A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith

by Samuel E. Waldron

In this extensive exposition, the author, Sam Waldron, shows that the '1689' Confession is a masterly statement of the historic Christian faith. He writes in a direct and lucid style that will help ministers, students and laymen alike to a clear understanding of this Confession and to its relevance and application to our modern age. This exposition was originally published in 1989 to mark the 300th anniversary of the publication of the Second London Confession, which also became known as the '1689 Baptist Confession of Faith'. Today, reformed Baptists world-wide hold this Confession in high esteem and many churches continue to regard it as their official statement of faith. After being one of the pastors of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids for almost 24 years, Sam Waldron is now attending Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky where in May of 2005 he will complete a Ph. D. in Systematic Theology. With his wife, he is a member of Heritage Baptist Church, a Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, Kentucky where in January 2005 he became one of the pastors.

Genres: Theology, Christianity, Christian, Religion, History, Reference

490 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Dr Sam Waldron is the academic dean of MCTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Heritage Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI.

Reviews

[Brance Gillihan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume is a mixed bag of helpfulness, gaps, misunderstanding, and confusion.

First a word about the format. Each chapter in the book covers one chapter in the confession. The complete text of the confession is included in each chapter, followed by an outline of the chapter, and finally the exposition.

Helpfulness:

The outlines are very helpful. I thought he did a good job with the outlines and found them beneficial for following the train of thought of each chapter in the confession.

Besides the outlines, there were times when Waldron had incredibly insightful comments on certain passages. In particular, I found his comments in chapters 11 -13 (justification, adoption, sanctification) very helpful. At other times, I just really liked the turn of phrase he used to express an idea I may have read previously in another book.

Gaps:

I used to get really annoyed at study bibles because when a really tough verse came up that seemed to be the one they just skipped over. I felt a bit like that at times with this volume. Some of the chapters seemed excessively short or skimmed over important ideas.

The chapter on the Trinity, a subject of utmost importance, one often misunderstood by the average church goer, and one of recent debate within evangelical circles, was probably the shortest chapter in the book and left me a bit disappointed.

At other times he just skipped right over entire paragraphs in the confession without any exposition whatsoever, dealing with only one idea from an entire chapter.


Misunderstanding & Confusion:

Chapter 7 (Of God's Covenant) is where my real problems with this volume come into view. First, on page 128, Waldron seems to misunderstands the Westminster/Presbyterian view of the covenants, claiming that they equate the Abrahamic covenant with the Covenant of Grace. On the very next page he expresses his view which is very similar to what the Westminster view actually is of one covenant of grace with multiple administrations. It is not uncommon for Reformed Baptists to hold this view, and it is often called the 20th Century Reformed Baptist view of the covenants.

Further, the only place Waldron mentions 1689 Federalism (a more common view of covenant theology among Reformed Baptists) in a lengthy footnote on page 128. Given the prominence of this view among Reformed Baptist scholars, I wish he would have dealt with it at greater length than merely dismissing it in this footnote.

But then on page 131, he makes a few passing comments that seem to reflect the 1689 Federalism view that he so easily dismissed previously saying that he was "not ready to affirm it" and here he is apparently affirming it in contradiction to what he had previously affirmed regarding the covenants.

The whole chapter left me confused as to what his view actually is. I have studied this topic extensively over the last 15 years, having previously served as an elder in a PCA church and in more recent years embracing 1689 Federalism and serving in ARBCA churches. I can only imagine how confused this chapter would leave someone who came to it not understanding the various views and hoping for clarification.

Other issues:

I found a lot to disagree with in chapter 25 (Of Marriage), where I felt the author went beyond the 1689 Confession and rather offered an exposition of the Westminster Confession. The 1689 purposefully dropped all mention of divorce, which allows for various views, including a permanence view of marriage which is held by some Reformed Baptists including myself. Waldron obviously holds to a permissive view of marriage, divorce, and remarriage, but he didn't get it from the 1689 Confession and therefore I felt he was out of place including this view with reference to the Westminster where the 1689 was silent. But hey, it's his book!

