The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum A response to D.Ponter and T.Byrne's Dualism.

http://tartantalk.yuku.com/topic/411/t/-...-theology-.html

Blessings
Mark

Mark,

Others will doubtless welcome you more officially to the site later; for now, greetings in the blessed name of our Lord Christ.

It being bitter cold and dark here on the opposite side of your summery world, I did not read every word of your rejoinder to Mr. Ponter, but enough to follow the thrust of your argument. On the whole, you seem to have diligently applied the full weight of the Scriptures to his statements. (It is reassuring, is it not, to be able to turn to any page of the Bible and find echoes, if not shouts, of the glorious gospel of sovereign grace there, rather than having to constantly return, as others must, to the handful of passages they have wrested from the counsel of the whole based merely on the ambiguity of a word in our modern tongue?)

That said, please allow me to point out one apparent weakness. In your quite necessary development of the "payment of debt" required by God and accomplished by Christ, your presentation seems to lack a little clarity. Whereas reformed thought has found it helpful to differentiate the place of the passive obedience of Christ (His sacrificial death) and His active obedience (His perfect life) as being necessary for the satisfaction of divine justice, you have tended to speak as though the "debt payment" were accomplished almost exclusively by the former. For example, you state:
where you are clearly referring to passive obedience.

Your next sentence:
could be read as applying to either passive or active obedience, but the context, followed immediately by:
strongly favors passive.

Now since you do here go into a long section specifically on the difference between propitiation--in which the passive obedience is essential--and expiation, it makes sense to have emphasized that obedience. My point is that our redemption required not only propitiation, but active obedience; although one of the Westminster quotes mentions it, your own commentary seems to avoid the subject.

Finally, in your little catechism concerning the "debt payment" at the end, although you begin well with:
you soon enter upon shaky ground when you state:

You need to be more precise here in 2 ways:

1) the debt is most certainly not "sins committed"--we are not required to give God more sin!--but rather "the death penalty demanded for sins committed"

2) having dealt with the propitiation so thoroughly, you leave unsaid the solution for our above-mentioned lack of "perfect obedience to His law and a perfect righteousness before His presence".

This is where classical reformed preaching would spotlight Christ's active obedience, since were the propitiation, even having removed deserved wrath, to be unaccompanied by the imputed robe of righteousness--not only a perfect death, but a perfect life--we would still be as devoid of righteousness as a stone.

Spurgeon, on Job 9:2, having recounted the benefits of justification which come through Christ's death, then adds:

Thank you very much brother for your welcome and your very careful points made about my writing piece.

I wrote it up rather quickly and right off the top of my head, but that is not a good enough excuse for sloppiness!

I shall work upon editing it, in order that I present the necessary balance upon the two fold aspect of Christ's righteousness, as you so accurately picked up upon.

I agree with your comments entirely, and as one who has been discussing (on a side note!) "New Perspectivism" for over 4 years, I should have been more careful. Go figure!

At times, when we try to provide an apologetic response to one or two particular errors, we can sometimes present a corrective that itself leaves out some necessary information!

Arthur Pink warned about that very thing when he first wrote the "Sovereignty of God" so many years ago.

I will re-word the response to include what you have brought to my attention.

Also, not to justify what I have said, the reason I probably focused more upon the passive aspect, was more because Mr Ponter has a problem with actual "propitiation before God", and not so much of a problem with the active obedience aspect.

I kind of addressed or emphasised the completed and substitutionary aspect before the alter of God, and not so much upon the active obedience in the life of Jesus.

Do you understand what I mean?

Blessings
Mark

Mark,

I quite understand, and hope not to have conveyed the impression that one cannot address a single point of doctrine without simultaneously addressing all others! Rather, I think you would gain clarity by emending passages where you imply exclusion of active obedience, especially this one with its string of definitions:

into a more balanced form, as in:

at which point you would return to the necessity of propitiation.

Mark, without having read--and without the time or desire to read now--the position of your adversaries, I'm also curious to know in what sense you are using the term "dualism", which appears in your title and opening line but not thereafter, to describe their theology?

Permit me to interject just one thing here in regard to your apologetic against David Ponter &co. It has to do with the matter of "Propitiation", a term which has been the target of many over the years no doubt to the fact that the original and correct biblical use of the term is odious to their senses. For example, the translators of the RSV substituted "expiation" for "propitiation", the reason for doing so I will explain below. Also the NIV is even more objectionable where it has substituted, "sacrifice of atonement" for "propitiation".

The common thread that runs through and seems to be undergirding these substitutions is the aversion and/or outright rejection of the first of the two elements which propitiation addresses:

1. To appease the wrath of an offended party.
2. The removal of that which has caused the offense.

Due to the rampant infection of humanism into the modern church, it is held by the majority of professing Christians that "God loves you" (indiscriminately and without qualification), e.g., "God loves you just the way you are." Thus, there is no place for a God who is angry, never mind hates sinners. That truth too has been conveniently distorted and served up as, "God hates sin but loves the sinner." Thus the first element of propitiation has to do with God's wrath against sinners of which Christ effectively appeased.

The second element is the manner in which God's wrath was appeased, i.e., the removal of that which caused the offense to begin with; aka: sin. This Christ accomplished by becoming a substitute (Grk: huper, in behalf of) and receiving the just penalty/punishment due for the transgression of the law. In classic Reformed theology Christ's atonement is therefore referred to as being a "vicarious substitutionary" atonement.

Without BOTH of these two elements being acknowledged, the atonement of Christ is incorrectly understood and woefully diminished, i.e., made ineffective to deal with the problem of sinners being made right before and with God. And as Paul_S so wisely pointed out, a full atonement can only be secured when both Christ's active and passive obedience are acknowledged. If there is a logical order to Christ's atonement it would doubtless be, 1) Passive and 2) Active, albeit the perfect righteousness was secured before His crucifixion but temporally applied afterward. Having paid the penalty for sin/sinners (elect), Christ's righteousness is thus able to be applied (imputed) to those who believe. Without God's wrath first having been appeased and the offense removed, God would not and could not impute that alien righteousness to anyone; it's a legal matter. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

In His grace,

Yes, of course. When I wrote that piece I wasn't expecting to write to a wide audience, but rather those who have had some measure of acquaintance with Mr Ponter's views.

Best to let him define himself,


Incidentally, a response to the above assertion by Mr Ponter was provided by Rev. Matthew Winzer.Australian Free Church
Burnie, Tasmania.

He stated,

Thanks Paul, I have made an edit to the original to reflect exactly what you suggested.

Mark