Whilin' Away the Hours

I was bad today.
I succumbed to road rage. I'll be the first to admit that I have a bit of a temper sometimes. I don't get set off easily but when I do I become irrational.

I was stopped at a red light in the left turn lane of a three lane section of road. The two lanes to my right were for traffic going straight. Behind me was a humongous truck and a long string of traffic. The light changed to green and I pulled forward about half way into the intersection to await an opening to turn left onto the highway. I waited for two or three cars to pass on the oncoming side then let the clutch engage, gave my little Vee Dub some gas, and WHOOSH! Some air headed chick came flying around me from the adjacent lane & turned left onto the highway in front of me forcing me to brake & swerve. Let me repeat: she was not in the turn lane! I was annoyed and a bit shaken so when I caught up to her on the ramp I honked my horn at her. The bubble-head waved at me! Waved! LOL! Well, that did it. My mild annoyance turned into blind psychosis and I charged her. I wanted her to feel my evil eye penetrating the back of her skull as I beamed my opinion of her idiocy in an act of extra-sensory assault. She tapped her brakes (as expected) so I switched lanes, pulled along side of her, and gave her a concise lecture regarding her eminent lack of intelligence coupled with her apparent species. She in turn displayed a well-known universal sign of contempt. We were not a lady-like pair of drivers.

I regret it now and repent. Hopefully, the next time I'll just write down her license plate number, find her, and slash her tires. Lol...just kidding. You now know the sorry truth about me. I'm a sinner.

Render to no man evil for evil. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

It's over.
Trick-Or-Treat I mean. And I'm glad. I used to have fun with it. I'd carve a pumpkin, put a little candle in it, and tenderly place it on the front porch - with full knowledge that it would likely be smashed in the street the next morning. Sometimes I dressed up as a ghost or I'd wear a headband with bats circling my head. One year I tried to make smoke with dry ice. And I usually had Pink Floyd's Ummagumma playing. I thought "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a Pict" and "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" were especially appropriate. I don't know what's happened. It's not fun any more. But tonight one little girl made the whole thing worthwhile. She couldn't have been more than 3 years old. She was dressed in a fuzzy hooded cheetah suit complete with ears and tail and her father stood protectively behind her as she held up her basket for a treat. As she turned to walk away she looked up at me and said "tah tou" without being prompted. She was sooo cute!

No slam Dunc(an)
Alastair has done an admirable job of exposing the error in the work of J. Ligon Duncan III in his flagrantly Wrightophobic piece which, btw, is now being pandered at A.C.E.

I'm saddened
by the glaring error in J. Ligon Duncan's The Attractions of the New Perspective(s) on Paul. It has been very ably critiqued on the Wrightsaid list by men who have studied Wright's work carefully and objectively. I'm left with no alternative but to think that, inspite of what he says, Duncan read Wright with an agenda and blinders firmly in place.

But I'm more saddened by the fact that so many people heard this lecture or will read this transcript and believe that it's accurate simply because J. Ligon Duncan III said it.

Please welcome
The Laughing Linden Branch to the blogosphere. I know next nothing about Mr. (?) Branch. He is an Accidental Anglican and he appeared out of the blue one day on an ezboard that I frequent.

What he said.
My neurotransmittens are too fuzzy and I think one of them has come unclipped from my sleeve.

Alastair has no such problem.

Dr. Strangelove
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Limited Atonement
"For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in him should all the fullness dwell; and through him to reconcile all things unto himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross; through him, I say, whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens. And you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and without blemish and unreproveable before him: " Col. 19-22

What are the things upon earth or things in the heavens? Back up a vs to 1:16-19: the things of vs 20 are the whole universe, material and spiritual. On the cross, Christ bore the penalty for the fullness of primeval sin. As Dabney says, "expiation, is one--the single, glorious, indivisible act of the divine Redeemer, infinite and inexhaustible in merit." By his expiatory death and triumphant resurrection, the whole universe, material and spiritual, is being reconciled to God. It is the new creation inaugurated, it is the regeneration. Christ is the firstborn in the regeneration (Col. 1:18) and his is the archetypal new birth. The heavens & the earth are being born again (Col. 1:15, Ro. 8:21-22), Israel was born again (Jn 3:7, Ez. 36:25-28; 37:11), and individuals must be born again (John 3: 3, 5).

An individual enters the regeneration by virtue of union with Christ - existential union. It is at that point that the guilty individual is reconciled to God because it is union with Christ which effects the imputation of the sinner's sin to Christ. With the quickening of the Spirit, the sinner dies to sin in Christ and is reborn in his resurrection. Prior to union with Christ, the sinner owns his sin and his guilt.

