What this all means is that justification is God’s final judgment. As Wilfried Joest writes, “there is no second decision after justification.” In the language of the Reformation, the “sole and sufficient basis” for our justification before God’s eschatological tribunal is Jesus . . . Continue reading →
2013 Archive
Office Hours: Kelly Kapic On John Owen, Theology, And Piety
Kelly Kapic is Professor of Theological Studies at Covenant College. This is a sort of lost episode. Kelly was on campus campus in February, 2010 to talk with our students about theology and piety. That spring we renovated the Office Hours studio . . . Continue reading →
More Questions From Ginger: Why Is Republication So Controversial?
As a follow-on to the post on the covenant of works, Ginger asks, You said: “Several have said that their status as a national people and their tenure in the land was affected by their obedience or disobedience. This view, however, has . . . Continue reading →
Orwell: The Danger Of An All-Prevailing Orthodoxy
At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to . . . Continue reading →
Orwell on Freedom of the Press
[Orwell’s original 1945 preface to Animal Farm. It was discovered by Ian Angus and published by Bernard Crick in the TLS in 1972]. This book was first thought of, so far as the central idea goes, in 1937, but was not written . . . Continue reading →
How Reza Aslan’s Jesus Gives History A Bad Name
Aslan repeatedly calls revolutionary leaders of the first century “claimed messiahs,” when this crucial term hardly ever appears in our sources and certainly not in the contexts he is claiming. Aslan pontificates on questions such as Jesus’s literacy (or illiteracy, in his . . . Continue reading →
Grammar: Less And Weary
As the newspaper business enters its final stage of life and newsrooms with clattering typewriters, copy boys, and ink-stained editors with green eye shades become a distant memory so copy editing and grammar seem to be disappearing with them. The sports pages . . . Continue reading →
Grumpy Old Men And The Ministry Of Condemnation
Where are all the young people going? Why do the visitors never seem to stick? Why have there been so many fights in our church history? Unfortunately, these are common questions in the Reformed tradition. In my years as a pastor, I . . . Continue reading →
How Did Christ Fulfill The Covenant Of Works As The Last Adam?
Ginger writes: …I have been trying to wrap my mind around the covenant of works given to Adam and how and if it was fulfilled by Christ, the last Adam. …How did Christ fulfill or abolish the covenant of works given to . . . Continue reading →
The Abiding Validity Of The Creational Law In Exhaustive Detail
A correspondent to the HB writes: People can gloss over the term all they want, but secularism is still what it is, a rival religion and ethos to Christianity. The real divide between the FV and anti-FV crowd began with Van Til . . . Continue reading →
The Law Might Be Called A Covenant Of Works
The Law—considered as a national covenant, by which their continued possession of the land of Canaan, and of all their privileges under the Theocracy, was left to depend on their external obedience to it,— might be called a national Covenant of Works, . . . Continue reading →
Office Hours Season 5: One Voice In Each Ear Or Not?
Over the years we have recorded Office Hours episodes in different ways. For the last two seasons we’ve experimented by using a technique that was used in the early 70s, putting one voice predominantly in one speaker and another voice predominantly in . . . Continue reading →
Cynical, Remorseless, Rudderless, And Hollow
Thus combining the style of Oscar Wilde with the convictions of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Kappeyne had to be the bête noire to one as absolutely earnest, and earnest for absolutes, as Kuyper. To top it all off, Kappeyne, reared in a . . . Continue reading →
Evangelicalism And The Reformed View Of The Law
Note: This post first appeared in February 2008. Since that time the original link to Pulpit Magazine has been taken down. The archives at Pulpit Magazine only go back to 2012. § At Pulpit Magazine, Nathan Busenitz is tackling the question of . . . Continue reading →
Nebraska!
The New Normal
Internet pornography is probably the number one pastoral problem in the world today. I wonder if it is set to become yet more so: as the social shame dimension passes away, it will be harder to maintain discipline on this issue. The . . . Continue reading →
Untangling Webs Of Assumptions About Baptism
Wendy writes, I remain confused as to why God in being ‘more generous’ has actually also made it ‘more ambiguous’. Wheras under the Old Covenant the command (and its benefits) were explicit, under the New they must be deduced by inference…. I . . . Continue reading →
Aboard The USS Midway
Lingering Doubts About Baptism
I could not understand why, given the Old Testament emphasis of God’s working through families, the New Testament did not signal a change in that policy. It seemed passing strange to me that the new covenant sacrament included women and Gentiles but . . . Continue reading →
Machen: The Gospel Makes Men Love The Law
The gospel does not abrogate God’s law, but it makes men love it with all their hearts. How is it with us? The law of God stands over us; we have offended against it in thought, word and deed; its. majestic “letter” . . . Continue reading →