The Paedobaptist Positions

To start, he lays down all the division of Paedobaptism. He numbers 8 –

Fides Aliena (Faith of Another) – the church supplies the faith necessary for the infant. Those who hold this position understand that faith is a necessary prerequisite for baptism. But this faith could not come from the infant, thus the Church supplies the faith that is necessary. Those who take this position also believe that baptism removes Adam’s guilt and “cleanses the heart of its inward depravity.” (p. 6, Augustine, Origen)
Fides Infusa (Infused Faith) – Faith is given at the point of baptism. When the infant is baptism, they are also given faith in that act.
Fides Infantium – Luther said “In baptism the infants themselves believe and have their own faith....

A Review of O. Palmer Robertson's The Israel of God

Simon Wartanian | 9,700 views | 3,313 words | 0:17:02 hours | 19 January 2017 22:25

The Israel of God:

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

By O. Palmer Robertson

O. Palmer Robertson. The Israel of God: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Pub. 2000)

For those who have come out of Dispensationalism or want to know what covenant theologians believe about Israel, this is the book. This is a book which deals with the place and identity of Israel in the plan of God. In six chapters Dr. Robertson discusses different topics regarding Israel from its identity to its future.

Overall, I found this to be a very helpful and edifying book. The Bible and the truths of the New Covenant were the interpreting lens for everything. We do not look to outside events and force those within the Bible.

The Occasion for the Book

In the Introduction Dr. Robertson begins with a quotation from Bill Clinton when he was the president of the USA, about Israel:

“'If you abandon Israel, God will never forgive you' ... it is God's will that Israel, the biblical home of the people of Israel, continue for ever and ever.” So spoke the President of the United States in a speech delivered before the Israeli Knesset assembled in Jerusalem. He was recalling with apparent approval the words of his desperately ill pastor. He concluded the speech by saying, “Your journey is our journey, and America will stand with you now and always.” (p. 1)

It seems that this and such mindset was the driving force behind writing this book. The book is not polemic, but rathe...

A Review of Perspectives on the Doctrine of God

Simon Wartanian | 2,843 views | 2,894 words | 0:14:58 hours | 14 May 2022 21:35

This book sets to explore the doctrine of God, especially of His knowledge, immutability, and sovereignty from a Christian perspective. There are four positions, which could be sub-categorized as two Calvinist positions and two free will theism positions.

The classical Calvinist position

This book is a little...bittersweet. I am a Reformed Baptist and thus I agree with the classical position as articulated by Paul Helm, but I must agree with the criticism given by the other contributors that Helm’s chapter was more about predestination than about theology proper and God’s relation to the world. Helm’s claim that his position is the historical (whether true or false) was met with a lot of snarkiness and set an unprofessional tone to the book and responses, which was disappointing. Even as a Calvinist, I acknowledge that divine determinism or unconditional election is not the mainstream or default teaching of Christianity. I believe it is absolutely biblical, but it is something else to say that it is simply the default view. But were Dr. Helm’s chapter on classical theism and God’s relation to the world, then his statement would have fully been justified. The responses made even moderate statements by Dr. Helm to be absolute and extreme. This was unhelpful. Dr. Helm even spends a lot of pages preemptively responding to various views which he thought would be represented in this book. He even discusses middle knowledge and the views of William Lane Craig on that in his...

A Review of RC Sproul's Willing to Believe & Thoughts on Free Will

Simon Wartanian | 10,942 views | 3,709 words | 0:19:03 hours | 22 February 2015 00:23

R.C. Sproul – Willing To Believe

The Controversy Over Free Will

Although read in Dutch^[1] I’ve was motivated to get this work by watching RC Sproul’s teaching series on the book called Willing to Believe^[2]. It helped understand the issues surround the question of human freedom and sovereignty. I remember that it was not much later than that I was studying Jonathan Edwards’ The Freedom of the Will, which was somewhat difficult.

In this great work this master theologian gives a historical theological study of important theologians throughout the history of the Christian church on the question of human freedom. He goes through some Christian heroes and giants of the faith like Augustine, Edwards, Luther and Calvin. Also some who were non-Christian and anti-Christian in their theology and thinking like Charles Finney and Pelagius. Lastly, theologians who belong more to the in house debate between Arminianism/Semi-Pelagianism and Calvinism, like Jacob Arminius himself.

