Questions About Justification by Allegiance

Biblical Reasons Why We Should
And Practical Suggestions on How We Can
Create Heaven on Earth

Questions about "Justification by Allegiance"

I recently received e-mail from a Calvinist who takes the Reformed view of "Justification by Faith Alone" to its logical limits. He has some serious and well-thought-out objections to our idea that we are justified by allegiance to God and His Law. Here are the questions we must face:

What would you say to America?

> A Question about the New perspective of Daniel Fuller: is there a
> relation between denial of the law/grace antithesis and Arminianism?
> With attention to Galatians 3:12 and Leviticus 18:5 and another question
> about the faith of Jews who don't have faith in Jesus

I think it's interesting the way Paul reverses what the OT says about the Law. I think he does this to make a point to the Jews, who had pretty much reversed everything the OT said.

Jesus said the weightier matters of God's Law are "justice, mercy and FAITH." (Mat 23:23) Paul said the law is "not of faith" (Gal 3:12). Jesus said if we obey God's Law we will live (Luke 10:28 - as usual Jesus was quoting the OT). Paul seems to be saying that if we obey the Law we will die.

Who is right, Jesus or Paul?
Jesus is right; Paul is using exaggerated rhetoric to make a point against the Jews who had completely missed the point of the Law and the Prophets.

Theonomy teaches that if we obey God's Law we will be blessed, and if we disobey we will experience curse (Deut 28). Obedience brings life. The man who obeys God's Law shall live:

God is clearly saying Israel SHOULD HAVE obeyed God's Law. Obedience would have spared them death and destruction. Obedience would have given them shalom-life.

Over and over, God says disobedience brings death and destruction, poverty, famine, tyranny, captivity. But if we obey His Law, we will receive life, prosperity, health, healing, wholeness, freedom, Eden. If we obey God's Law, we will live.

This is all positive. This is all meant to encourage us to obey God's Law. If a man do God's Law, he shall live.

Paul quotes this line in Gal 3:12 and elsewhere and seems to turn it into a negative, using it in the exact opposite way it was intended.
Why?
I think it's pure irony. I think it assumes the Jewish definition of "law," which was really anti-law traditions. The Jews claimed to be defenders of God's Law, but it was a sham. Paul declares that their position leads to death, but it's irony. If their position were true, it would lead to life.

Any attempt to take Paul literally misses his point to the lawless but legalistic Jews of his day and causes no end of problems for those of us who are attempting to reach a lawless but unlegalistic America.

>
> quotations from Gospel and Law: Contrast or Continuum (Eerdmans)
>
> Without question Fuller denies the antithesis between law and grace. "In
> 1972 I realized that if the law is indeed a law of faith...then there
> could no longer any antithesis in biblical theology between
> the law and the gospel." (xi) But in this essay I raise a question
> about Fuller's possible Arminianism and then explore what Fuller says
> about law and grace.
>
> A key Bible verse for Fuller is Romans 9: 32--"they did not pursue the
> law through faith, but as if it were based on works". Since the law
> commands faith, Fuller concludes, then the law is the same
> as the gospel. But I have learned to ask Fuller (and Piper and Wright
> and others with the new perspective): FAITH IN WHAT?
>
> Does the law command faith in the law or in the gospel? If your
> conclusion is that there is no difference between law and the gospel,
> then you will reject the question. And this is what the new
> perspective does: by asking its own questions, it rejects the importance
> of the questions asked by Calvin and Luther But I would agree with the
> Reformers that the law commands faith in the gospel.
>
> FAITH IN WHAT? Is our faith to be in our faith? That is the logical
> conclusion of the Arminianism which says that. says that Jesus died for
> everybody but that faith is the difference between saved and lost. Of
> course many from the new perspective dismiss questions about individual
> salvation, but Fuller does not. But neither does Fuller exclude Arminian
> faith from being supernaturally given by God. So I ask:: does he make
> the gospel law and the law gospel, because of an Arminian assumption
> that faith makes the difference between saved and lost. Does
> Fuller think that Jesus died for (placated the wrath of God for) those
> who will be lost? Does his gospel come down to a law in which those who
> believe will be saved. by their believing?
>
> I ask the question to you (and to Fuller!) because I am not sure. Fuller
> in many ways seems to say that the cross is what saves, and that the
> cross saves by being propitiatory, that is, by appeasing the
> anger of God. But did God in Christ reconcile the elect, or merely make
> possible the reconciliation of everybody? I want to have Fuller speak
> for himself. I quote from p112: ..."the condition for receiving God's
> blessing must consist in an action that all people are usually capable
> of fulfilling. The only such action for which all peoples, despite their
> great diversities, have an equal aptitude, is ceasing to place any value
> on some particular distinctive they possess, in contrast to that of some
> other ethnic entity, and to trust instead in the God who holds before
> all men the merciful promise to be their God."
>
> Now, I want to be careful about this quotation. The context is about Jew
> and Gentile, and about claims to ethnic privilege. Remember that the
> original purpose of Fuller's research was to
> challenge dispensationalism. And no doubt the reconciliation of Jew and
> Gentile is important in the NT. But the new perspective reduces all of
> Pauline theology to that concern: the problem is the
> ceremonies and ethnic boundary markers, it says. Get rid of them, and
> then we can all get back to be saved by faith IN OUR LAWKEEPING. Thus
> the conclusion: moral-law keeping faith is not
> "meritorious", but it IS the CONDITION of individual salvation.

