Is evangelism the duty of all believers equally – pastors as well as housewives? This is a question which many have discussed in our day. In this podcast, Dr. White gives us his answer.
CBTS Faculty fully subscribe to the 1689 Confession of Faith, hold an advanced
degree in their field of instruction, and possess significant pastoral experience.
Almost a year and a half ago in September of 2009 I was honored to be asked if my lecture related to the family-integrated church movement might be posted on a blog. Consequently, I allowed the brothers who run the Reformed Baptist Fellowship blog to post a lecture on the relation of church and family which I gave in my doctrine of the church class at MCTS. I gave that lecture to the best of my recollection in the spring of 2006. In that lecture I attempted to scour the websites of this movement so that I might fairly and biblically evaluate their statements in light of the biblical view of the relation of church and family.
I was not prepared for what happened. The roof fell in. There were many responses to the Reformed Baptist Fellowship blog (both positive and negative). There were also emails to me which in tones both hurt and indignant called me to repent. As a result of reading those responses, I sent an open letter to Voddie Baucham which he posted on his blog. In that open letter I made clear an issue which I thought I had made clear in my original lecture, but to my surprise had not. That issue was that I distinguished in my own mind between more extreme and less extreme advocates of family-integrated views and classed as more moderate men like Doug Phillips, Scott Brown and the organization with the acronym, NCFIC.
One of the things for which I was criticized at that time was misrepresenting family-integrated views because I had not read their blogs and books. A sense of fairness requires me to say in my defense that when I originally wrote my lecture the leaders of this movement had not published a great deal. That has changed since 2006. On my desk are three books related to the family-integrated movement. Each of these books I have read over the last year in a desire to be current on this hot topic and not be guilty of misrepresenting these brothers.
What are these three books? In the order in which I read them (and also in the order in which they were published) they are Voddie Baucham’s Family Driven Faith (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2007); Paul Renfro’s contribution to the three views’ book entitled, Perspectives on Family Ministry: 3 Views (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2009); and Scott Brown’s A Weed in the Church (Wake Forest, NC: The National Center for Family-Integrated Churches, 2010). I want to interact with these books in coming blogs.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
In this episode, Dr. White discusses solo Scriptura (Keith Mathison’s phrase) and sola Scriptura. He interacts with the “me and my Bible” view of many in our day and other issues related to authority as it relates to the Bible and the Church.
CBTS Faculty fully subscribe to the 1689 Confession of Faith, hold an advanced
degree in their field of instruction, and possess significant pastoral experience.
THE FEDERAL THEOLOGY OF NEHEMIAH COXE: Intro.
Coxe’s treatise discusses God’s covenants with Adam, Noah, and Abraham.[1] It is constructed in a linear-historical trajectory from creation, to fall, to redemption in typical federal fashion.
Covenant of Works
Coxe holds a robust federal view of the covenant of works. He called it the covenant of creation,[2] covenant of works,[3] covenant of friendship,[4] and a covenant of rich bounty and goodness.[5] Coxe held that God created Adam in his image with the law written in his heart. It was the sum of this law that was promulgated on Mount Sinai and delivered more briefly by our Lord “who reduced it to two great commandments respecting our duty both to God and our neighbor…”[6] Added to this moral law was “a positive precept in which he charged man not to eat of the fruit of one tree in the midst of the garden of Eden.[7] The covenant of works or creation was not co-extensive with creation but an addition to it. Coxe says:
In this lies the mystery of the first transaction of God with man and of his relationship to God founded on it. This did not result immediately from the law of his creation but from the disposition of a covenant according to the free, sovereign, and wise counsel of God’s will. Therefore, although the law of creation is easily understood by men (and there is little controversy about it among those that are not degenerate from all principles of reason and humanity), yet the covenant of creation, the interest of Adam’s posterity with him in it, and the guilt of original sin returning on them by it, are not owned by the majority of mankind. Nor can they be understood except by the light of divine revelation.[8]
It is not from any necessity of nature that God enters into covenant with men but of his own good pleasure. Such a privilege and nearness to God as is included in covenant interest cannot immediately result from the relationship which they have to God as reasonable creatures, though upright and in a perfect state.[9]
Adam had “the promise of an eternal reward on condition of his perfect obedience to these laws.”[10] The tree of life functioned sacramentally as “a sign and pledge of that eternal life which Adam would have obtained by his own personal and perfect obedience to the law of God if he had continued in it.”[11] Adam’s violation of the positive precept of Genesis 2:17 was also a violation of “that eternal law that is written in his heart.”[12]
[2] Coxe and Owen, Covenant Theology, 39, 46, 49, 53, 58.
[3] Coxe and Owen, Covenant Theology, 45, 49, 53.
[4] Coxe and Owen, Covenant Theology, 49, 51. This seems to be dependent upon Cocceius.
[5] Coxe and Owen, Covenant Theology, 49.
[6] Coxe and Owen, Covenant Theology, 43. For a brief survey of the highly nuanced view of the functions of the Decalogue in redemptive history in Reformed orthodoxy see my The Family Tree of Reformed Biblical Theology: The Method of and Contributions to the articulation of Redemptive History of Geerhardus Vos and John Owen (Owensboro, KY: RBAP, 2010), 277-297.
[7] Coxe and Owen, Covenant Theology, 43.
[8] Coxe and Owen, Covenant Theology, 49.
[9] Coxe and Owen, Covenant Theology, 36.
[10] Coxe and Owen, Covenant Theology, 44, 51. Coxe gives three proofs with discussion for the promise of an eternal reward on pages 45-46.
[11] Coxe and Owen, Covenant Theology, 45. Coxe justifies this function of the tree of life as follows: “The allusion that Christ makes to it in the New Testament (Revelation 2:7). …The method of God’s dealing with Adam in reference to this tree after he had sinned against him and the reason assigned for it by God himself [i.e., Genesis 3:22ff.]. …This also must not be forgotten: that as Moses’ law in some way included the covenant of creation and served for a memorial of it (on which account all mankind was involved in its curse), it had not only the sanction of a curse awfully denounced against the disobedient, but also a promise of the reward of life to the obedient. Now as the law of Moses was the same in moral precept with the law of creation, so the reward in this respect was not a new reward, but the same that by compact had been due to Adam, in the case of his perfect obedience.” Here Coxe is articulating Owen’s (and others’) view of the function of the covenant of works under the Mosaic covenant.
[12] Coxe and Owen, Covenant Theology, 43, 51.
Dr. Richard Barcellos is associate professor of New Testament Studies. He received a B.S. from California State University, Fresno, an M.Div. from The Master’s Seminary, and a Th.M. and Ph.D. from Whitefield Theological Seminary. Dr. Barcellos is pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Palmdale, CA. He is author of Trinity & Creation, The Covenant of Works, and Getting the Garden Right. He has contributed articles to various journals and is a member of ETS.
Courses taught for CBTS: New Testament Introduction, Biblical Hermeneutics, Biblical Theology I, Biblical Theology II.
Dr. Richard Barcellos is associate professor of New Testament Studies. He received a B.S. from California State University, Fresno, an M.Div. from The Master’s Seminary, and a Th.M. and Ph.D. from Whitefield Theological Seminary. Dr. Barcellos is pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Palmdale, CA. He is author of Trinity & Creation, The Covenant of Works, and Getting the Garden Right. He has contributed articles to various journals and is a member of ETS.
Courses taught for CBTS: New Testament Introduction, Biblical Hermeneutics, Biblical Theology I, Biblical Theology II.