I am going to have to be more careful about my sense of humour. Responding to Sven’s parody I decided to respond in kind with a humorous post. I also posted what I hoped was a funny post about Jollyblogger at the same time. Unfortunately tone of voice is not captured in a blog post and it may be that some people interpreted me as being stroppy. For that I apologise.
I think I will be more careful about what I say in the future. I honestly dont see my interactions over penal substitution as a war to be won. There is no point in winning an argument and loosing a brother. Fortunately most of our interactions on the subject thus far have been light hearted and gracious. For the sake of clarity of understanding for readers, I intend now to be more serious in my comments and make less wise cracks. This is too important a discussion to mess up by my unwise remarks.
I do have a bit of a problem immediately interacting with some of the guys on the other side. Sven is quite openly doubting the doctrine of sola scriptura, which makes debate very difficult. If we are not grounded in the word of God of course I am going to fail to pursuade anyone. We can rationalise away all kinds of things about God if we dont read the bible.
But if these folks are trying to create a God who lacks wrath against sin, I cannot see how they can do it without ignoring LARGE parts of the bible (eg is 53, Ro 1, Ro 3, Nahum 1) It is the unwillingness to interact seriously with texts like this which has made me coin the word “neo-liberal” to describe a view which wishes to find ways to wipe away offensive bits of the gospel I was raised on.
Ironically, although I am a wholesale sola scriptura man, I do believe we can learn from others interpretation of the bible. I am increasingly shocked to see young Christians without strong credentials mocking and downplaying the contribution of great men like Wayne Grudem, Lloyd-Jones, John Stott, and many many others who are simply brushed aside with amazing ease. These guys stand because they stand on the bible. I dont see such dependence on the bible in the posts I have read so far from the bloggers I have termed “neo-liberal”.
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