Many Protestants have historically seen this event [i.e., “the rapture”] as one aspect of the general resurrection at the end of the age (1 Cor. 15:50–55; 1 Thess. 4:13–5:11). The rapture, therefore, refers to the catching away of believers who are living . . . Continue reading →
Scripture
Baptists, The Definition Of Reformed, And Identity Politics (Part 1)
It is a widely held belief among a relatively large number of Baptists and not a few Presbyterian and Reformed (P&R) folk that Baptists can be Reformed. Indeed, it is widely held among those in the Baptistic traditions that they (as distinct . . . Continue reading →
Johnson: Hebrews On What God Does For His People
. . Hebrews speaks of Jesus’ fulfillment of the Servant’s side of the covenant in three specific ways: (1) He maintains flawless loyalty to the Lord and fulfills every command and requirement, thereby achieving the blessedness promised by the Lord for himself . . . Continue reading →
Luther: We Must Strive To Think Of Jesus As Paul Does (Not As Rome Does)
We adults, who are imbued with the noxious doctrine of the papists, which we absorbed into our very bones and marrow, acquired an opinion of Christ altogether different from the one that Paul sets forth here. No matter how much we declared . . . Continue reading →
Riddlebarger: Jesus Is The True Israel
Israel’s possession of the land of promise, therefore, was part of a national covenant and was conditioned upon national obedience. The New Testament writers are clear (much to the dispensationalist’s dismay) that the everlasting land promise God made to Abraham is now . . . Continue reading →
Johnson: How The Apostles Applied The Scriptures
Apostolic application displays the texture of renewal in the image of God. We will also be helped in relating any text to the Scripture’s central purpose as we sensitize ourselves to the categories of truth (knowledge), authority (righteousness) and relationship (holiness)—themes that . . . Continue reading →
Riddlebarger: The Promises Are Yes And Amen In Christ
Amillenarians hold that the promises made to Israel, David, and Abraham in the Old Testament are fulfilled by Jesus Christ and his church during this present age . . . The millennium is the period of time between the two advents of . . . Continue reading →
Johnson On How To Preach The Imperatives
Since the grace of the exodus set the context for the stipulations that Israel was to observe as the Lord’s servant, how much more should Christian preachers expound those many biblical texts that shine the spotlight on the responsibilities of God’s covenant . . . Continue reading →
Prove It
Firstly, the Old Testament (OT) church functioned as a state church grounded in theocratic model of ancient Israel, where God’s Word intertwined religious and civil governance. This is evidenced through the Mosaic Law. There, the church and state were twain made one. . . . Continue reading →
Bavinck: The Names And Revelation Of God Are An Accommodation To Our Weakness
God’s revealed names do not reveal his being as such but his accommodation to human language. Scripture is accommodated language; it is anthropomorphic through and through. God himself is described in human terms via human faculties, body parts, emotions, sensations, and actions… . . . Continue reading →
John Owen Did Not Read Hebrews Like A Baptist (Part 4)
In volume three, where Owen begins his commentary proper on the text of Hebrews, he makes illuminating remarks on Hebrews 3:1–2, about how he understood the movement of redemptive history and the comparison and contrast that Paul makes in Hebrews between Moses . . . Continue reading →
Bavinck: We Learn Spiritual Realities Through The Material World
Fully adequate [exhaustive] knowledge is something of which we possess very little. Everywhere and in every area of life we finally run into mystery. The inner being of things, the thing as such, escapes our perception. We observe phenomena and from them . . . Continue reading →
Kapic: God Knows Himself Fully
Archetypal knowledge of God is that knowledge by which God perfectly knows himself. Neither finitude nor sin limits him. He knows all things. Most centrally, God fully knows himself. Ectypal knowledge is that understanding we have of God by means of his . . . Continue reading →
“Come, My People”: The Blessed Hope Of Isaiah 26 (Part 2)—From Tombs To Bedrooms
The city of God awaits the people of God. This was a comfort to the faithful inhabitants of Judah in Isaiah’s day, even as they heard about God’s impending judgment on the earthly Jerusalem. It is also a comfort to Christians today . . . Continue reading →
For To Us A Child Is Born
But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond . . . Continue reading →
Johnson On Unity And Diversity In Scripture
The purposes of Scripture are not unrelated to each other; they are complementary reflections of God’s manifold wisdom. The diversity and unity of Scripture disclose the marvelously diverse and unified plan of God for the whole history of the cosmos. Paul speaks . . . Continue reading →
“Come, My People”: The Blessed Hope Of Isaiah 26 (Part 1)—A Tale Of Two Cities
I remember the thought popping into my head as if it were yesterday: “Why are we doing this?” I was eight or nine, sitting in the back of the family minivan on the way to church. I think this was the first . . . Continue reading →
John Owen Did Not Read Hebrews Like A Baptist (Part 3)
It is a small thing—so small that it might go unnoticed—but as in Exercitation VI, in Exercitation XIX where Owen considered the “State and Ordinances of the Church Before the Giving of the Law,” he consistently spoke of the “Jewish church.”1 To . . . Continue reading →
John Owen Did Not Read Hebrews Like A Baptist (Part 2)
In his exercitation on “the oneness of the church” Owen argued seven points. Each and all of them were in the service of what Reformed theology calls the unity of the covenant of grace. For Owen and the mainstream of Reformed orthodoxy, . . . Continue reading →
The Command, The Christ, The Coins: Mark 12:28–44
A sermon by R. Scott Clark on Mark 12:28–44. Continue reading →