The Broken Wharfe Podcast
The Broken Wharfe Podcast
EP 25: "Before the Foundation of the World" Ft. Jeffrey T. Riddle
EP 25: "Before the Foundation of the World" Ft. Jeffrey T. Riddle
In this episode, Jonny and John-Mark speak with Jeff Riddle about the doctrines of grace, what it means to be a "Reformed" Christian, whether the acronym TULIP is reflective of the teaching of the Bible, some of the implications of these doctrines and several other pointers. Jeff is pastor of Christ Reformed Baptist Church, VA and has written "Before the Foundation of the World: Doctrines of God's Free Grace" which is published by Broken Wharfe.
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a husband is to have a peculiar discriminating love for his own wife. He's not to love all women in the world in the same way. Comparison is drawn for us to Christ's love for his church. He has a, he has a, a specific, a particular love for a particular, uh, people. And, and that is, uh, uh,
john-mark_1_05-08-2024_175029:Welcome to the Broken Wharf podcast. My name is John Mark and I'm joined by my co host.
jonny_1_05-08-2024_175028:the wharf. How are you doing, John Mark?
john-mark_1_05-08-2024_175029:Very well. I've enjoyed the summer in England today, which is a very rare thing. And so, uh, it was perfect for. hanging around the wharf, uh, as we say, dipping our toes in. It was good. How about
jonny_1_05-08-2024_175028:just a, just a week ago, I had fires on in the house because it was really, it had those bizarre cold days and, um, and now it's, now it's warmed up. So I'm sat here in a hoodie. Um, I was kind of okay this morning, but I'm, I'm rather over warm, um, right now. So, uh, anyway, there we are at the wharf. Um, the weather is good. How's the weather with you, Jeff?
jeff-riddle_1_05-08-2024_125037:The weather in central Virginia today is very nice. Thank you for the welcome.
jonny_1_05-08-2024_175028:Good.
john-mark_1_05-08-2024_175029:Oh, good. Well, we are here to discuss the doctrines of grace. And the main reason for this is that, uh, Dr. Riddle, who's pastor of Christ Reformed Baptist Church in Virginia, has just with Broken Wharf, uh, published a revised, uh, a new edition, uh, of his, uh, book on the doctrines of grace, the five points of Calvinism. It's called Before the Foundation of the World. Uh, and we hope that this book will be a neat and simple introduction to, uh, these five points that seek to explain How God has gone about saving his people, according to the Bible, according to, uh, what we call Calvinism or reformed theology. So kicking these things off, Jeff, will you just introduce the listeners very quickly to the doctrines of grace and maybe explain very simply the five points. Yes.
jeff-riddle_1_05-08-2024_125037:Grace. We name our churches. Grace Baptist Church. And so grace is a huge biblical concept. And, you know, we think about a passage that's probably, for most of us, extremely well worn in our Bibles, one that we turn to over and over again, Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, and, uh, 10. Which says for by grace, are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves? It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And then importantly, verse 10 also says we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus under good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them. But it's that that part about by grace, are you saved through faith? and not of yourself. It's a gift of God, not of works. And so we could call this, uh, the doctrine of God's grace that is in the scriptures. And this is, uh, a doctrine that is obviously cherished and loved by us. And, uh, there is a, uh, there has been, I think, a consistent, systematic, uh, Way of thinking about how, uh, the doctrines of grace are taught within the scriptures and historically there was a time when, uh, there was a conflict with, uh, Jacob Arminius, who was, who was teaching, uh, something that was a little different about grace and there was an articulation of the five points of Arminianism And then as a counter to that, there was articulated what we might call the doctrines of grace. And, uh, they've, they've sometimes been, uh, um, summarized, uh, by the little, uh, saying TULIP, where the T stands for total depravity or radical depravity. The problem of sin, original sin, and actual transgressions that, Uh, centers commit, then the U of tulip is unconditional election that God Uh, chooses us, uh, without the condition of any merit in us, uh, unconditional election. Then the L in TULIP is limited atonement, or sometimes better stated as particular redemption. Then the I is eternal. irresistible grace. Uh, the fact that the Lord is pleased to draw us to himself. And then finally, the P in tulip is the perseverance of the saints or the preservation of the saints. And so that's a little outline. of the doctrines of grace, sometimes called the five points of Calvinism. Um, sometimes, uh, simply, uh, described as reformed soteriology, uh, the reformed doctrine of salvation.
