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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
A sermon by R. Scott Clark on Mark 12:28–44. Continue reading →
The covenantal structure is built into God’s relationship with his human creatures from creation and finds various expressions in subsequent redemptive history. In view of this pervasive structure, readers and preachers of Scripture do well to approach every text with special attention . . . Continue reading →
It is the habit of some of our Particular Baptist friends to imply, suggest, or even to say plainly that the great English Reformed theologian John Owen (1616–1683) was practically Baptist in his covenant theology.1 He is arguably one of the greatest theologians . . . Continue reading →
Although the term “covenant” (berith) is not used in Genesis to designate the original commitment that bound the newly created Adam to his creator, the essential features of later biblical covenants between God the covenant Lord and his people as his servant . . . Continue reading →
R. Scott Clark gives a short devotion on Galatians 3:1–14. This audio was recorded as part of Westminster Seminary California’s Morning Devotions. Editor’s Note: This audio was originally published by Westminster Seminary California in 2005. ©Heidelberg Reformation Association. All Rights Reserved. RESOURCES . . . Continue reading →
To understand how any Old Testament event (or office or officer or institution) preaches Christ and finds its fulfillment in him, we first must grasp its symbolic depth in its own place in redemptive history … The Passover lamb’s blood declared that . . . Continue reading →
This particular Arminian error may be the most pernicious, since at first glance. it appears to come close to the truth, but nevertheless bases the ground of our salvation upon an act of the creature, not in the decree of God and . . . Continue reading →
As far back as the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil symbolized a spiritual issue. Eating from it would bring death but not because the fruit was physically poisonous. Indeed, its fruit was “good for food” (Gen. . . . Continue reading →
Before we take a deep dive into the meaning of Hebrews 11:1, there are two passages we should look at that push back against the idea of blind faith. The first is found in Matthew 15:14 in which Jesus refers to some of the Pharisees as “blind guides.” “If the blind lead the blind,” he says, “both will fall into a pit.” Continue reading →
In the wake of the Counter-Reformation and the increasing spread of the Jesuit missions movement, the King of Denmark, Fredrick IV (1671–1730), responded by launching the first Protestant mission. Franz Julius Lutkens, the chaplain to the king, founded the Danish Royal Mission . . . Continue reading →
To be responsible to the Bible’s divine Author and credible to our hearers, our identification of typological similarities (as well as contrasts between type and antitype) must be warranted by evidence in the text of Scripture, not merely the product of our . . . Continue reading →