Many people assume Reformed theology is only adhered to by Presbyterians who baptize babies and believe that there is no future for ethnic Israel.  Yet as you read through this book, while you will note some paedobaptist and amillenial (i.e. R.C. Sproul Jr.) authors you will also note some authors that hold to believers baptism and pre-millenialism (i.e. John MacArthur).  The conclusion must quickly be drawn that this issues of baptism and eschatology, though important, are not the litmus test for true Reformed theology.  The authors of this book lays the foundation of Reformed theology in ones view of God, Faith and salvation, and they does so by expounding on two of the best systematic views of God, Faith and Salvation:  The 5 Sola’s of the Reformation

1. Sola Scriptura – Scripture alone: “An appeal to the ultimate authority of God’s Word” (chapter 2 written by Keith A. Mathison)
2. Sola Fide – By Faith Alone: Faith that because of the justifying work of Christ “we are as righteous before God as Jesus Christ himself is”. (chapter 4 written by Sinclair B. Ferguson)
3. Sola Gratia – By Grace Alone: Salvation is not a result of our works, but of the grace of God active in our lives. This chapter also includes a look at how a popular evangelist in the 1800′s (Charles Finney) instituted a pragmatic works based religion into our culture that we are still battling over a century later. (Chapter 6 written by Michael S. Horton)
4. Solus Christus – By Christ Alone:  ”Apart from Christ, there is no hope for anyone.” (Chapter 8 written by John F. MacArthur)
5. Soli Deo Gloria – To God alone be the Glory:  ”If we were forced to pick one [of the 5 sola's] that subsumes all the others, it would no doubt be the last one, soli Deo gloria, ‘to God alone the glory.’” (Chapter 10 written by R.C. Sproul Jr.)

and the 5 doctrines of grace (or 5 points of Calvinism).

1. Total Depravity – “Did [man] sin because he is a sinner or because of the sin in his environment?” (Chapter 1 written by Martin Murphy)
2. Unconditional Election – Sinners “are not condemned because they have been passed over, but because they are sinners.” (Chapter 3 written by W. Robert Godfery)
3. Definite Atonement – “The nature of the Atonement – the death of Jesus – underscores the actual accomplishment of redemption” (Emphasis added) (Chapter 5 written by O. Palmer Robertson)
4. Irresistible Grace – “When God gives us the grace of a new heart, the first thing we do with it is to repent and believe.” (Chapter 7 written by Douglas J. Wilson)
5. Perseverance of the Saints – Salvation is assured in Christ, resulting in confidence and love in place of fear. (Chapter 9 written by Jay E. Adams)

The book in it’s entirety is worth the read.  For those struggling with the biblical doctrine of definite atonement I recommend chapter 5.  I came away from that chapter wondering why I had ever struggled with definite atonement and wondering why people still do!

4.  The truth of biblical language must be vigorously protected with non-biblical language.

Bible language can be used to affirm falsehood.  Athanasius’s experience has proved to be illuminating and helpful in dealing with this fact.  Over the years I have seen this misuse of the Bible especially in liberally minded baptistic and pietistic traditions.   They use the slogan, “the Bible is our only creed.” But in refusing to let explanatory, confessional language clarify what the Bible means, the slogan can be used as a cloak to conceal the fact that Bible language is being used to affirm what is not biblical.  This is what Athanasius encountered so insidiously at the council of Nicaea.  The Arians affirmed biblical sentences while denying biblical meaning.

R.P.C. Hanson explained the process like this: “Theologians of the Christian Church were slowly driven to a realization that the deepest questions which face Christianity cannot be answered in purely biblical language, because the questions are about the meaning of biblical language itself.” The Arians railed against the unbiblical language being forced on them.  They tried to seize the biblical high ground and claim to be the truly biblical people – the pietists, the simple Bible-believers – because they wanted to stay with biblical language only – and by it smuggle in their non-biblical meanings.

But Athanasius saw through this “postmodern,” “post-conservative,” “post-propositional” strategy and saved for us not just Bible words, but Bible truth.

As Piper alludes to in this section, this way of looking at, and dealing with the Bible is still with us today.  A lot of “Bible” terms get thrown around – grace, justification, faith, kingdom, justice, mercy etc. – but unless we are willing to define these terms the way that the biblical authors (and biblical Author) intended them to be defined we can quickly end up believing or teaching something different from what the Bible teaches.  You don’t have to go far to find examples of this either.  From hyper-fundamentalists to the emerging church to the Wild Goose festival (ok..redundant there on the last two) we the need for Inigo Montoya to say “you keep on using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.”