jonny_1_05-08-2024_175028:Can I, can I just, um, ask, um, one of the, well, one of the things I know you do in the book is, um, is explain the term reformed because, um, particularly for folks who, uh, have, haven't, haven't come across, um, reformed teaching before. Um, the word, so let me give you an example. A few years ago, I was, um, at, uh, we have a local university. There's lots of students that come along. Um, who, uh, Christians and they're looking for a church and somebody, we went over to the, the, the, the fair where you. You sort of introduce your church and then students can come see if they want to come along. And we described ourselves as reformed Baptists and this young lad said, what's a reformed Baptist? The way he put the emphasis on the re of reformed sounded like either It was a Baptist who'd got his life together after some, um, some difficulties, or I thought the way he particularly said it was reformed, like a chicken nugget is kind of out of reformed meat or something like that. So I, he, but he was, he was, he wants to be biblical and he's like, What's this reformed moniker at the beginning of things? So, um, what I love about the book is, is you don't assume people know the terminology. So you explain it. So give us, um, give us a bit of a rundown on the reformed. We're not chicken nuggets, are
jeff-riddle_1_05-08-2024_125037:Yeah.
jonny_1_05-08-2024_175028:No. Hmm.
jeff-riddle_1_05-08-2024_125037:with that. When, when we planted our church 14 years ago, and we did, we spent a lot of time talking about what, what we're going to call our church. And, uh, so it's, I'm pastor of Christ Reformed Baptist Church. And we talked about calling it just Christ Baptist Church or Christ Church. Um, but we went with sort of the, you know, try to give it as much definition as we could. Christ Reformed Baptist Church. Although we, we, we thought the same thing. We thought there might be somebody who goes by and says Christ Reformed Baptist Church. What are they trying to reform? They trying to reform Jesus. You know, what, what exactly is this about? And we thought, And we, and we try to do quite a bit of explaining that, uh, when we say that we're a reformed Baptist church, it means that we are connected to the Protestant Reformation. And really, that's just saying we're trying to be biblically faithful. And so reformed theology is simply, uh, trying to have a biblically faithful theology, trying to form a church. our theology according to biblical teaching. And if there are places that are out of whack and need correction, then it's reformed by the scriptures with the help of the Holy spirit. And so, uh, when we talk about reformed theology, we're talking about, again, that, that theology that came out of that great revival in the life of the church that happened, uh, in the 16th, 17th centuries and continues up to this day. Uh, the, the, the protestant catholic church, the protestant universal church, we might call it, uh, that was, uh, going back to the scriptures after a period of, uh, darkness, spiritual darkness to try to, uh, return to the light of scripture and to live, uh, lives that are faithful, uh, to scripture. There is, of course, in the larger Protestant movement, there are our Presbyterian friends. John Calvin, thought of as maybe the father of Reformed theology. Um, there are those who are Dutch Reformed. Uh, but there was a movement, as you're well aware, in the 17th century in England. Where there were, uh, those who had come to the convictions of believers baptism, but who also held to, uh, the sorts of doctrines that were articulated in the Westminster Confession of Faith. And, uh, they were called Particular Baptists because they believed in Particular Redemption. The, the L in TULIP, Limited Atonement. Um, and then in more recent days, uh, this movement that we're part of has been called, uh, a reformed Baptist movement. But the one thing we have in common, I think with our Presbyterian friends, with our Dutch reformed friends, who are part of this, the larger Protestant movement is that, uh, we hold to reformed soteriology. And there's some hesitance about calling the Doctrines of Grace the five points of Calvinism. Much as we admire Calvin, this doesn't mean that we agree with John Calvin on everything. Uh, we don't agree with him on his views on baptism, for example. But we agree with him where we think that he was scripturally faithful. So, when it comes to the Doctrine of Salvation and the stress on the sovereignty of God in salvation, Uh, we would agree with him. And so we would, that's the, the heart of reform theology, we might say is re reformed soteriology, but it's not the end of, of reform theology. And, uh, I, I note just a little bit in the introduction to the, to the book, um. You know, that, uh, I came as to understand the doctrines of grace and to embrace them. Um, but, uh, then I discovered there are wider implications of Reformed theology. That it doesn't stop simply with, uh, the five points of Calvinism, but it goes on to encompass things like the regulative principle of worship or a biblical church government or the abiding validity of the fourth commandment. But that doesn't, that doesn't exclude reform soteriology, a reform doctrine of salvation as, uh, as significant.
