For many churches, the question will come down to this: If men and women are interchangeable in the garden-sanctuary, why not elsewhere? If the sexes are interchangeable at the center of life, in the liturgy, why aren’t they interchangeable everywhere?

Concluding question from a recent post by Peter J. Leithart.

“Unless we believe that revelation is still in process as it was in the days of the prophets, in the days of our Lord, and in the days of the apostles subsequent to the Lord’s ascension, then Scripture occupies for us an exclusive place and performs an exclusive function as the only extant mode of revelation. . . . This is what the finality of Scripture means for us; it is the only extant revelatory Word of God” (John Murray, Collected Works, Vol. 1, 19).

“The inspiration of Scripture involves verbal inspiration. If it did not carry with it the inspiration of words, it would not be inspiration at all. Words are the media of communication” (John Murray, Collected Works, Vol. 1, 14).

“Without regeneration, the most glorious church service ever conducted is rank superstition, and God hates it” (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 180).

“… our discussion of clerical garb should always start with the muck boots” (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 178).

“There are plenty of born again people who wouldn’t call it that, and there are plenty of evangelicals who need to get saved. Life is messy” (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 176).

“Everyone who is over fifty is very certain to discover within fifty or so years whether he or she is a sheep or a goat, a wheat or a tare, trusting in Jesus or deluded by the devil” (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 163).

“Baptism is the sign and seal of that which it represents, and one of the things it represents (and thereby signs, seals, and confers) is regeneration. It does this for all worthy receivers, who are identified as such by their evangelical faith. That faith may not appear for many years after an infant is baptized, which is just fine by the Westminster divines, who maintain that the efficacy of baptism is not at all duct-taped to the time of its administration” (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 161).

“Once converted, everything that used to be “law” is now gift, it is now grace. This includes the grace of dying. The privilege of participating in the cross of Jesus is a privilege, it is a gift. Mortification is grace, it is gift, it is goodness. Mortification is a great kindness (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 144).

“But the natural man, the unconverted man, the unregenerate man, is the same kind of man whether he is inside the covenant or outside it, with the difference that reprobates inside the covenant have greater condemnation” (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 143).