The main expressions are:
tei pistei (dative case), or with the preposition en: instrumental meaning - "by means of".
dia (tes) pisteoos: same instrumental meaning
ek pisteos: again, the same basic meaning, probably with the nuance that justification and righteousness results from faith, i.e. the empty hand stretched out to receive God's gift of righteousness.

Never, however, whether TR or modern texts, do we find dia pistin or dia ten pistin: on the ground/basis of faith.

kevin wrote:
Hey Doc, can you help me find the Bible translation that Murray used when he wrote in his post of 1/1/08 7:02 PM.
Kevin

jago wrote:
The word cannot mean only immersion. It is used in Mark 7:4. Are you saying the Jews were to wash themselves under water and also their plates, cups, tables / chairs. Rather impractical after a trip to the market.

One of the great fallacies in historical
and archaeological assessment is the "could not; therefore did not" argument. What that means in reality is, "With my own (limited) perspective I can't see how such-and-such is possible." But realities are far greater than one's own limited understanding.

Every Jewish home in NT times had at least one miqveh, sometimes more, and the water supply for these installations was plentiful. I have personally seen many of these pools dating from the period 50 B.C. to the Roman destruction. The Herodian Palace at Jericho is littered with them.

Why?
Because they are worthless flotsam, lined with sneers and cheap shots.

JD wrote:
MurrayA,
I have addressed the fallacious argument, which is the foundation of his error, that faith is a grace. What else needs to be said?

Then R.K. wrote,
"JD,
I owe you an apology, on the point that Beeke made."

In find it highly significant that one does not hear this kind of mea culpa talk from the likes of JD and certain others, at least not that I recall.

There is an insufferable arrogance from them: when one of their opponents makes a point so as to corner them, they go silent and change the subject, or let forth with a string of counter-charges, or puerile and infantile sneers.

A recent case in point was when JD was challenged on the quotation from Joel Beeke. He did not reply to the substance and thrust of his point on justification; merely to an aside in brackets.

He may carry a Baptist ticket, but his religion is environmentalism, the worship of Mother Earth, and his belief, like that of all GW religionists, is that the globe is in crisis, but man can fix it.

"...declares the LORD, ...I have placed the sand as a boundary for the sea, an eternal decree, so that it cannot pass over it. Though the waves toss, yet they cannot prevail; though they roar, they cannot cross over it." Jer.5:22

It is probably a mistake to make Cromwell out to be an advocate of tolerance in the modern sense. In point of fact, no-one at that time held to views of toleration the way it came to be held in later times. What Cromwell did was to turn the Laud regime on its head: Anglicanism was banned, and the way open for a kind of state-established free-for-all, but all had to agree to the Cromwell regime. This is where Love fell foul of the Commonwealth.

In Scotland the Drunken Parliament of 1661 did much the same thing: the Covenanters were forced out, the National Church made Episcopal, and the Covenanters forced to worship in the open fields, under constant threat of dragonnades and capture. The height of the persecution was not, however, under Charles II, but under the bigoted Catholic James II, from 1685-1688, known as the Killing Times. It was during this period that the incident of the drowning of Margaret MacDonald in the Solway took place.

Uh.. Oh
But this does not answer your allegation that they hated Calvin's teachings!! Any proof?
Are you saying Cromwell and Burroughs and Nye were directly involved in the killing of the 18,000 souls that you mentioned? Again, proof from primary sources would be very welcome- not just Presby propaganda!

So many on this board fail to realise the fallacy of saying that "X can't be right in his views because he was a terrible fellow. Look what he did in regard to Y and Z!"

However, did you have a good Christmas?
Blessings for the coming year, although I fear it will be a bad one for Christians (particularly if Hillary Clinton gets to the White House).

I raised an issue on the morning of 26th December (my time). See the post 12/25/07 5:41 PM.

For our part we finished up going to two consecutive services, one at the Presbyterian church, which was all over in half an hour(!); the other at the Christian Reformed church immediately across the street, which lasted a full hour, with a good evangelistic sermon for the consumption of the many vistors.

The trouble is, as the climate scientists distance themselves in droves from the global warming scenario, the political lefties become more shrill in their shrieking mantras that "the science is settled"; "governments must implement the Kyoto protocol", and the like.

"Climate change" is the biggest con trick of the last generation, even bigger than the Y2K phobia, or the so-called "energy-crisis" of the 1970s.

Lo, He comes with clouds descending,
Once for favoured sinners slain.
Thousand, thousand saints attending,
Swell the triumph of His train.
Hallelujah
Christ appears on earth to reign!
(Martin Madan & Charles Wesley)

I must respond, albeit briefly, to this fatuous claim.
I never said any such thing! All I said was that I don't have all the answers to this passage, any more than Luther did when commenting on this same passage.

Neither, for that matter do you! (even though you think you do)

Prophecy for the believer is not so much an almanac for the future as a commentary on the past. It is not historiography written in advance. We understand prophecy in the light of its fulfilment. A fortiori to Zech.14!

We've gone through this before, but I am tired of your lies and misrepresentations about me.

From the tone of the remarks it certainly sounds like it.

R.K., your attempted defence of Clark may have some plausibility if it could be maintained that he subsumes trust and confidence in faith, but he uses too much contrastive language across his writings (as Helps has illustrated with his quotation in his post immediately below) for that defence to stack up.

The trouble is that, as so often, Clark is talking philosophically, while exegetes talk linguistically, and using Latin, the language of classical theology to boot.

It is certainly contrary to Scripture. Consider:
In the OT the word batach (emph. 't') denotes trust in (with b'+ the object of trust). Oswalt comments, "...batach does not connote that full-orbed intellectual and volitiional response to revelation involved in "faith", but rather stresses the feeling of being safe and secure." Of course, any notion of 'feeling' involved in faith was anathema to Clark. Yet the Psalms are replete with occurrences of this verb, and the ideas it conveys.

The other main word, chasah, has to do with taking refuge or fleeing for safety. The same idea is in Heb.6:18, where the covenant oath provides encouragement for the seeking soul to lay hold of the hope within the veil, where Christ is (6:19-20).