19 comments

1. I’m afraid the statement is sheer Pietism. All the talk about revival (and revivalism) is a big distraction from the proclamation of the Gospel – in the here and now, in the living present … (for you).

   Even if (speaking as a Lutheran – Bondage of the Will) one does get the “for you” in the preaching in the Reformed Churches, at least remember your Baptism and listen to the Words of Institution (“Body broken for you,” Blood shed for you” not so much as narration but proclamation).

   The Spirit is NEVER apart from the external Word. The external Word *precedes* the Spirit such that the Spirit *proceeds* from the Word.

   Faith is only and alone created by proclamation alone (this is the true meaning of sola fide, sola Scriptura). Faith comes from the outside and is always extra nos – for faith clings to the external Word; otherwise faith collapses into itself – which is the paradigm of revival (and revivalism). Faith then is based on human experience and is intensely human only in so far as it is *extra nos* – otherwise it’s the *Old* Adam (with his divine ambition and the opinio legis – the legal way of thinking all over again).

2. Read Machen’s last sentence again: “A man who is really on fire with his message never talks in that feeble and compromising way, but proclaims the gospel plainly and boldly in the presence of every high thing that is lifted up against the gospel of Christ.”

   Machen stands for the plain, bold proclamation of the Gospel. I contend that he sees this sort of preaching as foundational to the revival that he looks for, a revival which is nothing less than God turning His face once again to His people and pouring out an abundance of blessing as they first humble themselves and confess their sins and seek His face.

   Revival–true Biblical revival–is distinct from revivalism, just as piety is distinct and opposite from pietism. Machen did not shrink from the day-to-day proclamation of the Word of God. He simply looked for God to eventually and abundantly bless that faithful proclamation with a great harvest, a great monergistic harvest of souls, wrought by God alone. It is that blessing that we call revival.

3. Actually there’s very little difference between the Wesleyan, Whitefieldian and Edwardian revivals and revivalism. Therein lies the problematic – the theological and pastoral problematic. This is why even the Toronto Blessing folks can appeal to the Edwardian revival.

   Whilst we are thankful for saved souls – we must also seek to preserve confessional purity – which is incompatible with revival. Then again large scale conversions such as that happened in say Korea is not exactly the same as in parts of Africa – both of which we are thankful. The revivals in West Africa are characterised by signs and wonders. On the other hand, at the risk of simplification, the revivals in East Africa are characterised by the proclamation of the Gospel in Word and Sacraments by e.g. the Lutheran churches.

   The *wider* social and political implication being that whilst in East Africa, the advance of Sharia law was halted by the military struggle of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and the presence of Christian nation of Ethiopia, the situation in West Africa is bit more fluid politically since both Christians and Muslims share power with Nigeria as the most prominent example.

   IOW, I view revivals accompanied by signs and wonders as incompatible with Reformation piety but necessary as a social phenomenon to check the advance of Islam and Sharia law.

   And again, what do we make of Muslims to turning to Christ through visions and dreams? OTOH, for the sake of the Gospel in Word and Sacraments, we have reject such testimonies. OTOH, we are happy that Muslims are apparently being converted through visions and dreams. So discernment is very critical – especially in this day and age., we must exercise discernment.

   Revivals are therefore not necessary the work of the Gospel as understood in the sense of the Reformation. The Reformation glory in ordinary means – the theology of the cross – salvation comes through earthly means. To be justified is to be made human all over again – the New *Adam.* Revivals in the past are to be critically evaluated in light of the Reformation Gospel of justification by faith alone. Revivals in Africa and parts of Asia where Islam is either dominant or a major force (such as Indonesia and India) are best understood as a social phenomenon as providing a buffer against the *modern-day* day advance of Islam and Sharia law.

   That is to say, instead of praying for revival we should support the confessional cause of promoting the proclamation of the Gospel in Word and Sacraments alone as the means of salvation – regeneration, repentance, faith, conversion, justification, sanctification and glorification.