The final application of these two points is this:  is my life transformed by the truth statements of Scripture?  Or to put it in the words of a reply to the last article:

As in our debates with Charismatic subjectivism a few decades ago, our debates with post-modern anti-propositionalism today must not box us into an either/or corner. While there can be no salvation apart from embracing the propositional truth of Scripture, we will be led astray if we are not on the alert to the danger of offering truth without imagination, truth without community, truth without love, etc.

Piggy-backing on the last statement – does the truth of God’s love (illustrated dynamically against the truth of God’s holy wrath) drive us to deliver the truth in love to those who know nothing of it? Does the truth of God’s grace (illustrated vividly against the truth of God’s justice) drive us to speak graciously to those around us?

Related articles

• A word on propositional truth statements… (divinesatisfaction.com)

Buy at Amazon

I’m currently re-reading John Piper’s book “Contending for our All” in which he gives brief biographical sketches of three men in church history who stood faithful to God’s Word against sometimes overwhelming opposition – A far cry from today where some who claim the name of Christ want to join the opposition, but I digress. The first biographical sketch is of the early church father Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria. In his battle against Arianism (the belief that among other things God the Son is not co-equal with God the Father) he stood oft-times in the minority but firmly on the Truth of God’s Word. As Piper wraps up the chapter he gives several lessons that we can learn from this man’s life, I’d like to reproduce the third for your edification:

3. Loving Christ includes loving true propositions about Christ

What was clear to Athanasius was that propositions about Christ carried convictions that could send you to heaven or to hell. Propositions like “There was a time when the Son of God was not,” and “He was not before he was made,” and “the Son of God is created” were damnable. If they were spread abroad and believed, they would damn the souls who embraced them. And therefore Athanasius labored with all his might to formulate propositions that would conform to reality and lead the soul to faith and worship and heaven.

I believe Athanasius would have abominated, with tears, the contemporary call for “depropositionalizing” that we hear among many of the so-called “reformists” and “the emerging church,” “younger evangelicals,” “postfundamentalists,” “postfoundationalists,” and “postevangelicals.” I think he would have said, “Our young people in Alexandria die for the truth of propositions about Christ. What do your young people die for?” And if the answer came back, “We die for Christ, not propositions about Christ,” I think he would have said, “That’s what the heretic Arius said. So which Christ will you die for?” To answer that question requires propositions about him. To refuse to answer implies that it doesn’t matter what we believe or die for as long as it has the label Christ attached to it.

Athanasius would have grieved over sentences like “It is Christ who unites us; it is doctrine that divides.” And sentences like “We should ask, Whom do you trust? rather than what do you believe?” He would have grieved because he knew this is the very tactic used by the Arian bishops to cover the councils with fog so that the word ‘Christ’ could mean anything. Those who talk like this – “Christ unites, doctrine divides” – have simply replaced propositions about Christ with the word ‘Christ.’ It carries no meaning until one says something about him. They think they have done something profound and fresh, when they call us away from the propositions of doctrine to the word ‘Christ.’ In fact they have done something very old and worn and deadly.

(emphasis mine)

If I were to take these paragraphs and summarize them down to one practical application it would be this, we must continually be asking those who through the name of Jesus around, attaching it to every political cause under the sun – “Which Jesus?” To quote from a previous post:

Now our western Christianity is filled with many people who just “love Jesus”, but the question must be asked – “Which Jesus do you love?” There are many “Jesus’” being proclaimed that look nothing like the Jesus of the gospels, and these “anti-Christ’s” (as it were) tend to focus on making the believer happy, healthy and wealthy.

Which Jesus do you serve? The Jesus defined by truthful statements about Him in Scripture and vigorously protected by men like Athanasius? Or a Jesus of your own making?

Related articles

• An Open Response to Brian McLaren

the more I’m drawn to thinking about God, the more I am convinced of the unknowability of God.

Now that statement in and of itself could be harmless, and perhaps even profound.  But this statement doesn’t take place in a vacuum…it is just part of an ever descending view of God that has near its starting point a demoting of Scripture and will…if it has not already…end in a demoting or denying of God.

