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Want of a due apprehension of the truth herein hath caused many, especially those of the Church of Rome, to follow after vain imaginations about the state of the souls of the faithful, departed under the Old Testament. Generally, they shut them . . . Continue reading →
Those of the church of Rome do hence fancy a limbus, a subterraneous receptacle of souls, wherein they say the spirits of believers under the old testament were detained until after the resurrection of Christ, so as that they without us were . . . Continue reading →
It is generally supposed by expositors that it is heaven itself which is hereby intended. Hence some of the ancients, the schoolmen, and sundry expositors of the Roman church, have concluded that no believers under the old testament, none of the ancient . . . Continue reading →
And he was their forerunner also. For although I have no apprehension of the “limbus patrum” fancied by the Papists, yet I think the fathers that died under the old testament had a nearer admission into the presence of God upon the . . . Continue reading →
Rendering “sheol”: Beza and Acts 2:27. Beza, for example, worried textually and linguistically over the problem of the citation of Psalm 16:8–11 in Acts 2:25–28. Specifically, verse 10 of the Psalm (Acts 2:27) had been used in the church as one of the . . . Continue reading →
We must observe, also, that the soul, after this life, goes either into heaven or into hell, and into no other place; for the scripture mentions no other, neither purgatory, nor limbus, nor subterranean caverns, nor Lethean streams; whatever is asserted in . . . Continue reading →
Moreover, all have their own task and place. Roman Catholics assume that after death Old Testament believers waited in the limbo of the fathers and were not released until Christ freed them at his descent into hell; and they also believe that . . . Continue reading →
What is the limbus patrum of Roman Catholics? The limbus patrum (limbo of the fathers) is the place where the believing fathers of the Old Testament had to stay in a state of expectation before the coming of the Messiah. After His death on the cross, . . . Continue reading →
Others interpret it differently: that Christ descended to the souls of the patriarchs who had died under the law, to announce redemption as accomplished and to free them from the prison where they were confined. To back up this interpretation, they wrongly adduce . . . Continue reading →
The Limbus Patrum. The Latin word limbus (fringe) was used in the Middle Ages to denote two places on the fringe or outskirts of hell, namely, the Limbus Patrum and the Limbus Infantum. The former is the place where, according to the teachings of Rome, the souls . . . Continue reading →
102. The doctrine of the Church of Rome, concerning limbus patrum [The limbus of the fathers], limbus puerorum [the limbus of infants], purgatory, prayer for the dead, pardons, adoration of images and relics, and also invocation of saints, is vainly invented, without all warrant of Holy Scripture, yea, and . . . Continue reading →
X. What is said of “the sepulcher” and “death” (Gen. 37:35; 42:38)—that Jacob was about to go down with sadness (lsh’vl) (“into the grave”) is falsely drawn to limbo. Sh’vl or hadēs is the grave into which men descend after death. XI. “The pit wherein is . . . Continue reading →
VII. Third, the thief is admitted into paradise before the ascension of Christ according to his promise, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Lk. 23:43). Nor should it be said here that “today” must be construed with the preceding verb . . . Continue reading →
The reasons are: (1) the formula of the covenant of grace under which the fathers lived does not suffer them to be hurled into a limbo, but demands that they should be admitted into heaven. For since God promised that he would . . . Continue reading →
This question lies between us and the papists who (the more easily to defend their hypothesis concerning the imperfection of the Old Testament) maintain that the fathers who lived under it were not immediately admitted into heaven, but were detained in limbo . . . Continue reading →
Richard Nixon (1913–94) was President of the United States from 1968–74. He resigned from office in disgrace because of his part in the cover-up of the Watergate scandal. By today’s standards, the Watergate scandal might be considered small potatoes. Nixon himself, who . . . Continue reading →
In Book IV of Paradise Lost, John Milton introduces “our first father” and “our general mother,” ancestors of the human race: “Adam, the goodliest man of men since born / His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve” (Milton 2000, 86, 83). Together . . . Continue reading →
I was meditating on Paul’s words in 2 Thessalonians 3:6–12. Paul was concerned about those in the congregation who were obsessed with and confused over Jesus’ return (parousia). They had what theologians (rightly) call an “over realized eschatology.” In their anticipation of . . . Continue reading →
The idea of the Antichrist in general and that of the apostasy in particular reminds us that we may not expect an uninterrupted progress of the Christianization of the world until the parousia. As the reign of truth will be extended, so . . . Continue reading →