I felt some of his comments in chapter 29 (Of Baptism) directly conflicted with his previous comments in chapter 28, particularly with regard to baptism being an individual rather than church ordinance, and who should rightly administer it.

In closing:

I quickly tired of his regular refrain of pointing out phrases or doctrines he personally disagrees with and suggesting the confession is wrong or outdated and should be modified/updated.

Given my disagreements with several of his conclusions, the general confusion surrounding them, and the hit or mis exposition of each paragraph, I would likely not recommend this work to someone who is new to the confession and looking for help understanding it. This is unfortunate because I think a work like this could be helpful for such a purpose, but this one fails to hit that mark.

I would recommend it for someone who is more studied and well read, who has some formed ideas of their own, and is simply looking for another pastor's views on the confession.

In the end, I found myself disappointed overall, but really appreciative of chapters 11, 12, 13, and 31, which I thought were his best work.

[Timothy Crockett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been doing more research into the confessions and because I have a fondness for the 1689, I thought I would pick this book up and give it a shot. I am glad I did! It is an excellent book, well written, and articulate yet not esoteric. Sam Waldren is a good expositor, teacher, and communicator of truth in general. For someone new to confessions, creeds, etc. I found this work refreshing and educational.

Here are some highlights 1) He talks about the legitimacy of confessions and gives some foundational arguments for their use including historical support for creeds and confessions. 2) The main body of the book not only includes the 1689 text but a brief explanation of each position. His reasoning is sound (in my opinion) and it is easy to grasp. This will serve as an excellent platform to launch from when teaching in a classroom setting. 3) The appendixes contain vital information on the 1689 history, analytical outline of it, doctrinal overview, and the proper holding of it. I thought the last appendix was a great help, especially considering that not everyone agrees with or understands everything. 4) The last section contains study questions on each chapter. This is a real help when go back over the material.

The book is easy to read and only has 554 pages. I would easily recommend this book.


It is unfortunate that GOODREADS no longer allows for the image of books to be forwarded on Twitter and Facebook otherwise I would. I would think a platform that promotes books would allow for that!

[Seth Elmore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dr. Waldrons was easy to read and to understand.

[Simon Wartanian · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a while back that I somehow came into contact (I don't remember how, maybe through James White?) with the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith and I found myself at home in it. Though I did not study it very deeply. This time I have taken the time to go through it with Sam Waldron which I though he did a very good job.

Before beginning my study of the confession, through a brother I got into the subject of Baptist Covenant Theology, I got the work of Pascal Denault The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology and Waldron's A Reformed Baptist Manifesto. Sometime later I got the recent Recovering a Covenantal Heritage volume. I have been more and more interested in this stream of Reformed Theology.

I first became baptistic simply through reading the New Testament and finding no evidence of any infant baptism. I was baptized in the Armenian Church and was attending a Baptist church in Holland and was convinced that my baptism was no baptism, so on 14-06-2013 I was baptist after a profession of faith. At that time I was in the process of studying the Doctrines of Grace. Sometime later, by the grace of God I came to embrace and glory in them.

The first and foremost thing that I love about this Confession is it's high, high, high view of God's sovereign freedom. I love it and that is exactly how I believe that God is, the Sovereign King over every molecule.
I love the fact of the Baptists' deep commitment to the truth and the sole authority of the Bible and their appeal to the Bible. I could not really find any disagreements with the Confession, so I feel home in it and I'm not ashamed to identify myself as a Reformed Baptist.

What I loved about Dr Waldron's work is his way of explaining the Confession and going through the biblical evidence (as I have been reading Grudem, I would have loved it if Dr Waldron would cite portions of the passages that he was using as proof, rather most of the time, only references were given).
When I started studying the Confession I didn't realizes that a confession is actually a Systematic Theology! :)

Dr Waldron explained things very well, I especially liked his extensive treatment of chapters 29 (Of Baptism), 31 (of the state of man after death and of the resurrection of the dead) and 32 (Of the last judgment). There he interacted with the other side and provided some answers. With the explanations he went also through more detail.

