Recently, I have been soundly scolded in a lengthy article on Peter Ditzel’s website both for my beliefs and for allegedly misrepresenting those of the web-master with ‘sarcasm’ and ‘verbal violence’. This article was chiefly, it appears, a reaction to my refutation of Ditzel’s criticism of my doctrine of justification. Several years after writing this rebuttal, Ditzel sent me two personal letters demanding an apology from my refusing to accept his version of what I believe on the grounds that he held his severe criticisms to be just. Indeed, he described my defense of my views in the most depreciating language. Now brother Ditzel has published, without prior notification, some of our correspondence, including a letter… Full Article
Posts Tagged New Covenant Theology
Ditzel’s Last Stand
Apr 26
Several weeks ago, I received a surprising letter from the NCT website The Word of His Grace, signed by Peter Ditzel. We had last corresponded personally, Peter informed me, in 2007 when I was very ill. So now, in April 2012, five years later Peter was writing to hear if I were now, once again, on my feet. That was the nicest bit about the letter. Then Peter mentioned that he had written some six essays a number of years ago on his site attacking my doctrine of Justification and he had since been informed by a third party that I had responded, though I only discovered the essays some time later when surfing the web for information on Justification. It appears that Peter now wanted a larger public than a mere… Full Article
Dear Brother Shane
Mar 19
Dear Brethren, I have recently found the following letter on a web-site named The Lifted Veil. I replied immediately but, as so often on these sites, I was not accepted as a subscriber and my letter and personal data just disappeared after clicking on the comments button. I am thus presenting the original ‘open letter’ which I never received myself with my reply, trusting that someone will link me up with the writer so that a most necessary dialogue might take place. Dear brothers in Christ, I have a few queries about George Ella’s remark regarding New Covenant Theology. 1. Has he actually read Wells and Zaspel’s book or is he basing his criticisms on material written by others? If he has not read the… Full Article
Dear Friends and Brethren, Just as I tried recently to log on to the Puritanboard because they were carrying on speculative discussions regarding my person in my absence, I have been trying to log on to the Predestinarian Network as they seem to be very interested in confirming rumours concerning me and guessing where I stand doctrinally. After all the writing I have been doing for over fifty years, I would have thought they should know as I never beat about the bush as to where I stand. The various doctrines and lack of them they attribute to me are very imaginative. This time, however, getting onto their site was even more difficult. The forms to be filled in were mind-boggling and I did not have the shadow of a chance of… Full Article
After presenting my D.D. thesis The Practical Divinity of Universal Learning: John Durie’s Educational Pansophism to Marburg University this last Thursday (8.12.2011) on which I had been working intensively for almost two years, I now find some time to dig deeper into NCT ‘studies’ on God’s Covenant and tackle further ideas from Randy Seiver. I do this as he is one of the most out-spoken and less-gentlemanly members of this fraternity and has challenged me to produce scholarship (See his blog ‘George, Let’s talk about scholarship.’) to refute him and not the garbage of a clown which he claims in his blog-site that I deal in. This is not an easy task because of the scornful, insulting remarks with which Seiver… Full Article
Seiver Gets It Wrong Again
Nov 18
R. Seiver once again in a new blog has denied writing the words he wrote in his book In These Last Days. This time, he rejects the idea that he wrote that the Old Covenant was ‘wrong’, though I gave him the page to look up. Up to now he has complained that he has not the opportunity to check what I say but does not believe that I am correct. But has he totally forgotten everything that he and his co-NCT-authors wrote? How is it that when I even give him the page in his own book, he cannot find the word he wrote? I can appreciate and welcome his change of mind, as the Old Covenant which Christ fulfilled cannot, at least by any Bible-believing person, be called ‘wrong’, or even partly wrong, but I cannot accept his denial of… Full Article
Randy Seiver’s colleague and countryman, the comedian Ken Hubbard, once said wisely that it is very difficult to become succesful without becoming unsympathetic. Seiver obviously wishes to aim at success by debunking orthodoxy and breaking a lance for his own, very personal, version of New Covent Theology. In response to my answer to his ill-spoken blog, he has retorted with a new attempt to appear as unsympathetic as possible after telling me personally that he would never again read anything I wrote. Notwithstanding, his new confrontation can be found on Seiver’s site dated 26th Sept. 2011. Once again, Seiver starts on the wrong foot by quoting me as saying‚ ‘The Church started at Pentecost, and there is… Full Article
I was sent what he called a ‘blog’ recently by a person who neither addressed me by name, nor introduced himself. It read: ‘There ought to be a fine for stupidity! There is some clown named George M. Ella at http://evangelica.de/articles/covenant-theology-as-seen-by-new-covenant-…whose license to write ought to be rescinded. Oh, that’s right, there is no license for writing, but their ought to be. Before writing about another person’s views, a person should have to prove he has the ability to read and rightly interpret those views. If he can’t do that, he should be forbidden to write. This guy claims to be a Doctor of some type–perhaps he is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine I don’t know. For all I know,… Full Article
Part One dealt with the alleged agreements between the two covenant concepts, though neither the NCT’s own views of God’s Covenant with His Son, nor their erroneous presentation of Covenant Theology represent Biblical teaching. NCT’s dualistic view of the Testaments also affects their alleged disagreements with Covenant Theology as outlined in Theopaedia. NCT alleged disagreements with Covenant Theology 1. The Church started at Pentecost, and there is therefore no “Church” as such in the Old Testament/Covenant. One cannot separate the Church from the everlasting Covenant of Grace. This was preached and believed by the prophets in the Old Testament and also preached and believed by New Testament saints such as… Full Article
Peter Ditzel, whose attempt to distort Peter Meney’s and my own doctrine of justification was dealt with in the last issue, belongs to the latter day New Covenant Theology group of para-church movements. These have radically altered their common beliefs of some dozen years ago and are now expanding their Marcionite dualistic vision from their various contradictory views of the Covenant into all areas of theology. They are now winning recruits from once staunch holders of Presbyterian covenant views such as The Founders Ministries who have brought new variations with them. It is thus fitting to take a new look at what some NCT adherents are saying today. So as not to meet confusion with confusion, I shall… Full Article