   The Reformed and Presbyterian tradition does not need to go the way of contemporary conservative Anglicanism where liturgy is married to Charismaticism – where mitre wearing bishops speak in tongues (true Anglicans, i.e. Reformation Anglicans are few and far between in the US and even more scarce to find in the UK). The Reformed and Presbyterian tradition glory in the preaching of the Gospel according to the sovereignty of God in all times and all places. Like confessional Lutheranism, the Reformed and Presbyterian believe that when the external Word comes, the Spirit comes so that Jesus could say in His day that “Repent, for the Kingdom IS within YOU ” here and now, in the living present and so it remains true ever since.

   And remember the “preamble” to the 95 theses? The whole life of the Christian is repentance – this is true Christian piety. Not to seek a higher experience such as Wesleyanism, Pentecostalism and so on. The DEATH of the Old Adam and the RESURRECTION of the New Adam on a daily basis – what more could be more glorious than that? The Kingdom of God is advancing – untrammeled, unhindered, un-thwarted because the foundation of Gospel preaching is election and predestination.

   Proclamation therefore is nothing more and nothing less than the electing of the ungodly. This is the foundation of the Reformation understanding of the ministry which unleashes the POWER of God unto salvation. Only by FAITH can we see and understand that God hides His omnipotence sub contrario, i.e. contrary to our senses except by way of *hearing.* Thus, faith alone is the sum total of Christian piety for the just shall walk by faith alone …

4. Jason Loh wrote on July 31, 2013 @ 4:10 AM: “Actually there’s very little difference between the Wesleyan, Whitefieldian and Edwardian revivals and revivalism.”

   I cannot agree with that at all.

   Whitefield and Edwards taught total depravity. Wesley didn’t. That is a very major difference which has very major consequences.

   Again, you wrote: “This is why even the Toronto Blessing folks can appeal to the Edwardian revival.”

   I grant your point that some charismatics do appeal to Jonathan Edwards and the First Great Awakening.

   Men like Martyn Lloyd-Jones have actually studied the issue and come to conclusions with which I disagree. There are five-point charismatics out there, and some of their arguments are fairly complex and require both historical analysis and complex exegesis to refute. In general, those people admit that Edwards and Calvin would have disagreed with them on glossolalia, but appeal to the Reformed principle of Sola Scriptura and say they like much of what Edwards wrote but disagree with him on key points. In principle that’s fine — we follow an infallible Christ, and regard Calvin as a guide, not as the goal — but when the hard work of exegesis gets done, I think Reformed Christians who affirm that the Holy Spirit does not act contrary to Holy Writ will not end up anywhere close to the modern charismatic movement. That’s true even if we grant that God may occasionally do extraordinary things in unusual circumstances.

   However, it seems patently obvious that anyone involved in the Toronto Blessing who cites Edwards as precedent for what is happening in that movement has failed to read or understand Edwards’ “Treatise on the Religious Affections.” When manifestations of things that might arguably be considered charismatic phenomena broke out, Edwards, Whitefield, and nearly all of the leaders of the First Great Awakening rebuked them in the strongest possible terms, regarding those manifestations as emotionalism rather than as signs of conversion.

   • Darrell,

     Read the chapter on Edwards et al in RRC. The differences between the first and second great awakenings aren’t as great as sometimes thought.

5. Darrell,
   Also read the book on Whitefield, “The Divine Dramatist,” by Harry Stout.

6. To say there was little difference between the first and second great awakening and revivalism is to say there was little difference between Asahel Nettleton (the Edwardsian) and Charles Finney (the Revivalist), which is obviously a great error.

7. I agree with Clark that the differences between first and second are not as great as advertised. Edwards’ revivalist “realism” undermined the good news of imputed legal righteousness.

   McDermott: “for Edwards,God has decided that at the moment when a person trusts in Christ, that person becomes so really united with Christ’s person, that imputation is not merely legal but based on God’s perception of a new real fact, which is the new moral character of the person called Christ who now includes (by real union) what used to be the sinner.”

   Edwards seems to agree with Osiander (and the early Luther) that the righteousness of Christ which justifies us is not foundationally legal but instead “the presence of Christ” indwelling.

   The tradition leading from Jonathan Edwards to Andrew Fuller (the New England theology) tends to identify regeneration and effectual calling as the “real union” and then it tends to identify this “union-as-application” with the atonement itself.

   What many “Calvinists” today (Amyraldians, the folks who keep saying that tulip is not where it’s at) mean by definite atonement is that the “real union” makes the atonement definite. Thus revivalists tend to make the Holu Spirit’s work to be the real difference instead of Christ’s death.

