5. The moral law doth forever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof; and that, not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator, who . . . Continue reading →
Justin Martyr On The Eternal Law
I also adduced another passage in which Isaiah exclaims: “‘Hear My words, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Behold, I have given Him for a witness to the . . . Continue reading →
Irenaeus On The Abiding Validity Of The Decalogue
4. And therefore does the Scripture say, “These words the Lord spake to all the assembly of the children of Israel in the mount, and He added no more;” for, as I have already observed, He stood in need of nothing from . . . Continue reading →
Ursinus On The Abiding Validity Of The Ten Commandments
151 Q: Since Christ has abolished the law, why are we bound to the ten commandments? A: Christ has done away with the civil and ceremonial laws of Moses in such a way that no one is obligated to keep them anymore; . . . Continue reading →
It Wasn’t Natural In 1958. Did Nature Change?
Question: My problem is different from the ones most people have. I am a boy, but I feel about boys the way I ought to feel about girls. I don’t want my parents to know about me. What can I do? Is . . . Continue reading →
The Illusion Of Self Authority
I would say the source of morality is not me. I’m merely informing you of another authority that seems to have a good deal more force than I could ever command. But in the end, of course, the illusion of self-authority—which has . . . Continue reading →
Athanasius On Substitutionary Atonement
He [‘Christ’] suffered these things, not for His own sake but for ours. ‘Thou has made Thy wrath to rest upon me’ [Psalm 88:7, 16] . . . He suffered for us, and bore in Himself the wrath that was the penalty . . . Continue reading →
Church Websites Are Boring And Useless
We typically tell the spy only the name of the church and the city, and we ask him/her to learn about the church first from the website. More than one spy has called us to say he cannot find the service times, . . . Continue reading →
Muller: Utterly Unwarranted To Conclude Against Ordo Salutis
It is utterly unwarranted, moreover, to conclude from the pedagogical arrangement of the Institutes that Calvin “deliberately subverts any chronological” or other ordering of salvation “by not only putting sanctification first, followed by justification, but by placing predestination last” on the ground . . . Continue reading →
Kuyper On Mystical Union With Christ
This union is not the subsequent fruit of a higher degree of holiness, but coincides with the first exercise of faith. Faith which does not live in Christ is no faith, but its counterfeit. Genuine faith is wrought in us by the . . . Continue reading →
Selling Short
My argument is not that learned monographs have no value (of course they do, whether widely read or not), or that blog posts are somehow superior as “scholarship” (of course they’re not), but simply that we might be selling online publications short . . . Continue reading →
How The FV Won The West, Er, The PCA
It is certainly a good thing for the FV that the evangelical middle has such a short memory (does anyone know what happened in 2007?). It is also a good thing for the FV that the evangelical middle has so much fear . . . Continue reading →
Orwell: The Danger Of An All-Prevailing Orthodoxy
At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to . . . Continue reading →
Grumpy Old Men And The Ministry Of Condemnation
Where are all the young people going? Why do the visitors never seem to stick? Why have there been so many fights in our church history? Unfortunately, these are common questions in the Reformed tradition. In my years as a pastor, I . . . Continue reading →
The Law Might Be Called A Covenant Of Works
The Law—considered as a national covenant, by which their continued possession of the land of Canaan, and of all their privileges under the Theocracy, was left to depend on their external obedience to it,— might be called a national Covenant of Works, . . . Continue reading →
Cynical, Remorseless, Rudderless, And Hollow
Thus combining the style of Oscar Wilde with the convictions of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Kappeyne had to be the bête noire to one as absolutely earnest, and earnest for absolutes, as Kuyper. To top it all off, Kappeyne, reared in a . . . Continue reading →
The New Normal
Internet pornography is probably the number one pastoral problem in the world today. I wonder if it is set to become yet more so: as the social shame dimension passes away, it will be harder to maintain discipline on this issue. The . . . Continue reading →
Lingering Doubts About Baptism
I could not understand why, given the Old Testament emphasis of God’s working through families, the New Testament did not signal a change in that policy. It seemed passing strange to me that the new covenant sacrament included women and Gentiles but . . . Continue reading →
Machen: The Gospel Makes Men Love The Law
The gospel does not abrogate God’s law, but it makes men love it with all their hearts. How is it with us? The law of God stands over us; we have offended against it in thought, word and deed; its. majestic “letter” . . . Continue reading →
We Neglected The Reformers On Worship
Although I had been raised in Methodist and Presbyterian churches and attended Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, was ordained in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, served pastorates in that church and in the PCA, I nevertheless found myself at different times in my . . . Continue reading →