It’s against this backdrop that I reminisce about a bit of writing by a man with an similar surname – that man being Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.  The book, entitled “The Plight of Man and the Power of God” is a set of five expositions from Romans chapter 1.  Dr. Jones (or should it be Dr. Lloyd Jones…I could go with Dr. LJ…nah…I’ll stick with Dr. Jones)  takes the reader through the history of religion, the differences between religion and morality, the nature of sin, the wrath of God before finally dealing with the only solution to man’s plight before the holy and just God.

In reading through these expositions (which were given around the end of World War 2) I discovered, as I have previously noted, that the “new and improved” heresies that are put forth by the Christian intelligentsia are neither new nor improved.  At times I found myself wondering if perhaps Dr. Jones hadn’t just read the most recent liberal/emergent literature, or possibly been looking at a Reagan-era fundamentalist church as he wrote things like:

I the same way, if she [the church] contents herself with nothing beyond vague general statements designed to help and encourage the national effort – if she but tries to add a spiritual loss to the statements and speeches of he secular leaders of the country – while she may gain a certain amount of temporary applause and popularity and find herself being employed by the powers that be, in the end she will stand discredited in the eyes of the discerning.

The church is called to a higher calling than mere national patriotism and/or social agendas.  Nations change, and justice issues change but “We must rouse ourselves and realize afresh that though our gospel is timeless and changeless, it nevertheless is always contemporary.”  And the cure is not to make the church comfortable per-se but “If we are anxious to help and speak the redeeming word, we must first of all probe the wound to reveal the trouble.  This cannot be done without giving rise to pain and perhaps also to offense.”

All of this flies in the face of some of the popular methodologies and philosophies being courted by the church today…and as Dr. Jones points out, in one way or another the church throughout all generations.

This book strips bare the philosophies of man as they try to devalue Scripture and demote God.  Dr. Jones doesn’t allow the reader to detach himself from the history of man and the failures of their philosophies, and by the time the reader finishes the chapter on God’s wrath he cannot escape the Biblical reality, and ultimate necessity of the wrath of a just God poured out upon all unrighteousness and ungodliness of man who deliberately suppress their knowledge of God.  But, the God of wrath is also a God of love, for he does not leave mankind to face His fierce wrath, but instead provides a way of escape – a way of escape that is freely offered to all who believe!

But allow me to go back to the other “Jones” – Tony that is.   His statement “I am convinced of the unknowability of God”  illustrates the point that Paul made to the Romans in Romans 1:18-22 (and following).

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
(Rom 1:18-22)

Tony’s quote, as I’m sure he readily would acknowledge to a point, is not a new perspective.   Mankind is in the business of “unknowing” God, or trying to define God by what we don’t know about Him.  But while the revealed word of God does not shy away from the fact that God’s ways are far above man’s ways, it does not suggest that God is knowable only by what we don’t know about Him.  In fact quite the opposite is true, for God reveals in great detail to us, through the writers inspired by the Holy Spirit, things we can truly and accurately know about God.  This is why Paul could say in Romans 1:16 that he was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ…for he knew for certain that it is the power of God unto salvation.  As Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it over half a century ago concerning the authority of the Gospel as opposed to the philosophies of man:

For all other ideas with respect to life and its problems are man-made.  At their best and highest, they never get beyond the realm of speculation and supposition.  Sometimes they speak with an arrogant dogmatism and certainty, ever a characteristic of the lesser minds.  The great minds and profoundest thinkers have always acknowledged and confessed that they do not know.  They have always been content to describe themselves as seekers.  Their language always is “I think,” “I opine,” “I imagine,” I suppose,” “It surely must be the case,” They do not know, and they end by admitting that the ultimate problems of life are shrouded in mystery which in impenetrable to the human mind and its powers.

