A less-than-admiring reader wrote the following to Phil Johnson: Your identity as a “Baptist”; your endless quotations from Charles Spurgeon; your faithful devotion to John MacArthur; and especially your willingness to call yourself a “Calvinist” are all huge red flags that tell me something is seriously wrong with your theology. Why do you teach a system of doctrine that is named after a mere man? Why are you following human teachers instead of going to the Bible alone? After all, 1 John 2:27 says, “The anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you.” We ought to go to Scripture alone to establish our doctrine! The truth is in God’s Holy word, not in any theological system or theology textbook developed by mere men. Isn’t that principle what the Reformation was originally about? Sola Scriptura? Didn’t even Calvin himself go to Scripture for the truth instead of reading other men? I believe that if Calvin himself wrote for this blog, he would point people to the truth in God’s Holy word, not to a theology developed by some other man.
Phil’s Answer: You have seriously misunderstood sola Sriptura if you really imagine that it rules out human teachers or eliminates systematic theology. 
The Reformers (including Calvin) often cited the works of Augustine, Tertullian, Jerome, Cyprian, Ambrose, and others—ranging from the early church fathers through Aquinas. They didn’t follow any of them slavishly, of course, but they certainly took them seriously. Not one of the major Reformers would have tolerated the claim that because the Church Fathers were mere men they were therefore irrelevant or incapable of shedding any helpful light on tough theological questions. Click here to read the rest of Phil’s response!
The Reformers (including Calvin) often cited the works of Augustine, Tertullian, Jerome, Cyprian, Ambrose, and others—ranging from the early church fathers through Aquinas. They didn’t follow any of them slavishly, of course, but they certainly took them seriously. Not one of the major Reformers would have tolerated the claim that because the Church Fathers were mere men they were therefore irrelevant or incapable of shedding any helpful light on tough theological questions. Click here to read the rest of Phil’s response!
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Jason Robertson is a husband and a father and a pastor. He is dedicated to leading and equipping his the Church with God’s word and biblical theology for life ministry, using a combination of pastoral, church planting and evangelism experience. He holds a Master of Divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He is experienced in church planting, evangelism, missions, and the training of pastors and Bible teachers.
Jason has been preaching the gospel since 1985, serving the first ten years of ministry as a Southern Baptist itinerant evangelist out of Milldale Baptist Church in Zachary, LA which ordained him in 1993. He has preached in hundreds of churches in over 30 States and 4 countries. He planted churches in Siberia, Russia in the summers of 1993 and 1994. He founded Murrieta Valley Church in California, which he planted in cooperation with the SBC NAMB in 2001. He also teaches ministry students at California Baptist University.
You can hear his sermons and read his manuscripts on sermonaudio.com. Just follow the link to "sermons" at the top of this page.
Amen!
Anyone who says he uses only the Bible in his preaching forgets that he’s using his own words as well. That sets him up for self-exaltation. If “we” don’t need the wisdom of other authors and Christians, then “we” don’t need the preacher either.
Scripture’s authority is absolute as God’s word. Everything must be submitted to its authority. But we must have the humility to recognize that the Holy Spirit has spoken to others through the scriptures who may have listened better than we ourselves.
I doubt that ‘Calvinist’ was a label willingly adopted by those who are called it, but as the label stuck, we have to use it.
Once again I must declare that my preferred label is ‘Particular Baptist’.
And I dislike the sermon that is full of quotes from the commentaries: ‘John Gill said this… Albert Barnes said that… Matthew Henry said…” All well and good, but please, not in the pulpit.
No-one who has seen our blog (it is now officially a team blog) will suspect us of undervaluing church history.