Hi Mike,

I share some of your concerns. I'll address them individually.

In reply to:
[color:"blue"] This is a major problem, using familar terms with new meanings. First, it breeds confusion as the flocj tries to communicate and cannot.



Agreed.

In reply to:
[color:"blue"]Some of these who are following after the Auburnites cling to these new deinitions as if they were always so.



I would not express the force of their claim as if they were always so, but that they were so at previous times in Reformed history.

In reply to:
[color:"blue"] Second, it is exactly what cults do. Cults distort the famolar terms in order to introduce heretical teachings. The familar terms mislead since they have new definitions.



Cults also read the Bible, which does not implicate anyone who reads his Bible as being in a cult. To jump from calling into question the wisdom of introducing modified language to intentional distortion for the purpose of introducing heretical teachings is overextension.

In reply to:
[color:"blue"] Thirdly, what is the purpose of changing definitions, if one is not changing a doctrine.



The reason, according to Wilson, for introducing the paradigm that they have is to return to the mindset of our forefathers in the Reformed faith. Unlike some have charged, they are not claiming the church has been "wrong about Justification" since the time of the Reformation and even beforehand. His gripe is with the Post-Enlightenment mindset, an 18th-19th century innovation, and the way in which "Enlightenment Reformed" folks go about interpreting our forefathers. Hence their purpose for introducing modified language is to deal with the problems introduced by enlightenment thought and return to a Reformational (Medieval) mindset. Are their observations and conclusions about Post-Enlightenment thought and Medieval thought accurate? I don't know and I don't believe myself to be qualified to say at this point.

In reply to:
[color:"blue"] The whole purpose it seems to me, is to undercut the New Covenant by changing what it is into what the OC was. From a covenant that is unbreakable and that has overcome the problem of the old [that the people were unfaithful] to one that is breakable and fails to overcome the unfaithfulness of the covenant people.



Ah, so now you have people in the Old Covenant who are able to break God's covenant, which means they are able to lose their salvation, and now you're the heretic Mike! I say this in genuine jest, but for a point. You see, I believe the Covenant of Grace is one in essence with that of the old, and hence those with whom God established His covenant throughout all ages were only the elect. The outward administration of it has been given to both elect and non-elect, and that can be broken in either dispensation, but the inward administration by God's sovereign grace is never breakable whether Old or New. As Paul said about the OT saints it is the children of the promise who are counted as the seed. Hence, if I were to interpret your comments in light of my own understanding of the covenant, you would be teaching heresy. [img]http://www.the-highway.com/w3timages/icons/grin.gif" alt="grin" title="grin[/img]

Sincerely in Christ,

~Jason