Why I'm Now a Baptist

See here. If I were to write that post today I might change a few things about it, but in general it represents my current views.

Obviously since I'm not a Presbyterian any longer, I won't be continuing with this blog. I'll probably eventually start blogging again, but I'm not sure what form it will take.

Skeptical Trends in New Testament Criticism by Dennis Kenaga

Here is an irenic article by a member of an OPC church on why the Alexandrian priority school of textual criticism that predominates today might not be all it is cracked up to be.

Scriptural Worship by Carl W. Bogue

Here

Love to God

The Distinguishing Traits of Christian Character by Gardiner Spring, D.D.

Chapter 8: Love to God

In the preceding essays I have referred to several things which neither prove nor disprove the existence of true religion in the soul. A man may be unexceptionable in his moral deportment; he may be well instructed in all the doctrines of the Gospel; he may put on the form of religion; he may be endued with eminent gifts; he may have been the subject of deep convictions; he may himself be persuaded that he is a converted man, and be able to specify the particular time when he supposes he was converted, and still it is possible this very man may be in the gall of bitterness, and bonds of iniquity. We do not affirm that this is any evidence against his conversion, but only affirm that it is not conclusive evidence that he is converted. The view we have taken, therefore, is only a negative view and decides nothing. We are still left in darkness and embarrassment as to the great question. Upon the details of the positive and satisfactory evidences of the new birth it is now our purpose to enter.

Among the most convincing of these is love to God. Love to God involves a conviction of His excellence, an inner contentment towards the revelation of His nature, a kindly disposition toward His interest, and gratitude for His favors. The man who possesses this sublime affection has reason to believe that his character differs from what it was by nature. The carnal mind is at enmity against God (Rom. 8:7). Though unrenewed men may possess some true knowledge, both of the natural and moral imperfections of the Deity, and though they cannot contemplate His greatness and goodness without discerning His excellence, still they take no delight in His excellence, they feel no benevolence toward His interests, no true gratitude for His favors.

But this deep root disaffection toward God is superceded in the renewed mind by holy love. As the first and great commandment is, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thine understanding: (Lu. 10:27), so the love of God is the first and highest affection of the renovated heart. It belongs to true love always to have correct perceptions of its object. The new born soul does not clothe the Divine Being with such attributes and such only as suit a depraved taste, and then fall down and worship Him, but he loves the true character of God as it is revealed in the Scriptures; for to love a false character of God, you perceive, would be to hate His true character. The cause of love to God is the agency of the Holy Spirit; the foundation and motive of love to God is His intrinsic excellence. When Moses exclaimed, "Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like unto thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders!" (Ex. 15:11), he discovered an excellence and glory in the divine nature which filled his mind with esteem and inward delight. Love to God does not differ in its nature from love to any other object. If you love your friend, unless your love be base and mercenary, it is because you see something in the character of your friend that is amiable and lovely. "In the exercise of true love to any object there is pleasure taken in the object itself." Thus, the excellence of God is the foundation of all sincere love to Him. True love to God essentially consists in being pleased that He is just such a Being as He is. Is His wisdom unerring? His power irresistible? His purity unblemished? His goodness universal and disinterested? His justice inflexible? His grace infinite? Are His designs all eternal and immutable? These are excellencies which fill the new born soul with pleasure and admiration. On such a Being the mind can rest as its chief happiness; and the favor of such a Being it can prefer to every other enjoyment.

There is a vast difference between such an affection and that selfish and unhallowed friendship to God which terminates on our own happiness as its supreme motive and end. If a man, in his supposed love to God, has no ultimate regard except to his own happiness; if he delights in God, not for what He is, but for what He is to him; in such a sentiment there is no moral virtue. There is indeed great love of self, but no true love to God. But where the enmity of the carnal mind is slain, the soul is reconciled to the Divine character as it is. God Himself, in the fulness of His manifested glory, becomes the object of devout and delighted contemplation. In his more favored hours the views of a good man are in a great measure diverted from himself; as his thoughts glance toward the varied excellence of the Deity, he scarcely stops to inquire whether the Being whose character fills his mind and in comparison of whose dignity and beauty all things are atoms and vanity, will extend His mercy to him. It is enough for him that He supremely regards His own glory. So long as God is brought into view, he feels that it were impossible for him to be miserable. His soul cleaves to God, and in the warmth and fervor of devout affection, he can often say, "Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none on the earth that I desire beside thee. As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God!" (Ps. 73:25; 42:1).

Nor is it less obvious that with this sentiment of delight in the Divine excellence, there is combined a benevolent regard toward Him and the interests of His Kingdom. It is the ardent desire, the highest wish to every sanctified mind that in all His works and all His designs, by all His creatures in all places of His dominion, God should be glorified. Benevolence toward God is a constituent part of love to Him. The Infinite Being who is capable of enjoying an infinitely brighter degree of happiness than all other beings beside, necessarily shares largely in the benevolent affections of every devout mind.

