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Moreover, the law of Moses is an example of the natural law, most suitably expressing the common notions of nature endowed by natural law. For the principles and conclusions of the natural law, that is, those common notions of nature, are perfectly . . . Continue reading →
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Evangelical involvement in politics has perhaps never been more intense. The George W. Bush administration had an office of faith-based initiatives. The Obama administration continues to hold prayer breakfasts and regularly invokes the Christian faith when it serves favored policy goals. The . . . Continue reading →
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To say that our faith saves us means that we do not save ourselves even in the slightest measure. Very different would be the case if our salvation was said to be through love…. J. Gresham Machen, What Is Faith? (1946), 173–4.
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…the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace. —Westminster Confession of Faith 14.2
“But after a man is justified by faith, now possesses Christ by faith, and knows that He is his righteousness and life, he will certainly not be idle but, like a sound tree, will bear good fruit (Matt. 7:17). For the believer has the Holy Spirit; and where He is, He does not permit a man to be idle but drives him to all the exercises of devotion, to the love of God, to patience in affliction, to prayer, to thanksgiving, and to the practice of love toward all men.”
—Luther Continue reading →
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Disputing in his Panstrat. vol. iii. book xv. chap. iii. against Bellarmine, [Chamier] teaches that the true and determinate difference between the law of works and that of faith, is the condition of works and of faith; that is, that the law . . . Continue reading →
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1. That justifying faith, or that faith whereby we are justified, is our receiving of Christ as our Lord and Saviour, trusting in him and yielding obedience to him. 2. That faith, in justifying, is not to be considered as a hand . . . Continue reading →
The Patristic Period One of the earliest concerns of the Christian church, beginning with the apostles and intensifying through the patristic and medieval periods, was that those who profess the Christian faith should live in a way befitting their profession of faith. . . . Continue reading →
The argument is being made that Hebrews 12:4 teaches us that sanctification is resisting sin, which involves our free cooperation with grace, ergo sanctification is not by faith alone (sola fide). Once more, there is no question whether believers must be sanctified and whether they must resist sin. The question is whether our sanctification and our resisting sin is a part of the instrument of our salvation or whether it contributes to our salvation or whether our resisting of sin is the consequence and evidence of our gracious salvation. Continue reading →
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God requires humiliation indeed afore, because men will not believe else; and he requires obedience after, as that which necessarily follows upon faith, so as a man cannot truly believe but it will follow, as heat follows light. Yet, upon believing, the . . . Continue reading →
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Nothing within man, and nothing that man can do, either in nature, or by grace, concurreth to the act of justification before God, as any cause thereof, either efficient, material, formal, or final, but faith alone; all other gifts and graces, as . . . Continue reading →
For the Apostle Peter, Christians are delivered from Pharaoh, as it were, but we are not yet in Canaan. We are “in Christ” and with him we have been raised from the dead. We have an inheritance (below) we have not yet . . . Continue reading →
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When we are in the state of salvation, faith doth all; for whenas all graces else would soon be overcome and cast out again by lusts, and would soon be tripped up from off their standing, faith is able to keep its . . . Continue reading →
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Faith doth all in us, till it hath brought us to salvation. It carries along this great venture of a man’s soul safe to heaven, and leaves it not till it hath put it into Christ’s hands in heaven, till itself ends . . . Continue reading →
Introduction There is no question among orthodox, i.e., confessional, Reformed folk whether good works are necessary as a consequence, evidence, and a fruit of justification and sanctification by grace alone, through faith alone. There is no question whether God’s moral law, whether summarized in . . . Continue reading →
Building on the “born-that-way” narrative popularized by the LBGT lobby, this pedophile wants his sexuality (identity) to be recognized as normal. This article does not appear in some out-of-the-way, obscure publication but in Salon.com It almost seems like a parody such as . . . Continue reading →
I suspect this sort of idea is difficult for some of us to receive with joy. It is not on many of our agendas to to be so identified with Christ, in this hostile world, as to be required to suffer and die for him. It was only Peter’s agenda, however, and therefore on God’s agenda. Remember, the Lord Jesus had promised Peter, “when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go” (John 21.18). Jesus predicted Peter’s martyrdom and Peter was, in effect predicting suffering, if not martyrdom for his readers. Continue reading →
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For because Paul had taught, that a man is justified by faith without works, hence some inferred, that in whatever manner a man live, it, equally suffices, that he persuade himself that Christ is his Saviour. Which they could have inferred with . . . Continue reading →
On March 13 2013 the world watched for white smoke to appear from a chimney in the Sistine Chapel, named for the late fifteenth-century Pope Sixtus IV. After it did, the Vatican announced the election of a new pope, whom Rome regards . . . Continue reading →
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The doctrine of perseverance may also be proved in an inferential way. a. From the doctrine of election. Election does not merely mean that some will be favored with certain external privileges and may be saved, if they do their duty, but . . . Continue reading →
