Well Done Phil Johnson!

This is a repost but something we should all be reminded of:

 

I loved reading Phil Johnson’s response to a comment at his Pyromaniacs blog site who wrote…

Your identity as a “Baptist”; your endless quotations from Charles Spurgeon; your faithful devotion to John MacArthur; and especially your willingness to call yourself a “Calvinist” are all huge red flags that tell me something is seriously wrong with your theology. Why do you teach a system of doctrine that is named after a mere man? Why are you following human teachers instead of going to the Bible alone? After all, 1 John 2:27 says, “The anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you.” We ought to go to Scripture alone to establish our doctrine! The truth is in God’s Holy word, not in any theological system or theology textbook developed by mere men. Isn’t that principle what the Reformation was originally about? Sola Scriptura? Didn’t even Calvin himself go to Scripture for the truth instead of reading other men? I believe that if Calvin himself wrote for this blog, he would point people to the truth in God’s Holy word, not to a theology developed by some other man.

Phil’s reply: You have seriously misunderstood sola Scriptura if you really imagine that it rules out human teachers or eliminates systematic theology. The Reformers (including Calvin) often cited the works of Augustine, Tertullian, Jerome, Cyprian, Ambrose, and others-ranging from the early church fathers through Aquinas. They didn’t follow any of them slavishly, of course, but they certainly took them seriously. Not one of the major Reformers would have tolerated the claim that because the Church Fathers were mere men they were therefore irrelevant or incapable of shedding any helpful light on tough theological questions.   Continue at John Samson

The Gospel according to the Church Fathers

After the apostles died, was the gospel hopelessly lost until the Reformation?

 

That certainly seems to be a common assumption in some Protestant circles today. Thankfully, it is a false assumption.

I’m not entirely sure where that misconception started. But one thing I do know: it did not come from the Protestant Reformers.

The Reformers themselves (including Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and others) were convinced that their position was not only biblical, but also historical. In other words, they contended that both the apostles and the church fathers would have agreed with them on the heart of the gospel.

For example, the second-generation Lutheran reformer, Martin Chemnitz (1522-1586), wrote a treatise on justification in which he defended the Protestant position by extensively using the church fathers. And John Calvin (1509-1564), in his Institutes, similarly claimed that he could easily debunk his Roman Catholic opponents using nothing but patristic sources. Here’s what he wrote:

If the contest were to be determined by patristic authority, the tide of victory — to put it very modestly —would turn to our side. Now, these fathers have written many wise and excellent things.  . . . [Yet] the good things that these fathers have written they [the Roman Catholics] either do not notice, or misrepresent or pervert.  . . .  But we do not despise them [the church fathers]; in fact, if it were to our present purpose, I could with no trouble at all prove that the greater part of what we are saying today meets their approval.     Keep Reading...

Baptism in History, Part 2

The writings of the third and fourth centuries reveal varying teachings on baptism. These include baptismal regeneration, baptism as a replacement for circumcision, and baptism as a step of faith. The church accepts some of these arguments today. Others have been rejected. Conclusions some claim are apostolic but which are based on rejected propositions should be viewed with skepticism.
Tertullian, in On Baptism (early 3rd century), argues against infant baptism: “[T]he delay of baptism is preferable; principally, however, in the case of little children.”¹ He gives several reasons. One is that the infant is “innocent.” The church under the more theologically precise Augustine soon rejected the “innocence” of infants. But if we read Tertullian generously, as not necessarily commenting on original sin, but as asserting that the status of an infant is “safe,” then the church agrees (see the Westminster Confession of Faith, Calvin, Hodge, Shedd, and Warfield [all referenced by Boettner²] and Spurgeon³). Although Augustine later rightly contradicted Tertullian’s words, Tertullian may have stood on a relatively orthodox basis when he argued for credo-baptism. Read the rest HERE

Calvinism Declared By The Church Fathers

The Church Fathers on T.U.L.I.P.

The "5 Points of Calvinism," or the "TULIP," as it's often affectionately called, did not originate with the French Reformer, but were doctrines that even the early Church held on to and defended. The ubiquity of Arminianism in the modern evangelical landscape is testimony to how far and wide heresy can spread and gain legitimacy when the historical weight of the Christian faith is left in the sidelines.

The following are quotations from prominent early Church fathers that put forth passionate support for the glorious doctrines of grace. Read it all HERE