But Paul, and ultimately all the other writers of Scripture are different, the mystery of God was marveled at, but what was known about God, because God Himself revealed it, was proclaimed!  The glory of God and the gospel is not mere guess-work based on what we do not know:

No, the glory of the gospel is that it is primarily an announcement of what God does, and has done, in the [knowable] person of Jesus Christ…That was the gospel which was preached by all the apostles.  They preached Jesus as the Christ.  They made a proclamation, an announcement…They did not in the first instance outline a programme for life and living.  They were not setters forth of a point of view which they called upon the people to accept.  They did not go round the world in the first instance propagating a new order or a new scheme for living.  They began by stating facts and explaining what they meant.  They preached not a programme, but a person.  They said that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God [because they knew...not guesswork from the unknown] come from Heaven to earth.  They said that He manifested and demonstrated His unique deity by living a perfect, spotless, sinless life of complete obedience to God, and by performing miracles.  His death on the Cross was not merely the end of His life as the result of His rejection by His own countrymen; it had a deeper and more eternal significance.  It was something that had to happen in order that mankind might be reconciled to God.  It was a transaction between God the Father and God the Son.  It was the Son bearing our sins “in His own body on the tree”, and the fulfillment of the ancient prophecy of Isaiah, who had said that the Messiah would be “wounded for our transgressions,” and that “with his stripes we shall be healed”.  Indeed, as Paul put it elsewhere, “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself”.  But that was not all.  He had risen from the grave, had manifested Himself unto certain chosen witnesses, and then ascended into Heaven.  From Heaven He had sent the gift of the Holy Spirit upon the early Church, and He had brought unto them not only new understanding, but new life and power.  Their lives had been entirely changed, and they now had life which was life indeed.  That was the message.  Its entire emphasis was upon what God had done.  Its content was God’s way of salvation and of making men righteous…Here was something which enabled one to face Stoics and Epicureans at Athens [or modern day liberal "Christian" philosophers]  without a blush or an apology; here was a message which made the world’s highest and greatest philosophies appear to be nothing but prattling and babbling of babes.

Brothers in Christ – we preach the gospel of an unknowable God who has revealed Himself to us so that through Christ and His inspired Word we might know Him truly.  But if you devalue the inspired Word of God to be less than God actually revealing Himself and the duty He requires of man, then you are left with no choice but to try to guess about who God is by what you think He is not.  Let me put this another, maybe gentler way.  It can be a good exercise to look at what God is not, but only if we allow Scripture to instruct us as to who and what God is!  Given that this is just the beginning of Tony Jones’ series I’ll hope this is where he is going with it…not off to a great start however.

Christian ministries [like vines] also need some structure and support.  It may not be much, but at the very least we need somewhere to meet, some Bibles to read from, and some basic structures of leadership within our group

But so many times we (or at least I) shift into the mentality that the trellis (aka support programs) are the priority (hence the popularity of all sorts of religious church-building fads).  But, as the authors state:

We can build our trellis till it reaches to the heavens, in the hope of making a name for ourselves, but there may still be very little growth in the vine.

The commission of the believer is to make disciples!  This is what grows the vine.  This is the work that Christ has called us to do.

It’s a commission that makes disciple-making the normal agenda and priority of every church and every Christian disciple.

The book then goes on to answer the following questions:  What is the vine for?  How does the vine grow?  How does teh vine relate to my church?  What is vine work and what is trellis work, and how can we tell the difference?  What part do different people play in growing the vine?  How can we get more people involved in vine work? and What is the right relationship between the trellis and the vine?  All of these are vital questions that every believer, and especially those in full-time ministry must answer – and the book provides the mental shift back to the Biblical foundation that can help answer those questions.

“Scandalous” is only five chapters long – a breezy 168 pages (unless you’re into reading the indexes).  Carson takes a different passage of Scripture in each chapter as he brings out the importance, and the scandal, of the cross.  The first chapter looks at the “Ironies of the Cross” from Matthew 27:27-51.  After unpacking the 4 ironies within that passage (The Man who is mocked as king is the king; the Man who is utterly powerless is powerful; the Man who can’t save himself saves others; and the Man who cries out in despair trusts God.) Carson turns to Romans 3:21-26 in the second chapter and points the reader to the “Center of the Whole Bible” – which I wrote about last week.  In the third chapter Carson writes about the “Strange Triumph of a Slaughtered Lamb” found in Revelation 12.  In this section Carson deals with the occasions and reasons for Satanic rage and how Christians overcome it.  I found the last two chapters especially encouraging.  The fourth chapter, “A Miracle Full of Surprises”, looks at the account of Lazarus in John 11:1-53.  A primary benefit to this chapter was how Carson helps the reader to stop and consider what these events meant to the people present (and to the first readers of this book) instead of just reading over it because we know the end of the story.  The final chapter looks at the doubt of the skeptic.  Carson looks at Thomas’ doubt (John 20:24-31) and looks into not only the reasons why people doubt the resurrection of Jesus but also how Thomas’ doubt is a benefit for us today!

