New times of apostasy It would have seemed folly a few generations ago for a confessing Reformed Evangelical to ask such a question without earning the undoubtable and rather shocked answer, ‘No’. But we are living in new times of apostasy and sadly, the righteousness of God as displayed in all the Scriptures and even the presence of Christ in all the Scriptures has been greatly challenged by a new para-Christian movement which has revived the Marcion heresy of the second century. To refresh our memories and inform those who have never heard of Marcion, he was born in Synope, thought to be the Synop of present day Turkey, and visited Rome around 144 A.D. spreading dualistic teaching concerning a wrathful God of severe justice… Full Article
Posts Tagged Peter Ditzel
Echoes of the misled past in modern thought I have been inactive in writing for the past couple of years due to several illnesses and the loss of my library but now the Lord has somewhat restored me and I am back in action. I see now that my work on the Covenant of Grace before my long pause cries out to be continued due to new attacks from once Reformed sectors. The gospel news of a Covenant of Grace from eternity covering the whole of time has been severely challenged recently by Dispensationist-Neo-Covenant campaigners with their cut-down theology who are quite out of date with their views mainly built on heretical teaching spread by the Marcionites at the beginning of the world-wide Christian outreach and the… Full Article
Ditzel’s Rebuttal Part Five
Dec 19
Dear Readers, This is the fifth answer to Ditzel’s fifth rebuttal but I now find that with a new publication on his site of his rebuttals, he has attached his sixth essay to the fifth which contains his criticisms of my dealing with John Murray. I have thus dealt with both essays together and there is thus no sixth coming up. God bless, George Ditzel’s culinary criticism Under the heading ‘Making Hash’, Ditzel starts by agreeing with Calvin, Gill and myself that faith is not the cause of our justification but the instrument by which we receive justification. He then asks the question, ‘How do we receive justification?’, though we have already been told correctly that it is by faith. Indeed, Gill uses the very… Full Article
Accusing Gill of ‘blunders’ Peter Ditzel’s third essay of ‘rebuttals’ on his website takes a most astonishing turn. Not content with aiming his Don Quixote lance at George Melvyn Ella, whom he takes to be a veritable wind mill (pun intentional) he now rides on to combat that great edifice John Gill under the titles John Gill’s Blunder #1 and John Gill’s Blunder #2. Needless to say, it is no difficult task to point out that the blunders are all Ditzel’s. Talk of a midge attacking an elephant! Ditzel mainly strives to outwit Gill on the grounds of logic rather than Scriptural exegesis. Ditzel thus claims, ‘Much of John Gill’s argument for eternal justification (he means justification from eternity, I take it)… Full Article
Ditzel’s disagreement on Scriptural and Church History In his first website essay allegedly rebutting my doctrine of justification, Peter Ditzel promised to challenge my view of Scripture in a following article which he subsequently entitled ‘The Debate as Based on Scripture’. However, now in his second part, he ignores my Scriptural evidence on justification from eternity, centering rather on my Scriptural evidence given to show that God justifies those at enmity with Him and begins by also rejecting my evidence concerning Biblical scholars and Reformers of the past. Once again, in his second paper, I find that Ditzel has fully misunderstood my position and chastises me quite unfoundedly for advocating beliefs… Full Article
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
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
Recently, I came across a long essay in six parts entitled, ‘A Rebuttal to George M. Ella’s ‘John Gill and Justification from Eternity’ on a website named Word of His Grace. The writer, Peter Ditzel, had obtained a part-copy of an armchair talk I gave to my host and friends on justification in Minnesota some years ago. The author claims that in rebutting me, he is also rebutting Peter Meney’s New Focus article ‘Ten Arguments for Justification from Eternity’. I commenced my talk by referring to Romans 4:5 on God’s justification of the ungodly, thus opening a discussion on the timing of justification. Ditzel claims that before rebutting my Scriptural application, he must… 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