Nor does the view we have given exclude the idea of gratitude to God. While the first exercise of love to God is and must be antecedent to the persuasion that God loves us, no man who loves God for the excellence of His character can refrain from loving Him for His communicated goodness. That the God of Heaven should uphold, bless, sanctify, pardon, and save a wretch like him--angels have no such cause for gratitude as this!

Such is the nature of this sublime affection. And it is important to remark that wherever it exists in the soul, it bears predominant sway. It is supreme love. "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me" (Mt. 10:37). God neither requires nor will accept a divided heart. He is a jealous God, and no rival may participate in the affection due to Him. I do not say that love to God is never intermitted by a baser affection, for the best of men have their seasons of declension and sin as well as of advancement and spiritual vigor. Still when the love of God actually exists in the soul every other love is a subordinate affection.

Here then have we one very obvious characteristic of true religion. Do my readers know by experience what it is to love the infinitely great and ever blessed God? You must be conscious of your love to God before you have Scriptural evidence of His love to you. You have just as much right to call in question God's love to you as you have a right to call in question your love to Him. Is then your heart right with God? Do you love God for what you imagine Him to be or for what He is? Are you pleased with His character and do you love every part of it? Do you love His holiness as well as His grace, and His justice as well as His mercy? Do you love Him merely on account of His love to you or do you love Him because He is in Himself lovely? Do you love Him merely because you hope He will save you, or do you think you should love Him if you supposed He would damn you? Is your love to God supreme? Whom do you love more than God? In whose character do you behold more beauty? Whose blessedness is the object of warmer desires, or more vigorous exertion? To whom are you more grateful? It can be no difficult matter for you to reply to these inquiries. There may be danger but surely there can be no necessity of being deceived in a case so plain. Supreme love to God is decisive evidence of a renewed heart. When the soul is ushered from the darkness of sin into God's marvellous light, it beholds God in an infinitely different light from what it ever beheld him before. God is everywhere. There is a nonexpressible beauty, a mild glory in almost every object because it is the work of His hand and reflects the excellence of His nature. Think how excellent a Being God is, and how exalted would be the happiness to enjoy Him to perfection and to be swallowed up in Him forever. To see and to love that which is infinitely lovely, to behold and to adore that which is supremely adorable, is the character and the blessedness of the heavenly world. The early dawn of this spiritual light, the first glow of this pure affection, is the glimmering of that sacred fire which will burn with a purer and a brighter flame throughout interminable ages. Do you then love God? If so, the question as to your own spiritual condition is at rest. If you are a friend to God, God will be an everlasting friend to you. Nothing shall separate you from His love. Neither angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus the Lord (Rom. 8:38-39).

The Time of Your Supposed Conversion

The Distinguishing Traits of Christian Character by Gardiner Spring, D.D

Chapter 7: The Time of Your Supposed Conversion

It is no certain evidence that a man is born of God because he can specify the particular time when he believes he was converted. I have no doubt that there are those who can tell the period of time when they passed from death unto life. And this may be deemed a happy circumstance in their religious experience. When the love of God is so sensibly shed abroad in the soul, and the light of His countenance so sensibly descends upon the heart and the glory of God so sensibly fills the mind, that the time of its influence can be disinctly discerned, it may well be the source of grateful rejoicing. But this is by no means the experience, even of the great body of God's people. So far as I have been able to form any estimate of this subject by far the greater part of real Christians are the subjects of a true work of Grace before they themselves are aware of any change having taken place. The Holy Spirit does not always shine upon the work He has wrought in the heart immediately upon changing it; and the reflex act of the mind that discerns the change not infrequently is reserved for a period considerably subsequent to the change itself. It is no proof that a man is not a Christian that he cannot tell when he was converted; nor is it any proof that he is a Christian that he can tell the time of his supposed conversion, because it is a very possible thing that the conversion, the date of which he is so ready to specify, may be delusive and spurious. The time and manner of conversion can never decide either the genuineness or spuriousness of the work. The most that the great body of Christians can say as to these is, "I cannot tell how the work was accomplished. All I know is that a sensible change has taken place in the course of my affections, and that whereas I was once blind, now I see." Let none suppose that by this I mean to say that a change of heart is attended with no visible effect. There are effects which cannot be concealed and which lie open to the inspection of every eye. All I wish to say is that it is not a certain and infallible effect that the subjects of it should be ascertained of the exact time when it took place. "It is as true of religious affections as of any other, that 'the tree is known by its fruits'."

