Making a Christ Out of Our Faithfulness

On this blog before, I've mentioned quite a bit how important it is to distinguish between the law and the gospel.   This was a huge part of the Reformation, from Luther to Calvin to Ursinus to Olevian forward to Turretin and Poole and ahead to Bavinck and others.  What does it look like when you blend the law …

The Extreme (Barthian) Home Makeover

Still (as with a few days ago) reading Barth's commentary on Philippians (specifically 3.7-9), I've had my furniture tossed around.  I don't wholeheartedly yet accept this whole bit, but it is amazing.  And it makes those who say "justifying faith is obedient faith" look like school children fussing around on the playground.  "The best way …

Baptism Is Not Faith

One of the major ways in which the Federal Vision departs from the historic Reformed/Presbyterian confessions is in their view of baptism.  They view baptism as effective instrument which unites a person to Christ.  Here are a few FV quotes to show this significant departure. "By baptism one is joined to Christ's body, united to Him covenantally, and given all the blessings …

The Marrow of Modern Divinity (E. Fisher)

 This is an amazing book, simply profound and probably even "life changing" - and I don't use these words lightly.  Edward Fisher's Marrow of Modern Divinity (Scotland: Christian Focus, 2009) is shocking because it speaks of free grace.  The book will cut the reader up because it shows how all of us have that little Pharisee in us …

Unequivocally Equivocal or Unambiguously Ambiguous: The Federal Vision

Though I've read A Faith That is Never Alone ed. P. A. Sandlin (La Grange: Kerygma, 2007), I've not yet commented on it here,  so I'll take a post or two to do so.  The book was co-written by Federal Vision advocates of one degree or another; it was a response to Westminster Seminary California's book, Covenant, …