For the Lord promises nothing except to perfect keepers of his law, and no one of the kind is to be found. The fact, then, remains that through the law the whole human race is proved subject to God’s curse and wrath, . . . Continue reading →
Blog Archives
Calvin: We Are Clothed With Christ’s Righteousness
But we define justification as follows: the sinner, received into communion with Christ, is reconciled to God by his grace, while, cleansed by Christ’s blood, he obtains forgiveness of sins, and clothed with Christ’s righteousness as if it were his own, he . . . Continue reading →
Vos On Adam’s Probation Before The Fall
Now, it is true that our moral goodness and our righteousness can be in the closest relationship, that someone good and holy is righteous per se. But still one must be careful to note that righteousness only stems from moral goodness by means of . . . Continue reading →
Owen Contra Baptismal Regeneration
Thus, some would have baptism to be regeneration itself, and that there is no other evangelical regeneration but that alone, with the profession which is made thereon. Every one who is baptized is thereby regenerated. The sign and figure of grace, they . . . Continue reading →
Owen On Worship
In general, it is certain that God intended to declare hereby that the work which Moses had to do, —the tabernacle he was to erect, and the worship thereof, —was not, either in the whole, or in any part of it, or . . . 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 →
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 →
Calvin Taught Both Remission And Imputation
Therefore, we explain justification simply as the acceptance with which God receives us into his favor as righteous men. And we say that it consists in the remission of sins and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. John Calvin | Institutes of the . . . Continue reading →
John Owen And The Organ (Among Other Things)
In worship, their paintings, crossings, crucifixes, bowings, cringings, altars, tapers, wafers, organs, anthems, litany, rails, images, copes, vestments,—what were they but Roman varnish, an Italian dress for our devotion, to draw on conformity with that enemy of the Lord Jesus? In doctrine, . . . 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 →
Fesko: Arminius Was A Synergist
The alpha point of Arminius’s synergistic conception of salvation is marked by his use of the facientibus—the sinner who is always ready to embrace the grace of God because of universal prevenient grace—and the omega point is marked by his understanding of . . . Continue reading →
The True Meaning Of Semper Reformanda
“The Reformed church is always in need of reformation.” The common mythology behind this quote, which supposedly originated with Calvin, is the idea that the church always has to be improving, revising, and changing its doctrine to accord with Scripture. Yet the . . . Continue reading →
Hodge On Two-Stage Justification
Hodge draws attention to the two-stage justification of the Roman Catholic Church and rejects it. The first justification, according to Roman Catholic theology, is gratuitous and is given for Christ’s sake and consists of the infusion of habitual grace. This divine process . . . Continue reading →
Wilhelmus à Brakel On Justification
He who errs in this doctrine errs to his eternal destruction. The devil is therefore continually engaged in denying, perverting, and obscuring the truth expressed in this chapter and, if he does not accomplish this, to prevent exercise concerning this truth. When . . . Continue reading →
Perkins: Worshiping God Outside of The True Christ Is Idolatry
The Jew worships God out of Christ; and so does the Turk; yea and the papists worship God, but yet outside of the true Christ; for (as has been shown elsewhere) the Christ of the papists is a counterfeit Christ. And in . . . Continue reading →
Van Asselt On Why Confessional Reformed Seminaries Matter
The Academy of Geneva was established in 1559 under politically difficult circumstances. Especially under Theodore Beza (1519–1605), who was also instrumental in the creation of two chairs of law in 1566 and a chair of medicine in 1567, the academy flourished and . . . Continue reading →
Polanus: The Righteousness Imputed To The Believer Is Real Righteousness
The righteousness of Jesus Christ by which we are justified before God is the most perfect obedience to the whole divine law, consisting of most exact conformity of the whole human nature of Christ and of all His actions and sufferings, internal . . . Continue reading →
Owen: Law and Gospel
The law is connatural to him; his domestic, his old acquaintance came into the world with him, and hath grown up with him from his infancy. It was implanted in his heart by nature, is his own reason; he can never shake . . . Continue reading →
Owen: Yes, Christ Fulfilled The Law
[W]e do affirm that Christ fulfilled the law for us submitting to the obedience of it, and performing all that righteousness which of us it requires, that we might have a complete righteousness wherewith to appear before God. And this is that . . . Continue reading →