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| It is a Full Covenant; because in it there is the Mediators Fullness Communicated to all such that are united to him as the effects thereof, ’tis not a Creature-Fullness that is in Christ; no, but the Fullness of God: For it pleased the Father that in him all Fullness should dwell; — in him dwelleth the Fullness of the God-head Bodily: The Fullness of the God-head dwells as truly in the Son, as in the Father; and of his Fullness do all Believers partake, Of his Fullness all we receive, and Grace for Grace |
At the Spanish Heritage festival in downtown Youngstown, Ohio, I was walking toward a booth to buy some arroz com pollo (my favorite Puerto Rican cuisine) when I saw hands waving at me. I approached, not sure I recognized them, only to find a very distinguished and respected couple who made upon me a most indelible impression years earlier, Mr. and Mrs. Dave Blackmon. I'll go as far as to wager Mr. Blackmon to be one of the more devoutly Calvinistic Baptists in this area. His beautiful wife Gloria professed Christ at an early age, as well. They are prominent members of the Rising Star Baptist Church in Youngstown; which is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
A previous encounter with this great family led to a hale and hearty discussion of faith. As I've come to engage them and several of my Baptist brethren I was delighted to learn of the pervasiveness and strength of Covenant theology/ Sovereign Grace/ ...What you and I refer to as Calvinism. I just can't believe I couldn't discern it earlier. My beloved grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Fulton Mitchell Sr.(now in Heaven) were Baptists and it was they who reared me. God be praised; as things do come full circle. The reason I can personally attest to effectual calling is because the very ideology I profess today was around me all the time. God is good!!
Granted, the Calvinist/ Arminian rift predates the establishment of the oldest Baptist congregation in the US, to say the least. In England, the chasm between General and Particular Baptists seemed even to take on socio-economic dimensions. Despite the fact that this is nothing new, it's being exacerbated by a so-called resurgence. It's estimated that about a third of the largest Baptist denomination on the planet is solidly Reformed. Yet I submit this in no way reflects that demographic. Said rift is not what's polarizing the SBC. At least not among the more doctrinally "well armed".....
The real problem is this so-called New Calvinism and it's strongest proponents egregiously misrepresent Covenant theology at several jugular points!
At the proverbial helm of this "resurgence" is the Rev Dr Albert Mohler who presides over the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Rev Mohler abhors the soteriological rift in his denomination and many Presbyterians, myself included, share his sentiments. Yet, if the Councils of Ephesus (431 A.D.) and Chalcedon (451 A.D.) have taught us nothing else, they underscore the need for preciseness in speech; pursuant to doctrinal matters and the defense thereof.
That being said;
In SBC Life : Journal of the Southern Baptist Convention, Rev Mohler issued a joint statement of the SBC's Calvinism Advisory Committee. Therein are several bullet points in italics to which Rev Mohler agreed that are quite contrary to the doctrine he claims to champion. I touched on the ones that really stuck out! My responses are in bold.....
We agree that God loves everyone and desires to save everyone, but we differ as to why only some are ultimately saved.
......Ehh, pardon me?
Calvinism holds that by the decree of election, all who are predestined to be saved-are saved. there is none that God desires to be saved that aren't saved, because His grace is irresistible. Statements like this call the belief in the omnipotence of God and the efficacy of the Atonement into question. Here's another:
While we all heartily affirm the article on election in The Baptist Faith and Message (Article V), we differ as to whether the response of faith plays a role in one’s election.
.........Please tell me you're not serious!
You believe because God mercifully imputed righteousness into your heart. Faith is a gift. John 3:16 is therefore a proviso-not an open invitation.
We agree that the Gospel should be proclaimed to everyone, but we differ as to whether or how every hearer will be enabled to respond.
........I beg your pardon.
Read Daniel 12:10. And Romans 9, while you're at it. That's not man's job to ponder over how hearers will be enabled to respond. Ever hear of effectual calling? Regeneration ring a bell, by chance?
We agree that God is absolutely sovereign in initiating salvation, uniting the believer to Himself, and preserving the believer to the end, but we differ as to how God expresses His sovereignty with respect to human freedom.
........Pathetic.
Man's will is neither free nor absolute. The above "disagreement" flags synergism. God works through man, rather than with him. Reconciling the misnomer of the heresy of free will with the absolute sovereignty of God is a purely Arminian endeavor...Not to mention a pointless one.
There is no sound perichoresis between Arminianism and Calvinism and this attempt was Biblically and soteriologically irresponsible, to say the absolute least! If this is the best they could do, don't be surprised if the SBC continues to decline. Let me say frankly......
Rev Mohler is not a Calvinist because no Calvinist would grant an imprimatur to this sad attempt at conciliation between the factions.
Is there a cure for what ails the SBC? A real hope to heal the divide?
Indeed, there is- that's the good news! What the solution cannot tolerate nor will involve is a meshing of the Scriptural with the Scripturally equivocal or unsound. As latent hostility has morphed into blatant hostility for the Protestant faith in our society and government, such lukewarm fence straddling stratagems or postulates, such as the "determinations" of the SBC's Calvinism Advisory Committee, are luxuries we can ill afford! The keys are to eradicate the "New Calvinism" for the malignancy that is and to clearly demonstrate that Calvinism, via English Puritanism, was no less catalytic to the Baptist heritage than to the Presbyterian. These steps involve being ever mindful of history, our common confessional culture and above all, God's Word revealed in the Bible and treating His absolute sovereignty as though it's-just that- absolute! Therein lies the cure ............
