Before I began this series my intent was to do a series of episodes on the Reformed understanding of the Christian use of the moral law as the norm or rule of the Christian life. Confessional Protestants (Reformed and Lutheran) call it . . . Continue reading →
We’ve come to the 3rd part of the Marrow, “Of the law of Christ.” This is a phrase that occurs frequently in this discussion. Neither the antinomian nor the neonomian are satisfied with the law of Christ the way it is. The . . . Continue reading →
Here is the second talk from the Gospel-Driven Life conference in Ponte Vedra, FL in January, 2007 (I think). The audio has been lost for a few years. Thanks to Brad Lindvall for curating the audio and for making it available. This . . . Continue reading →
I don’t think Paul is saying that he doesn’t offer his members unto righteousness or that he doesn’t make efforts to resist sin and obey God’s law. Could it be it’s just that he (we) never graduated from needing the sufficiency of . . . Continue reading →
For most of my conscious life I have listened to other Americans complain about having to drive across Nebraska on I-80. As soon I tell non-Nebraskans that I am a Cornhusker they have two comments: 1. Your football team isn’t what it . . . Continue reading →
In our proper desire to see Christians grow in sanctity (holiness) Christians have often succombed to the temptation to encourage sanctity by making justification or deliverance from the judgment to come contingent upon our degree of sanctity. The great difficulty with this scheme, . . . Continue reading →
The issue before this week is this: The nomist (i.e., the legalist) will frequently deny that he is a legalist. We can even get the nomist to profess orthodox things about the doctrine of justification but here’s an acid test—by the way . . . Continue reading →
Why? in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit (verse 4). Christ did not only come to set us free from . . . Continue reading →
Where sanctification is enjoined us as our duty, it is prescribed under this notion of cleansing ourselves from sin: “Wash you, make you clean,” Isaiah 1:16. “O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved,” Jeremiah 4:14. “Having therefore . . . Continue reading →
David asks, I know that we would say that faith is an instrument whereby we receive Christ’s imputed righteousness, but is there some biblical or theological reason why we would not want to say that faith is also a virtue? Can’t faith . . . Continue reading →
Yet, when Paul speaks of the law creating servitude, he is speaking here of the way in which the Galatians misapplied the law… Furthermore, we believe that it is impossible to keep the law of God, but that the law simply reveals . . . Continue reading →
verse 4. That the justification of the law might be fulfilled, etc. They who understand that the renewed, by the Spirit of Christ, fulfil the law, introduce a gloss wholly alien to the meaning of Paul; for the faithful, while they sojourn . . . Continue reading →
Concerning the meaning of the phrase “sanctification has its ground in justification,” some out there in bloggo-land may be getting hung up on the term ground and reading more into to it than is warranted. Certainly there is no justification or sanctification . . . Continue reading →
In this way we can admit not only that there is a partial righteousness in works (as our adversaries maintain), but that they are approved by God as if they were absolutely perfect. If we remember on what foundation this is rested, . . . Continue reading →
Grant, Almighty God, that as thou dost train us up with so much diligence and assiduous care, and regard us as dear and precious like an hereditary vine, – O grant, that we may not bring forth wild grapes, and that our . . . Continue reading →
While the debate rages (or rambles) on in Reformed circles about the Christian’s motivation for obedience, a piece that seems to be missing from much of the discussion is the crucial role that love plays in our obedience to our Heavenly Father. . . . Continue reading →
I think, not only the content of preaching, but the order of the content is important; indispensable even. J. Gresham Machen, in Christianity and Liberalism, wrote, The consciousness of sin was formerly the starting-point of all preaching, but today it is gone… . . . Continue reading →
One aspect of our new life in Christ to which modern evangelical and Reformed Christians have not always paid a great deal of attention is the matter of virtue. There are some good reasons for this. The medieval church came to think . . . Continue reading →
Introduction There is no question among orthodox, i.e., confessional, Reformed folk whether good works are necessary as a consequence, evidence, and a fruit of justification and sanctification by grace alone, through faith alone. There is no question whether God’s moral law, whether summarized in . . . Continue reading →
In part 3 we began looking at a document, from 1978, which proposed a two-stage doctrine of justification. It recognized that there is some risk, some difficulty, in speaking of a present justification and a future justification. Nevertheless, the document contends that . . . Continue reading →