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Discussion of George Gillespie's Wholesome Severity Reconciled with Christian Liberty
Re: WF: I do not know how to respond to my e-mail from you guys? 
Subject: Re: WF: I do not know how to respond to my e-mail from you
  guys?
From: Richard Bacon 
Date: Mon, 05 May 1997 08:15:53 -0500

At 11:12 PM 5/4/97 -0400, Jonny Keen wrote:

>Dear Westminster Forum-I find the stuff I have been receiving from you
>interesting but I do not how to comment on it? I read your instructions
>but it all left me in the dark. 

Perhaps some specific questions might be in order.  What exactly is it
that "left you in the dark."  Surely not "all," as you say.

>I also am not one of your highbrow
>Presbyterian intellectuals-I go to the Bible so if I do comment on what
>you are sending me I will not back it up with man's thinking-Reformed
>Theology-the Westminster Standards etc. . . I close only saying I do
>not find the Reformers correct on their view of Paul and the Law. 

Where is the backup from Scripture which you promised?  As the rules
clearly state (at least they are clear enough for most of us to
understand) -- the final authority in this forum is the Scripture in
the original Hebrew and Greek.  To which Reformers are you referring?
What views do you have in mind and what do you think has been
said by those Reformers about Paul and the law?

>I
>think we need to rethink-examine what the apostle Paul has to say about
>the Mosaic Covenant in the New Age/New Covenant-also are we to pattern
>secular governments after the civil government of ancient Israel? 

Ok, fair enough.  Are *you* willing to rethink what your Sunday School
teachers and pastors have taught you in light of the Word of God?  Or
are you content to allow someone to quote Romans 6:14 out of context
to you and be done with it?

>I do
>not read in the Gospels the Lord Jesus telling the Romans they needed to
>pattern their civil government after the Mosaic Covenant-it seems God
>thought the people of God should leave the Roman civil government in
>place and not set up a goverment pattern after the Mosaic Covenant-the
>Torah. Well I close-Jonny

1.  Do you know of a passage in which Jesus Christ speaks to the subject
of what pattern of civil government the Romans ought to have?  If you
do not, then an argument from silence is no argument at all.

2.  "It seems God thought" is not exactly the abundance of Scripture you
claimed earlier in your post you were going to adduce.

3.  Please examine Paul's view of the law in Romans 7:22.  How
does Paul characterize his attitude toward the law "after the
inward man?"

4.  What is a "secular government?"  Are you by any chance referring
to those that Paul calls the "ministers of God" in Romans 13:4? If you
are, then would you please explain in what sense a minister of God
for good might operate?  At his own pleasure, or at God's?

Thank you for your consideration of these questions, Johnny (or
any others who may wish to join in).


Dick Bacon
Poster of the text and keeper of the order.