   Edwards in his book on justification asks “whether any other act of faith besides the first act has any concern in our justification, or how far perseverance in faith, or the continued and renewed acts of faith, have influence in this affair?” Edwards answers that works after justification should not be considered separate from the initial act of faith. Edwards thought of perseverance as a part of the original act of saving faith, “the qualification on which the congruity of an interest in the righteousness of Christ depends, or wherein such a fitness consists.”

   By virtue of “union” with Christ, Edwards claims– “ faith is a very excellent qualification” (p. 154), “one chief part of the inherent holiness of a Christian”.

   “The act of justification has no regard to anything in the person justified BEFORE THIS ACT. God beholds him only as an ungodly or wicked creature; so that godliness IN the person TO BE justified is not ANTECEDENT to his justification as to be the ground of it” (p. 147)

   For Edwards, justification finds its primary ground “in Christ,” in Christ’s righteousness, AND ITS SECONDARY GROUND “in us,” that is, in faith defined as a disposition, as a “habit and principle in the heart” (p. 204).

   While I do not agree with Machen’s explanation of works before and after faith (notes on Galatians), Machen (unlike Edwards) knew that justification is not grounded at all in any sense on any kind of our works.

8. “Edwards seems to agree with Osiander (and the early Luther) that the righteousness of Christ which justifies us is not foundationally legal but instead “the presence of Christ” indwelling.”

   Dear Mark,

   If I may, I would like to debunk the misconception promoted by the Finnish Luther School as exemplified by Tuomo Mannermaa which partly motivated by ecumenism especially vis-à-vis Eastern Orthodoxy that Luther held to the indwelling presence of Christ which justifies. The Finnish Luther thesis has no credence in confessional Lutheranism whether the Bondage of the Will type or Lutheran Orthodoxy (Book of Concord). Unless of course you were referring to the pre-evangelical breakthrough Luther.

   Luther’s evangelical breakthrough meant that justification or righteousness refers to whole person – of Christ and not just His divine ‘essence.’ This means that justification or righteousness as gift refers to the *Person* and therefore not Nature (‘essence’). Thus, for Luther it is not so much that Christ is incorporated into us but we are incorporated into Christ. Another important inter-related/ co-related aspect is that the evangelical breakthrough meant that the critical distinction between possessing and owning comes to into force. Because the righteousness of Christ refers to the Person of Christ Himself, we can only possess but *never* own (proprietorship) the Person of Christ(!) So, indwelling is completely and absolutely excluded. All these aspects of Luther thought on justification can be summed up by the term, EXTRA NOS (from the *outside* only and always).

   Luther’s evangelical breakthrough was also developed in close connection, in fact, to be more precise, better still arose out of his thinking on the Sacraments, which at the time include penance. Luther’s justification breakthrough was influenced by his thinking on the Sacraments. The Absolution pronounced by the priest no longer indicate was the prior (assumption of) contrition and repentance of the penitent.

   Luther’s Reformational discovery was that the Absolution – that is the word of forgiveness itself is the PROMISE that does what it says and says what it does there and then, in the here and now, in the living present. Hence Baptism is the deed that kills the Old Adam and raises up anew the New Adam; the Lord’s Supper kills the Old Adam by the same communication idiomatum or exchange of properties where Jesus gives His Body and Blood so that we participate in His death and resurrection.

   In all of these the death of the Old Adam and the resurrection of the New Adam is in opposition to any concept of the indwelling of Christ in a *continuous living subject.* The whole person of the Old Adam is done away with so that the whole person of the New Adam which is completely discontinuous thereof can be re-created.

   Which brings me to the last point, namely that for Luther, imputation is not legal or purely declarative (i.e. it is not a verdict). Luther’s understanding of the FORENSIC nature of imputation is that the Word does what it says and says what it does – that is, it is (re)creative – the new creation which is why justification is by faith alone since the eschatological reality is hidden in the present age (representing overlapping of the two aeons).

   The purely legal understanding of justification whereby it is a verdict became official Protestant orthodoxy from Melanchthon onwards.

   On Jonathan Edwards, you’re right. Please refer to Jonathan Edwards and the Catholic Vision of Salvation by Anri Morimoto about Edward’s theological affinity with Roman Catholicism not least on infusion.