Overall Carson takes us from understanding who Christ is, the importance of His atoning work on the cross, His triumph over Satan, His triumph over death and even His triumph over doubt.  Each chapter is firmly grounded in Scripture and Carson does a good job of letting the reader know how it affects their life today.  Carson doesn’t shy away from saying things that the intelligentsia of modern (liberal/emergent) Christianity think as scandalous or idiotic.  Carson quotes a former atheistic philosopher J. Budziszewski “When I fled from God…my way of fleeing was to get stupid.  Though it always comes as a surprise to intellectuals, there are some forms of stupidity that one must be highly intelligent and educated to achieve.”  Carson confronts head-on some of the modern (yet old) heresies surrounding the work of Christ on the cross – most of which seem to come from looking at the worlds problems primarily from a socio-economic vantage-point.  “Have you noticed the categories we have used in this discussion of what ails the church in the west?” Carson asks (Page 78), “They are all sociological, historical, occasional, demographic, economic, psychological, medical.  They are all performance-related, circumstance related.  There is nothing about the Devil – and nothing about God.”   And while Carson states that there is value to learning from such categories he insists that “if all of our analysis are restricted exclusively to such categories, the huge danger is that our solutions will be cast in such categories too.”

If there is one thing that this book gets across it’s that the one solution — the primary need of mankind, the only solution that is permanent and without it all other solutions are temporary fixes at best — that man needs is that atoning work of Christ applied to his account, to appease the just wrath of a Holy God who is the one most offended by every sin we commit, the just judge, and the one who provides the gracious way of escape through Christ.

Best Chapter in the Book: Missing the Point:  Sin

Worst Chapter in the Book: Close race between all the rest, but Missing the Point: Theology wins by a nuance.

Most Alarming Quote: After describing how Bono is being used by God to move this world toward the kingdom of God the author states that the church is

“still God’s best chance at showcasing what the whole world will become when the kingdom of God becomes fully actualized.“

Best chance?  Is God sitting  at a roulette table in heaven saying “Put all my chips on the church!”

One Final Observation: This book seems to be an over-reaction against what are thought to be negative traits in modernism (and maybe capitalism, conservatism, and fundamentalism).  The a healthy reaction to these negative traits is good…but a healthy reaction this book is not (in this readers opinion).

The author begins by sharing how St. Augustine dealt with a specific sin in his congregation.  Augustine dealt with this, not in by promoting gossip or judgmental attitudes but by reminding his congregation of 2 Corinthians 11:28 where Paul states communicates that even the most revered of apostles is not immune from the temptations of sin.  The author, Brian McLaren (whose name I mention because this is a positive post), presents this question:  “How will I respond to the faults and failings and sins of my sister and brother Christians?”

That question, and not so much a Biblical/theological look at sin itself, is the foundation of this chapter, and McLaren  provides some good mental prodding in this area.  Something that I have observed throughout my ministry even within my thinking is the tendancy of many believers to, as I remember my dad saying, shoot their own wounded.  Or in other words when a brother or sister in Christ falls into sin we react by turning our back on them and/or condemning them instead of helping them to get back on their feet, find forgiveness in Christ and gain victory over what Satan means for defeat.

At this point I must make clear something that is unfortunately not clear and actually missing from this chapter.  I am not talking about the person who refuses to acknowledge his/her sin and continues to live rebelliously in it.  There is a proper way to deal with that type of person – witness to them passionately as you would any other unsaved friend.

But for the brother/sister who is struggling, even stumbling in sin I urge an attitude that reflects what McLaren is trying to communicate in his concluding paragraph:

don’t distance yourself from them or their weakness.  Don’t miss the point by condemning them.  Empathize instead. Draw close.  Like Augustine, identify with your weak brother or sister, because you’re [ultimately] no different.  And believe that just as you have by grace survived “many dangers, toil, and snares,” they can survive too.  For we serve a God who says, “My power is made perfect in weakness”.

“Far from any individual’s theology being The Right One, in one sense all theologies are heresies.  For theologies, like heresies, are major or minor distortions of the truth.”