Dr. John Owen sets out an argument for limited atonement which assumes that the guilt of the sins of the elect was expiated at the cross in real time. Here is the argument:

The Father imposed His wrath due unto, and the Son underwent punishment for, either:

All the sins of all men.
All the sins of some men, or
Some of the sins of all men.
In which case it may be said:

That if the last be true, all men have some sins to answer for, and so, none are saved.
That if the second be true, then Christ, in their stead suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the whole world, and this is the truth.
But if the first be the case, why are not all men free from the punishment due unto their sins?
You answer, "Because of unbelief."

I ask, Is this unbelief a sin, or is it not? If it be, then Christ suffered the punishment due unto it, or He did not. If He did, why must that hinder them more than their other sins for which He died? If He did not, He did not die for all their sins!"

The argument is based on the idea that God is already propitiated toward the elect so that nothing hinders his coming to salvation. I ask, salvation from what? If the guilt of his sin is paid and God is favorably inclined to him, what more does he need? In this scheme, he comes to Christ as one worthy of Christ not as a sinner.

It makes much more sense to me to think of Christ's work of expiation, propitiation, and redemption as a cosmic regeneration which is applied to individuals as they are brought into union with Christ by the Holy Spirit. The atonement is limited only by the purpose and design of the Trinity. It is this purpose, this intent that is spoken of in Eph. 1:4f, "...even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love: having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will..."

Today is a good day!
Relatively speaking. Florida Senate OKs 'Terri's bill'. And, it looks like partial-birth abortion will soon be illegal.

But the Michael Schiavos and Dr. Martin Haskells are still out there. (Haskell, btw, is from my city and operates an abortion mill here.)

WorldNetDaily is also carrying an ad, 'Pro-choicers' clap after partial-birth abortion, which is nauseating. Can you image applauding a video demonstration of partial-birth abortion? My reaction to that information was visceral, physical. It literally made me dizzy. Sometimes I think it would be nice to be a man and just hit something hard enough to break it, you know?

I'm thankful for every little step in the right direction but, oh, there is such a long way to go.

A glimmer of hope
Florida legislators to rush 'Terri' bill.

Keep praying!

Jamey's questions:
Westminster’s Sacraments

A note to a few friends:
A little bird told me that the purpose of the "revised" hymn below has been misunderstood. In an attempt to clarify: the hymn is not an endorsement of Catholicism nor is it a critique of Catholicism. Also, in speaking of "Romophobes," I am not endorsing Roman Catholicism nor am I critiquing it. In fact, this really has nothing to do with the Roman Catholic church.

p.s. This disclaimer also has nothing to do with anyone who commented on my blog.

I don't know how long I'll leave this up but...
I was cleaning some things out today and found the revised lyrics to the old hymn Onward Christian Soldiers initialed by J. R. The brief note that came with the new lyrics indicated that the author was offended by the hymn's Catholicity (or was that catholicity?).

Here are the revised lyrics :
Onward Christian Soldiers (as "corrected" by Mr. Propositionhead)

Onward grievous heretics, marching off to Rome;
With your works salvation, going on before!
Neo-legal amigos, lead the samba line;
Ex opere op'rato, see their liturgy

Chorus
Onward grievous heretics, marching off to Rome;
With your works salvation, going on before!

By the sign of baptism, they are objective
Covenantal posers, feign'd election see!
We the Proposition'ly Saved, shout what heresy!
Foolish Galatians, saved mechanic'ly

Like a swarm of locusts, move the Shepherdites
Brothers they are treading, on the seven hills.
Covenantal faithfulness, in the call of grace;
gospel in the gospels, conditionality.

Rally then ye righteous, (that's hyperbole),
Join our guardian order, protecting sola fide.
We are not divisive, all one mind are we,
One in proposition, two in Tennessee.

Chorus
Onward grievous heretics, marching off to Rome;
With your works salvation, going on before!

Another blog update
I'm such a procrastinator! You've probably already wandered by Whirlwind. I was pleased to see Kevin begin blogging. He's a white hat. Besides, he sells coffee and that makes him OK in my book.

I met Kevin briefly when I was in Monroe for the 2003 Auburn conference. There were book tables and a table with cookies and coffee set up in the basement of the church. The coffee was Areopagus Coffee and it was wonderful stuff. During one of the breaks I noticed a man behind the table selling bags of the coffee so I took the opportunity to say hi and thank him for providing such good fare. There is almost nothing more dismal than the sour brown water that passes for coffee at most church functions so I was sincere in my gratitude. And that's the story of how I know Kevin!

Help from a Greek scholar please?
Is the root of suntaxei "taxis?" If so, is the meaning "with an appointed order?" See LXX Gen. 18:19. Another possibility is suntasso but where would the "Xsi" come from?