jonny_1_05-08-2024_175028:Helpful. Thank you. I I've got lots of other questions, but I, John Mark, I know you've got some too.
john-mark_1_05-08-2024_175029:Well, I just wanted to ask, what would you say would be some of the main implications for this reformed theology, these five points upon the Christian life, upon your average believer, who's maybe recently been converted and just been in a local church for a few years. Because I remember when I came to understand these doctrines and when a lot of people do, the first things that come into their minds are the negative implications, things that seem almost a little daunting. So within, uh, for example, uh, the idea of total depravity, there's this notion that, well, you're unbelieving friends. have nothing within them that can turn towards God without his grace. Or maybe, uh, that within that, that the idea of unconditional election that God has elected, as the title of this book says, before the foundation of the world, and that there are no conditions, uh, that we can understand that have determined the election of that person. They've done nothing to earn. that election. And so some of those ideas can be quite daunting when you're first introduced to them. But what are some of the positive implications of these doctrines to the Christian life?
jeff-riddle_1_05-08-2024_125037:Well, I'm happy to be preaching right now through First John on Lord's Day mornings. And just last Sunday, I was preaching from First John 4 and one of the verses I was preaching through was verse 19, First John 4, 19. We love him because he first loved us. And so what does that verse mean? Um, it, it, it addresses fundamentally. That our salvation, our knowledge of God, uh, comes through God's initiation. He loved us before we loved him. And I think I said in the sermon, you know, most of us, when we became Christians, probably initially we thought, I chose God. I made this decision. If we're coming out of evangelicalism, there's a lot of decisionistic evangelism. And but but most Christians, once they have been converted and they begin to read the scriptures, it begins to dawn on them the magnitude of God's grace, not that we chose him, but that he chose us. And as it says in Ephesians, one even chose us in him before the foundation of the world. So, uh, so, so one of the. Practical benefits of understanding these doctrines, I think, is understanding how to read the scriptures. Um, and I think, you know, the old, um, saying is that once you sort of see the sovereignty of God in salvation, you begin to, See it on almost every page of the scriptures. Uh, you see it shot through all of the scriptures. The, the, the God centeredness of, uh, of the doctrine of salvation. And so, that's a, that's a spiritual benefit to you, to you. You make much of God, and you make much of salvation, and it fills you with gratitude and thanksgiving. Uh, I was also thinking, I think I used this illustration last Sunday about Jonah, you know, from the belly of the great fish, uh, in Jonah 2. He says, salvation is of the Lord. And, uh, I think I, I recall a preacher who said that, uh, Jonah became a Calvinist while he was in the belly of the great fish, and he recognized that salvation was of the Lord. So there, so there's an experiential, uh, satisfaction that comes from embracing the sovereignty of God. And then, you know, it affects, uh, other aspects of the church's life. When we begin to think about the ministry of evangelism, that our task is to faithfully proclaim the gospel. That we can't manipulate people into coming to the faith. It's God's work, and we don't begin to think that it's that it's our work. Although we are compelled to be diligent, we're we're compelled to to to to teach, preach and teach promiscuously because we don't know who the elect are saying from Spurgeon. You know, God could have put a yellow stripe down the back of elect. And all we'd have to do is lift shirt tails. Uh, what he, what he has done is he has those, uh, who, whom he has chosen, uh, who, when they hear the gospel, uh, he will do the work in their hearts and he will do the, the, the, the, the work of conversion. And this gives us. Confidence in evangelism. Uh, it was really belief in the doctrines of grace that gave pioneer missionaries like William Carey and Adoniram Judson, uh, the confidence, uh, in God's work to go and preach, even when initially they didn't, they didn't get an immediate response from hearers. They knew God had his people out there. And that if they would preach Christ and him crucified and lift him up, then he would be pleased to draw all kinds of people to himself. So there are some practical, I think, experiential benefits that come to us from understanding these doctrines.