During my study of the 1689 I left some comments about my thoughts on each paragraph that can be viewed here: http://www.thecalvinist.net/post/1689...

One thing that was frustrating me, was the load of typos there. It's not that I'm a grammar nazi, but the quality of the work is so great that the multitude of the typos, wrong headings above pages (pages 103, 381), no spacing between words, wrong numeration really were the only downside, which could have been prevented. Hopefully, they will update it in the future, otherwise we'll just have to wait for Samuel Renihan's exposition of the 1689 that is in progress!

[Landon Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great exposition with a focus on systematic theology.

[Abraham Gizabehir · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is quite helpful of explaining the implications of the Confession , it is a decent exposition on the 1689 .
I enjoyed chapter 1 and Sam Waldron defending the self authenticating Scriptures, He makes the point that if general revelation is soo self authenticating , How much more is Special revelation ( Scriptures , This blew my mind and was quite helpful , Sam Waldron does a good job of explaining the implications of the confession . I enjoyed chapter 26 about the doctrine of the Church there’s was a lot of historical background that I wish were in the other parts of the book , I enjoyed it because he defended the view of credobaptist position and why the Presbyterians are wrong haha , I found his exposition chapter on Lawful oaths quite helpful and pastoral .

[Isaac · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent exposition of the doctrines contained in the 2nd London Baptist Confession. It is not, as I expected, a discussion of the Confession itself so much as of the doctrines. Waldron does give pertinent information regarding the Confession (such as when it varies from the Westminster & Savoy) but the emphasis is decidedly on unpacking the full extent of and biblical basis for each of the positions of the Confession; he sometimes goes beyond what the Confession states and fills out the statements more. The appendices are also excellent and do mostly deal more directly with the Confession. A very good and largely thorough work for someone who wants to better understand Baptist doctrine.

[ethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful exposition of the 1689 Confession by Sam Waldron!

Although this exposition lacked the historical context concerning the framers of the Confession and what they thought when writing the Confession, this exposition does a great job in providing an explanation of the doctrines presented in the 1689.

At times, there is not necessarily an exposition of the 1689, but Waldron provides a systematic theology on the chapter which I do find helpful at times as it makes clearer what the Reformed faith confesses.

This is a highly recommended read for those who confess to the 1689 as it provides a greater understanding of the doctrines of the Reformed faith and its Baptist distinctives.

[Andrew Fendrich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of course this exposition can't delve too deeply into each topic of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith; that would take a multi-volume, expansive collection. But for what it is--a summary exposition of the core doctrines of covenantal reformed theology--it is excellent. I read it for seminary, but it never felt like a forced read.

[Thomas Mcpherson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book whilst simultaneously reading Rob Ventura's and James Renihans' exposition. Reading each chapter side by side.

This took quite a long time, but it was so beneficial. It was also interesting to observe the different approaches and benefits of each of them.

Waldron - Useful for General Church use and simple biblical grounding.

Ventura - Included what felt like a bit more of the pastoral approach.

Renihan - Most focused on historical accuracy and the intended meaning behind the confession the original framers had in mind

Hand in hand with Waldrons lectures (I go to his seminary) safe to say, I've never learned so much biblical doctrine in all my life in such a short period of time.

Praise God for the 1689, I see it is an undervalued gem for the usefulness for the modern Church.

How desperate we are today for doctrinally rich Church's, filled with young people being fed the word, and Shepherded into truth. I am hoping there are many more RB 1689 confessing churches to come 🙏

[Luke Schmeltzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dr. Waldron wrote one of the first expositions of the Confession in the last century, paving the way for many in the rediscovery of historic Baptist doctrine and practice. It’s been refined and expanded through the years to great help, but I think it could benefit from an expansion on the chapter on God’s Covenant in light of the advances of 1689 Federalism. Waldron is a pastor, writer, and professor who has his favorite topics (as we all do) which get more space while some paragraphs are given less space in proportion.

