This is a crucial point you make Mark G. Without a covenant theology there is not a proper doctrine of God. WCF 7.1 places covenant as the sole means by which we can have any positive benefit from knowing God. Also, our confessions are clear about the necessity of sola scriptura as the basis upon which we can establish a proper Covenant Theology. I think the absence of a proper covenant theological framework is the consequence of a low view of Scripture (i.e the continuationist position).

2. Alternatives. If “Calvinist” is not permitted to be used to refer to those who hold to 5-point soteriology, then what label is offered as an alternative? That there is a strong bond of fellowship between calvinists across denominational lines cannot be denied. This bond runs stronger, I would argue, than the bond of belief in paedobaptism that units all paedobaptists. To not allow the likes of Spurgeon, Whitefield, Lloyd-Jones and Piper to be identified as Calvinists, I ask what label can be given to bring them into a fold by which we so appreciate their ministries?

Jeff,

I appreciate your clarification on your position. The concern, which prompted me to post a comment, was the idea, which was implied during the program, that Charles Spurgeon, a particular baptist minister believing in congregational polity, didn’t affirm the regulative principle. You may disagree with the conclusion of particular baptist polity, but you must at least admit that it is a belief in the regular principle, which is the driving force behind such an understanding. Particular baptist historically believed that that the Scripture reveals a specific polity structure to be followed. In addition, to assume that particular baptist churches from the very beginning (i. e. Philadelphia Baptist Association) didnt believe in the interependency as well as independency is to ignore history. Historic particular baptist polity is far more nuanced than what was assumed on the program. I appreciate your program. May the Lord continue to bless your efforts.

Don

As Presbyterian ministers we understand the Bible to teach Presbyterianism. However we recognize that someone such as yourself is very close to us, except for the issue of baptism and the variant of covenant theology that lies behind that. So you probably should not be classified as New Calvinist at all. Using my concentric circle with Presbyterianism in the center, perhaps particular Baptists (and Reformed Baptists) should be the next ring and so on and somewhere further out would be the New Calvinists.

Any thoughts?

Let’s keep it simple. You hear the actual Word of God, you read the actual Word of God, it takes hold in you, it begins to quicken you, you are no longer hostile to it (I don’t care if you grew up in a church going family or a non-church-going family, you know if you were hostile to the Word of God prior or not), marks of regeneration appear, you value the Bible from an inward motivation, you read it solely on your own volition, you have a love for other Christians where before you mocked them (this doesn’t mean you love off-the-mark doctrine), you begin to gravitate towards the learning of biblical doctrine, you desire it, you have questions that you actively seek to answer through study.

The difference in the above is how educated a person is. NOT how much college or university time they’ve put in, but what were their interests prior to hearing the effectual call of the Word of God. If, like me, you had been through the classical historians, epic poetry, a good dose of some of the more worthwhile philosophy, your emotional life has been softened a bit by contact with music, higher forms of music, (theory, composition, performance, to any degree helps), you are somewhat familiar with other religions, you know history in general (all of these things at least to some basic degree), you were able to navigate your way through a difficult, classic novel and actually know what was going on in it, etc., then the Bible and biblical doctrine, though it will be strange because there is nothing truly like it (Atonement? Adoption? the wrath of God?, etc.) in other worldly influences (other than as deep themes) becomes a bit easier to navigate, but I believe though the bar is set high for Christianity the Holy Spirit enables people to meet and exceed that bar.

Sometimes to get something across that is difficult for people to see or accept you have to hammer a little harder. I guess the metaphor would be, if the wood you are dealing with is harder you have to hammer the nail harder.

And what I’m talking about is loosely hanging around – unspoken – all this subject matter of old and new Calvinists and what not. The new know something is wrong, or missing. The old are retreating to a supposed confessionalist stance (after they erase parts of the old confessions they don’t agree with, mind you).

The very existence of a John Piper vs. the “we’re with the old guys, keeping it simple with sacraments and Sunday worship” shows there is a lot in the air to be reconciled, yet both sides refuse to see what is missing. You simply cannot give up supernatural preservation and destroy faith in an inerrant Bible and have a living, strengthening faith. And you simply cannot exalt man and ritual over the Word and the Spirit and at the same time value a biblical doctrine and reality of monergistic regeneration.

Who are the models? John Bunyan. It’s not well-known that he had a sophisticated understanding of Covenant – Federal – Theology. (And that would be the Covenant – Federal – Theology found in Berkhof and Vos and aBrakel, and not any version of New Covenant Theology nonsense or the 17th century Baptist equivalent, but straight, on-the-mark Federal, Covenant Theology sans infant baptism twisting and distorting what without that is a simple, elegant, and powerful Plan of Redemption from one pole of eternity to another. A. W. Pink could even, once he cast off his Dispensationalism, get a complete understanding of Covenant – Federal – Theology. Think about that. Unconnected to any seminary (or church) he gets to the core of doctrine that even today Reformed theologians are still mangling.

I could be wrong, but I think you may be taking it a little to far.

“This is the Calvinism with the life of the Spirit in it. This is the Calvinism of the spiritual battlefield. This is the Calvinism that builds understanding and builds being.”