jonny_1_05-08-2024_175028:wha Limited atonement, sometimes described in the more positive way as definite atonement, isn't it? Is that's the, um, um, uh, that's the one that if people decide they want to be a four point Calvinist that they tend to, uh, drop, isn't it? To, uh, to, to, to say that they agree with four of the points but they don't like that one. Um, and that, I think that, that's, that can, that one can be a bit of a sticking point for people, can't it? Um, how, how do you, uh, how do you help people see the, the good news of limited or definite atonement?
jeff-riddle_1_05-08-2024_125037:Yeah. Well, it's, it's sometimes been said, you know, if you look at the, that tulip that if you can get the T, if you can get a proper understanding of the T. Then the other points sort of fall in line. If we, if we understand man's radical sin problem, um, and, and we understand, uh, that, uh, as Paul says in Romans three, that, that no one is righteous, you know, no one seeks after God. And then we, then we understand that if there's going to be salvation, it has to be God who chooses us. Um, and then there is a means through which God actually saves the elect, not potentially saves them, but actually saves them. And then, then, you know, he provides the means of drawing men unto himself. And then once they are saved, he keeps them in the faith. And, and, and so there's something that's, I think, intellectually satisfying. About these five points. And there's I address, I think, briefly in the introduction that really you can't say I hold three points or I hold four points. They hold together with respect to the limited atonement or particular redemption, um, or definite atonement. I think one of the things is it just makes sense of the scriptural evidence. Uh, what? What? What do we? What do we see over and over again? Um, let me just, if I, if I can just flow, I mean, just a couple of passages. So in Mark 10, for example, and verse 45, we have Christ saying for even the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. And so it doesn't say he came to give his life as a ransom for all without discrimination. He came to give his life a ransom for many. And then, uh, in 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul is giving his summary of Uh, the gospel that he has preached to the believers in at the church in Corinth and when he's summarizing this, his famous summary, Starting in verse three, he says, For I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures. And 1 Corinthians is not a generic letter written to all the inhabitants of Corinth. It is a letter written to the church in Corinth. And so, When, when Paul writes to them, it's that Christ died for our sin. He puts himself there also with those believers, or when we think about in, uh, Ephesians five, where, where Paul is actually teaching about marriage, but he, he draws a comparison between Christ's relationship with the church and the husband's relationship to the wife. And, uh, he says to, to, uh, uh, to Christian husbands, um, uh, in verse 25 of Ephesians five, husbands love your wives. even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. And if we think about the heart of that analogy, a husband has is to have a peculiar discriminating love for his own wife. He's not to love all women in the world in the same way. His wife wouldn't be very happy with that, would she? But he's he's to have a discriminating love. for his wife. And, uh, this illustration, this inspired illustration Comparison is drawn for us for to Christ's love for his church. He has a, he has a, a specific, a particular love for a particular, uh, people. And, and that is, uh, uh, you know, how else can that be articulated? But in particular redemption, uh, I'm teaching right now in our Lord's day afternoons in our church through. The Heidelberg Catechism slash Orthodox Catechism. And, uh, uh, I was just, uh, teaching a little bit, um, in a recent Lord's Day about a related topic. And one of the verses that they called to the four was Matthew one, verse 21, talking about the nativity of our Lord. And it says, uh, uh, that the, the, uh, the, the angel of the Lord appears to Joseph and says. Of Mary, she shall bring forth the son and I shall