First, if we seek God’s fatherly mercy and kindly heart, we should turn our eyes to Christ, on whom alone God’s Spirit rests [cf. Matt. 3:17]. If we seek salvation, life, and the immortality of the Heavenly Kingdom, then there is no . . . Continue reading →
Salvation
Ralph Erskine: Are You Worried That You Aren’t Elect?
Are you polluted? I offer him to you, as made unto you sanctification. Are you miserable and forlorn? I offer him to you, as made of God unto you complete redemption. Are you hard-hearted ? I offer him in that promise, I will take away . . . Continue reading →
Those Who Have Received Grace Ought To Be Most Gracious
I recently received a letter from a couple in our congregation who have been laboring for the sake of the gospel in the Congo for the better part of their lives. As I read, one line in particular stood out to me. . . . Continue reading →
Warfield: Double Predestination Preserves And Protects Against Synergism In The Doctrine Of Salvation
One needs to read but a little way into the treatise to perceive how strongly and indeed even passionately Calvinsisted upon this point. The reason for this is that he looked upon election not merely as the warrant for assurance of faith, . . . Continue reading →
Why Do You Seek The Living Among The Dead?
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the . . . Continue reading →
Confessions Give Us Roots
Not only are Christian confessions consistent with Scripture and church history, they are practically conducive to positive societal engagement. Historic confessions help ground our evangelistic method in the larger scope of church history, essentially protecting us against inventing some new doctrine, or . . . Continue reading →
Don’t Leave It In The Vault
As is especially evident in today’s context, it’s one thing to adopt a confession and quite another to be confessional’ to think, witness, live, and worship consistently with our profession. A confession can be a historical document that we leave in the . . . Continue reading →
Owen: To Deny Baptism To The Children Of Believers Is To Deny Christ’s Faithfulness
To deny that the children of believing, professing parents…have the same right and interest with their parents in the covenant, is plainly to deny the fidelity of Christ in the discharge of his office. John Owen | The Works of John Owen, . . . Continue reading →
Luther On God Pleasing Despair
I remember that Staupitz used to say: “More than a thousand times I have vowed to God that I would improve, but I have never performed what I have vowed. Hereafter I shall not make such vows, because I know perfectly well . . . Continue reading →
Calvin: Through Faith Two Apparently Inconsistent Things Are Reconciled
Then these two things, though apparently inconsistent, do yet perfectly harmonize when we speak of faith; for the Spirit of God shows to us hidden things, the knowledge of which cannot reach our senses: Promised to us is eternal life, but it . . . Continue reading →
Owen: A Little Faith Gives The Whole Christ
True faith in the least degree, gives the soul a share in the first resurrection. It is of the vital principle which we receive when we are quickened. Now, be it never so weak a life we have, yet it is a . . . Continue reading →
Colquhoun: You Cannot Add Your Works To Christ’s
As this is a great error [to mingle law and gospel], so it is a very dangerous error. If a man attempts to add any works of his own to the consummate righteousness of Jesus Christ as the ground of his justification . . . Continue reading →
Colquhoun: You Won’t Get Away With It. Flee To Christ
Can you imagine that the omniscient and righteous Judge of all the earth will take no notice of you or that He who is “of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity” (Hab. 1:13) but with infinite . . . Continue reading →
Luther Distinguished Law And Gospel In 1519
Now, what need is there to go through all of Latomus, point by point, since what has been said thoroughly refutes his entire position and confirms mine? I have sufficiently shown that his whole work consists of begging the question, for he . . . Continue reading →
Owen: It Is Christ’s Obedience Or Nothing
And therefore those who affirm that our obedience is the condition or cause of our justification, do all of them deny the imputation of the obedience of Christ unto us. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to us, as that on the . . . Continue reading →
How Baxter Came To Reject The Reformation Doctrine Of Salvation
To repeat my point, Owen could have had any number of authors in mind when he offered this extended critique, but it has to be said that Richard Baxter fitted the bill pretty well. In his first publication, the Aphorismes of Justification, published . . . Continue reading →
Colquhoun: The Whole Salvation Is Freely Offered
Is the whole of Christ’s salvation offered in the gospel to sinners? Then salvation from the law as a covenant of works is tendered to them. In the declarations and offers of the blessed gospel, the consummate righteousness of Jesus Christ, which . . . Continue reading →
Owen: It Was All For Us And Credited To Us
First, By the obedience of the life of Christ you see what is intended,—his willing submission unto, and perfect, complete fulfilling of, every law of God, that any of the saints of God were obliged unto. It is true, every act almost . . . Continue reading →
Owen: Only Christ’s Righteousness For Us
In eternal vengeance will he plead with the adversaries of his beloved, Matt. 25:41–46; 2 Thess. 1:6; Jude 15. It is hence evident that Christ abounds in pity and compassion towards his beloved. Instances might be multiplied, but these things are obvious, . . . Continue reading →
Owen: Christ Performed All Our Obedience
1st. He expiates former iniquities, he satisfies for sin, and procures remission of it. Rom. 3:24, 25, ‘Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith . . . Continue reading →