Then, after taking 1 Corinthians 13:9-10 out of context he continues:

“In other words, what you believe may be partly correct, but it is certainly not completely correct.  The point?  We must always be open to further insights that will give us fuller understanding of what God is all about.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the beginnings of deadly heresy.  First of all, the authors premise is quite faulty.  For starters, if a theology is a distortion of the truth it no longer becomes a good theology but in actuality a heresy.  An accurate theology will survive the scrutiny of Scripture.  If there is error within the theology then the error must be removed lest it contaminate the whole thing.  For example, the errors found within this foundational chapter can be seen in the way other subjects are approached throughout this book.  Secondly, while I understand the (not quite true) point that he’s trying to make, the author then leaves scripture all but out of the solution.  He states:

“Let’s get one thing straight.  The one certainty against which all our theologies are guesswork. ‘This one thing I know,’ the apostle Paul wrote: Jesus and how his crucifixion delivered us from sin, and how his resurrection assures us of eternal life.”

That certainly is a good starting point, but the author makes it an ending point.    As long as a person affirms that, all other parts of theology become relative.  Apparently everything else that is said in Scripture about all aspects of God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, Sin, Salvation, Sanctification, Angels, the Church and End Times are up reinterpretation based on what current culture is predominate (He uses examples of liberation theology and black theology). He also assumes that all (certainly there are some that are…for example, this book) theology is “guesswork.”  The god of a guesswork theology is a god who thought his holy word would be a good way to reveal himself to his creation, but discovered too late that it was to0 foggy to be accurately understood.

So for the majority of the chapter I’m looking at this relativistic quagmire but then at the end the author (finally) makes this statement:

“Although Scripture can be interpreted in countless ways, it remains the sole authority to which all theologians must answer.  In the end, all Christians need to make a biblical case for their own claims.”

I think the chapter would have been better if he had just written that paragraph because it doesn’t line up with everything else that was said.  Because of the seeming relativistic view of theology and the inconsistencies of the writing, I could not in clear conscience suggest that any new believer or person struggling with theology read this chapter.

In the process of making his point however, the author goes down an interesting road.  He attempts to make the case that in the Old Testament salvation was not seen primarily as being saved from God’s just wrath toward sin, but being saved from oppression, whether it be from the Egyptians, a cruel king (David and Saul), or from wicked empires.  The author states that when the angel announced to Joseph that Jesus would “save his people from their sins” it was the “first time in Jewish history, a promised salvation was not liberation from political oppression and religious persecution.”  This just isn’t true.  It is true that the political climate of the day fostered the “political messiah” idea, but Christ rebuked the Pharisees for not understanding that the Messiah was one who would save from the devastating consequences of sin (John 3)  and restore a people to a joyous and satisfying relationship with God (See Isaiah 53 for starters).

Before concluding with a parable that I find a bit “straw-man-esque”, the author makes these remarks (each quote followed by my thoughts):

“So there’s an ancient Jewish way of missing the point (thinking salvation is only about politics and the here and now)”

Absolutely…and not too different from the way some Christians today seem to view salvation.

“and the modern Christian way of missing the point (thinking salvation is only about escaping hell after you die).”

That may be a bit of a generalization, but still those who think this would be missing the Biblical point of salvation.  Plus I would add that my main issue here is not about escaping hell per-se it’s about fleeing the wrath that is to come – the wrath of God poured out against all unrighteousness.  The paradox is that  we  flee God’s wrath by running to God via Christ!

“There’s another approach: that salvation means being rescued from fruitless ways of life here and now, to share in God’s saving love for all creation, in an adventure called the kingdom of God, the point of which you definitely don’t want to miss.”

Now what I like about that statement is that it implies the concept that the pleasures of this life are a fruitless enterprise and only through salvation can we find that fullness of joy forevermore.  But I find the statement somewhat empty.  Where is God’s grace?  Where is God’s wrath juxtaposed with God’s love?  Where is the point that salvation is ultimately not about me at all, but about God’s glory?  Without recognizing who we were, where we came from and where we were heading; we cannot fully grasp the impact of who God has made us, the new course He has given us and the final rest He has promised us.

To sum up allow me to adapt a quote from Douglas Wilson on his blog:  As is so often the case with those who suggest a recasting of doctrine, the problem is not so much with what the author proposes to add to our understanding, but what he wants to take away, or unintentionally omit.