It’s foreign to them. Their churches and their doctrine actually enforce shallowness.

When I say, “Priesthood of scholars constructed bibles” they scoff and mock. They can’t see that it is the attitude of a Christian who adopts such bibles that has the effect in them of keeping them shallow and keeping them in the chains of their own fallen nature. When you demand to look down on the Bible rather than look up to it you are adopting an attitude. An attitude you are usually not even aware of. Try to like what your fallen nature dislikes. Your fallen nature dislikes a Bible you have to look up to. One that hasn’t been constructed by man. One that has the authority of God in it. One that doesn’t need you more than you need it. This is foundational. You want to shout and mock “King James Only!!! Ha, ha!!!” but that is your shallowness and fear of the world speaking. You don’t want anything to do with *any* Bible based on the supernaturally preserved text.

And this causes you to be angry like Cain towards God’s sovereignty in regeneration. God is sovereign in creation, providence, and grace. And *grace.* This has not been left to the actions of clerics and ritual. It is involved with the Word of God and the Holy Spirit.

Back to the Word of God. The one thing the Devil hates most is the fact of regeneration. What did the Roman Catholic church, run by the Devil, keep away from people when it had the power to keep things away from people? Sacraments? No. They called people in to be baptized and to their mass all night and all day. Come one, come all. What was it? That’s right, it was the *Word of God* they kept away from people. And they did it upon penalty of torture and death. I.e. they *really* didn’t want people to come into contact with the Word of God. The Devil knows what regenerates, and it isn’t sacraments or priestcraft, or church buildings, or what have you. It is the living, quickening Word of God and the Holy Spirit.

Final note: what did Zwingli, Luther, and Calvin all three say was the most important thing they did? All three made similar statements that the most important thing they did was to proclaim the *actual* Word of God – the Holy Bible – to entire populations, cover-to-cover. Why was this so important in their view? Because they knew regeneration was the main thing, and it was the Word of God that effected regeneration in God’s elect.

Downgrade your doctrine of the Word of God; downgrade the doctrine and reality of regeneration by the Word and the Spirit; and you have communions dead in Spirit and shallow. Centuries back it was the Enlightenment that downgraded Scripture, today it is the Counter-Reformation ongoing attack on the Word of God resulting in constructed Bibles based on Romanist corrupted manuscripts. The resulting attitude is the same. Victory for the Devil.

On a perhaps more charitable reading of it, saying all doctrine is church doctrine is like saying all doctrine is eschatology doctrine. I.e. we can see something in that, but it would apply to any of the basic loci of systematic theology.

Of course meaning: “To Rome, if we must! Anything to get away from these Word and Spirit Christians!!”

“Dr.Loyde-Jones (who was also a paedobaptist)”

One of the reasons Martyn Lloyd-Jones is not so much in really anybody’s conversation today is because he was neither straight paedo-baptist or credo-baptist. He didn’t think it was a point of doctrine worth separating communions on.

You said, “the discussion was not trying to pigeon hole so much as trying to distinguish between two schools of thought (New Calvinism and Old [school] Calvinism) and argue that certain distinguishing features are historically characteristic and important.”

Actually that’s exactly what happened in the discussion. Even so much as they failed to make proper distinctions between confessional Reformed Baptist and New Covenant Calvinistic Baptist like Dr.Piper. Saying there’s New Calvinist who are confessional is missing the mark by far.

You said, ” I we’re going to have any discussion at all we have to have some defined categories to talk about.”

Now here’s where the inconsistencies come in. It seem like you guys are picking and choosing which categories are important and the ones that are not. For example, many Reformed Presbyterians and RB’s practice exclusive Psalmody (I believe Calvin did as well) and perhaps rightly say their Presbyterian brethren who do not practice EP are less Reformed. Imagine an entire podcast being created around that idea. Again that’s just an example. There’s many more examples you can give, but who wants to sit around naming them? There needs to be more consistency here.

That being said, the discussion was not trying to pigeon hole so much as trying to distinguish between two schools of thought (New Calvinism and Old [school] Calvinism) and argue that certain distinguishing features are historically characteristic and important. I we’re going to have any discussion at all we have to have some defined categories to talk about. For example, it may be pointless to argue that “Reformed Baptist” is not reformed, but it’s helpful to compare and contrast positions commonly held in Reformed Baptist & Reformed Presbyterian traditions respectively. Only the simplest of topics can be discussed without categorizing.

Great point Mark! You would think Calvin himself would have been added to their list of those who were not Reformed. This must be the exception.

Calvin had beliefs that were contrary to Westminster; e.g., views on Sabbath and he did not present a formal statement of covenant theology in the Institutes.

I’ve also taken to describing myself at a classical Protestant or a paleo-Protestant rather than Reformed. I got this from the title of David Wells really good book. This is another way that seems to keep my evangelical and calvinistic Baptist friends from shutting down before I even explain my position. The reality is that the first Protestants were Reformed but so many of today’s current Protestants don’t even know the story. The classical Protestant distinctions (sacraments, ecclesiology, confessions, etc.), as Tolkein said of the one ring, have “passed out of all knowledge” among our evangelical siblings.