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RenewingMinds
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The Journal
The following is a list of 2002 changes to the various related web sites or information bulletins. Most recent changes are shown first:
- 12/19/2002
- I've added to our growing collection of graphics in an effort to help visitors grasp differences in theological systems. Of course, these charts are created intentionally basic since it's very easy for them to become complex and overwhelming. See The Millennium.
- 12/15/2002
- Our Christmas card from our house to yours: The Lion and the Lamb
- 12/7/2002
- In working on The Theological Landscape, I came upon a noteworthy article written by postmillennialist P. Andrew Sandlin. Mr. Sandlin is both an articulate theonomist and gifted writer who is attempting to set a new theological course toward a "Catholic" Calvinism among theonomists. Of course by "Catholic", he currently means the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic” faith of so-called orthodox Christianity, as found during the "patristic and medieval eras." In spite of the many positives of Reformation tradition, he has grown both suspicious and weary and senses that theologically--something is seriously wrong. Mr. Sandlin is now in search of a more "holistic" faith.
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- I encourage you to read the entire article. We noted that Sandlin's disillusionment sounds very similar to those of Reformed author Leonard Verduin (1897-1999) in his 1964 book The Reformers and Their Stepchildren. Regarding the limitations of Reformation theology, Pauline Dispensationalist Miles J. Stanford wrote:
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"...we do not believe that the great defection within the Reformed church we observe today originated in an erroneous theology or deviation from a confessional tradition. Rather, we see these problems as the effects of a more profound problem — coldness or apostasy in the heart (Ezek. 6:9). If theological deviance is not the core problem, we do not believe that recovery of theological accuracy, essential though it may be, is the core solution. If men apostatize first not in their intellect but in what some Puritans called their “affections,” our initial concern for the church must be those affections." "We want a fervently Christ-centered rather than theology-centered Faith, though we fully recognize that there can be no legitimate Christ-centeredness without accurate theology." -- TOWARD A CATHOLIC CALVINISM |
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"Most of the depressing law burden placed on believers emanates from Calvinism and its Covenant theology. Many are unaware of the legalistic aspect of this teaching, since its tenets are well known for providing the Christian with the solid scriptural foundation of justification and eternal security. "The Covenant movement’s dependence upon law for spiritual growth is caused by a combination of errors. Reformation theology is anti-dispensational, and primarily restricted to two covenants, works and grace. Prophetic Scriptures are spiritualized, resulting in amillennialism. The church is considered to include the saints of all ages, the distinctive Body of Christ not being discerned. In thus merging Israel with born-again believers, the law is brought right on past Calvary and fastened upon the Christian. Throughout the realm of sanctification Covenant Calvinism fails "to distinguish the things that differ" (Phil. 1:10, ASV)." Calvinism emerged from the dark ages, but is still in the twilight — half in the shadow of the law, half in the light of the Saviour. It has a fleshly affinity for fetters, hence it is the life of the hang-dog heart, the wretchedness of Romans Seven. "If a Christian is under the law as a "rule of life," he is laboring in a doleful, gray, alien land of self-righteousness—he struggles to produce. The believer who learns to walk in the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has the joy of the Lord for his strength—he rests to receive." -- THE COMPLETE GREEN LETTERS |
It is sad that the anti-dispensational bias of the Reformed brethren forces them to turn back to medieval Christianity, rather than being able to move forward into the 19th century. If they could, they would discover the answer to the "coldness" and "apostasy in the heart". Our prayer is that some of them will, in fact, find freedom in the liberating truths put forth by the Apostle Paul. For further reading, see Arminius, to Calvin, to Paul.
- 11/30/2002
- As we from time-to-time drop in on various discussion groups and forums, our hearts go out to those caught in the theological confusion of the day. To help sort through some of the fundamental issues, I've begun working on several visuals. See the first two: The Theological Landscape and Jewish Covenants vs. The Church.
- 11/23/2002
- We wish to call to the attention of our mature readers another Pauline dispensational ministry—Present Truth Publishers (PTP) and author Roy A. Huebner. Brother Huebner is 71 years young and lives in New Jersey. Both Miles Stanford (MJS) and Roy Huebner (RAH) have spent many decades immersed in the writings of the original Plymouth Brethren (PBs) and in specific—John Nelson Darby and William Kelly. Brother Huebner has published his Thy Precepts booklet for several years and PTP carries his writings as well as reprints of many of the early PBs. Unlike Miles Stanford, Roy has maintained connections with the Closed Brethren and their issues of assemblyism. See A Brief History of the Plymouth Brethren by MJS.
