ “

 

“Just so is it here the most the law can do to them that are under it is only to restrain sin in the conversation to reform this life. It may bring a man to serve in the oldness of the letter while sin still keeps the throne in the heart. Hence either pride or hypocrisy or raging despair remains with the legalist; it is only the gospel or the law coming out of Zion that is the power of God unto salvation “

 

‎”So the gospel is published by heralds I mean ministers of the gospel who are ordered to proclaim it from the tops of the high places and in the entry of the gates and places of public concourse Yea our commission bears us to intimate it to men and the sons of men to preach this gospel to every creature that none may perish through ignorance of the way of salvation”

Why the “New Reformed Body” is Not Reformed

Some of y’all have heard of this most recent attempt by the self-identified “evangelicals” in the PC(USA) to reform the denomination and to stake claim to a “Reformed Heritage”. I recently came into possession of a draft that contains some of the “essential tenets” that the group wishes to be foundational to the future of their project. If you read the whole thing (which you can find here).  I could take a while and detail some of the more problematic sections, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to do so. It is no longer my fight and I think the “reformers” in the PC(USA) would be better off and wiser to recognize that the project they are engaged in cannot be reconciled with the confessional heritage they wish to attach themselves unto. So for the purposes of this blogpost I just want to highlight one error from the list of essentials that really is emblematic of the problems throughout the essentials.

The “NRB” Statement on Baptism

 

“In the baptism of infants, we confess our confidence in God’s prevenient grace, that a baby who cannot turn to God is nonetheless claimed as a member of the covenant community, a child of God, cleansed by grace and sealed by the spirit.”

 

At first glance two things come up. 1) The use of the phrase “prevenient grace”. A body which wants to claim a heritage in the Reformed Faith would be wise to not use a Wesleyan and Arminian term that is fraught with difficulties. For a good understanding as to why Reformed believers eschew the term “prevenient grace” see this link.  2) The part of the statement from “that a baby…” on is straight Baptismal Regeneration. See this link as to why this is a problem.

There are few things I have encountered than trying to help my PC(USA) friends understand why even though they like to use the word “Reformed” their theology shows them not to be, at least in any way that any traditional and Confessional Reformed person would understand the term.