The doctrine of the Christian life is remarkably simple. There are two parts: death and life. The practice of the Christian life, however, is quite another thing. The practice of the Christian life, the living out of our life in Christ, by . . . Continue reading →
Today’s decision usurps the constitutional right of the people to decide whether to keep or alter the traditional understanding of marriage. The decision will also have other important consequences. It will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to . . . Continue reading →
A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Continue reading →
A majority of the honorable Supreme Court of the United States has recently judged that, whereas as recently as 2013 the court had asserted that marriage law is the province of the states, homosexuals have a constitutional right under the 14th amendment to . . . Continue reading →
Since the advent of the so-called Second Great Awakening, which shaped American evangelical theology, piety, and practice so profoundly in the 19th century, many American Christians have simply assumed that revivalist paradigm as correct. Many evangelicals have never seen any other approach . . . Continue reading →
By history and tradition the definition and regulation of marriage has been treated as being within the authority and realm of the separate States. Congress has enacted discrete statutes to regulate the meaning of marriage in order to further federal policy, but . . . Continue reading →
Evangelism properly is what the minister does in the pulpit when he proclaims the gospel to the world but each of us as Christians is a witness or gives witness to the faith (the objective facts of redemptive history and the basic truths of Scripture summarized in the creeds) and to our faith, i.e., to our personal appropriation of Christ by grace alone, through faith alone. Continue reading →
Sanctification has another function in the Christian life: to bolster assurance. This doctrine has also been controversial in some circles. There is a view that says that sanctification can play no role whatsoever in assurance. There is also an approach that says that, in seeking assurance, the first place a believer looks is to his sanctification. Continue reading →
We should also reject soundly and unreservedly that teaching that will not say that believers, who are united to Christ by the Spirit, through faith alone, who are justified freely (sola gratia), through faith alone (sola fide), have no moral obligation to be conformed to Christ and thus to do good works. That is antinomianism. No, the Spirit is conforming us to Christ’s image. Those who have been given new life (regenerated) will do good works. They want to do good works out of thankfulness. Gratitude is not, as some say, a second blessing any more than oranges are a second blessing on an orange tree (see Belgic Confession art. 24) Continue reading →
The Heidelberg Catechism is in three parts: Law, Gospel, and Sanctification or Guilt, Grace, and Gratitude. This is not an artificial interpretation of the Catechism nor is it an artificial arrangement of the Christian faith. Question 2 outlines the Catechism for us: . . . Continue reading →
In our late-modern (liquid), nominalist, it is widely regarded that truth claims and official acts are nothing but the exercise of power for personal gain. In other words, we live in a time of great suspicion. Whereas the dominant question of the . . . Continue reading →
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws . . . Continue reading →
Numerous amici—even some not supporting the States—have cautioned the Court that its decision here will “have unavoidable and wide-ranging implications for religious liberty.” Brief for General Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists et al. as Amici Curiae 5. In our society, marriage is not simply a governmental institution; it is a religious institution as well. Id., at 7. Today’s decision might change the former, but it cannot change the latter. It appears all but inevitable that the two will come into conflict, particularly as individuals and churches are confronted with demands to participate in and endorse civil marriages between same-sex couples. Continue reading →
In evangelical Christianity, to some degree after the so-called First Great Awakening and certainly after the so-called Second Great Awakening, the line between lay witness and the official (done from a particular ecclesiastical office) of preaching became blurred. The Reformed theologians who . . . Continue reading →
The colonists brought the principles of Magna Carta with them to the New World, including that charter’s protection against uncompensated takings of personal property. In 1641, for example, Massachusetts adopted its Body of Liberties, prohibiting “mans Cattel or goods of what kinde . . . Continue reading →
This imagery is a challenge to our late-modern assumptions. We might assume that, of course, God must be happy to have us, that the kingdom of God must be inclusive. Such an assumption, however pervasive it has become in the modern age, is foreign to Scripture. In Scriptural teaching we are by nature rebels, at odds with God and excluded from his kingdom. Apart from Christ our righteous substitute and our king, we have no status before God except as condemned before the king. Therefore we very much need the gates to the Kingdom of Heaven to be opened for us. Continue reading →
To reduce this verse to material poverty is to fail to grasp the significance of Christ’s incarnation. Money has nothing to do with the gospel. When Francis says material poverty is integral to the gospel, he is robbing people of the true . . . Continue reading →
82. Are they then also to be admitted to this Supper who show themselves by their confession and life to be unbelieving and ungodly? No, for thereby the covenant of God is profaned and His wrath provoked against the whole congregation; wherefore . . . Continue reading →
Who are to come to the table of the Lord? Those who are displeased with themselves for their sins, yet trust that these are forgiven them, and that their remaining infirmity is covered by the passion and death of Christ; who also . . . Continue reading →
ALMIGHTY God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all things, Judge of all men; We knowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed by thought, word, and deed, against thy . . . Continue reading →