- 11/11/2002
- Over the past four decades, so-called 'evangelical feminism' has brought great harm to the Body of Christ and its families. This largely liberal and postmodernist assault on conservative churches and Christians has sought to undermine or destroy two fundamental axioms of Christianity: the veracity of the Word of God and the Christian philosophy of knowledge (epistemology). While the feminist theological agenda of humanistic equality has been repelled by many (e.g., Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood), another distortion has been launched against God’s balanced and hierarchical pattern for marriage and family. This twist on truth asserts that a wife's individual responsibility before God (culpability for both SIN and SINS) is either set aside or altered by reason of the New Testament teaching of the headship of the husband. We are providing a refutation of this error. See Women’s Culpability.
- 11/6/2002
- We have successfully moved withChrist.org to a different and less expensive hosting company--93% savings! Time will tell regarding dependability. My discretionary time has been taken up with answering email and writing various articles on the subject of knowledge. The philosophic study of how and what we can know is called epistemology. As Dr. John Robbins has written in his signature article The Crisis of Our Time, western society has reached a crisis over the subject of knowledge and this crisis is at the heart of America's culture war. We have excerpted a portion of it here. While there are dozens of denominations and hundreds of cults, there are only three basic approaches to knowledge and religion--empiricism, rationalism, and Revelation. I recently created an article contrasting empiricism and rationalism with Revelation--> Contrasting Bases for Knowledge.
Brother Huebner's thesis attributes much of today’s confusion in dispensational circles (often a polemic topic for MJS) to the covenant theological influence of Isaac Watts and the theological synthesizing of C. I. Scofield. According to Roy, "Scofieldian Dispensational Age-ism" began as a blend of Issac Watts’ covenant scheme of ages and incorporated various Pauline truths recovered by Darby—e.g, the distinction between the church as heavenly people and Israel as an earthly people, the pre-tribulational rapture, postponement of the Kingdom, the distinction between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven, and a removal of covenantism. Subsequently, Scofield developed a system of “dispensational age-ism”, and together with others in 19th century America, launched what has today become known as “Normative, Traditional, or Classic” Dispensationalism. Huebner argues that Scofield's system is inherently unstable; adherents being either dragged back into covenantism or wind up in some form of ultradispensationalism. All the details are documented in his Dispensational Truth, Volume 1. He also has much to say regarding Progressive Dispensationalism (what he calls "Covenant Pretribulationism") as well as post-Acts 2 (ultra) Dispensationalism (variants of Scofieldism).
"Progressive Dispensationalism" is a self-congratulatory name. Presently, the political climate in the USA is such that political "liberals" seeking to avoid the label of being "liberals," are starting to call themselves "progressives."
In reality this self-styled "Progressive Dispensationalism" is neither progressive nor dispensationalism. Why accord its adherents the self-flattering, delusive label? I propose calling it Covenant Pretribulationism because it is a form of covenantism through its advocates still affirm belief in the pretribulation rapture. When they, and/or their students, jettison the pretribulation rapture, they will be covenant postribulationists, sometimes called covenant premillennialists."
Also interesting is his book: J. N. Darby's Teachings Regarding Dispensations, Ages, Administrations.
Starting in the May/June 2002 edition of Thy Precepts, Roy began a series entitled God's Sovereignty and Glory in the Salvation of Lost Man. Roy mentioned to me that of late, the importance of this issue has been increasingly driven home to him. Overall, he makes many good points and clearly rejects the humanistic notion of free will for post-Fall Adam and his progeny. Further, he accurately defines sin as disobedience to God's character and will, rather than simply transgression of revealed Law. However, he falls short of making any distinction between so-called autonomous free will and volition, and employs the term "moral free will" in describing Adam's state before the Fall.
We would suggest that all concepts of autonomous free will (not volition) are forms of self-deception. Adam was created in a state of obedience as John N. Darby so accurately points out below. Our future glorification will be a confirmed state of obedience--being severed from the life of the First Adam (both positionally AND conditionally), with Christ exclusively our Life!
Man was created in a given relationship with God; morality consisted in walking in that relationship. But that relationship was obedience. There he could have continued simple and happy, and not set himself free of God.
If all this be so, man was perfectly at liberty as to what he might do as put to the test, but the exercise of will or choosing was just sin, obedience being his place with God. He was created in good, and had it not to choose; now he [via his progeny] loves sin and his own will, and has to be delivered from it. Letters, Vol. II, page 167, 168.
Note! Our mention of Present Truth Publishers and author Roy A. Huebner should not be interpreted as an A-Z endorsement, and particularly so of the realm of Exclusive/Closed Brethren. Beware! RAH's works, similar to the original writings of the PBs, are voluminous and one needs years to simply read them. Christians must exercise discernment at all times; glean the gold, discard the chaff. Further, we do NOT recommend RAH's book From New Birth to New Creation as it contains several questionable soteriological theories and assertions.