Here are the "DON'T"s
* Curtail excessive references to John Calvin, or the term "Calvinism" for that matter.
Not doing so could easily cause Baptists, from either side of the quinquarticular aisle, to put their guards up. Remember that they hold themselves not to be Protestants. They trace their doctrinal lineage directly to the Apostle Paul. Even the most hard shelled of the Hard Shell Baptists are loathe-to say the least- to claim John Calvin in their "soteriological trajectory". In fact, they flat out don't do it!
* Do not emphasize mission during this particular conversation.
They have sense enough to read Mark 16 for themselves. Bear in mind that Reformed/ Primitive/ Strict Baptists are inherently anti- missional. The missional zeal exuded by the so-called "New Calvinists" threatens the standardization of social gospel; which tends to lean toward post-millennialism. If you cross those two wires, you'll sink your own credulity in witness!
Can the SBC Advisory Committee really wager a proper reconciliation between theology and the Great Commission when they've so clumsily endeavored to bridge the gap with the free will Armenians??!!
* Don't litanize the T.U.L.I.P, just expound on it.
The Canons of Dordrecht is an excellent confession. Its tone and judiciary style...I fell in love with it from day one. It's purpose was to renounce the Arminian remonstrance. Thing is, it's a Presbyterian canon and therefore could be seen as alien to those oblivious or indifferent to the jugular role it performed in shaping the thinking of men like Charles Haddon Spurgeon!
Which brings me to the "DO"s
* Introduce the uninitiated to the great Baptist expositors of what John Calvin himself called "mere Christianity".
Men like Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Benjamin Keach, John Gill or William Carrey. John Manning, Roger Williams, John Bunyan (Pilgrim's Progress)...they are part of the Baptist history and heritage and expounding on the mortal examples of these will appeal more to the proprietary sensibilities of the denominations members. In addition, it will, with God's intercession, draw the Arminian to sounder soteriology and enhancement of personal fulfillment on the Lord's Day!
The Calvinistic faction in the SBC is no less acutely aware than we are of the...shall we say...disjointedness (to put it nicely) of Mohler, John Piper and that set. They find the conciliatory tone of the committee's statement and the tone of the whole New Calvinist movement no less repugnant than we do. Therefore, focus on those gifted men who were the real deal!!!
* The Baptist confessions
The London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 will jettison the credulity of Covenant thinking; as it is a resplendent repository of Sovereign Grace theology. Keach's Catechism is yet another. The more you demonstrate Calvinism to be at the core of "Baptist biology", the better all around for the denomination's members who would benefit from their Biblically nutritional value.
* History
The oldest Baptist church in the United States is in Providence, Rhode Island. The current building, erected in 1775-1775, serves a congregation that was chartered in 1638. Its first pastor was the Calvinist Roger Williams, who founded the Rhode Island Colony! Granted, this church is tied to the American Baptist Churches/ USA; which is a mainline denomination. All the more reason, to my mind, to humbly ask God for strength, wisdom, courage and intrepidity in asserting and protecting our common evangelistic culture!
* Wait on the Lord- This is paramount-as it is in all other matters!!!!!
Regardless of the soundness of your outreach, a dissenter will hold his/ her position until God decrees otherwise. If we become unmindful of this, we risk making a false god out of theological scholasticism and debate. Remember that the hearts of the elect are not the potential spoils of doctrinal warfare-they are drawn to Christ by the Father.
By God's Grace, these steps will undoubtedly heal the rift by checking the errant tendencies of the Arminian and ennobling the Sovereign Grace adherent in the denomination to even greater witness for Christ. The so-called " New Calvinism" will ultimately find itself where it truly belongs......
I see in one place, God presiding over all in providence; and yet I see, and I cannot help seeing, that man acts as he pleases, and that God has left his actions to his own will, in a great measure.
Now, if I were to declare that man was so free to act, that there was no presidence of God over his actions, I should be driven very near to Atheism; and if, on the other hand, I declare that God so overrules all things, as that man is not free enough to be responsible, I am driven at once into Antinomianism or fatalism.
That God predestines, and that man is responsible, are two things that few can see. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory; but they are not. It is just the fault of our weak judgment. Two truths cannot be contradictory to each other.
If, then, I find taught in one place that everything is fore-ordained, that is true; and if I find in another place that man is responsible for all his actions, that is true; and it is my folly that leads me to imagine that two truths can ever contradict each other.
These two truths, I do not believe, can ever be welded into one upon any human anvil, but one they shall be in eternity: they are two lines that are so nearly parallel, that the mind that shall pursue them farthest, will never discover that they converge; but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all truth doth spring.- Charles Spurgeon
....forever in our hearts.....
Angela Cara Snow Jordan
1974-2013
This entry is dedicated to the memory of Mrs. Angela Cara Snow Jordan of Pennsylvania. She went home to be with the Lord the past August 30th in the 39th year of her age. She will be missed by many. Yet we cling to the joyous hope of gladsome reunion with all God's elect on the shores of the New Canaan at the Feet of the Promised Redeemer!!!
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