I've never met a single human being who felt he would be justified by his keeping the law -- except those who don't know what the Law actually requires. Those who know what the Law requires always rely on unmerited forgiveness to erase their debts and take them out of the red.

> So I keep asking: faith in what? Is it true that all people are
> "capable of fulfilling" the law?

> I would suggest that nobody is capable
> of fulfilling the law: it demands perfection and God is not
> lenient. And most important, we all Jew or Gentile, have no aptitude
> for obeying the law. It will not matter if we get rid of the ceremony,
> it will not matter if we get rid of the misinterpretation
> and learn Fuller's better technique for obeying the law. We will still
> come short. This is not an excuse. Nor is it a denial of our equal duty
> to obey the law or to believe the gospel.

> For Fuller of course: to believe the gospel is to obey the law, and to
> obey the law is to believe the gospel. He sees no antithesis. So my
> question: believe what? Are we to believe that Jesus died to
> make up some of the difference between saved and lost? Are we to
> believe that Jesus died only for the elect as part of that which
> satisfies God, and that the elect are given ability to do the rest
> of the satisfying?

The believer can shed no blood and therefore produce no satisfaction. Once the believer transgresses God's Law, there is nothing the believer can do. Forgiveness of sins is a completely unilateral act of grace by God.

The blood of Jesus puts the elect in the category of "saved." The degree to which the saved obey God's Law is the degree to which they experience shalom on earth, as promised in the terms of the covenant (Deuteronomy 28).

> As bad as this sounds to me, the alternative seems
> even worst. Are we to believe that Jesus died for everybody, but that
> this dying does nothing to make any difference: are we to
> believe that what the death does for everybody is make the law for
> everybody less strict, so that everybody is "capable of it" (with God's
> helping grace of course).
>
> The last alternative of course is nothing but Arminianism. But the first
> alternative also concerns me: though it teaches particular redemption,
> it fails to teach that the cross alone satisfies the law. It
> still turns the gospel into a law which conditions salvation on the
> faithful lawkeeping of the elect.

> The solution of many Calvinists to
> Fuller's approach is to say that salvation is conditioned ONLY
> on the faithful lawkeeping of Christ and NOT on the covenantkeeping or
> lawkeeping of the elect.
>
> I of course want to agree with these Calvinists. But to do that I want
> to say how I think Christ satisfied the law. I do not think that Christ
> satisfied the law as a "covenant of works". This is not
> because I agree with Fuller that the law is really the gospel and thus
> always a "covenant of faith". Rather, I want to emphasize again the
> antitheses between law and gospel. The law does not promise salvation
> for sinners; the law promises death for sinners.

The Law promises salvation. Blessing for obedience, cursing for disobedience, and forgiveness for faith. In the OT the Law commanded faith in the Levitical sacrifices, in the NT the Law requires faith in the sacrifice of Christ. The Law still promises blessing for obedience and cursing for disobedience.

> Christ satisfied the
> law for the elect not by obeying it (though He did obey it), but by
> dying for the elect.

His death paid the price of our sins. Is God's Law satisfied merely by our having no mistakes to our credit?
Could a person satisfy the demands of the law by staying in bed and making no mistakes?
If Jesus paid for our mistakes, are we under any ethical obligation to DO anything once we have been saved?
Once we are saved, are we then merely free to commit mistakes?
Does the NT command anything more of us than belief?
If we adamantly refuse to obey that command, can it be said that we had true saving faith?

