ARTICLE I. That God, by an eternal, unchangeable purpose in Jesus Christ, his Son, before the foundation of the world, hath determined, out of the fallen, sinful race of men, to save in Christ, for Christ’s sake, and through Christ, those who, . . . Continue reading →
The Synod Of Dort On Election, Conditions Of Salvation, And Fruit (1)
The Reformed churches have endured discussions and disagreements about salvation (justification, sanctification, and deliverance from the wrath to come) before. Beginning in the late 16th century a Reformed minister in Amsterdam began offering significant revisions of the Reformed understanding of Scripture. Early . . . Continue reading →
Grammar Guerrilla: Champing Vs Chomping At The Bit
Language evolves over time and that process is often driven by popular usage. This may be one of those instances where popular usage has so outstripped the original use of a phrase that it is beyond correcting. Nevertheless I persevere if only . . . Continue reading →
Vermigli On The Causal Relations Among Predestination, Vocation, Justification, And Good Works
It is possible if the effects of predestination are considered together with one another, that one may be the cause of another. But they cannot be the causes of the divine purpose. For calling, which is the effect of predestination, is the . . . Continue reading →
Office Hours: What Happened To Reformed Orthodoxy? (2)
In the well-researched and written volume, Calvin Meets Voltaire: The Clergy of Geneva during the Age of Enlightenment, 1685-1798, Eighteenth-Century Studies Series (Ashgate: 2014), Jennifer Powell McNutt argued that there was more continuity, than has sometimes been thought, between 18th-century Genevan theology, piety, . . . Continue reading →
Strangers And Aliens (8): A Rock Of Offense And A Cornerstone (1 Peter 2:7–8)
What Martin Luther (1483–1546) expressed as a distinction between the distinction between a theology of glory (theologia gloriae) and the theology of the cross) the Reformed tended to express as a distinction between the Creator and the creature but same set ideas . . . Continue reading →
Recovering The Reformed Confession For .99 On Kindle Today
In case you’ve been waiting for the best possible deal before getting your own copy of Recovering the Reformed Confession well, the Kindle version is available today for .99. You can also get for $1.99 the Kindle edition of Tributes to John Calvin: A Celebration of . . . Continue reading →
Turretin: We Do Good Works Because We Live By The Gospel
XV. Although we acknowledge the necessity of good works against the Epicureans, we do not on this account confound the law and the gospel and interfere with gratuitous justification by faith alone. Good works are required not for living according to the . . . Continue reading →
Strangers And Aliens (7): The Living Stone And The Living Stones (1 Peter 2:4–6)
There is a strain of modern evangelical theology that looks forward to the literal rebuilding of the Israelite temple and to the re-institution of sacrifices, albeit, in that case, memorial sacrifices. This passage should help us see one of the important reasons . . . Continue reading →
Perkins On Sanctification In Galatians 5:6
The second point is, what is waited for? Paul says the revelation of “righteousness” and eternal salvation. Here I observe that there is no justification by the observation of the law. And I prove it thus. The righteousness whereby a sinner is . . . Continue reading →
New In Print: William Perkins On Galatians
William Perkins (1558–1602) is one of the most important of the English Reformed writers of the late 16th and early 17th centuries and yet he is among the least read in the modern era. One reason for this is because his works . . . Continue reading →
William Perkins On Textual Criticism And The Preservation Of Scripture
Before I come to the consideration of these words, a doubt must be resolved. For some men may say that this is epistle is corrupted because these words are wanting in sundry translations and editions of the Bible. And Jerome says that . . . Continue reading →
South Of Carmel-By-The-Sea
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Calvin To The King Of Poland On The Scope Of Reformation
But the chief thing is, that Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, has so irradiated your mind with the light of his Gospel, that you understand that the true way of governing the Church is no other than what is to be derived . . . Continue reading →
Biblicism: A Trojan Horse Full Of Rationalism
Over against the magisterial Reformers and the Roman Catholic theologians of the day, theologians like Michael Servetus, Giovanni Blandrata, Valentine Gentile, and Laelius and Faustus Socinus examined the text of Scripture in a strictly linguistic and non-traditionary exegesis and found no doctrine . . . Continue reading →
Gillespie: Liberty Is More In The Abstaining Than The Using Of Things Indifferent
Chrysostom, speaking of such has are subject to bishops, says, it is in their power to obey or not. Liberty in things indifferent, says Amandus Polanus, is that through which Christians are free in use of or abstinence from indifferent things. Calvin, . . . Continue reading →
Strangers And Aliens (6): Like Newborn Infants (1 Peter 2:1–3)
The word “therefore” is more important in Scripture than we probably realize. It signals a relationship between what is being said now to what was just said. Remember, the chapter divisions we have in Scripture are not original. They were introduced into . . . Continue reading →
Luther On The Comfort Of Christ’s Return
45. Without a doubt, He has spoken this comforting word also for the fainthearted, who, though they are godly and prepared for the Last Day, are yet filled with great anxiety and [thus] hinder their desire for this coming, which is especially . . . Continue reading →
Through Good Works? (2)
In order to understand properly what Calvin wrote we need to put these passages in context. Chapter 21 is about the relations between justification and sanctification, which he called the “progress” of justification. In other words, for Calvin, the definitive act of God in declaring sinners righteous, on the basis of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, which is received through faith alone, results in the gradual sanctification of the Christian. Continue reading →
The Word Of Salvation Versus Moralism
The reason there was so much opposition to Jesus’ ministry is because his gospel got to the heart of matters. He wasn’t giving dry, muddled expositions. His goal wasn’t the dissemination of information, or simply create controversies about how to correct human . . . Continue reading →