As we engage the book proper, it is useful to remember that GAJ is organized in five parts: 1) Today’s Gospel: Good News or Bad?; 2) Jesus Heralds His Gospel; 3) Jesus Illustrates His Gospel; 4) Jesus Explains His Gospel; 5) Jesus . . . Continue reading →
In his introduction, MacArthur asks what is perhaps the central question in this debate: “What is the gospel?”36 He says that it is not merely an academic question (and all God’s people say, Amen!). He is exactly right when he writes, “And . . . Continue reading →
In his preface to the anniversary edition of GAJ (2008), MacArthur tells the story of how this volume came to be—emerging from a series of 226 sermons in the Gospel of Matthew, over the span of seven and one-half years.31 For what . . . Continue reading →
Before we dive into the preface of GAJ, we should shore up two points from the first installment: 1) The Modernity of Dispensationalism; and 2) The fundamental nature of the distinction between law and gospel. Dispensationalism: A Modern Paradigm Dispensationalism is a Modern . . . Continue reading →
The controversy over the so-called Lordship Salvation doctrine has its proximate roots in a series of sermons through the gospel of Matthew preached by John MacArthur from about 1978 to 1985.1 He published the first edition of The Gospel According to Jesus . . . Continue reading →
Is there a need in the Christian life for the preaching of the Law? Should pastors proclaim the Law, such as the demands of the Decalogue, from the pulpit in the Christian congregation? Does the Law play a role in the Christian’s . . . Continue reading →
At the most recent Shepherds Conference held at Grace Community Church, GCC pastor/elder Phil Johnson responded, at some length, to some criticisms of The Gospel According to Jesus, which criticisms were published here in 2019. Continue reading →
To the nomist, any anti-nomist seems antinomian Continue reading
Obj. 2. He who commands impossibilities, commands things which are not profitable. God commands impossibilities in his law. Therefore he commands things which are useless, and so by consequence the law itself is of no use. Ans. This argument is nearly the . . . Continue reading →
Obj. 1. That which cannot be kept, is taught to no purpose. The law cannot be kept. Therefore it is to no purpose that it is taught in the church of Christ. Ans. There is here a fallacy in urging that as . . . Continue reading →
4. And therefore does the Scripture say, “These words the Lord spake to all the assembly of the children of Israel in the mount, and He added no more;” for, as I have already observed, He stood in need of nothing from . . . Continue reading →
Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart unto the Good News of God (Rom 1:1)* Paul Was A Gospel Man Gospel means good news and Paul was a “gospel man.” I am uncertain where I first . . . Continue reading →
Some years ago, while explaining Heidelberg Catechism 114, on the moral law, I wrote, “Paul was not a Gnostic, a Valentinian, an Anabaptist, a Familist, nor an Antinomian. Continue reading
There is much antinomianism in the modern evangelical church. By antinomianism I mean the rejection of a fixed moral law and specifically to the rejection of God’s moral law as summarized in the Ten Commandments and applied in the New Testament to . . . Continue reading →
The Antinomian denies the abiding validity of God’s moral law. Continue reading
Some of the responses to yesterday’s essay by members of Christ Church, Moscow, ID (known locally as “The Kirk”) most certainly did not meet even the minimal standards for the comment box. The comment policy reads: “Comments are welcome but must observe . . . Continue reading →
“If a sinner, being justified, has all things at once that are necessary for salvation? And if personal holiness, and progress in holy obedience, is not necessary to a justified persons’s possession of glory, in case of his continuing in life after . . . Continue reading →
In his provocative March (2020) essay, Matt Smethurst asked “Why Don’t Christians Keep the Jewish Law?” He reminds us that the “Bible is a thoroughly Jewish document,” a note that has been regularly (and properly) sounded in modern biblical studies. From this premise, he asks the provocative question before us. He notes that “God’s people kept it for centuries in the Old Testament. What happened?” He answers by observing that Jesus, the Jewish Messiah and the Son of God kept and completed “the law of God in his people’s place. Jesus embodied in himself everything the law demanded.” Smethurst recognizes two functions of the “Jewish law:” “God designed the law both to instruct and guide his people and also to expose their sin and need for a Savior.” In the magisterial Protestant traditions we have spoken of these as the normative (third use) and the pedagogical use. Historically there was also a “civil use,” the function of which, according to Louis Berkhof, is to restrain sin and to serve “the purposes of God’s common grace in the world at large.” According to Smethurst, the “Jewish law” is a signpost that is no longer needed now that the “new covenant and new age ushered in by a new king” has arrived. As he puts it, “The signage of the law, therefore, can be taken down. It served its purpose.” Continue reading →
It is always fun to talk with the Presbycast guys. Tonight we talked about a wide range of issues. We started by discussing Chortles’s discovery of an online copy of the last number of Presbyterian and Reformed News from 2004. That issue . . . Continue reading →
The Problem Of Antinomianism Repeatedly in the history of Christianity there have been two competing, damaging impulses regarding the moral law of God. One of those impulses is known as “antinomianism.” This view denies the abiding validity of the moral law for . . . Continue reading →