Do you mean "The Old Testament has no provision . . . ?"

1 Sam 2:1; Ps 9:14; 13:5; 20:5; 35:9; 118:14; Isa 12:2,3; Hab 3:18

Psa 79:9 Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name: and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy name's sake.

Psalm 32:1 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. {2} Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.

Ezekiel 33:16 "None of his sins which he has committed shall be remembered against him; he has done what is lawful and right; he shall surely live.

Jeremiah 33:8 And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against me.

Isaiah 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Isaiah 43:25 I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.

Isaiah 44:22 I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions, And like a cloud, your sins. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you."

Isaiah 55:7 Let the wicked forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts; Let him return to the LORD, And He will have mercy on him; And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon.

Psalm 85:2 You have forgiven the iniquity of Your people; You have covered all their sin. Selah

Psalm 103:12 As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

Psalm 130:4 But there is forgiveness with You, That You may be feared.

Or do you mean "The OT has no provision for ETERNAL salvation?

Ezekiel 18:21 But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. {22} "None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live.

Are there really two plans of salvation?

> The law says:
> don't sin. Of course there were ceremonies in the Mosaic law for
> ceremonial sins.

Not for moral sins?

> But the law is not opposed to the gospel, not because
> they are the same, but rather because they have different purposes. The
> gospel is a promise about salvation.

You mean for an individual when he dies?
How about for all nations on earth, in this life? (Gal 3:8)

> The law is a promise abut death.

See above. The Law is a promise that if you do it you will live.

The Law of God is not just "Thou shalt" or "Thou shalt not." The Law-Word of God is also promise.

> The gospel is not about a better interpretation of the law and ability
> now to do that law. The gospel is about the death of Christ
> which satisfies the law for the elect for whom Christ died.
>
> The law says that even
> elect sinners must die, and when the sins of the elect are imputed to
> Christ, the law says that even Christ must die
>
> The death of Christ according to the Scriptures ( for the
> elect,:Ephesians 5:25) is the gospel.

How is it, then, that the gospel was preached even before Jesus died? (Luke 7:22)

> Therefore the gospel is not the
> law. The law does not promise salvation.

> and the gospel is not a
> new law which demands faith in faith. Faith in the true gospel is a
> result of the elect being "in" Christ when He died. Faith is not a
> condition of getting into Christ. Faith that faith gets you into
> Christ is faith in a false gospel. Such faith turns faith into a work,
> and turns the gospel into a law.

> I am not sure if Fuller believes in Arminianism or particular
> redemption. But even if he believes in particular redemption, he does
> not think the death of Christ is all the gospel. He thinks the faithful
> lawkeeping of the elect (enabled by sovereign grace) is also the gospel,
> because he thinks the law is also the gospel: There is for him no
> antithesis. I quote from p115: "one learns to live like Jesus
> and receive a continuous stream of blessings simply by faith, that is,
> by an obedience which keeps him in the place where he can always benefit
> from the Workman's skill."
>
> Fuller's gospel is not exactly "Christ and him crucified". It is a
> gospel of glory, the glory of what God will do in us IF we keep
> ourselves in position where He can bless us. Every blessing comes in
> Christ but not only because of the cross.

Ultimately it IS because of the cross.
God gives His elect the grace to do good works because of the Cross.

> This language does not make
> Fuller an Arminian: he says that it's grace that causes us to faithfully
> lawkeep. He could even say, I think, that Christ died only for the
> elect, and that only the elect can add to that death faithful
> lawkeeping. But by denying the antithesis between the law and the
> gospel,

> Fuller makes OUR "active obedience" to be a supplement to the
> death of Christ.

The Jews were cut off because they did not bear fruit, not because they followed the Law.

>
> At this point, I want to spend some time with Fuller's exegesis of Gal
> 3:12. and its quotation of Leviticus 18:5: "he who does them shall live
> by them". Fuller agrees with the Judiasing teachers
> that the law is the gospel, and thinks that Leviticus 18 assumes
> God-given ability to keep the law (of course not perfectly, and not
> meritoriously).

> So Fuller has trouble understanding why Paul
> would even use Lev 18:5. My suggestion is that Paul used Leviticus
> 18:5 because Paul knew that people like Fuller and the Teachers would
> have used it, if he didn't. I think Paul
> understands Lev 18 as saying that law in effect promises death not
> life.: Fuller of course denies this.