The Pelagians

Pelagius was a British monk living in the fifth century and he is known to have a huge dispute with Augustine on the nature of man and free will. Pelagius reacted to a seemingly harmless prayer of Augustine which said: Grant what Thou commandest, and command what Thou dost desire. Harmless doesn’t it? Well, that’s not what Pelagius thought. He thought it outrages, because it showed man’s total dependence on God to graciously grant the ability to obey Him. Pelagius believed that comma...

A Review Of Robert Martin's The Christian Sabbath

Simon Wartanian | 5,295 views | 553 words | 0:02:49 hours | 21 July 2016 16:43

Dr. Robert Paul Martin

The Christian Sabbath

Its Redemptive-Historical Foundation, Present Obligation, and Practical Observance

"A masterpiece and a biblically grounded book" is how I would describe this amazing work. He engaged with those with whom he disagrees. He demonstrate a spirit of love and respect toward those with whom he disagrees. The tone is never harsh.

He grounds the Sabbath in Creation, goes to every major text in the Old Testament concerning the Sabbath. Demonstrates his ability in linguistics and in his knowledge of various interpretations of some texts. The footnotes are just great!

He then goes on to make a case for Sabbath observance under the New Covenant, but he does this by first going to major texts on the abiding validity of the Law in the New Covenant. He goes on to demonstrate our Lord's teaching on the Sabbath. He never did abrogated it, but cleared it from Pharisaic legalism. He has two chapters on works of piety and necessity and works of mercy.

He then moves to consider four misused texts: Rom 14:5-6; Gal 4:9-11; Eph 2:14-15; Col 2:16. He makes a case that none of these texts speak of the abrogation of the moral duty of observing one day out of seven as a Sabbath already established at Creation. He then moves on to consider Hebrews 4:9 wherein we are clearly told that there is still, for the New Covenant people of God, an obligation of Sabbath-keeping.

Until now he had not made a case for the change of the day. His ...

A Short Review of Beckwith's & Stott's This Is The Day

Simon Wartanian | 4,783 views | 614 words | 0:03:08 hours | 08 January 2017 23:25

This is the Day

The Biblical Doctrine of the Christian Sunday in Its Jewish and Early Church Setting

by Roger T. Beckwith and Wilfrid Stott

A well researched book by two readable authors. Makes a convincing and honest case from both the Holy Scriptures as well as the first four centuries from Christian history.

The biblical case is short and to the point. I love the fact there is always reference back to what he has said or established on earlier pages. Roger Beckwith goes on to demonstrate that the Sabbath was a creation ordinance and as such it is not connected with the Fall. Then he goes on to survey the passages speaking about the Sabbath. Very interesting was chapter 4 where he showed continuities between the Jewish Sabbath and the Lord's Day (the Christian Sabbath). He makes the case that the Lord's Day is the day of the Lord Christ, the day on which He rose and which we keep to celebrate His resurrection. The first part was very well written and argued, although I would have liked it to be longer and more extensive, but oh well!

The second part has 9 chapters devoted to a historical study about the Sabbath and the Lord's Day. It is very interesting to many how many early references there are to the Christian observance of the Lord's Day as the day of worship. The New Testament has a handful of passages speaking about the Lord's Day (first day of the week), but apparently, in the mind of the early Christians, these passages were a firm foundation to sh...

A Short Review of Sam Waldron's Modern Exposition of 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith

Simon Wartanian | 6,797 views | 606 words | 0:03:08 hours | 23 February 2015 19:14

Introduction to the Confession

It was a while back that I somehow came into contact (I don't remember how, maybe through James White?) with the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith and I found myself at home in it. Though I did not study it very deeply. This time I have taken the time to go through it with Sam Waldron which I though he did a very good job.

Introduction to Covenant Theology

Before beginning my study of the confession, through a brother I got into the subject of Baptist Covenant Theology, I got the work of Pascal Denault The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology and Waldron's A Reformed Baptist Manifesto. Sometime later I got the recent Recovering a Covenantal Heritage volume. I have been more and more interested in this stream of Reformed Theology.

