ARBCA 3

Well, the first portion of day 3 is over. I will be leaving first thing in the morning in order to make it back for the ECS golf tournament.
This mornings speaker was Dr. Fred Malone. He concluded his message on Justification. In one word, wow. Dr. Malone, as many of you know, is a man gifted by God for His church. I was a recipient of that gift this morning.
Dr. Malone asserted that justification by faith alone and the imputation of Christ's righteousness are being denied. They are being denied publicly at least by two men involved in the new perspective, Daniel Fuller and Norman Shepherd.
He reminded us that Justification is not the whole of the gospel but a part. It is vitally important but just a part of the salvation process. Everything we have is in Christ Jesus. Justification is the moment the sinner is admitted into a life with Christ.
Dr. Malone then began to lay out some biblical evidence for the imputed righteousness of Christ in justification.
First he looked at Peter's sermon at Pentecost. He preached justification by faith alone through Christ alone although he didn't use those words. The Jews understood the works of Abraham but that his FAITH was accredited to him as righteousness.
Next we went to Romans 5:12-19.
In verses 12-14 Paul focuses on the fact that death came to all men through Adam. The guilt of his sin was imputed to all man that would come after him.
Before Sinai, sin was in the world because the law was in the world. Adam's breaking of the law he was given was imputed, passed on. Even though those before Sinai did not sin in like manner of Adam, Adam's sin of law breaking and its guilt was imputed to them.
Verse 15-17. The gift of righteousness is the gift given in justification by faith alone through Christ alone.

Those who oppose this doctrine separate Christ's obedient act on the cross from his obedience in life. They separate His justification from his righteousness and by doing this they deny Him.
The essential righteousness of Christ because He is God is incommunicable to us. The righteousness of Christ given in justification is not the righteousness of His essence, but the righteousness of His sinless, obedient, human life.
"Oh how beautiful is the righteousness of Christ."

Why would anyone deny the imputation of the righteousness of Christ in justification?
Here Dr. Malone responds to the denial of Norman Shepherd. He says he (Shepherd) must deny these truths because they negate a works based justification and would open the Christian to antinomian living. So, in order to play God and prevent this, because God needs Shepherds help, he denies this foundational doctrine. Shepherd mixes justification and sanctification which musty remain separate. The result is a rejection of the preaching of the law of God to sinners in order to see their need of a redeemer. Italics mine.
In his (Shepherd's) mind, requiring obedience for salvation eliminates easy-believism in evangelism.

Next, Malone speaks on the covenant of works given to Adam.
The words covenant and works are not used in Genesis nor is the word covenant used in Hebrews in relation to Abraham. But there is no doubt that God covenanted with Adam through an oath and promise. Genesis 2:16-17 is clearly a covenant.
The covenant of obedience to God's given law was broken by Adam and thereafter guilt imputed to every person.
Adam had the right to eat of any other tree, including the tree of life, but he chose to eat of the tree of death.
There is a covenant of works and law in place today and we will receive wrath if we have no righteous Redeemer to fulfill that covenant.
The perfect obedience of Jesus who was born under the law of Adam and Moses made possible the appeasement of God's wrath towards those who are guilty of breaking these covenants.
Thank you Dr. Malone.

These notes do not come close to giving justice to the messages given. But I have ordered the cds from the assembly.
Praise God for our precious Savior whose righteousness is imputed in justification to us who believe by His grace!

ARBCA 2

ARBCA General Assembly 4.05.06
Last night we heard from Fred Malone on the doctrine of Justification. His primary text was Luke 18:9-14, the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector. As a note of background he mentioned that during the inner-testimonial period, the Jews developed unauthorized books falsely attributed to biblical writers as an attempt to give their writings authority. In these books, they taught a justification that comes from obedience to the law. It was this understanding of justification that plagued the pharisee in the given parable.
He stated that the two men in the parable had things in common as well as things which made them distinct.
1. What they shared in common

• They were both Jews
• They were both circumcise
• They were both sons of Adam
• They were both seeking justification from God

2. What made them different

• One stood in the temple near the holy of holies - he felt comfortable in God's presence
• The other stood far off
• One looked at the law and saw his righteous works
• The other looked at the law and saw condemnation

The pharisee had a wrong view of God's holiness. He did not understand that his hatred was murder in God's eyes. By judging the tax collector, he condemned himself by the law by his own self-righteousness.

Dr. Malone says that it is being asserted today that all of the covenants are of grace whereby we enter by grace but remain by obedience. They have redefined justification and grace. Those who create a justification by works, that is a justification that is not sure until the end and is not eternal from the beginning have perverted the gospel.

Even throughout the OT, justification was by faith alone.

• Abraham - he believed and it was accounted to him as righteousness
• Isaiah - Only in the Lord are righteousness and strength (Is. 45)
• Jeremiah - The Lord is our righteousness. This text does not just say the Lord is righteous, it says He is OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Malone said justification has to do with a sinner who believes in Jesus as the only savior of the world and then two things happen:
1. Sins are atoned for and washed away
2. Heart is covered with perfect righteousness of His character and love.

This morning's keynote speaker was Eric Freel, pastor of Redeemer Baptist Church in Macon, GA. He spoke on "Quitting."

He has two main points:
1. Jesus, our Lord had reason to quit
2. The reason Jesus, our Lord, did not quit.