The law promises life to the righteous.
To the extent we obey the law, we have life.
The law also promises death to the sinner.
To the extent we disobey it, we have death.

We cannot avoid death without God's Mercy.
The Pharisees claimed righteousness, and did not sense their need for God's Mercy.

Life to THEM.
Not to "outsiders."
Not to the non-elite.
Life based on allegiance to human traditions.

> 2. Fuller says that to assume that law
> brings death you have to assume inability and insert some idea about
> sin.

> Fuller cannot believe that Paul would disagree with the Teachers in
> interpreting Lev 18 because then Paul would also be disagreeing with
> Fuller!.

> The fact that Paul's argument is not convincing
> to all the Teachers or to Fuller does not prove that Paul is not making
> the argument. The hidden assertion ( sin will always mean that law bring
> death) is defended at length by Paul in Romans 1-3
> with the conclusion: by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be
> justified. Even if the deeds are not ceremonial deeds, even if the deeds
> are motivated by faith (faith in what?), still Paul argues that
> no one will be justified or sanctified by lawkeeping.

If the works are motivated by faith -- faith in a merciful God who sent His Son to be the savior of the world -- then the worker of such works is justified.

> Of course Fuller does think that both justification and sanctification
> are conditioned on our faithful lawkeeping. Instead of inserting into
> Galatians 3 some assumption about human inability, he inserts the "new
> perspective". The problem is ceremonial boundary markers, the problem is
> Jewish pride against Gentiles. Get rid of misinterpretations, Fuller
> urges, both Lutheran and legalist. The legalist must learn to give God
> credit for his faithful lawkeeping. The Lutheran must
> learn to stop saying that the law only promises death.

> For those who are
> still anxious about individual salvation, then the law is the gospel.

> I of course reject the new gnosis: I don't think hermeneutical insights
> (about letter and Spirit or even about old and new covenants!) are the
> solution to our plight. The only solution is the death
> of Christ on the cross of he elect. The only difference that ultimately
> matters between anybody is that Christ died for some and not for others.
> Those for whom Christ died will sometime in this life be caused to
> despair about their faith and lawkeeping (past or future), so much so
> that the only comfort they have left is the cross. THE CROSS WAS FOR
> THEM AND NOT FOR THOSE WHO CAN FIND COMFORT SOMEWHERE ELSE BESIDES THE
> CROSS.

Those who commit iniquity have good reason to despair (Mat 7:23).
Those who are willing to lose their life by leaving all behind and following the direction-giving Torah, will find life and joy. (Mat 16:25)

> Yes, it is true that sinful "man refused to credit God for any of his
> blessings" (p94, Romans 1),but the solution to that problem is not to
> begin to give God credit for our faithful lawkeeping. None
> of us are faithful lawkeepers.

We should give credit to God for our faithful lawkeeping, and take all the credit for our unfaithful lawkeeping, resolving to put those deeds to death.

Yes, the solution is the Law.
The Law demands death and promises it as well. (Exod 29:11,45 Ex 12:21, 1 Cor 5:7)

> and the elect died when Christ died (Romans 6). Fuller knows
> that SOME "works of the laws" are sin. Other people's works (like those
> who didn't believe Jesus in the NT) were not done with the right
> technique, with the right faith. But Fuller is equally convinced that
> some works can be the difference between saved and lost without being
> meritorious or ego-gratifying. What's the difference between him and the
> Teachers? His faith. His works are done in faith; theirs were not.

The Pharisees sought to glorify themselves. To truly follow the law of righteousness is to glorify God, and seek Him

> But is it true that the Teachers who rejected Jesus did not have faith,
> or that they obeyed without faith? Would they agree with Fuller?

> Fuller
> made big point about them not agreeing with Paul if Paul had taught that
> law promised death. Would they agree with Fuller that they obeyed
> without faith? Would they not say to Fuller: you have works of faith and
> we have our works of faith, but don't say that we don't have faith.

> Fuller thinks the death of
> Christ makes some difference, that it placates the curse of God. Giving
> him the benefit of the doubt, let us assume that Fuller does not teach
> that Christ died for everybody, that he teaches that the cross make some
> real difference for the elect. But Fuller seems to still have faith in
> faith, faith that Christian works of faith also contribute to the
> difference. Jews who work with faith but without faith in Jesus
> cannot please God with their work of faith. But the elect can please God
> with their work of faith.