9. This in turn brings me to the affinity and parallel (in response to Mr Darrell T Maurina and Richard et al) by the Edwardian and Whitefieldian revivals with medieval Catholicism which I would like highlight here in terms of preaching. Basically, what I would like to say is that the preaching of these revivals (whilst not appealing to free-will such as the later ones as exemplified by Finney) appealed to pathos or emotion.

   This was grounded in a theology which strikingly parallels that with medieval spirituality and piety. In the case of the latter, the sinner’s initial conversion is normally moved by love aroused by the Cross. Then mercy is bestowed. But the Christian – following the Augustinian schema – stands between past mercy and future judgment. Pastorally, the Christian treads a very fine line between presumption and despair. This is because whilst the Crucified Christ is love, the Returning Christ is judgment.

   This is then the temporal sequence or paradigm in which medieval Catholicism and the Protestant (Puritan) revivals converge. The only difference is in the ‘re-arrangement’ of the temporal sequence.

   Where medieval Catholicism assumes love first and then followed by judgment, Protestant (Puritan) revivalism assumes spiritual terror only to be followed love. Hence the Protestant (Puritan) version of the ‘dark night of soul.’

   Thus as shown in Edward’s sermons such as Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, there is a need or expectation to produce spiritual terror and then only spiritual relief manifested by love.

   But this is occur because there is no proper distinction between Law and Gospel. One of the dimension’s of Luther’s breakthrough – breaking through the opinion legis (legal scheme) via the proper distinction between Law and Gospel – resulted in the resolution of the two separate phases in the Christian life. IOW, judgment (alien work/ opus alienum) as an eschatological event occurs now in the living present and is executed in temporal sequence *before* the bestowal of mercy (opus proprium). There is no escape/ exit. This is the function of the theological use of the Law. The sinner under proclamation is killed/ destroyed completely by the Law only to be raised up anew by the Gospel.

   The proclamation is nothing else but the “extension” in time and space of the Cross. This is why justification is eschatological – which Protestant Orthodoxy understands the legal verdict brought forward from the future into the present.

10. Thus, the difference between the Reformation and the Puritan revivalists (as exemplified by Edwards, Whitefield) is the difference between preaching as proclamation and preaching as a form of speech (for lack of a better term that I can think of).

    Proclamation means that the Word (i.e. the text) is done to the hearer. The *Word* does what it says and say what it does.

    In revival preaching, the preacher assumes that he needs to complement and supplement his preaching with theatrics (again for lack of better term) so that the Word becomes or is reduced to one aspect in preaching.

    But as St Pauls says, preaching the Law kills and preaching the Gospels makes alive.

11. Lee Irons: I recently learned that many scholars think Luther did not hold to the concept of imputed righteousness. The scholars who belong to this camp are typically associated with the so-called “Luther Renaissance” that took place in the first half of the 20th century, mainly under the influence of the German church historian Karl Holl (1886–1926).

    Holl argued that Luther’s discovery of the Protestant doctrine of justification occurred earlier than typically thought, during the time of his lectures on the Psalms (1513-14), before his lectures on Romans (1515-16), and before the 95 theses (1517). The problem is that at this early stage, Luther had not yet made his break with Rome. He was an Augustinian but not yet a Protestant. In his lectures on the Psalms and on Romans, he confuses justification and sanctification, views justification as a process of moral transformation, and does not affirm imputation. Holl elevated the young Luther as the benchmark of Luther’s thought, and explained the rise of the doctrine of imputed righteousness by claiming that this was Melanchthon’s creation and that this doctrine of Melanchthon was then later made the standard of Lutheran orthodoxy in the Augsburg Confession and the Formula of Concord. It is the Lutheran version of the (now discredited) “Calvin vs. the Calvinsts (aka Reformed scholastics)” thesis.

    The Holl thesis has influenced many. For example, Mark A. Seifrid, in his chapter in the book Justification: What’s At Stake in the Current Debates (ed. Mark Husbands and Daniel J. Treier [IVP/Apollos, 2004], 137-52), argues that Melanchthon is the father of the concept of imputed righteousness, and that this is a betrayal of Luther’s more dynamic view in which justification is a verdict that takes place through the event of the cross and resurrection.

