The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum ...The people miscalled Antinomians ?

Dear Mark:


Mark, everyone who disagrees with me is not an heretic. I never said Gadsby was an heretic. I believe he was in error about the Law as I believe you are. I never said they hate the Law, either Mark, now did I? No I don't have a copy of Gadsby's hymns, but I do have a copy of Hart's. I wouldn't object to Gadsby's hymns in all probability, except for the ones that are tainted with antinomianism. I happen to believe that Gadsby, and Huntington, etc were powerfully used of God and were godly men, but that they were in error in these areas, not damnable error, but fairly serious error. I also believe there is a difference between error honestly held and error stubbornly and pridefully held.

Mark, you have not responded to Pilgrims comments on this issue as in so many of your posts in the past. You never seem to interact with the scriptures. Why do believe what you believe? Spell it out so that you can see the logic or lack thereof in what you say.

What is being done, in presenting the Law as "a problem", and it is done oh so subltly, by expressing a reverence for the Law, and a respect for it, but at the same time associating it with Judaisers and confusing it with the false use of it that Paul corrected in Galations, and failing to teach and preach on it (as is done so beautifully in the Heidleberg Catechism for example) is that the Moral Law is set aside and shunned while at the same time the claim is made that it is reverenced. This results in a sowing of confusion.

I am not "under the Law" in the sense that Paul uses that term, which is as a means of salvation, but I do most assuredly love it, and am taught by it, differently than before, when the Spirit came "as a Spirit of fear, to bondage". He no longer comes to me with the Law that way, but He does, praise God, come to me with the Law to teach me ever more deeply the meaning of sin, and the meaning of His Holiness and what it means to love the Lord and my neighbor, and to live, or attempt to live, a holy life. As Pilgrim and others have repeatedly said, sanctification and justification are not to be confused.

And remember, in order to construct a doctrine, which is a Biblical truth about a given subject, you must reconcile ALL the pertinant verses on that subject. This is basic hermeneutics. PS 119:160 says "THE SUM OF THY WORD IS TRUTH", NAS. Or, the NKJ I believe, has it; "The ENTIRETY OF THY WORD IS TRUTH". We must put ALL of the applicable verses together, and reconcile APPARENT DISCREPANCIES. Because we know the Holy Spirit wrote the scriptures through men, and He doesn't contradict Himself, therefore any apparent discrepancies are a function of our misunderstanding.

What Pilgrim and others have done for you here in many posts, is explain, in different ways, how those apparent discrepancies are reconciled. That is why Paul, in Acts 20:27, when he pointed to the validity of his teaching ministry, focused on the fact that he had "taught the whole counsel" of the Word of God. Not part of it, but all of it. That is how to avoid error. But you and Ian have accused him of error when he and others clarify the scriptures by explaining the sense in which certain terms are meant. This is not error, it is exegesis, it is comparing scripture with scripture and reconciling APPARENT error.

The Arminians err because they deny the verses that focus on the Sov Choice of God and don't reconcile them with the will and responsibilty of man. The hypercalvinists forget about the verses that speak of man's responsibility and will and focus only on God's will. BOTH must be reconciled or error results. It's very simple really, Mark, but it does require work and mental effort. Scripture interprets scripture. The "whole counsel" Mark.

In Him,

Gerry