Introduction to Baptistic Convictions & Calvinism

I first became baptistic simply through reading the New Testament and finding no evidence of any infant baptism. I was baptized in the Armenian Church as an infant and was attending a Baptist church in Holland and was convinced that my baptism was no baptism. So on 14-06-2013^[1] I was baptized after a profession of faith. At that time I was in the process of studying the Doctrines of Grace. Sometime later, by the grace of God I came to embrace and glory in them.

The Confession

The first and foremost thing that I love about this Confession is it's high, high, high view of God's sovereign freedom. I love it and that is exactly how I believe t...

Acts 7:51, 'You always resist the Holy Spirit'

Simon Wartanian | 8,984 views | 1,097 words | 0:05:36 hours | 03 April 2014 14:01

“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. (Acts 7:51 ESV)[1]

Calvinists, have no problem with this passage at all. Dead sinners always resist the Spirit of God. But when Spirit comes to regenerate, for the purpose of salvation, the dead sinner is made alive and willing, with no resistance.

Rather, there is a bigger problem for those Arminians who say that sinners are not really dead in sin or unable to come to God, how do they cooperate or respond to the Spirit if they always resist Him? There is said here much more than some Arminians would want to admit. The total depravity of human kind which without sovereign grace always resists the work of God.

This is what the ESV Study Bible says:[2]

Acts 7:51 Stephen concluded with a direct attack on Israel for rejecting the Messiah. While this may seem harsh, Luke will soon say that Stephen was “full of the Holy Spirit” (v. 55; cf. 6:10, 15) and he was no doubt led by the Spirit, who knew the hearts of Stephen’s listeners, to make this accusation. Using the language of the OT he accused them of being stiff-necked (see Ex. 33:3, 5; 34:9; Deut. 9:6, 13), uncircumcised in heart and ears (Lev. 26:41; Deut. 10:16; Jer. 4:4, 6:10, 9:26; Ezek. 44:7, 9), and resisting the Holy Spirit (Isa. 63:10). In fact, the repeated rejection of God’s will is the point of his story, justifying the charge that prophets also made against the nation.

...

An extensive compilation of Scripture canon lists: texts and spreadsheet

Simon Wartanian | 2,190 views | 611 words | 0:03:010 hours | 05 September 2023 19:34

I have tried to collect as many canon lists as possible. One crucial work in the last years is that of Edmon L. Gallagher and John D. Meade entitled The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (Oxford, 2017). In the citations below it is mentioned as “Canon Lists”. I have tried to find as much on the web as possible, such as the translations of Schaff wherever possible. There are some citations which are not canon lists strictly but mention whether a particular collection of books was accepted or rejected.

The Spreadsheet

Link

To process this information, I made a spreadsheet where I have tried to analyze what is said and color-coded it. A word about how the spreadsheet is set up.

The first thing to be noticed is the type of a particular list. So there are, for example, list which come up from non-Christian Jewish authors, from manuscripts, individual authors, councils or documents (like a confession).
Then we have the author, which is either the person, the name of the manuscript or the name of the document.
Next up is the date of the list or if nothing specific is known about the list, the dates of its author.
Region mainly specifies whether a canon is Western or Eastern.
Claim to the Fathers/Authority is for those lists that mention that the list is received by a particular father or that “the Church” accepts or rejects some books.
In Comments are usually summaries of the list or an evaluation.

The division of the b...

Benjamin Keach's Gold Refined, or Baptism in its Primitive Puirty (1689) transcribed and formatted

Simon Wartanian | 3,915 views | 169 words | 0:00:52 hours | 10 February 2020 19:55

I’ve found myself lately to be diving into the subject of baptism again and especially searching old resources. Some great books were transcribed and available at Reformed Baptist Disk, but many more are not yet transcribed or properly formatted. But there are a lot of works which are available in scanned form (especially on Google Books) and image-to-text form on Early English Books. I first came across these sites and resources thanks to Samuel Renihan’s blog post. Tip: use the Wayback Machine to access some (currently) dead links. I’ve also formatted Isaac Backus’ A Short Description of the Difference between the Bond-Woman and the Free, but it still needs a proof read. But I will post it here soon, Lord willing. But for now:

Benjamin Keach – Gold Refin’d, or Baptism in its Primitive Purity (1689)

See the book here.

If you find any mistakes and would like to report them, then feel free to respond back to this message or message me at admin@thecalvinist.net.

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