call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sin. And so who are his people? They are the elect. Uh, they are the many for whom he lays down his life, a ransom. They are the bride of Christ. Uh, for whom Christ laid down his life on the cross. And so I think once you, once you begin to look at the scriptural evidence, you just see it everywhere. And yes, sometimes your, your flesh, the flesh of man may, uh, initially, rebel against that. But our consciences have to be captive to the word of God. Let me just throw one more verse out. Uh, this is, this is when Paul goes to meet with the Ephesian elders in Acts 20. Uh, he says to them, take heed, therefore, unto yourselves and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers to be the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. What is the church? It is that flock that Christ has purchased with his own blood. And it seems to me like if you don't uphold particular redemption, for whom did Christ die then on the cross? Uh, it, it raises some unseemly possibilities that, uh, he might've died and no one might've been saved. Um, and, and so,
jonny_1_05-08-2024_175028:gamble or something like that, that, um, you'd have to at least be, to be philosophically consistent. You'd have to say that's a possibility because God took a chance, wouldn't you? If, if, if you took that view. I, I had one text popped into my head was, um, was John six, which which links, um, particular redemption to. The, what theologians would call the covenant of redemption. Um, so I'm thinking of John six, um, 30, uh, 33, all that the father giveth me, shall come to me and him that cometh to me. I will in no wise cast out for, I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but to the will of him, of the him that sent me. And this is the father's will, which has sent me. That all of which he has given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up on the last day. Um, so there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a people that have been given to the Lord to to save. and to atone for their sin and to raise them up on the last day and he won't lose a single one which which Which helps with the idea that is the church is not just a concept that he dies for Like a conceptual bride which may be filled out filled up with people as it were but there is there is an all there is a There is a specific people. Um, yes. No very helpful. Thank you. Jeff.
john-mark_1_05-08-2024_175029:Gentlemen, we have run out of time very quickly. I'm sure we could talk for hours and hours on this topic.
jonny_1_05-08-2024_175028:No doubt. No doubt. But, well, tell us when the book's coming out. Um, can I just, let's just do a bit of book endorsement. Um, the, the earlier version of this, um, went to, uh, a lovely, uh, uh, brother, uh, in the, in the Lord, uh, who was in his eighties, who, uh, who, who read it because he was, he'd become aware of the, uh, Uh, doctrines of grace. He'd been in churches, hadn't taught them for years and he really wanted an introduction and he just said, this is the best introduction. Um, so, so Jeff, uh, uh, you've done a wonderful job and, and I, and I think that's because you've you've wrote it from teaching it, um, so you've, you've had the whites of the eyes of people who needed to hear it before you, as you've worked out how to deliver this stuff. And what I love about it is it doesn't assume knowledge on the part of. Uh, the, the reader, um, so it really is an introduction and it'll take you through a bit. You touch on the history, um, where it's necessary for help, for, for clarity and things like that. So, so we've already made use of this book in its earlier form. Um, uh, and, and it's been tremendously helpful and warmly received. So what is the, when's the new one out? Is it out? Is it available on the website? I haven't checked.
john-mark_1_05-08-2024_175029:It's available for pre order. But we're releasing it on June the 1st, so, uh, hopefully when this episode is released, it will only be one or two weeks away from, uh, being at your door, if you've got a copy of this book. Uh, and from June the 1st, it will be available, uh, as a hardback, uh, and slightly after we're going to have Kindle, uh, and an audio
jonny_1_05-08-2024_175028:Oh, who's doing the audio?
