Dancer’s Notes and Quotes

How we use “visible and invisible” has cause us trouble.

There are aspects of the church that are invisible (those in heaven, our thoughts, the sick).

The confession makes the distinction between the invisible, the elect from all generations and places, and the visible, professing believers and their children.

The problem is that we see them as two different churches: the real one and the approximation.

The problem arises that people take a low view of the invisible church.

They are the same church, but the church at the end of the age will become visible. The visible and invisible become the same.

[I find his description of the church yesterday as invisible confusing!]

Now, we must not think about upper and lower levels of existence - hellenism.

The heavenly Jerusalem is here and now. [is this denying the visible/invisible split? He seems to want to redefine the visible as historical and the invisible as eschatological.]

There is a need for language change in the confession because it would avoid the idea of two churches at the same time.

In the visible church God uses means in the context of the household of the church.

The church is flawed and parts of it will be pruned, but it will always be there.

The reformers had a clear distinction between the elect and the institution. But the anabaptist view now prevails.

Categories: Reformed, WilsonD

Covenants among men are solemn bonds, sovereignly administered, with attendant blessings and curses.

There is one covenant of grace in history. It is not abstract and detached. It is historic and visible. The Old Testament covenants find their ultimate fulfillment in Christ.

The Pharisees distorted the OT. However many modern readers treat these distortions as the same as the OT teaching. The Pharisees did not understand the scriptures.

Jesus is he fulfulment. He is the Lord of the New covenant and always has been throughout history. The glory of the covenant is our transformation.

Categories: Reformed, WilsonD

There is no tension between omelettes and eggs. The objectivity of the covenant does not mean that the only thing that matters is the corporate.

Denying self is necessary in coming into the covenant community.

Individualism is the deification of self which leads to death. It is the enemy of individuals. Covenant relations make us what we are. In the church we are members of Christ. The we pursue wisdom, keep the commands.

A man who loves his own soul will not bow down to it.

Categories: WilsonD, Reformed

Tradition is an inheritance. There are three theologies of tradition.

1. authoritative tradition as equal to tradition (developed in the middle ages)
2. authoritative tradition as subordinate to tradition (protestant position)
3. tradition as absolute (recent developments in catholicism)

We are made to receive tradition. The problem is nebulous traditon. This finds itself in those who want to hold to the Westminster Confession yet do not want its doctrines. Much is assumed without really examining it. Then…

inchoate traditions, gliba assumptions, and unexamied presuppositions are extremely hard to identify.

The system then interprets scripture.

There are two applications in order to be faithful to godly tradition

1. Begin and end with the gospel of sovereign grace.
2. Assume that God has reserved for himself far more faithful men and women than we think. The work is mess, but it shows that God is no perfectionist.

Categories: Reformed, WilsonD

This chapter deals with the question of justification. Wilson notes that it is possible to declare the truth about the doctrine of justification without actually knowing the truth of it. The evidence that we do know it is in how we walk.

Believing that faith is the foundation can lead to a trap whereby we believe that there are parts of the building which are not faith. Faith is a response to faith and it comes by hearing. Therefore syaing the apostles creed is a way of doing faith.

[this seems to me to be a good point. when confessing faith there seems little point in having a section on faith within the thing confessed. From this point of view the WCF is a strange animal. It cannot be declared publically like the apostles creed becaused the things listed are not the things in which our faith must lie.]

God justifies us for Christ’s sake, not for anything in, by or for us. He does so through faith. But the faith that saves is never alone.

Justification is permanent. But being in the family means that our Father takes displeasure in sin. Therefore expect chastisement.

“In all this we are discussing, and reaffirming, the traditional Protestant doctrine of the righteousness of Christ imputed to those individuals who are elect. This, plus nothing, constitutes the ground of their final acceptance before God.

Categories: WilsonD, Reformed

Chapter 3:

Here Wilson feels the need to assert that there is a need for regeneration in the modern ordo salutis sense. i.e. there is a need to be inwardly “born again” as WCF §10 says. God is sovereign in that process of brining his elect to heaven. It is a work of the Spirit that no man can control. (There is no point writing books about “How to Be Born Again”!)

Because of this sense, Wilson repudiates baptismal and decisional regeneration. Nevertheless, Calvin uses ‘regeneration’ in a different sense. He applies it to the ongoing process of sancitification.

There is a quotation from Calvin Acta Synodi Tridentinae (see p39, 40) where he states that “…there is a twofold grace in baptism, for therein both remission of sins and regeneration are offered to us.” In the next sentence he seems to move from the “offer” to the “actual receipt” of it as through they are one and the same. Wilson skips over this nicety!

Wilson takes this as evidence that Calvin believed in baptismal regeneration, in a limited sense. This does not contradict Calvin’s belief in an effectual call.

[Need to work out Calvin's view in the Institutes]

Categories: WilsonD, Reformed

In chapter 2 Wilson goes through chapter 3 of the WCF. His stated intention is to affirm that his own position is black-coffee calvinism. He believes in the sovereignty of God. Indeed, he suggests that there are some calvinists who do not believe in it as firmly and deeply as he does! His affirmation of the confession underpins his view of the covenant. His view, he believes, is the historic Reformed faith.

Categories: WilsonD, Reformed

Wilson begins by asking the question, “What is a Christian?” He makes the observation that the word is only used in the NT three times: Acts 11:26, 26:24-29 and 1 Peter 4:14-17. In each case the source of the name is not from Christians themselves, but from outsiders looking in.

Wilson goes on to make the point that the modern use of the phrase “becoming a Christian” is not found in the Bible. It is often used to described spiritual birth.

Wilson then goes on to look at the OT as an analogy of the NT. There there is the concept of covenant membership which has the sign of circumcision. However, not all Israel is Israel (Rom 2:28-29). This is directly applied to Christians and baptism. Not all who are baptised are born again. The need to be come Christian “all the way through”! To have baptism but not life is to bring judgment on oneself.

Two errors:
Pietism - there is only one kind of Christian - the internally alive kind.
Hypocrisy - the one who is baptised yet not born again.

[Does the 1 Peter quote really imply that the Christians themselves did not own the title?

The assumption seems to be that to be baptised is to become 'Christian'. It is a photographable evidence.]

Categories: WilsonD, Reformed

The introduction majors on the issue of providence which seems to be a central idea in the book of Ruth. The story centres round the ordinary family of Elimelech. But it raises many issues for the modern day.

God not only created the world but sustains it. He does so through general and special providence. The former does not involve ad hoc interventions by God. The later involves more direct interventions. Belief in the providence of God gives the Christian a particular standpoint from which to understand the world.

The modern world presents three challenges to the Christian view of providence.

Other Gods: Other religions and ‘isms’ create an aternative view of the world which challenge the Christian.

A Split Culture: The scientific culture has been a bridge to unbelief for many. God is accepted if He can bee seen to be useful. Utilitarianism.

The Problem of Evil: “Where is God?” when so many terrible things happen.

These things serve as a spring board for looking at the background of Ruth in Judges. The same three areas areas of concern are prevalent.

Ruth
Why was it written?
Written after the exile against the rulings of the Torah? But it does not seem like a political tract.

Wrtten shortly after David, which accounts for the genealogy? Part of the larger story about the king?

Or is it about redemption with great images such as levirate marriage an kinsman-redeemer?

Or a great story about love and fidelity in relationships?

Not sure of the purpose, but divine providence permeates the book.

Categories: Ruth, AtkinsonD