[Luke Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read in 2015. My introduction to the confession. I read the 4th edition with many typos and some missing pages. I've been told the 5th edition fixes these issues. An excellent first-dive into the Confession.

[Nathan White · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though I've owned this book for many years, this is the first time I've read it straight through, cover to cover. It is an excellent read and a great introduction to the London Baptist Confession of 1689. However, I would call it more of a commentary on the theology in the Confession rather than a commentary on the Confession itself. There isn't much interaction with the Particular Baptists and their theology, or the historical circumstances in which they were writing. This has caused some strange opinions by Dr. Waldron here and there. For example, I don't think his commentary on chapter 7 is an accurate represents the position in the Confession. Likewise, Waldron's take on 'elect infants' and 'the Pope is the antichrist' is fairly shallow and misses the point of the authors, in my opinion. Nevertheless, this is a worthy read and a excellent resource for one's library. Particularly good is his chapter on Baptism, in which he cuts through many common arguments for paedobaptism with precision and brevity, and his commentary on chapter 31, where he excels in discussing death, the afterlife, etc.

[Travis · Rating 5 out of 5]

What do you believe? What does your church believe? Do you know? Can you spell it out? Are your beliefs consistent with those of faithful believers of the past? Are your beliefs novel?

For centuries, faithful Christians have sought to outline their understanding of biblical teaching through the use of confessions of faith. For particular Baptists, the Second London Baptist Confession of faith (the 1689), is of tremendous importance. However, as with any older document, modern readers may need a hand to understand the teaching and intent of men who wrote during a different time, under different circumstances, using different vocabulary. Perhaps the single most important work to help particular Baptists of today understand the 1689 is Samuel Waldron’s A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, now in its fifth edition.

In this significant work, Waldron writes for us a chapter on each chapter of the 1689. In each chapter, Waldron shares the text of the 1689, outlines the chapter, and then explains to us significant features. Sometimes these features include notes on how the 1689 compares to the Westminster Confession (1647) or the Savoy Declaration (1658). Sometimes the exposition is a thought-for-thought walk through the chapter. And sometimes, if the chapter is lengthy or the topics particularly heavy, Waldron will skip certain points to highlight what he believes most important.

Because the 1689 is such an outstanding document, this work by Waldron can hardly help but be worthwhile. Waldron’s work highlights significant theological issues that church leaders and members need to address. This book is also quite encouraging, as it expounds for us an encouraging confession from the word of a glorious God. The vast majority of what is said here will be embraced by all faithful believers, Baptist, Presbyterian, or otherwise. Yet Waldron, like the 1689, is not afraid to highlight particular Baptist distinctives when they arise.

In settings where believers may quibble with the wording of the 1689, those same believers may quibble with Waldron’s conclusions. This should not be surprising in a work of over five hundred pages. What one believes about the Sabbath, the Pope, or eschatology may not always mesh with Waldron’s conclusions—though they certainly might. But differences in conclusion in a few areas should by no means prevent a pastor or eager student from benefitting from the work Waldron has done.

Waldron’s work alongside the works of Rob Ventura and James Renihan is a significant pillar for Baptist studies. Unlike Ventura’s work, Waldron’s feels more consistent coming from a singular voice. However, the work edited by Ventura may be more thorough in its unpacking of individual chapters. The Renihan work will be more strongly historical, though I will have to reserve my conclusions on this thought until I have finished reading that one.

I would wholeheartedly recommend A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith to any Christian, especially those looking into reformed and Baptistic doctrine. Pastors, if you are not sure about the 1689, this book would be a great place to start and learn. For church members in churches that embrace the 1689, this book would be a solid tool in helping the less familiar dig deeply into what the church claims to believe.