    (mark: Seifrid opposes the Finnish view but supports the Forde view that the atonement is delivered by preaching. Of course Forde even denied that Christ’s death was satisfaction to God’s law!)

    Lee Irons: I found out the hard way about Seifrid’s dependence on the Holl thesis when I received his comments on my dissertation as the external reader. Seifrid was criticial of me for being too influenced by classic Reformed theology and not grasping the interpretation of Luther promoted by “the Luther renaissance,” which Seifrid seems to equate with his reading of Paul’s view. Seifrid also lamented the fact that this view of Luther is widely accepted in Europe but hardly known in America.

    I was taken aback by Seifrid’s comment and decided to dig into this issue a bit. I discovered three good responses to the view that Melanchthon and Luther were widely different on the issue of imputation:

    Armand J. Boehme, “Tributaries into the River JDDJ: Karl Holl and Luther’s Doctrine of Justification,” Logia 18.3 (2009): 9ff.

    Lowell C. Green, How Melanchthon Helped Luther Discover the Gospel (Fallbrook: Verdict Publications, 1980).

    R. Scott Clark, “Iustitia Imputata Christi: Alien or Proper to Luther’s Doctrine of Justification?” Concordia Theological Quarterly 70 (2006): 269-310.

    Clark writes:

    “Scholars have too often focused on what Heiko Oberman called the ‘romantic and unrealistic’ notion of a ‘one-time breakthrough.’ For example, Holl failed to recognize the development of Luther’s theology in the period 1513–1521. As a consequence, he used as a baseline to determine Luther’s doctrine of justification things Luther said in that period but that he later rejected. It is more historical to say that gradually, from 1513 to 1521, Luther came to reject the doctrine of progressive justification in favor of the forensic doctrine of definitive justification” (287-88).

    According to Clark, the three places where Luther most clearly expounds his mature doctrine of justification are his lectures on Galatians (1535) (especially his comments on Gal 2:16) and in two disputations on justification (both held in 1536). To give one quote from the second disputation of 1536 in the home of Johannes Bugenhagen, right at the very outset, Melanchthon asks Luther if he believes that man is righteous by intrinsic renewal, as Augustine taught, or by a truly gracious imputation which is outside of us. Luther’s response is straightforward and unambiguous:

    “I think this, and am most persuaded and certain that this is the true opinion of the Gospel and of the Apostles, that only by a gracious imputation are we righteous before God” (quoted by Clark, 303).

    (mark: By all means read Seifrid’s reading of this encounter.)

    http://upper-register.typepad.com/blog/2011/05/luther-and-melanchthon-on-imputation.html

12. (Like Schreiner and Caneday) Seifrid argues that the language of “evidence” cuts the nerve between faith and obedience in Paul (Christ, Our Righteousness: Paul’s Theology of Justification, New Studies in Biblical Theology 9 [Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 2000], 148).

    His comments on James 2: “Works therefore are not only evidence of faith; they are integral to it”.
    “James freely draws the conclusion that the justification of Abraham and Rahab was based upon works, as it is likewise for all others (2:21, 24, 25)”.
    “Justification must ultimately be by works, because works are faith’s perfection” (180).

    “Both understand that our justification at the last judgment will be based upon works. Both understand that these works belong to faith, and that they are God’s works not our own” (182).

    mark: of course I disagree with Seifrid. The non-elect will be judged on the basis of/according to works/by the books. But the justified elect whose names are written in “the other book” have already been judged in Christ’s death. See the tremendous chapter on this in Fesko’s book on justification.

13. http://justandsinner.blogspot.com/2013/04/fordes-essay-whatever-happened-to-god.html

    mark: Forde seems to be a good fit for Anglicans and others who don’t think doctrine is strictly necessary for being a Christian. Romans 6: 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed….

    Jordan Cooper: In Forde’s words, “Proclamation means finally to stop talking about it, and actually to give it. It means not talking about God, but speaking for God.” (43) The question I have is: Can we really proclaim something directly without simultaneously speaking about something? When I proclaim to my congregation “Your sins are forgiven” there is implied objective content behind what I am saying. Behind the proclamation is the teaching that Christ is God and man, died on the cross for sins, and rose from the dead.

