Tried With Fire

This past weekend, we were blessed to have Dr. William VanDoodewaard speak at our annual theology conference - The Marrow of Salvation. The title makes reference to "The Marrow of Modern Divinity," a 17th century English book that caused a controversy in Scotland 50 years later. Why does this old book written by a dead guy and argued over by more dead guys matter to us? I'm glad you asked, and I will answer the question by giving a snippet of each talk. Session 1 - This session was about the book itself. The Marrow was written to help the reader find the middle ground between the 2 ditches of legalism and antinomianism. It was written in the form of a dialogue between a legalist, an antinomian, a new believer, and a minister. This book was recommended by the official government censor and went through several reprintings. Then why the controversy? The Presbyterian church in Scotland in the early 1700's began to drift away from the gospel of free grace in Christ in...

The Gospel, is as much to say, in our tongue, as Good Tidings: like as every one of these sentences be—  Christ is the Saviour of the world. Christ is our Saviour. Christ died for us. Christ died for our sins. Christ offered himself for us. Christ bear our sins upon his back. Christ bought us with his blood. Christ wash us with his blood. Christ came in the world to save sinners. Christ came in the world to take away our sins. Christ was the price that was given for us and for our sins. Christ was made debtor for our sins. Christ hath paid our debt, for he died for us. Christ hath made satisfaction for us and for our sin. Christ is our righteousness. Christ is our wisdom. Christ is our sanctification. Christ is our redemption. Christ is our satisfaction. Christ is our goodness. Christ hath pacified the Father of Heaven. Christ is ours, and all his. Christ hath delivered us from the law, from the devil, and hell. The Father of Heaven hath forgiven us...

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction - Newton's 3rd law We're familiar with this law in the physical world, but I believe it holds true for the metaphysical and in particular, theology. In other words, "for every faulty belief there is an equal and opposite faulty belief." Does this sound familiar? It may not for you, but I can point to several instances in my own life. Have a bad experience with church leadership? Leave the local church and be a lone ranger. See people you know fall for the prosperity gospel? Make a certain level of remorse and repentance a necessary requirement for salvation? See people misuse the love of God as a license to sin? Make God's love parsimonious and conditional on behavior. Probably the two primary opposite categories in which many of the previous examples fall are antinomianism versus legalism . But unfortunately, we have a propensity to over-correct. Or as my wise daughter says, if we're afraid of b...

For the past 10 years, my church has been hosting a theology conference. We've had some great speakers over the years, and this year's topic and speaker were announced yesterday. The topic is The Marrow of Salvation: Assurance, Legalism, & Antinomianism with Dr. William VanDoodewaard from Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. Our pastor just preached a series on assurance, and I read The Whole Christ by Sinclair Ferguson last year, which goes into the practical application of the Marrow Controversy. Thus I am looking forward to the conference. What was the Marrow Controversy? Dr. VanDoodewaard will be giving the historical background in one of his talks, but in a nutshell, the dispute centered on whether a group of Scottish Presbyterians (labeled the Marrow Men) were advocating antinomianism. Spoiler alert - They weren't. They were defending the gospel. The dispute also centered around a book, The Marrow of Modern Divinity by Edward Fisher. I refrained from orde...