** I received a copy of this work from the publisher in exchange for my willingness to post an honest review. **

[Robert Mckay · Rating 5 out of 5]

To be a Calvinist Baptist - or, for that matter, to be calvinistic and baptistic without necessarily saying one is either a Calvinist or a Baptist - is to be at least somewhat familiar with the confession of faith which the Particular Baptists of England published in 1689. This was the confession which the Particular Baptists used for another 200 years or so, and was the confession which Charles Spurgeon's Metropolitan Tabernacle adopted, and republished. It crossed the Atlantic, and because the first published Baptist confession in what is now the United States, as the Philadelphia Confession of Faith (because the Philadelphia Baptist Association had adopted it). For many years it was the Baptist confession of faith, until the principles of the General (Arminian) Baptists became prominent in Baptist life. Today it is the confession of Reformed Baptists here in the United States, and Samuel E. Waldron, a Reformed Baptist pastor and theologian, has produced a wonderful explanation of it. The book originally appeared in 1989 to mark the 300th anniversary of the 1689 Confession; this edition has a copyright date of 2013.

The general content is precisely what the title promises. Dr. Waldron gives each chapter of the 1689 Confession a chapter in the book, and quotes that chapter of the Confession verbatim. There is then an outline of the chapter, following which he explains the meaning, and when appropriate the history, of that chapter and its assertions. There isn't anything new here as to substance for those who adhere to the doctrines of grace, but because Dr. Waldron doesn't skimp in his explanations, the pamphlet format of the Confession becomes a thick book (588 pages counting the notes and appendices) that could easily serve as a small systematic theology. If someone who is a Particular/Reformed Baptist, or at least leans toward their views, this book will be an invaluable addition to the library, and I have yet to encounter a better source someone could go to if he either opposes or simply isn't aware of what Calvinist Baptists believe and teach, and wishes to get accurate information from the source. This book is going to go into my library in a place where I can easily reach it, for I anticipate referring to it often for many years.

I do have some bones to pick with the book. They fall into two heads - matters of production, and matters of content.

Under the first head, I must mention first a plethora of typographical errors. None of them are fatal - that is, they don't sabotage the meaning so badly that a sentence is incomprehensible - but they are exceedingly annoying, and annoyingly plentiful. From their nature, and from the ubiquity of some of them, I suspect that they derive from the publisher scanning the text of a previous edition, running it through a spell checker, and then printing the book without any further editing - a sloppy procedure which, at least as to the lack of an actual person reading in order to catch errors, seems to be proliferating like a virus these days. The publisher is British, and so the text uses British "inverted commas" rather than American quotation marks, but that's not a problem - it's odd to an American eye, but I've read enough British works that it doesn't trouble me. What does bother me is the movement of the initial inverted comma from the beginning of the words it ought to enclose, to the last part of the preceding sentence or phrase. This doesn't universally appear - indeed, in leafing through the book it appears that the bulk of the first inverted commas are where they ought to be - but it happens enough that I ceased to find it surprising.

More common are certain spelling errors - not words whose spelling is incorrect, but words that have the correct spelling but are the wrong words. This is precisely the sort of thing that a spell checker produces in the absence of a human editor. For instance, if an author wishes to write "rigid" but accidentally types "ridig," a spell checker might offer the options "riding," "ridding," or "rider," and if one simply accepts the first option, then the sentence might say that "The beam was riding throughout its length," so that the spelling is correct but it's a spelling error. The most common word this affects in this edition of Dr. Waldron's exposition is "modern." I don't think I saw more than one or two instances where it so read - elsewhere it had come out as "modem." This could be a spell checker artifact, or it could be the result of someone who doesn't know English fluently mistaking the "rn" in "modern" for the "m" in "modem" - to an unpracticed eye they could look identical, especially in certain fonts. I'm certain that these errors aren't Dr. Waldron's fault - they surely emanated from the publisher or printer (though I must confess it seems odd that he apparently didn't proofread the galleys prior to publication; one would think that an author would earnestly wish to do so to prevent precisely this sort of thing).

