One of the unexpected outcomes of the Covid-19 shutdown/quarantine has been the widespread turn to homeschooling. Parents are being asked en masse to become intimately involved (again) with the education their children. For some parents, it means making sure that their children . . . Continue reading →
The Hebrew and Greek words for covenant occur hundreds of times in Scripture but for many Christians these concepts are unfamiliar and the idea of reading Scripture in light of what it says about covenant is unfamiliar. In a series of videos Dr Harrison Perkins, of London City Presbyterian Church, explains covenant theology simply and clearly. Continue reading →
Zacharias Ursinus (1534–83) was the principal author of the Heidelberg Catechism (1563). He was responsible for perhaps as much as 70% of the catechism, though the two source documents that he created, from which much of the catechism was formed, drew from many sources (including Luther), so the source criticism of the catechism is challenging. For more on the background of the catechism see Lyle Bierma et al ed., An Introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism: Sources, History, and Theology (2005) and J. I. Good, Good, The Heidelberg Catechism in Its Newest Light ( Philadelphia, PA: Publication and Sunday School Board of the Reformed Church in the United States, 1914). Continue reading →
The Heidelberg Catechism is in three parts: Law, Gospel, and Sanctification or Guilt, Grace, and Gratitude. This is not an artificial interpretation of the Catechism nor is it an artificial arrangement of the Christian faith. Question 2 outlines the Catechism for us: Continue reading →
In Reformed theology the noun salvation is typically used in two ways. Sometimes it is used as a synonym for justification. When used this way it does not include sanctification since, according to the Reformed confession, justification is a declarative act of God whereby he credits (imputes) to sinners the perfect, active and suffering righteousness of Christ so that it is as if those sinners to whom Christ’s righteousness has been so imputed are considered to have themselves accomplished personally all the Christ did for them as their substitute. Further, we say that this benefit is received through faith alone (sola fide) defined as trusting, resting in, and receiving Christ and his righteousness. We confess that both the imputation of Christ’s righteousness and faith as the receiving instrument are nothing but God’s free gifts. Hence we attribute all of this to God’s favor (grace) alone. The slogan for this is sola gratia, by grace alone. Continue reading →
We shall now be prepared to understand how the recognition, that the two worlds exist and have existed side by side from the beginning, enables the author of Hebrews to solve the chief problem of the history of redemption and revelation. For . . . Continue reading →
How disgraceful it is for a servant of Christ not to know the command of His Lord, and to pursue some other, useless preoccupation, and fail to take an interest in the things which concern His Lord, who is our everlasting blessedness! . . . Continue reading →
The Heidelcast has listeners from across the globe as well as across North America for listeners outside the USA and for the convenience of listeners within the USA, we have instituted a new way for you to leave voicemail for the Heidelphone. . . . Continue reading →
The Reformed theologians and churches have held, taught, and confessed the existence of natural law since the earliest days of the Reformed Reformation in the 1520s. If all one knows, however, of Reformed theology is 20th century (or 21st-century) Reformed theology, one . . . Continue reading →
Media ecology is the study of how we consume media generally and how it affects us. Media are not neutral. The medium affects the message. As Marshall McLuhan (1911–80) said, the medium is the message. The same message delivered by video (e.g., . . . Continue reading →
The Belgic Confession is one of the jewels of the Reformed Reformation. Largely derived from the French Confession (1559), the Belgic, nevertheless, has an identity of its own. Based on a series of sermons and drafted by Guy de Brès (1522–67), who . . . Continue reading →
In his 1521 translation of the Greek New Testament into German, the so-called September Testament, which he completed in about 11 weeks (seminary students take note, that is two weeks shy of one semester) Luther’s most controversial decision may have been to . . . Continue reading →
The Reformation was, at its core, the recovery of the biblical doctrine that Scripture is the only final authority (sola Scriptura) for the Christian faith and the Christian life, that salvation is by divine favor alone (sola gratia), through faith alone (sola . . . Continue reading →
We are interrupting the Heidelcast series on the Doctrine of God, I AM that I AM to talk with the Rev Dr Harrison Perkins, (PhD, Queen’s University Belfast) about his new book on Archbishop James Ussher (1581–1656). He was primate of the . . . Continue reading →
Introduction Sean writes with a question that I have received at least once before. Thus, I take it that this is an argument that is mooted in Particular Baptist circles: The argument comes from Particular Baptists and in essence says that while . . . Continue reading →
The use of conviction is not to punish a man for his sins; nor is it to make him any better. The devils in hell have been under awful conviction for a long time, and not one of them is any better. . . . Continue reading →
The most holy and heavenly man that ever breathed, durst not adventure the salvation of his soul upon the most heavenly thought that ever he conceived. Our impressions of this will help to keep your hearts right in point of righteousness; so . . . Continue reading →
The Reformation was a complex event, which happened for many reasons but the triggering event on which many have focused over the centuries was Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses (1517). Though provocative, the theses were not themselves all that radical. Luther’s discovery of the . . . Continue reading →
“That popish device of a second justification is a satanical delusion for the Word of God does acknowledge no more but one justification at all, and that absolute and complete of itself. There is but one justice, but one satisfaction of God . . . Continue reading →