An aesthetic obligation
I listened to a lecture on Human Art and Divine Beauty by Dr. Dan McCartney from the Ninth Annual Contemporary Issues Conference (2000) Faith and the Arts: Mourning to Dancing today. The message of the lecture, that we have an obligation to reflect God's beauty by creating beauty, wonderfully illustrates that God communicates Himself in all of His works and that truth is more than intellectual proposition. Earthly beauty exists because of God's own beauty (think of nebulae, phosphorescent caverns, deep sea fish...things we've only recently seen) and to make disembodied proposition the sole expression of truth is to insult God. He communicates His being in things made.

An interesting outworking of all this is in our worship. Worship is the most important thing we do and all that we do in worship should reflect God's beauty. Dr. McCartney asks an interesting question near the end of his lecture: based on the aesthetic dimension of worship, would an observer conclude that your God is holy and beautiful or... childish, nonchalant, ugly, or ostentatious, garish? Your worship will either support and reinforce your sense of who God is or it will work against it.

God is extravagant in His bestowal of beauty. "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. "

In the continuing debate...
about works/merit, I saw a question posted on a Yahoo group. Essentially, it was a rhetorical question meant to make a point. It went something like this: was God obliged to reward Christ for the work he was sent to do or did Christ receive the promises by grace through faith as we do?

This question seems all wrong for several reasons. 1. God was "obliged" in the sense that He was covenanted with the Son to redeem man. It was an obligation of promise. Since God's vindication of Christ in the resurrection was a faithful fulfillment of promise, the question poses a false dichotomy doesn't it? 2. Christ, as the last Adam and the true Israel, did what Adam and Israel did not do...He believed God. He entrusted Himself to His Father like Adam and Israel should have done so yes, Christ received the promises by grace through faith. If Christ did not depend on His Father for everything, why did He pray?

I don't know. I don't like the way this question is phrased at all. Surely there is a name for this in logic but I haven't got a clue. The questioner is missing the relationship of Father & Son and Son & bride but I don't have the skill or the wits to frame a cogent explanation of why this is so wrongheaded.

Feeling kind of *duh* today...

Whew...
I finally hit a dead end in tracing my father's genealogy. Are you ready? The last ancestor I could find was Gualter Somerville, born about 1046, who came to Scotland with William the Conqueror, 1066, from Normandy.

I haven't exhausted my mother's side yet. I've traced her father's ancestors back to 1620 Germany.

Beware of starting a genealogy. It's addictive!

Saturday evening date
My dear husband took me out Saturday evening for dinner and a movie. Dinner was at the Outback Steakhouse. Afterward we saw Seconhand Lions. It's one of those movies that has a little bit of everything: humor, pathos, villainy, heroism, and curmudgeonery. I love curmudgeon types and Robert Duvall, one of the stars, is my favorite curmudgeon. He didn't let me down in this movie (Just wink at the "people are good at heart" line. But you might almost believe it after you see Duvall give his "What it takes to be a man" speech to the young punks.).

I'm excited...and a bit nervous.
Last Christmas, my husband gave me a generous gift certificate from Cheap Joe's Art Stuff (where I buy my art stuff). His motivation was to get me painting again. I was an art major in college but I haven't seriously painted since, ohhh...well, never mind. Let's just say it's been many moons. I had my 30 year-old worn out oil brushes as an excuse but no more. Today, my brand new brushes arrived!

Right now, I'm hung up on the French Realists. Favorites include The Stone Beakers by Gustave Courbet or The Gleaners by Jean François Millet. "Realism" refers more to the goal of representing the world accurately by portraying realistic settings and everyday tasks. I also enjoy American realist Edward Hopper. There are many, many others of course but those provide a hint of what I enjoy.

Who are your favorite artists?

Grab a handful of Kleenex
and listen to Dr. George Grant's account of his recent trip to Iraq. It's quite moving and terribly humbling. Did you know that there hasn't been a gathering in Iraq such as this one since 325 AD? Yep. The last time was to choose delegates for the Council of Nicea.

Very interesting...
The Trinity Foundation posted the John Kinnaird trial documents.

***Update***
Several hours after I posted a link to the material PCA ruling elder John Robbins made available on his Trinity Foundation web site (link deleted), I learned that the session of Bethany OPC did not give permission for the trial tapes to be transcribed and circulated. The tapes of the proceedings were the property of the session and were given only to the defense & the prosecution to prepare for the GA appeal and an express command was issued that they were not to be copied or given away or used for any purpose other than to prepare an appeal and the response.

I wonder if Mr. Robbins would be willing to give an account of how he obtained the tapes and from whom he received permission to transcribe and publish them. And I wonder who Deep Throat is...