    I fear that Forde, taking a cue from Barth, privileges act over being. He constantly speaks of of Christology in these terms: “What happened to God is Jesus.” (48) Talk of action, of doing, takes precedence over talk of being, or of something that is a metaphysical reality. Forde writes, “Since theology has tried to penetrate the mask of the hidden God by peddling some general metaphysical ‘truths’, faith becomes not trust in the proclamation but strives toward sight, to become a kind of gnosis.” (53)

    Cooper: I wonder if this includes typical discussions of the attributes of God. If this is the case, how are the ancient metaphysical explanations of the Trinity valid? Or are they? Forde oversimplifies the distinction between giving an explanation and proclaiming. One cannot happen without the other. He also is unclear about what he views as “systematic theology” and is rejecting much of the catholic and Lutheran tradition through his privileging act over being, declaratory speaking over objective metaphysical content.

14. Dear Mark,

    Holl’s thesis is not entirely accurate. It’s somewhat *anachronistic* to say the least. Even contemporary scholars such as McGrath didn’t get it right. The thesis has no credence in confessional Lutheran scholarship. And the confessional Lutheran scholarship spans from the seminary to the secular academia (please refer to Gustaf Wingren, Leif Grane, Oswald Bayer).

    But, yes, you’re right that “… Forde even denied that Christ’s death was satisfaction to God’s law!” That’s because Luther did not hold to penal substitution but vicarious substitution according to Christus Victor leitmotif. IOW, the Gospel, not the Law is the final word which co-relates to the re-creativity of God, i.e. the Cross creates an entirely new situation – relationship, New Adam/ New Eve and the New Creation. The joyous exchange of Luther must be understood in that light.

    And yes, the confessional Lutheran scholarship includes prominently Forde as perhaps the foremost North American representative.

    Please allow to me reiterate – forensic for Luther is not same as a legal verdict – a mere pronouncement or declaration in a judicial manner.

    Rather, the forensic word has the characteristic of judgment and re-creation one and the same time.

    Much like the analogy where in the Person of Jesus Christ, Covenant and Testament becomes one. For the Covenant promise to take effect, the Subject must be alive. For the Testament promise to take effect, the Subject must die.

    Hence, death and resurrection.

15. Dear Mark,

    You wrote:

    “mark: Forde seems to be a good fit for Anglicans and others who don’t think doctrine is strictly necessary for being a Christian. Romans 6: 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed….”

    The statement is very vague and very misleading. Don’t know why you mention Anglicans?? Anglican evangelicals would err on the *legalist* side. And I speak this also as a former Anglican with continuing strong attachment to classical Anglicanism (the Prayerbook tradition) which in the context of the UK is extremely rare as hen’s teeth.

    I think what you are trying to get at is that Forde denies the 3rd use of the Law – which Dr Clark correctly states as being OUTSIDE the bounds of Protestant *Orthodoxy.* The Reformed and Lutheran confessions all affirm the 3rd use of the Law. Forde and some Lutherans argue that Luther never held to the 3rd use but was popularised by Melanchthon, not least because of controversies with Johann Agricola (if I’m not mistaken) and Georg Major.

    Forde et al interpretation of the 3rd use in the Formula of Concord would be that the 3rd use is subsumed under the first two uses and is in relation to the Christian as the Old Adam. So the *simul iustus et peccator* is the basis and boundary for the doctrine of the Christian life for Forde et al.

    On the other hand, LCMS Lutherans (Lutheran Orthodoxy) would insist that Luther held to a 3rd use of the Law. CPH has published a book on this which is entitled, “Friends of the Law: Luther’s Use of the Law for the Christian Life.” And of course, the *ELCA* has many theologians who DON’T agree with Forde.

    But please note that despite this, there are LCMS Lutherans though in a small minority who are in good relationship (personal and working) with Fordeans, not least such as James (Jim) Arne Nestingen and Steven D Paulson.

16. Dear Mark,

    You quoted from ex-Reformed Jordan Cooper. I am ex-Reformed too, but unlike Jordan, I don’t buy into the confessional Lutheran Orthodoxy distinctives that separate it from the confessional Reformed. As a Bondage of the Will Lutheran who follows Luther rather than the Book of Concord, I continue to hold to the Five Points of Calvinism – double predestination (which excludes a universal salvific will of God and universal grace), limited atonement and the perseverance of the saints.

