Category — Systematic

“To me, there nothing more important in a preacher than that he should have a systematic theology, that he should know it and be well grounded in it. This systematic theology, this body of truth which is derived from the Scripture, should always be present as a background and as a controlling influence in his preaching”. — Martyn Lloyd-Jones*

“But when proper words make Scripture ambiguous, we must see in the first place that there is nothing wrong in our punctuation or pronunciation. Accordingly, if, when attention is given to the passage, it shall appear to be uncertain in what way it ought to be punctuated or pronounced, let the reader consult the rule of faith which he has gathered from the plainer passages of Scripture, and from the authority of the Church, and of which I treated at sufficient length when I was speaking in the first book about things. But if both readings, or all of them (if there are more than two), give a meaning in harmony with the faith, it remains to consult the context, both what goes before and what comes after, to see which interpretation, out of many that offer themselves, it pronounces for and permits to be dovetailed into itself”. — Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, Book III, 2:2

Lloyd-Jones is silent in regards to conciliar systematics, but Augustine was not. The silence is not a denial necessarily, just an assertion of the individuality that Lloyd-Jones prized so much. I think Lloyd-Jones would admit that he was dependent on church councils, despite himself.

*Thanks to Mr. Wilson for the quote from Lloyd-Jones. All italics mine.

“It was understood better in the past than it is today. It is this: one must distinguish between, on the one hand, the gospel as what God has done and what is the message to be announced and, on the other, what is demanded by God or effected by the gospel in assorted human responses.” — DA Carson

Read the whole article here.

Carson, for some reason, seems to think that the Good News does not include the actual redemption of God’s people, their actual salvation. He places faith and obedience in the category of human responses to his abstraction of the Gospel. He says that if we don’t make the distinction he is making, we are falling into the trap of legalism or moralism. In this way, it seems to me, he is splintering the work of the Godhead. God might demand faith, but He gives it as well. He might demand repentance, but it is also a gift from Him. The responses might be acted by humans, but they are the fruit of the Holy Spirit, completing the work of redemption in time and space. Is Carson inadvertently taking on a Pelagic view of salvation? If the aspects he eliminates from his abstraction aren’t “good news” then what are they? It sounds like bad news to me. 

Besides, one of the “assorted human responses” was to call it Good News. It is Good News to God’s people, but it is “the smell of death” to those outside. Is this simply more baptistic splintering of the whole counsel of God? This seems like a favorite past-time of baptistic scholars- always setting the Word against itself. 

Also, it would be great to see the footnotes to those who “understood better in the past”. Where are the references?