Now it should be noted that the Holy Spirit insults the people of the Law and of works here by calling them “sons of the slave woman.” It is as though He were to say: “Why do you boast about the righteousness . . . Continue reading →
HeidelQuotes
What Do Good Faith Exceptions Do To The PCA?
Good Faith Subscription (GFS), the practice of allowing a man to assent to most of the Westminster Standards in “good faith” while allowing him to state minor differences in parts, has been practiced in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) for almost . . . Continue reading →
Prisha’s Story
Prisha Mosley is a woman who spent years believing she was a man, receiving hormone therapy under the care of doctors and therapists whom she is now suing for damages. The lawsuit is being filed in her former home state of North Carolina, although . . . Continue reading →
Colquhoun: The Sins Of Believers Do Not Wreck Their Justification
Believers are perfectly and irreversibly justified, and therefore, though their iniquities deserve eternal wrath, yet they can no more make them actually liable to that wrath. It is the peculiar privilege of believers only, who are already justified and so set forever . . . Continue reading →
Bavinck Distinguished Between Law And Gospel
The Word is differentiated into law and gospel. The law finds its end in Christ, who sets believers free from the curse of the law so that they may walk according to the Spirit and delight in God’s law in their inner . . . Continue reading →
A Warning To Historians Who Would Be Journalists
Calls for amnesty among those who defended and implemented the protocols of the COVID-19 pandemic are hardly news. Emily Oster was the first to call for clemency of advocates for governments’ restrictive measures. She argued that many officials simply did not have sufficient knowledge . . . Continue reading →
Riddlebarger On The First Resurrection
The first coming of Christ and his resurrection ensured that in the present age Christians are already raised with him. Christ’s resurrection from the dead also ensured that we believers will be raised bodily at the end of the age (1 Cor. . . . Continue reading →
The Hodges On Why The Reformed Churches Receive Roman Catholic Baptisms As Valid
All the Reformed Churches, as well as the Lutherans, practically and confessedly recognized the Validity of Romanish Baptism. Gallic Conf., Art. 28. “Because, nevertheless, that in the papacy some scant vestiges of the true Church remain, and especially the substance of Baptism, . . . Continue reading →
Augustine Gives Us A Clue As To The Meaning Of “Hymns” In The Ancient Church
Meanwhile, a certain Hilary, a Catholic layman of tribunitial rank, incited to anger, for some reason or other, against the ministers of God, as often happens, in abusive, censorious language, wherever it was possible, was violently attacking the custom which, at the . . . Continue reading →
Colquhoun: God Accepts The Obedience Of Believers As Fruit And Evidence
Although the law as a rule of duty to believers requires perfect obedience from them, yet it admits of God’s accepting their sincere obedience performed in faith, though it is imperfect. It admits of His accepting this obedience not indeed as any . . . Continue reading →
Turretin: “Participation In The Divine Nature” Refers To Sanctification
IV. First, this image (negatively, kat’ arsin) does not consist in a participation of the divine essence (as if the nature of man was a shadow [aposkiasmation] of the divine and a certain particle of the divine breath, as the Gentiles hold). For . . . Continue reading →
When Church Planting Doesn’t Go According To Plan
I think many church planters overestimate what can be done in two years and underestimate what can be done in ten years. We overemphasise the need for rapid numerical growth and underemphasise the wisdom of building slowly and faithfully. I remember preaching to . . . Continue reading →
Colquhoun: The Believer’s Interest In The Covenant Of Grace
Since true believers are already irrevocably interested in the covenant of grace, in the righteousness of Christ, and in the favor of God; and since they have in Christ and on the ground of His righteousness imputed to them a complete security . . . Continue reading →
Why Are Baptistic Evangelicals Attracted To Anglicanism?
By now, the pattern is familiar. A young evangelical becomes disenchanted with her religious upbringing, discovers the liturgical church, and “walks the Canterbury Trail,” joining an Anglican or Episcopal church. She may even conclude the Anglican tradition is insufficiently Catholic and turn . . . Continue reading →
Evangelical Repentance, The Marrow, And The Auchterarder Creed
How did theological examination of a man in a presbytery (body of regional church elders) in a small town in Scotland in 1717 fuel a deep-seated theological schism among ministers in the Church of Scotland and result in a movement that still . . . Continue reading →
Is There Distinctively Reformed Medicine?
After a visit to my father at his local hospital, I had a worldview moment. What should have alerted me from the outset was the name of the place – St. Mary’s. But then I noticed that the spiritual services wing of . . . Continue reading →
Stealthy Psalters In The PCA?
Many PCA churches (more than half?) have a psalter and they don’t even know it. Of course, some churches have switched to the excellent, newer Trinity Psalter Hymnal or another good psalter, but if a church has the very common Trinity Hymnal they already have . . . Continue reading →
How Representative Of Reformed Orthodoxy Was Davenant?
However, does Lynch fully make his case that hypothetical universalists taught that Christ died for all human beings in one sense and for the elect alone in another sense? He appears persistently to blur the lines between the impetration and application of . . . Continue reading →
Colquhoun: What The Covenant Of Works Requires
Although the law in its covenant form requires of all who are under it since the fall perfect obedience as the condition of life and full satisfaction for sin their own persons, and at the same time, upon the revelation and offer . . . Continue reading →
Perkins On The Divine Mission
How can the Father send the Son, considering they are both one? Answer. In the doctrine touching the Trinity, nature and person must be distinguished. Nature is a substance common to many, as the Godhead. A person is that which subsists of . . . Continue reading →