    You quoted Jordan as saying …
    “Jordan Cooper: In Forde’s words, “Proclamation means finally to stop talking about it, and actually to give it. It means not talking about God, but speaking for God.” (43) The question I have is: Can we really proclaim something directly without simultaneously speaking about something? When I proclaim to my congregation “Your sins are forgiven” there is implied objective content behind what I am saying. Behind the proclamation is the teaching that Christ is God and man, died on the cross for sins, and rose from the dead.”

    Yes, Forde does not deny that. What Forde denies is that it is not enough to state the objective content. One must do the electing itself – switching to the 1st person pronoun.

    Now, I know you’re Reformed Mark. So, I am NOT saying that Reformed should adopt this way of preaching because I’m sensitive to the Reformed sensitivity to any language that would seemed even to compromise the particularity inherent in the doctrine of grace. But I would encourage the Reformed to explore and experiment with language that come close to what Forde is saying(!) So, instead of “I forgive you of your sins,” the Reformed preacher might instead say “God works forgiveness in them that believe; you believe, therefore you are forgiven!”

    Thus, for the Reformed the objective content and subjective application are placed together rather than the narrow focus on the latter as properly proclamation as per Forde.

    You also quote Jordan as saying …
    ” I fear that Forde, taking a cue from Barth, privileges act over being. He constantly speaks of of Christology in these terms: “What happened to God is Jesus.” (48) Talk of action, of doing, takes precedence over talk of being, or of something that is a metaphysical reality. Forde writes, “Since theology has tried to penetrate the mask of the hidden God by peddling some general metaphysical ‘truths’, faith becomes not trust in the proclamation but strives toward sight, to become a kind of gnosis.” (53)”

    This is to completely miss the point of what Forde has been saying in his career. Word AND deed belong together as ONE. There is NO privileging on one over the other. The Word does what it says, and says what it does.

    In Baptism, the Trinitarian formula are not words that we internalise but the very divine ACT itself that incorporates us into the very life of the Trinity. Jason Stellman doesn’t get it – that apostasy of the elect is impossible for then the Trinitarian life can also be torn apart.

    And also this …
    “Cooper: I wonder if this includes typical discussions of the attributes of God. If this is the case, how are the ancient metaphysical explanations of the Trinity valid? Or are they? Forde oversimplifies the distinction between giving an explanation and proclaiming. One cannot happen without the other. He also is unclear about what he views as “systematic theology” and is rejecting much of the catholic and Lutheran tradition through his privileging act over being, declaratory speaking over objective metaphysical content.”

    Yes, Jordan is a confessional Lutheran – who holds to Lutheran Orthodoxy and subscribes to the Book of Concord. His theological thinking is based and shaped by systematic theology. Forde like Luther is not a systematic theologian. His theology is where justification by faith alone is simply the summary of theology – since theology finally is only composed of two parts: God the Justifier and I the sinner. Or to paraphrase Bayer, theology originates from proclamation where the Law and Gospel are distinguished. So, the privilege is really between 1st order and 2nd order discourses – where the former as 1st person pronoun takes precedence of 3rd person pronoun AND where the latter, i.e. theology drives and is for proclamation. To paraphrase Bayer again, theology is nothing else but the systematic reflection of the contents of proclamation.

    Thus, because of the distinction between the un-preached and preached God, Forde does not engage metaphysical speculation about the attributes of God. Rather, the attributes of God – all the omnis provides the *ground* for the unconditional proclamation of the Word in its oral and sacramental forms.

    This is what Forde precisely meant by speaking *for* God rather than (merely) speaking about God …

17. Thanks, Jason, for your responses.

    Surely some folks are going to wonder what happened to Jonathan Edwards. I would like to get back to him (and also to Seifrid), even though I have been your accomplice in talking about Lutheranism.

    I am not “Reformed” and never claim to be. I teach that Christ’s definite atonement must be in the gospel we proclaim. I deny the efficacy of water “baptism”. I deny the one ahistorical covenant. But since I am some kind of baptist and some kind of “Calvinist”, I can appreciate your own attempt to be some kind of hybrid Lutheran-Reformed.