john-mark_1_05-08-2024_175029:if you know someone that likes to
jonny_1_05-08-2024_175028:are you reading the book out? Is this news to you?
jeff-riddle_1_05-08-2024_125037:I don't know.
jonny_1_05-08-2024_175028:don't know.
john-mark_1_05-08-2024_175029:no, we, we have, uh, a voice reading it at the moment, but, uh, once it's completed,
jeff-riddle_1_05-08-2024_125037:Yeah. You know, I, I might just thank you for the kind words about the book. And I'm glad that person that you mentioned that, that got a hold of it. And as you said, I, I should have said this probably in the beginning. I, cause I maybe threw out too many kind of technical terms, you know, this book started with my work as a pastor. And teaching the doctrines of grace and answering the questions of people who didn't grow up with reformed theology because I didn't grow up with it either. I came out of a more broad evangelical background and then came to, you know, confessional reformed theology and it started really as a PDF. And then it was a sermon series and it was a series of articles in a newsletter and, um, basically then it was just printed within our church and was shared with people and, uh, but, but there has been some fairly significant rewrites and I've added to it a little bit for this edition. And, um, so, but I, but I did try to keep it, as you said, thank you for, for recognizing that. Tried to keep it at the level of, of, you know, people with, with, there were no prerequisites for reading the book. And I tried to keep it very biblical and tried to give biblical answers. I, in several of the sections, I also tried to anticipate objections. And, um, so in particular in the chapters on unconditional election and on total depravity and on limited atonement, I went through and sometimes people will have so called objection passages. And they'll say, well, what about this verse? What about John 3, 16? How does John 3, 16 fit into this? Uh, the doctrines of grace and, uh, other maybe more pointed passages that maybe someone say this, this doesn't fit with the system. How do you respond to this verse? So there's sort of an, uh, maybe not so much apologetic, but just trying to have the mind of Christ. What do the scriptures teach about the doctrine of salvation? Um, and, and so we, we don't want to. We don't want to hang on to merely the jargon. You know, I'm a Calvinist or the five points of Calvinism. That's really not the main focus of this book. It's really what does the Bible teach about the doctrine of salvation?
john-mark_1_05-08-2024_175029:Yeah. It's our prayer that just as you mentioned earlier. For so many, the doctrines of grace are a gateway into a wider understanding of the scriptures and their implications for the Christian life. There are many doctrines and that wider reformed theology. Well, it's certainly my prayer that people who pick up this book, that's the case with them. As they're introduced to these doctrines of grace, they're also introduced to all the wonderful doctrines related to. We also have, just before we close, uh, Two new books printed, uh, and another book, uh, that we're putting on the Broken Wolf Bookshop when, uh, before the foundation of the world is released. We have, uh, a new print run of Sam Renahan's book, The Mystery of Christ. Uh, so that will be coming from June the 1st. We have, uh, a new print run of his book, Deity and Decree, uh, which covers, uh, the doctrines of God and the doctrine of the decree. So that relates a little to those questions around you. Unconditional election. And we've also, uh, stocking Karl Truman's new book. the crisis, uh, or crisis of confidence, reclaiming the historic faith in a culture consumed with individualism and identity. And that's a revised edition of his initial work, The Creedal Imperative, arguing why now more than never, it's crucial that we reclaim our, our heritage of creeds and confessions. So do give them a look too, if you go to get hold of a copy of this book. Thank you for listening in today. Uh,
jonny_1_05-08-2024_175028:I was just gonna, I was just, I just had an idea. Could we, if you're listening to this and you've got questions about, um, the doctrines of grace, Do send them in to us because what we want to do is we want to get Jeff back for a coffeehouse session, for a longer one, where we can talk through some of the things that you would like to hear more about. How's that? An offer to the audience.
john-mark_1_05-08-2024_175029:Sounds good to me. I think I'll be putting a few questions in there too. Thank you to all of you who've listened. Please do send in your questions, as Johnny said, uh, and bye for now.
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