Thank you Pastor Hendrix for maintaining that blessed priority!

Amen! Thank you for this post, Pastor Hendrix!

I’m also thankful the Holy Spirit chose to place the words “tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering” after the words “the elect of God.” Because election is true, we ought to be humble and gracious. There ought to be no such thing as a proud Calvinist!

Or, to put it another way, why does CT believe in a new covenant, new creation, new temple, new priest, new sacrifice, new kingdom, new land, and new people of God, but and old law?

Because the New Testament does. The 10 commandments were not first revealed at Sinai, they were revealed at creation and republished at Sinai, thus they are not exclusive to the Old Covenant. The laws that were exclusive to the Old Covenant were abolished.

I do not mean that the Old Covenant believers were in the New Covenant; that would be to harm the progress of redemption.

I’m not convinced that’s true.

The new covenant set out to do what the old covenant could not do and that is to create hearts that loved and served God. Christ’s death purchased the covenant promise of the Holy Spirit and His work in the regeneration of all those who were in the New Covenant.

It seems this would require you to believe Old Covenant believers who were regenerate were members of the New Covenant, doesn’t it? Since the Old Covenant provided no means of regeneration?

In the same way Christ entered into the heavenly tabernacle and “by means of his own blood” he secured eternal redemption for all those who are in the New Covenant…Christ’s death did not take place in a vacuum for the elect, but his death was a covenant-sealing death for those who were in the Covenant of Grace that is realized fully in the New Covenant.

Hebrews does not say Christ was the mediator of the Covenant of Grace. It says He was the mediator of the New Covenant, and it contrasts Him with the mediator of the Old Covenant, Moses. Jesus was not the mediator of the Old Covenant.

It is difficult to interpose the organic idea into this formulation, because of the tight logical connections that the author makes between those who are in the New Covenant and those who have been redeemed.

Absolutely, which is why I feel we have to say anyone who was saved before or after Christ’s first advent was a member of the New Covenant. I have a hard time seeing how you can disagree and still maintain the discontinuity between Old and New that you are arguing for.

It also places unregenerate children as having Christ as a mediator, but not enjoying the benefits of his mediation.

Conversely, excluding Old Covenant believers from the New Covenant allows them to enjoy the benefits of Christ’s mediation while not having Christ as mediator.

Here are my thoughts on this. Would love your input:
http://contrast2.wordpress.com/2009/02/28/the-westminster-confession-of-faith-is-dispensational/

Therefore, families are not the building blocks of the New Covenant Church. The forgiven and regenerate are the building blocks of the Church, not families.

Amen. It’s quite bizarre that the primary leaders you are critiquing are 1689′ers.

On these grounds it is misguided to say that fathers need to disciple their children in covenant keeping. The only covenant that children outside of Christ are in is the Covenant of Works.

Amen.

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” Proverbs 9:10

A good church is a church that fears the Lord. I think in all the examples that Jim has given in the book of Acts is the fear that everyone had for what the Triune God was doing in the church. Not in the sense that He was doing a “bad” thing, but that they were witnessing first had the extent of the Lord’s power within a church that feared Him and that nothing was hidden from His sight.

http://www.sermonaudio.com/search.asp?speakerWithinSource=&subsetCat=series&subsetItem=Infant+Salvation&mediatype=&includekeywords=&keyword=Max%5EDoner&keyworddesc=Max+Doner&currsection=sermonsspeaker&AudioOnly=false&SpeakerOnly=trueon

If you want to listen you can cut and paste this URL into your browser.

I can only assume that the lack of responses is due to the fact that you have made a case which cannot be disputed. I would encouge you to publish this in expanded form, dealing not only with FICM but also with current manifestations of Patriarchy. You might also contact Joe Fleener to see whether he would be interested in participating. He has some insightful posts on teh internet regarding Vision Forum, etc.