    From my experience in most Reformed churches, there is so little attention to election (especially when talking about covenant and baptism), they would have no problem with clergy assurances of “for you”. So I appreciate the fact that you have any sensitivity to “safeguard the particularity”. In many Reformed congregations, it seems that the only safeguarding is the exclusion of infants without one professing parent from the first “sacrament”.

    So I won’t say that your denial of penal satisfaction is “not Reformed”. Rather I will say it is not the gospel. If the gospel is about what the clergyman (and the Holy Spirit) do with it, there was no need for Christ to have died. You worry about law having the last word, but you need to see that the gospel is about Christ having satisfied the law. If you make Christ’s death anything other than that, Christ died to no purpose. (Galatians 2:21). If atonement were by means of preaching, justification is not by the bloody death of Christ. When the Bible denies that salvation is by the law, that denial is that salvation is by the Holy Spirit enabling us to keep the law. It is not being denied that the sins of the elect were imputed to Christ and that Christ died to satisfy the law.

    No alliance with Lutherans should keep us silentabout Jesus dying for the sheep and not the goats. Why then do so many Reformed preachers talk about the “indicative done” in the context of “you” and never in terms of the Westminster Confession: “for all those whom the Father has given the Son” ?

    The problem cannot be a “sectarian” sociology which thinks of the
    church as only those who profess to be justified. Reformed Confessions teach that “the covenant” community must by nature and should include some of the non-elect for whom Jesus did not die and who will not believe the gospel. We also know good and well that not every baptized member even of a “sectarian” community is one for whom Christ died. Of course Norman Shepherd insists that we not talk about election, because every baptized person in church is a Christian. But why is it that so many who oppose Shepherd, and who oppose substance and administration, why is it that they don’t talk about election either?

    Being “pastoral” does not give “special priests” the right to assure their
    hearers that Christ will not be a judge to them. Only the bloody death of Jesus Christ (not the sermon or the sacrament)has for the elect silenced the accusations of God’s law. Of course there is a distinction (in time and otherwise) between that death and the imputation of that death to the elect so that they are justified, but that imputation is not effected by sermon or sacrament.

    Obeying the gospel is not the condition of salvation, but a blessing
    made certain for the elect by the righteousness of Christ. It is not for sure that “you” who are in attendance will be saved. Salvation is promised to all who believe the gospel of salvation conditioned on the blood alone.

    The law-gospel antithesis (not by our law-keeping) will do no good if we “flinch at this one point”. If we do not talk about particular atonement, then the people who hear will NOT look outside themselves for the righteous difference which pleases God. If Jesus Christ died for everybody but only “enabled God” to save (in the preaching event) a fraction of these people , then these people will certainly look to themselves for the difference between lost and saved.

    The only way you can tell people that the gospel is “outside of you”
    is to tell them that the gospel they must believe to be saved EXCLUDES even their believing as the condition of salvation. The only condition of salvation for the elect is Christ’s death for the elect. Unless you preach that Christ died only for the elect, you encourage people to make their faith into that “little something” which makes the difference between life and death! They must believe that their believing is not the righteousness that satisfies God’s law.

    Do we believe that the glory of God in the gospel means that all for whom Christ died will certainly be saved? Or has that truth become too “rationalistic” for us? Or is it not our job to be that zealous for God’s glory in this manner?

    Would this kind of preaching take the grace of God out of the hands of those who hand out the sacrament and who say there is no salvation outside the church as they define it? The gospel itself is God’s power of salvation. No Holy Spirit, no efficacy. No gospel, no efficacy.

    The glory of God does not depend on human decisions, and the gospel
    must not become a victim of alliances or coalitions or hybrids which agree not to talk about the extent of the atonement. Because to do that is to also agree to disagree about the nature of the atonement, and that leaves room for a false gospel in which salvation becomes what God does in the sinner. And I don’t care if you say that’s Christ in the sinner, or grace in the sinner, it does not follow the rule of Galatians 6, which is to glory in the cross alone…

18. Dear Mark,

    I appreciate your response. I understand your concerns and your convictions! Having said this, I’m not a hybrid Lutheran-Reformed, but a Lutheran – a minority Lutheran – who follows Luther above the Book of Concord. If you will, I belong to the Gnesio-Lutheran party (prior to the Book of Concord) some of whom held to double predestination just like Luther.

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