Examine yourself, therefore, and see whether you be in the faith. There is a hope that is as an anchor to the soul, and there is a hope that perisheth when God taketh the soul away. I would not wound you but I am jealous for you even with an anxious jealousy. You have been converted to the profession of religion, but have you been converted to the grace of religion? Who runs so as to obtain? Who fights not uncertainly and as one that beateth the air? Who is, not almost, but altogether a Christian? See to it that you build not your hope upon the sand. You may rest satisfied with the mere name to live, but if it be so, the time will come when you will be confounded with disappointment and sink into despair. Alas! that there should be any who think themselves vessels of mercy when they are only the vessel of wrath fitted to destruction. Oh, I charge you before God and His holy angels, to be faithful in this concern. I shall endeavor to present you with a few considerations hereafter that may enable you to decide with greater accuracy whether you are building on the Rock than do those negative evidences which have been presented in the preceding pages, and which may perhaps distress you. But I would rather see your hopes die now than your souls hereafter. I would rather see the mask rent asunder now that torn off by the hand of discriminating righteousness hereafter. I would rather see you weep now than weep and wail forever.

How Should We View Covenant Children?

Should they be presumed regenerate? Presumed unregenerate? On what basis are children baptized? Should preaching in Presbyterian churches aim at conviction of sin and conversion, or should it be assumed that the congregation is regenerate? Pastor Andrew Webb has posted a helpful article here.

Strong Assurance

The Distinguishing Traits of Christian Character by Gardiner Spring, D.D.

Chapter 6: Strong Assurance

No man may certainly conclude that he is born of God merely because he indulges strong confidence that he is a Christian. If to be strongly persuaded that we are Christians would make us Christians, there would be no such thing as being deceived by false hopes and delusive presumption. A man may be persuaded that he is a child of God because he discerns in himself the Spirit of Jesus Christ; and in such a persuasion, he has reason to place confidence. But there is a persuasion of our acceptance with God that does not differ from the hope of the hypocrite and the self-deceived. Some men are confident that they are saved because they think they do not deserve to be damned; they believe God is too merciful to damn them. Others presume themselves to be saved because they have never done any harm. Others hope to be saved because they have done a great deal of good. Others have assurance because they believe they possess the spirit of true Godliness. And others hope to be saved for no other reason than they believe they will be saved.

Now most of these are, and all of them may be, mere delusion. There is no man saved except by grace in Jesus Christ, and therefore, there is no man who does not deserve to be damned. By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God. Neither is God too merciful to damn men who deserve to be damned, for while He saves thousands who deserve to perish, He demands, "How can ye escape who neglect so great salvation?" (Heb. 2:3). As to those who feel that they have never done any harm or have done a great deal of good, the Scriptures declare that they are vile enough to make it necessary for the Son of God to die for their salvation, and for the Spirit of God to effectuate an entire change in their character without which it is impossible for them to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven (Jo. 3:3,5). Men too may believe they possess the true spirit of Godliness and yet not possess it. They may suppose that Godliness consists in something which falls far short of true Godliness, and even if they suppose it to consist in that which the Scriptures represent it to consist, they may not possess it. There is a love, a repentance, a faith, a hope, a joy, a self-denial, which are of mere human origin and spurious. the religious affections of many men are founded in supreme selfishness. They are willing to love and serve God just so far as they believe He is willing to love and serve them, and no farther, and this is "making him to serve with their sins" (Isa. 43:24). The religion of such men consists in being very anxious about their own welfare, but very little concerned for the honor and glory of God. It is easy to say, "Pardon is mine; grace is mine; Christ and all His blessings are mine; God has freely loved me; Christ has graciously died for me; and the Holy Spirit will assuredly sanctify me in the belief of these precious truths." It is no Herculean task for an ardent mind and an unsanctified, enthusiastic heart, to make these discoveries. This is a kind of confidence which the subtle deceiver is interested to cherish. And the joys and sorrows, the zeal and devotion, which spring from this delusion, constitute a sort of religion which the blindness and deceit, the self-flattery and pride of the carnal heart very easily substitute for true Godliness. And what if a man firmly believes he will be saved? What if he imagines he has the assistance of the Spirit of God in "working out this faith in himself"? The faith of the Gospel does not consist in believing that one shall be saved. There is a difference between faith in Jesus Christ and believing that we shall be saved; between being actually a partaker in His salvation, and the persuasion of our minds that we are partakers. Men may have strong persuasions of their spiritual safety, who spoil themselves with their own deceivings, and might well say, "Is there not a lie in my right hand?" A man may have strong hopes who has no religion. What is the assurance of the hypocrite though he hath gained when God taketh away his soul?

Conviction For Sin

The Distinguishing Traits of Christian Character by Gardiner Spring, D.D.