"Dispensational truth is the unfolding of God's glory in Christ, manifested in two spheres, the heavenly and the earthly." Pauline Dispensationalism is, in part, distinguished by the truth that the New Testament contains not one but two Gospels. See The Dispensational Gospels and Dual Gospels.
- 9/6/2002
- Someone's computer, who had our withChrist.org address in their email address book, is currently infected with the W32.Klez.H@mm worm (virus). According to Symantec, "This worm often uses a technique known as email 'spoofing.' When it performs its email routine, it can use a randomly chosen address that it finds on an infected computer as the 'From:' address. Numerous cases have been reported in which users of uninfected computers received complaints that they sent an infected message to someone else."
- Our computers are protected with Norton Antivirus using up-to-date virus definitions. Our host vendor is a national with state-of-the-art security and virus protection. No virus is being launched from us or withChrist.org. When we receive email containing any virus, it is immediately quarantined and burned. As an added protection, this anti-virus software scans all outgoing mail to insure that it is 100% virus free. Unfortunately, we are unaware of any steps that we can take to stop this from happening. However, we do encourage everyone to install and maintain either Norton or McAfee anti-virus software on their computers.
- 8/18/2002
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"Ever since Origen designated the first-century canonical writings the "New Testament" many Christians have commonly assumed [erroneously] a direct relationship between the church and the New Covenant of Jeremiah 31:31-34." Dr. John R. Master, The New Covenant, ISSUES IN DISPENSATIONALISM, 1994, Moody Press.
- The subject of Israel's New Covenant, and the conjecture of its relationship to the New Creation believer and the Body of Christ--the Church, remain a hot topic in dispensational circles. Like the doctrine of the Fall, the subject of the New Covenant is a 'watershed' issue in Christendom. Slowly, growing believers are awakening to the consequences of this error. Miles Stanford wrote several articles on the subject since it was and is a corollary for dealing with the rise of Neo or Progressive Dispensationalism. A sweep of withChrist.org via our search link will locate 120 related references to the "New Covenant". However, Miles' article The Progressive's KINGDOM CHURCH is a good introduction to what is occurring in today's dispensational circles.
- 8/17/2002
- We continue to receive sharp words from messianic disciples of Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum. As one would expect, the Messianic Movement (the "different gospel" mentioned in Paul's Epistle to the Galatians) is the 'land of leaven'. Tragically, even the so-called 'grace-oriented' factions (with their pseudo-Gospel of "New Covenant Theology") remain law-oriented in their soteriology of the Christian life--following the long-standing tradition of Protestant Reformed/Covenant theology. These believers struggle to avoid the larger chains of those Messianics who advocate "strict Torah observances". It is rather remarkable to observe the similarities between the Hebrew Christians vs.Torah Observers and their Reformed vs. Reconstructionist gentile counterparts. Bondage X 4. A fellow at work (disillustioned charismatic Southern Baptist) who recently became Messianic informed me, "The 614 laws of the Torah are not a burden and easy to keep!" My friend must have received his "Southern Baptism".
- 7/27/2002
- Having returned from a bit of vacation, I'm in the process of getting caught up with a backlog of email. And amongst the email to withChrist.org are a number of financial scams being promoted by individuals and groups based primarily in countries located in the Middle East and Africa. As reported in the media, some of these groups likely have links to terrorism and the Islamic jihad being waged against the West. A word of warning may be appropriate to Christians who sadly are naive as to how these scams operate. Currently, two popular themes (with several variations) are circulating on the Internet. The first involves a plea to help in protecting a large cache of wealth owned by a royal family in exile. The second involves a request to contribute to "your ministry" based on a "revelation from God". In both cases, the scam involves checking account and wire transfer fraud. Those who are duped are sent a large dollar-denominated counterfeit check or draft and are instructed to deposit the item at their local financial institution. If successful with the deposit, they later receive instructions to wire a majority of these bogus funds to an overseas location--while being instructed to keep a small handling fee or promised that the next check is their to keep. The scam exploits a number of potential weaknesses in the modern banking system and harms all of us as the banks must absorb the losses.
- 6/15/2002
- While work continues on the article mentioned below (4/4 & 4/15), I've posted MJS's polemic review of Renald Shower's THERE REALLY IS A DIFFERENCE! - A Comparison of Covenant and Dispensational Theology for those waiting. This excellent paper deals with several of the soteriological issues swirling about. No matter what the similarities between Christian regeneration today and Israel's New Covenant (INC) regeneration in the future, there really are major differences. On a very practical level, those who teach that new-creation Christians are the benefactors of so-called "spiritual benefits" of INC, cripple believers from taking their heavenly position and ultimately bind them with neo-Puritan legalism. For example, read our observations regarding Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum.