Another problem, which I'll put under the head of production though it might more properly relate to content, is the lack of any index. I would have loved to have a Scripture index, an index of authors, and an index of topics, or at the very least the last if the other two weren't feasible. If, as I suspect, the text of this edition comes from scanning the pages of a previous publication, then creating such indexes would surely have been simple; indexing software does exist, so that laborious manual indexing need not occupy anyone's time. And in a work of this size an index is indispensable; even though the chapters neatly organize the matter, one still might wish to see where a particular verse has a role in the entire text, or where one subject crops up in another chapter.

The head of content relates almost entirely to one topic, and I'll confine my comments to that topic - the question of who may baptize. The 1689 Confession holds, and Dr. Waldron clearly does as well, to the view that the administration of the ordinances of the church properly belongs to the officers of the church. Dr. Waldron states that these officers - the elders or pastors, as you may prefer to call them; the terms in Scripture are interchangeable - may delegate the authority to baptize to another person, but they retain the responsibility for the ordinance.

I disagree. The 1644 London Confession which preceded the 1689 document says of baptism that "The persons designed by Christ, to dispense this ordinance, the Scriptures hold forth to a preaching Disciple, it being no where tied to a particular church, officer, or person extraordinarily sent, the commission enjoining the administration, being given to them under no other consideration, but as considered Disciples." I carefully read Dr. Waldron's argument to the contrary, and frankly I don't find it at all convincing. It reminds me of John Calvin's argument, in his Institutes, for infant baptism on the ground that baptism is the continuation of the covenant of circumcision, which infants received. Dr. Waldron ably dismantles that argument in the appropriate place, but his argument for the administration of baptism only by the officers of the church seems to me equally weak, and to stand upon equally unsound ground.

However, in defending that position Dr. Waldron is stating the position of the 1689 Confession, and so is doing his job - and indeed I have no doubt that he genuinely believes that the Confession is correct. And I am perfectly willing to allow him this one area of error (as I perceive it, after studying the Scripture and his comments), and accept the rest of this enormously valuable book without quibble. I could never have produced this book, and wouldn't dare to attempt it, and if I did, I'm sure what I came up with would be much inferior to Dr. Waldron's exposition.

I could wish for a good editing job. I could - and do - wish for indices. And I could wish that Dr. Waldron saw things my way on the matter of who may baptize. But if every book in my library had as few faults as this one does, some of them would be in considerably better shape than they are now. I've called this book valuable, and indeed it is - it's worth far more than the price I paid for it.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

I want to preface this review by stating my utmost admiration and respect for Dr. Sam Waldron and my appreciation for his ministry. I read this book as the textbook to his class, and I probably would not have done a thorough reading of it without the class.

I should probably begin with what this book does really well. 1) Each chapter includes an analysis of the structure of the corresponding chapter of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith. These are both useful and well-executed. 2) Several of the chapters are very well argued in defense of their theological positions (e.g. Of the Law of God, Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day). 3) The book is a decent introduction to Reformed Baptist Systematic Theology and its contrasts with opposing viewpoints. These constitute almost all of the two stars of the rating.

Negatively, the book has many drawbacks. 1) Waldron does a fairly poor job of discussing the historic context of each chapter. He gives relatively little support from contemporaries of the confession for the viewpoints of the authors. 2) Most of the chapters seem to discuss the same topics as the Confession, but they do not necessarily follow the argumentation of the Confession. For this reason, I think that the title of the book is misleading. I would title it "A Modern Analysis of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith." 3) Waldron's own opinions seem to trump the actual statement of the Confession. In several places, he calls for a revision of the 1689 on wording with which he disagrees. This seems like an unwise approach in an exposition of a document. Also, he repeatedly asserts that premillennialism is inconsistent with the Confession and advocates for the amillennial position as the position of the Confession. Very cursory research of this topic shows this assumption to be unlikely. Indeed, the Confession is deliberately neutral likely because its adopters were of diverse eschatological opinions. 4) Despite being the 5th edition, the engagement with 1689 Federalism as a position of Reformed Baptist Covenant Theology is almost nonexistent. Given the significant increase of the relevance of this topic, it would be wise to include a more thorough discussion.

[Alex]

Only read through parts regarding covenant theology in chapter 7 and 29.