Those who lack faith in the merciful and holy God do not please God even if they follow the Law in one or more (but not all) respects:

> And don't I agree that God is pleased with the elect's "work of faith".
> (I Thess 1:3; II Thess 1:11)) Again, faith in what? If people think that
> their work of faith makes any difference to saved
> and lost, then they do not have the right faith and their works of faith
> therefore do not please God. But if the elect repudiate the very idea
> that their works of faith make any difference between
> saved and lost, then God is pleased with such works of faith. I
> therefore agree with Calvin and not Fuller on Galatians 3:12: it clearly
> teaches that the law is antithetical to faith.

> We can put no faith
> in the law, because the law promises only death and not salvation.

> I still haven't answered my question about the possible Arminianism.
> Perhaps Dr Fuller will continue to write and clarify his position for
> us. When he speaks of "equal aptitude" for works of
> faith, he leaves open the possibility that Jesus died for everybody. I
> quote from p100:" he will justify the circumcised on the ground of their
> faith..." Faith is not the ground of anything. Faith
> has an object. Faith in what? Faith focused on the death of Christ for
> the elect is a result of that death. The death is the ground. Faith in
> faith is not the difference between saved and lost. Again,
> on p 100, Fuller claims that God "will justify all peoples, including th
> Jews, on the basis of their trusting in him." Trusting in Him to do what?
>
> The Jew who does not believe in Jesus THINKS he is trusting God. The
> Arminian (who believes that the death of Jesus is for everybody but that
> many for whom Jesus died are lost) THINKS that he is trusting in God.
> Many will call on the name of the Lord to whom the Lord will say: I
> never knew you.

Because they did not do righteousness, but iniquity, not because they didn't believe right. They believed they were going to be saved.

> Thus my question for Fuller about Arminianism. Faith in
> what? means TRUST IN WHOM. Which God? The God of the Jews who have faith
> but not in Jesus? If we try to say that their faith is not real faith,
> where will we stop? Will we say that Romans Catholics doesn't have
> real faith? Will we say that Arminians don't have real faith? Why is the
> work of faith not real if faith is misdirected?
>
> Fuller quotes in disapproval Calvin. Let me give the same quotation with
> approval. (Institutes 2:29): "faith seeks life, a life that is not
> found in the commandments or declarations of the
> penalties, but only in the freely given promise. For a conditional
> promise that send us back to our own works

i.e., apart from God, with a view to our own righteousness, rather than God's righteousness.

> does not promise life..."
> Fuller seem to think that if the law differs from the gospel,
> that it is opposed to the gospel. Thus Fuller equates law and gospel,
> and makes the gospel to be a law. But all people are required not only
> to obey the law, but also, WHEN ALL PEOPLE DESERVE TO DIE FOR DISOBEYING
> THE LAW, then all people are required to believe the gospel, which is
> not about conditions but about the death of Christ for the elect. All
> are commanded to believe that the death saves the elect; the elect will
> believe this.
>
> So it has come to this! I think the gospel is about the cross for the
> elect. Yes. There are many other issues to discuss. For example, I think
> the unconditional covenant with Noah was a redemptive covenant. I also
> think that Fuller makes a distinction between justifying faith and
> sanctifying faith when he finds it convenient (i.e. denying that the
> death of Gal 2:20 is mainly about "initial conversion", p 114) . Like
> Fuller, I also have problems when Calvin says that "law is
> to the flesh like a whip to arouse it to worship" (2;7;12).
>
> Also, I think we need to think more about the legal aspect of the
> Abrahamic covenant; circumcision was not only about faith in the gospel
> but about conditional blessings of family and
> land (Gen 18:18). Fuller insists: "in order for the Arahamaic covenant
> to be fulfilled, Abraham's posterity must be living, generally speaking
> ,a godly life as did Abraham." I say that it all depends
> on which aspect of the Abrahamic covenant you are talking about. If you
> are talking about the gospel of the death of Abraham's seed (Christ)
> for Abraham's seed (the elect), then godly living
> is not a condition but a consequence of that death. God does not accept
> imperfect "generally speaking" godliness.

