Themelios: Volume 41, No. 1, April 2016

Top Highlights

“People from a dispensational heritage emphasize discontinuity between the covenants, and therefore commonly argue that the church begins at Pentecost; people from a covenant-theology heritage emphasize the continuity of the covenant of grace, think in terms of fulfillment of what was promised, and therefore argue that the ‘assembly’ of the people of God is one, and that therefore it is a mistake to argue that the church begins at Pentecost.” (Page 1)

“You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church [ἐκκλησία] of the firstborn” (Page 1)

“Barclay helps us see that all players in Second Temple Judaism believed in grace, even if they understood it differently. But it does not follow from this that we should accept all conceptions of grace as equally valid, for that is a theological question that cannot and should not be decided by history.” (Page 57)

“By contrast, Reformed Baptists think that under the terms of the new covenant, the locus of the covenant community, the church, is ideally to be identified with the locus of the elect—and this is different from the way things work under the old covenant.” (Page 3)

“Yet most attractive of all is that the claim of lack of clarity or ignorance allows one to pursue one’s own position quite dogmatically while appearing to be very undogmatic. After all, the claim of ignorance looks as though it advances no position, but vitally it tacitly asserts that one’s opponent’s position cannot be decisively asserted—it is forever only a possibility, not a certainty on which one could base action or decision. There is something very rewarding in being a closet dogmatist while appearing to be the reverse.” (Page 7)