1. Jesus, our Lord, had reason to quit.
a. rejection John 1:11
b. He knew the nature of man John 2:23-25
c. ignorance on the part of leadership John 3 (Nicodemus)
d. mans' fear of man John 7:12-15
e. abandonment John 6 - Starts with a huge crowd but ends with betrayal of the disciples.
f. murder plots - plots that were rooted in a genuine desire to kill Him.

2. The reason Jesus, our Lord, did not quit.
a. He was and is radically God-centered John 5:30
b. He had a clear view of His mission and the determination to accomplish it. John 4:34, 5:36
c. He experienced true gospel success John 1:12

This was a great message from a dear brother.

Later in the morning, there was a theological discussion on the topic of eldership. This was the first part of a three part discussion that will continue tomorrow.
The first question that was asked is, "Is the church in proper order with only one elder?"
Fred Malone was the first to respond. I was pleased with his answer as I had noticed a paragraph in the 1689 just before he stood to comment. His comment was rooted in the same text. He had just noticed it himself. It is found in chapter 26, paragraph 9. Speaking of the appointment of a men to eldership, it leads to, "with imposition of hands of the eldership of the church, if there be any before constituted therein."
Our forefathers most likely understood there would be situations we may find ourselves in. For example, a church is just getting started and has only one qualified for elder.
Dr. James Renihan added, "There is a difference between the being of the church and the well-being of the church." It is more important to have the gospel than the form. These men are all for plurality of elders and recognize not only the scriptural precedence but the importance for accountability. They, nor I , are willing to say a church is not a true church or under judgment if they find themselves in a season with only one pastor. That pastor does need, however, to set in place some good accountability and counsel for himself.
Dr. Renihan recommended three books on the subject after agreeing that Alexander Strauch's book on eldership is not only poor but worthy of avoiding.

The three books are:
1. "John Cotton on the Churches of New England" Specifically the section on the keys of the kingdom.
2. "Polity" - Mark Dever
3. "The Church Manual" - James M. Pendleton

The last part of this discussion had to do with the three marks of a true church. Dr. Renihan shared he does not give much attention to the "three marks" as they hail from the Dutch Presbyterians who claim we (reformed Baptist) are not a true church because we do not baptize infants.
He then went on to mention the lack of church discipline being the mark of a false church. He brought up the Corinthian church and mentioned they were not labeled an untrue church.

And there we ran out of time.

To be continued...

ARBCA 1

ARBCA 4.04.06
This morning's keynote speaker was Jon Hueni, pastor at Grace Fellowship Church in Bremen, Indiana. His focus was humility and repentance. This was a wonderful and convicting message. He said humility is recognizing who God is and who we are and the natural result will be repentance. He followed that by stating we will not be finished repenting until we are finished sinning.
Each group or class or type of people have peculiar sins that are specific to that group. That being the case, Reformed Baptist also have group specific sins and we need to repent. There are three things we need to do to repent: (Speaking to RB ministers)
1. Watch your life and doctrine closely. 1 Tim 4:16

• Have we scrutinized our lives as closely as we have reading a book with false doctrine?
• Reformed Baptist flesh is not one bit more sanctified than Arminian flesh.

2. Shepherd the flock graciously. 2Tim 2:24

• Am I as full of grace as I am truth?
  Pastor Hueni challenged us to consider the grace we have when we are the ones under attack. Are we gracious when confronting church members in sin? Have we considered that we have perhaps bigger logs in our eyes than they?

3. Evangelize the lost passionately.

• One of the charges against Calvinism is a lack of evangelism. In our defense, are we only pointing back to the evangelistic zeal of our forefathers like Calvin and Spurgeon? Do we have any zeal for the lost of our own? Do our efforts to evangelize the lost defend those charges or validate them?

Pastor Hueni's message was very relevant to today. I appreciated his strong exhortation.
I was very encouraged today by the role of prayer in the ARBCA General Assembly. Prayer played a major rule in today's agenda. After the morning message, we went into a 20 minute season of prayer with the focus being repentance. Some of the prayers seem to be genuine repentance as it concerned a lack of love for the lost. I was convicted and edified.

Pastors from the various member churches come forward to give ministry reports. After a five minute report, a volunteer from the floor offers prayer specifically for that pastor and church. Wow!

Each year ARBCA has a circular letter written by an elected pastor on an elected topic. This year's letter was written by Matthew Brennan from Ireland and the title was, "The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the Second London Baptist Confession." Again, a strong exhortation to the attending pastors concerning our dependence on the spirit for ministry and preaching.

Fellowship here is wonderful. I had lunch today with Sam Waldron and Richard Barcellos. These men were great encouragement to me. They are both very down to earth, easy to talk to, fun-loving guys. I was pleased to discover Richard enjoys "cutting the fool" as much as I do. (For my readers in CA, that means joking around).

Tonight we will hear from Fred Malone on the doctrine of Justification. Lord willing, I will post again tomorrow afternoon.

ARBCA

Here you go Russ.
I just arrived at the Hampton Inn. I will be attending the ARBCA General Assembly. ARBCA is the Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America. I will try to keep you posted on the daily messages. The theme of the conference is Justification by Faith and the keynote speaker is Fred Malone. Stay posted for daily updates (Lord willing.)