Waldron charges paedo-baptists with defining the covenant of grace "in terms of the preparatory and typical covenants of the Old Testament period" (111). Whereas, Waldron argues, the reader should define the covenant of grace and whatever "theological deductions" from it, based on the "normative revelation" as found in the New Covenant alone (110).

Waldron also argues "covenant status was conferred irrespective of spiritual qualifications" (120) in the Old Covenant while the New Covenant "confers the required response on all those brought into it" (120). Later on, he adds that "the people of God in the New Covenant will not break the covenant as Israel did and also that all the New Covenant people of God will know the Lord" (351). In order to address the "practical reality (de facto)" of "unsaved church members," he provides the category of "legal basis (de jure)" (351).

Waldron also charges A. A. Hodge and Louis Berkhof with putting an "equal sign between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, between circumcision and baptism" (350). He acknowledges circumcision to have "demanded a new heart, indeed, but it did not profess a new heart" (351).

... more forthcoming . .

[Mike Willmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Samuel Waldron has provided a fine exposition of the 1689 London Baptist Confession.

So, I wanted to give this book a 4/5 because the content is generally very good. The only critiques that I have of the content are that Waldron occasionally overplays his hand (citing John 2:1-11 as evidence for “apparent age” in creation, frequent use of “clearly” when discussing debated issues, etc.) and seems to have devoted a disproportionate amount of space to the intermediate state (ch 31 is the longest chapter in the book by far).

So, why only 3 stars? Simply stated, the book is in desperate need of a 6th edition. With the amount of grammatical errors, incorrect word uses, and punctuation problems, one would think EP doesn’t employ a copy editor. The first few were acceptable, the next few were disappointing, and the final dozen or so just became humorous.

In short, the book is great, but its need for a 6th edition casts a long shadow over its 500 plus pages.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This work by Sam Waldron is nothing short of a masterpiece. If you want to learn about the use of confessions among Baptists in general, and the details of the 1689 London Baptist Confession in particular, look no further. Waldron writes in an easy-to-follow style, but provides enough detailed information to bolster the reader's grasp of the most popular confession of faith among Baptists. He doesn't mince words, but is clear and direct on controversial theological issues. I was wanting to understand more about how the 1689 LBC can be used among Baptist leaders and church members today. I wasn't disappointed. I've read a couple of other works by Waldron, but this one is his best so far. I highly recommend this one for a better grasp of Baptist historical theology.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent survey of the 1689 confession of faith. There were some times where I would have liked a bit more exposition, and others where Dr. Waldron knocked it out of the park, so to speak. I found the chapters of justification, sanctification, and adoption extremely edifying. The chapters on the church and baptism were also very helpful in placing the distinctions between the Baptists and other puritans in context.

[Josh Robinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Waldron's views on justification are muddled at best and aberrant at worst. I concur with David Barney's review. Baptist's are still in need of a faithful exposition of our Confession. Supplement expositing if the WCF, and wait for Renihan's exposition.

[Jon Pouliot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Provides a good structural overview of the confession. Silent in parts where I wish he would address things. I recommend studying the confession with this along with Renihan’s To The Judicious and Impartial Reader.

[Jeff Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very solid exposition. While I had some questions, I found this to be thorough, yet concise enough to answer them (whether or not I agree 100% time will tell), and I am grateful for Dr. Waldron’s clarity.

[Nick Sommers · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent presentation of historic Christian doctrine. Demonstrates well the continuing validity of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.

[Chuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helpful commentary.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some good information and things to think about. But very long, drawn out, repetitive, and not laid out the best. Plus I am not sure I really agreed with everything.

[John Muriango · Rating 5 out of 5]

...........

[Byron Flores · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creo que no puedo catalogar este tipo de bendecida literatura pero si puedo decir que me ayudo mucho y como dice, es una guía y no sustituye la Palabra De Dios

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

So helpful and clear! Highly recommend.

[Peter Van beek · Rating 4 out of 5]

The content is good, but it is not very readable. Needs some editing in my opinion.