Chapter 5: Conviction For Sin

It is no certain evidence that a person has been born of God because he has been the subject of deep convictions of sin. Some degree of conviction for sin is absolutely necessary to the existence of religion in the soul. If I were to describe the lowest degree of conviction that is consistent with the possessions of gracious affections, I should be willing to affirm that no man can be a child of God who has not seen his heart to be so sinful as to need regenerating grace, his sins so great as to deserve everlasting condemnation, and his helplessness so complete as to need an Almighty Saviour. And yet many a man has this view of himself who is not a true penitent. It is difficult for persons who hear the Gospel always to remain unaffected and thoughtless, and their solemn impressions often continue for considerable time. They are frequently made to see their own sinfulness and to feel that they are under the dominion of a carnal mind that is enmity against God (Rom. 8:7). The law of God in all the reasonableness of its precept and equity of its sanctions, in all its extent and spirituality, comes home to their consciences, and brings with it the knowledge of sin and the impression of guilt. They see that in them there dwelleth no good thing, that it is in vain that they search for the least holiness in anything they have done, and that all they have ever thought, felt, or performed, is in direct opposition to the law of God. Sometimes it is the burden of some particular sin which lies heavy on their consciences, and sometimes it is a life of sin which fills them with distress and trembling. Not infrequently they are awfully miserable. They feel wretched and forlorn, exiled from the favor of God, bound over to the execution of the final sentence, abandoned to despair, and already beginning to sink into the eternal pit. To aggravate their misery, persons in this state of mind very frequently also have lively impressions of their ill dessert. They deeply feel that they deserve to suffer the weight of God's holy and everlasting indignation. They are stripped of all their excuses, and know that it would be just if the penalty of the law should fall upon them to the uttermost.

Impressions like these also frequently lead men to make very humble confession of their sins. Nor is this all. They frequently lead them to forsake external sins and commence the work of actual reformation. They are for a time afraid of sinning and are restrained and deterred from it by the severity of their apprehensions.

Now there is not necessarily any religion in all this. A man may be sensible that he is a sinner and a great sinner and never become a penitent. The consciousness of sin is a very different thing from repentance for sin. I have seen living men and dying men, deeply impressed with a view of their sinfulness, who at the same time had no heart to turn to God as self-abased and humbled penitents. No doubt the reprobate at the bar of judgment, as well as the damned in hell, possess a keen conviction of their personal sinfulness. We are informed that when the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints to execute judgment upon all that he will convince all that are ungodly among them, of all their ungodly deeds, which they have ungodly committed (Jude 14-15). So that the mere conviction of ungodliness cannot be evidence of godliness.

Equally certain is it that no apprehension of the coming wrath constitutes vital piety. There can be no holiness in being afraid of hell. Felix trembled under the preaching of Paul, and yet remained wedded to his idols. The devils also tremble and remain devils still. So a man may be sensible of his ill dessert, and yet continue in his sins. The man without the wedding garment was speechless. At the last day, the whole world will feel guilty before God and through interminable ages the victims of the final curse will be made to acknowledge that their condemnation is righteous.

Nor is there necessarily any religion in confessing our sins. It is right to confess them when that confession proceeds from a right heart. But there is many a confession that is extorted by fear. Saul confessed, "Behold, I have played the fool and have erred exceedingly" (I Sam. 26:21). Seamen in a storm and landsmen in distress will confess the sins of their whole life and promise amendment, but as soon as the storm is over and health and mercy return, they forget their vows and become tenfold more the children of hell than before.

Nor is it less obvious that men may partially forsake their sins, and yet hold fast the love of sinning. They may abandon their open sins and yet practice their secret sins; they may abandon disreputable sins and yet cleave to those that are reputable; they may abandon sins that are hurtful and yet practice those that are apparently harmless; they may abandon one course of sinning, for the sake of entering upon another; and they may abandon all outward sins, and yet retain all their inward sinfulness. And the very love of sinning in the mind of a convinced sinner may be restrained and suppressed and yet never altered nor changed to holiness.

No degree of conviction for sin, therefore, is conclusive evidence of having been born of God. If you impartially examine the character of a convinced sinner, you will find no evidence of genuine holiness--no evidence of one Christian grace--nothing more than multitudes have felt who have gone to the pit in their blood. If a man never has been convinced of sin, he may be confident that he has never been turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. Still it does not of course follow because he has been convinced that he has experienced this saving change. Impressions of sin and danger do not slay the enmity of the heart. Purposes of amendment do not slay the enmity of the heart. The conscience may be convinced while the heart is not renewed. It is infinitely dangerous, therefore, to rest in conviction of sin as a substitute for sound conversion.