- 6/01/2002
- Readers would do well to obtain a copy of The New Tolerance by Josh McDowell and Bob Hostetler, Tyndale House Publishers. The authors have done a superb job in making a difficult subject (postmodern thinking and bigotry) understandable to the average Christian reader. A subtle reign of terror has descended upon America and America's conservative Christians and few are prepared to endure, much less counter the deception, hate and intolerance sweeping our society.
- 5/25/2002
- A few have written asking about Dave Hunt's book What Love Is This? Calvinism's Misrepresentation of God. Our comments can be found under the Where They Stand, and Fall Gallery website. See specifically, Other Christian Humanists.
- 5/05/2002
- In an effort to reveal to visitors the extensive warehouse of resources available at withChrist.org, I have begun the monumental task of developing dynamic menus. When complete, these menu systems can be evoked with one click of your mouse and will be available to users of such popular browsers as Internet Explorer 4.0 and above; Netscape 4.x; 6.0 and above; Mozilla 5.0, and Opera 6.0 and above.
- 4/25/2002
- Today's 'Galatianized' church exists with one foot in Romans 7:5 and the other--tragically in Romans 2:17-24. A fair amount of confusion continues to circulate in dispensational circles regarding the meaning of Romans 6--the only way of escape from the rampant legalism and carnality of the day. Some maintain that an understanding of the original Greek text is sufficient to settle the matter; however, church history has surely proved them wrong. Erasmus, arch-enemy of the Reformation and Luther's foe, was a brilliant scholar of the original languages. Yet Erasmus had no knowledge of God's sovereign grace. We are posting another one of Miles Stanford's Polemic Papers titled ROMANS 6:6. Please take time to study this closely as it will help sharpen your focus upon the true meaning of this critical portion of the Apostle Paul's epistle.
- 4/15/2002
- Related to the comment at 4/4/2002, work continues on
an article titled The Soteriological Differences Between
- 4/4/2002
- During the last years of his ministry, Miles Stanford
published numerous Polemic Papers documenting the decline of historic
dispensational theology. We have been working step-by-step to make
these available online. For example, see
From Essence to Quintessence: A Dispensational Delineation.
By “decline” he meant the progressive and widespread adoption of Reformed/Puritan views in the area of salvation (soteriology), and particularly sanctification. Since the 1960's, dispensational views extant for 125 years (1825 to 1950) have been sullied as recent theological "innovations". This situation likely came about through "an emphasis upon soteriological continuity" advanced during the 1950s and 1960s.
As drifting dispensational leaders and believers increasingly came to herald the Reformed/Puritan tradition and embrace a Synoptic Gospel-centered discipleship for Christian living, the absence of the believer's identification with Christ to experientially crucify the Adamic life has opened the door for further doctrinal accommodations. e.g., the “Progressive” Dispensational (PD) movement and Covenant Premillennialism in traditional dispensational realms.
Over the past two decades, these so-called dispensationalists have laid claim to the label “normative” or "centrist" and have accused those who hold to traditional dispensationalism of being: extreme, arcane, antinomian, hyper, ultra, etc. True, many of these progressives still tout a premillennial eschatology as well as a normal-literal hermeneutic, but their theology is always under revision (ever sliding) and not stable. There is growing defection in their ranks; a growing acceptance of all things 'Reformed'.
- 2/1/2002
- Given the continued spread of 'Christian' feminism into conservative evangelical realms and the recent stealth introduction of the "gender-neutral" (inclusive) Bible translation: Today's New International Version- TNIV, readers may find the article Miles & Cornelia Stanford: On the Role of Women and Ministry of particular interest.
- 1/19/2002
- We have enhanced and are making our Copyright Notice more prominent to prevent unauthorized reproduction of materials found at our websites. For basic information about copyright, see http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html
- 1/3/2002
- On January 2, my 79 year old mother went to be with the Lord. Over the past several months her health had deteriorated and on Wednesday afternoon she stepped into the presence of His glory while sleeping at a local nursing home. In that I am handling all her affairs and making funeral arrangements, your email will likely go unanswered for the next week or so. I have made available her testimony to being "born again", as it wonderfully speaks to our lost condition as offspring of the First Adam and to the Lord's sovereignty in salvation. Please pray that the Lord will use this document to touch those in attendance at the funeral and far beyond.
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