Posted on 03/23/2009 11:32:12 AM PDT by topcat54
Calvinism is back, so says David Van Biema in the March 22, 2009 issue of Time magazine. Calvinism is listed as one of 10 ideas changing the world Right now. Its third on the list. When most people hear the word Calvinism, they bite down only on the gristle of predestination and then spit out the whole piece of meat. There is much more to Calvinism that is obscured by the misapplied aversion to particular redemption. As a student at Reformed Theological Seminary in the 1970s, I was taught that certain cultural applications flowed from a consistent application of Calvinism. Calvinism is synonymous with a comprehensive biblical world-and-life view. Simply put, I was told that the Bible applies to every area of life. To be a Calvinist is to make biblical application to issues beyond personal salvation (Heb. 5:1114).
(Excerpt) Read more at americanvision.org ...
Naysayers make abundantly clear hereon how individual doctrines of man interpretations of Scripture can be in gross error
virtually
24/7 hereon.
Good points.
LOL . . . how I'd slice it . . .
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Fine. Your local church body has decided there is a Confession of faith that represents its doctrinal beliefs.
It also recognizes the liberty of conscience, which is an issue in creedalism.
For church order's sake, one must either affirm belief in or at least not teach against the doctrines listed in that Confession.
What if that Confession didn't exist? Would your church be up a creek without a paddle? Doubt it.
The same thing could be accomplished by listing Scripture itself (which is essentially what a confession as opposed to some of the creeds does).
It appears that the Waldensians were the first Baptistic people to have a written confession of faith (at least one that survived). Prior to that, what did non[-Roman ]Catholic churches point to?
Are you understanding my point?
A Confession of faith as a convenient way to lay out key doctrines found in Scripture along with those Scripture references is okay as long as it is understood that the existence of said confession is not some super-spiritual badge that one must have in order to have any spiritual standing.
The pre-Waldensian Christians very well could have said "we have no creed but Jesus" when the [Roman] Catholic creeds started slipping in some decidedly false doctrines. And they would have probably been more spiritual than most of us considering what they were going through.
In an age where doctrine is too often defined by what feels good, I have no objection to something that lays out the SCRIPTURES behind doctrines to keep them in front of people's faces to help them recall why they believe what they believe.
I will not however say that someone whose church doesn't have said confession is lacking in standing and I don't think you would either.
[with slight Qx proofing fixes! LOL]
The clueless are welcome to face Him insisting that their perspective is right.
Luke 22:30 That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
OH, DEAR ME! I gather Jesus did not clear that statement with the
raft of Biblically confused REPLACEMENTARIAN AMIL POST MIL PRETERIST SCRIPTURE MANGLERS at the ALICE IN WONDERLAND SCHOOL OF TWISTED THEOLOGY!
IF He had, I'm confident they would have set Him straight that in the New Testament era and FOREVERMORE, there was ABSOLUTELY NO DISTINCTION from God's perspective between THE CHURCH and the CHILDREN OF JACOB.
Then of course, Jesus The Christ; King of Kings and Lord of Lords would have promptly gone and washed His mouth out at the very idea of ever uttering such a thing so contrary to the idiocies of REPLACEMENTARIANISM, AMIL, POST-MIL PRETERIST SCHOOL OF SCRIPTURE MANGLING etc.
/SAR
INDEED!
WELL PUT.
Our beliefs are rooted in Scripture and it is there that we take our stand.
INDEED.
Though I’d take LaHaye’s fantasies over the fantasies of the
ALICE IN WONDERLAND SCHOOL OF REPLACEMENTARIAN . . . et al RUBBER THEOLOGY
most any day.
Notice that this resurrection deals with the believing remnant of Israel after the 7 year period but there is no mention of the church or believing nations.
You make such excellent Biblical points.
Thanks.
BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD.
Of course The Church is included WITH ISRAEL in whatever ways God decrees as the whole counsel of Scripture indicates. But it’s NOT the other way around as the Alice In Wonderland School of Replacementarian . . . Rubber Theology would have the unthoughtful believe.
Talk does not take the place of interpretation. Explain Daniel 9:26 in the context of vss 25 and 27.
I think it’s difficult to impossible for them to trash and excise and/or mangle Scriptures inconvenient to their heresies
and then explain them in any logical, much less Biblical way.
Much more convenient for them to mangle them along with mangling the history that disproves their hogwash and/or pretend they don’t exist.
Thanks for the suggestion.
I like cordless . . .
Haven’t checked out the ergonomic for a while.
Some are quite interesting . . . but expensive! yikes.
Those are basically the old classic IBM click keyboards.
Ahhhh.
Those were decent keyboards.
Thx.
Are you the same member of the human race who murdered Christ with your sins?
I know I am.
I appreciate that you tracked down those quotes because they indicate the schizophrenic nature of the dispensational system.
On the one hand their system forces a radical distinction between Israel and the Church, yet on the other hand they have this sympathetic view of the status OT saints. Notice, neither Darby nor Scofield are willing to refer to them as being part of Israel, because that would obviously undermine to some degree the inviolate nature of the radical distinction.
Scofield says that the resurrection A is of life and is prior to the thousand years. Resurrection B is of judgment and is at the end of the thousand years. The illogic of his position is evident. If resurrection A is the rapture, then there is no possibility of anyone being saved after that point (including alleged tribulation saints), since the subsequent resurrection is for judgment. Now, if resurrection A is after the tribulation, then what of the rapture? Do we have a two phase resurrection?
In any event, the pre-tribber needs to have three resurrection, not two. There is no way to reconcile interpretive difficulties. Actually, LS Chafer tries to explain it away by saying that the rapture is in not way connected to the resurrection at the Second Coming, since the rapture is a mystery. The long predicted second coming of Christ to this earth will be completely fulfilled when He comes with His saints, and, therefore, the coming of Christ for His own sustains no relation to it whatsoever. (XI. God the Son: His Coming for His Saints.).
In Major Bible Themes, Chafer (revised by John Walvoord) writes regarding the rapture, "The expression 'in Christ' describes the present believer's position in Christ due to baptism and the Spirit, which occurred for the fist time in Acts 2 and is not used of Old Testament saints. While interpreters of Scripture will continue to differ, and some will include Old Testament saint in the Rapture, the burden of evidence seems to relate it to the second coming of Christ to the earth." (p. 341)
Walvoord argues, "The expression 'the dead in Christ shall arise first' (1 Thess. 4:16) seems to include only the church. The Old Testament saints are never described by the phrase 'in Christ.'" (The Rapture Question, p. 154)
The gathering of the OT saints with the NT saints at the futurist pre-trib rapture thus significantly undercuts one of the hallmark traits of dispensationalism, that is, the radical distinction between the Church that Israel. Perhaps Darby and Scofield reflect a more immature view of the distinction, and that later dispensationalists became more consistent in their understanding.
Weve gotten into this fight (and stay there) because our puny Human minds cant seem to wrap around this fact.
That's pure baloney.
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