Well I think this pretty well sums up the difference between us.
I think the Bible is full of stories of people who were saved because of their imperfect faith and "generally speaking" Godliness. The difference between someone who admits he is not God and sincerely seeks God and "generally speaking" obeys Him (on the one hand) and a Pharisee who is impressed with his own righteousness-by-traditions (on the other) is light-years. "Help my unbelief" (Mark 9:24) is the ethical and salvific equivalent of asking God to keep our feet from stumbling as we walk in His paths (Pr 2:8; 4:12; 10:9; Ps 37:23,24,31; 91:11; 121:3,8; Zec 10:12). God is merciful and saves those who truly seek Him and follow His Law, even if haltingly at first, but increasing by His grace. God looks at the heart. (Which is a command for us to look at the heart, not a statement that God saves based on anything in us).

> God saved the elect in the
> death of His Son. To add godliness as a condition is to set aside the
> death. (Gal 2:21). But there IS a legal aspect to the Abrahamic covenant,
> and Reformed paedobaptists would do well to remember that when they try
> to make circumcision model for new covenant baptism or when they try to
> add a legal aspect (covenantbreaking) to the new covenant.
>
> The solution

> to the works aspect of the Abrahamic covenant is not to say
> that the grace is for the nation but that works (of faith) make the
> difference between individuals in the nation. This would
> be an Arminian solution, and would fail to bring glory to God.

This argument sounds logical and holy, but it is not a Scriptural argument. We don't know exactly what "brings glory to God" except by what God says brings glory to Him. There's no inherent reason why God cannot be glorified by giving grace to saints so that they can "merit" salvation. The question is not logical possibility, but Scriptural declaration. The Scripture declares that we are obligated to obey God's Law, and that this obedience pleases God.

> It would
> condition salvation on individual sinners..The works aspect is not that
> which makes seem individuals saved and others
> lost. The works aspect had to do with the old covenant economy of family
> and land: there is no conditional works aspect to the new covenant.
>
> Let me explain, lest Fuller simply see me as one more
> dispensationalist! The difference between old and new covenants is not
> that people in the old covenants were saved by works. People are not
> ever saved by works of faith. Works of faith result from salvation. But
> Fuller believes that people ARE saved on the ground of works of faith.
> He writes: "the only difference between the new covenant and the old
> Mosaic covenant which it replaces is that the people re given a new
> heart..." Fuller sees the only difference as more ability to do the law,
> and thinks that law is always the gospel. I think that the elect are
> saved in every age ONLY by the blood of Christ. I do not think that the
> blood is the difference between the old and new covenants; the blood was
> for the elect of
> both covenants. I do still think at this point that a difference
> between the covenants is that we no longer work for even the blessings
> of land and family. (I will get called a dualist gnostic for
> suggesting that some blessings are non-salvific, but I am still thinking
> about it...)

You mean we no longer should care about land and family, or that we do still care but the means to the end is different?

> But I would urge you at this point not to get distracted by covenantal
> difference. We all have much to learn. Where I have been (and want to
> be) dogmatic is about law and gospel. I have taken sides with Calvin:
> the gospel is unconditional.

> In the interests of further dialogue with
> Dr. Fuller, let me finish with Fuller's conclusion: "Instead of two sets
> of promises in the Bible -conditional and unconditional-there is only
> one kind of promise throughout Scripture, and the realization of its
> promises is dependent upon compliance with conditions which are well
> characterized as the obedience of faith." (p105)

Kevin C.
http://members.aol.com/xmaspiracy/3/3_arch.htm
---------------------------------------------

And they shall beat their swords into plowshares
and sit under their Vine & Fig Tree.
Micah 4:1-7

Subj: Re: please quote these for me
Date: 10/22/99
To: Calvinist@no_works.com

In a message dated 10/21/99 2:16:10 PM Pacific Daylight Time, Calvinist@no_works.com writes:

Subj: Re: do you or do you not make any difference with your doing?
Date: 10/22/99
To: Calvinist@no_works.com

In a message dated 10/11/99 10:31:44 AM Pacific Daylight Time, Calvinist@no_works.com writes:

Or by "pursue" do you mean that a Christian must be committed to peace and holiness, even if he stumbles?

A person who does not pursue or is not committed to peace and holiness has some basis for assurance?????????

Kevin C.
http://members.aol.com/VFTINC/theonomy/worshlaw.htm
---------------------------------------------

And they shall beat their swords into plowshares
and sit under their Vine & Fig Tree.
Micah 4:1-7

If This Isn't Heaven, I Don't Know What Is

Questions about "Justification by Allegiance"

What would you say to America?