Well, I’ve taken a look at The Gospel Coalition Foundational Documents. I wanted to offer a few of my thoughts on the documents. This is by no means intended to be an exhaustive critique. These are just a few of the things that I noticed upon my first and second read of the documents. In this post, I only intend to comment on the changes between the previous and final form of the documents. I’ll comment on the content of the documents in subsequent posts.
This morning I read Justin Taylor’s blog which informed me that the version I read on Friday may not have been the final version of the documents. I went over to Steve McCoy’s site this morning and printed out the final version. I have a strange interest in the development of creeds and confessions. These are a few of the more interesting things I noted between the two versions of the documents I read.
- Cleaned up wording. The final version had a number of minor corrections that mainly reflected changes in wording to aid readability and clarity.
- Imputed Obedience of Christ. One of the larger additions was an added sentence in Confessional Statement 8 on The Justification of Sinners which adds an explicit belief in the imputed obedience of Christ to believers. The added sentence reads, “by his perfect obedience he satisfied the just demands of God on our behalf, since by faith alone that perfect obedience is credited to all who trust in Christ alone for their acceptance with God.”
- Added preface to point one under the Theological Vision for Ministry. This preface was not present in the earlier document and provides historical and cultural context for the proclamation of truth in a postmodern society.
- The ordering of the Theological Vision points was changed. The section on Hermeneutics was placed before the section on Contextualization.
- A stronger conclusion. The final paragraph of the document was changed to provide a stronger summary statement of the Theological Vision for Ministry. The final sentence of that paragraph is an excellent encouragement to gospel ministry: “We are ashamed of our sins and failures, grateful beyond measure for forgiveness, and eager to see afresh the glory of God and embody conformity to his Son.”
If I missed any other changes, feel free to let me know. I’m very impressed with these documents and look forward to seeing the work of the coalition move forward.
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