Office Hours: Zack Eswine On Pastoral Ministry According To Ecclesiastes

R. Scott Clark

on June 26, 2017

Any honest graduate of law school, med school, or seminary will tell you two things a) that he wishes he had paid attention in school and b) there is a lot about life as a physician, lawyer, or minister that you cannot . . . Continue reading →

Pan-Protestant Rejection Of An Earthly Golden Age Before Christ Returns

R. Scott Clark

on June 25, 2017 | 3 Comments

They condemn also others who are now spreading certain Jewish opinions, that before the resurrection of the dead the godly shall take possession of the kingdom of the world, the ungodly being everywhere suppressed. Augsburg Confession (1530) art. 17 We further condemn . . . Continue reading →

Bavinck: Prayers For The Dead Undermine Christ’s Intercession

R. Scott Clark

on June 24, 2017 | 1 Comment

If the doctrine of purgatory is untenable, all offerings and prayers for the dead automatically fall with it. Veneration of the dead by sacrifices and prayers was common among pagans. Intercession for the dead became a practice among the Jews later (2 . . . Continue reading →

Our Secular Life Is A Covenant Of Works

R. Scott Clark

on June 22, 2017 | 7 Comments

It is vital for Christians to understand that, for their standing with God (justification) and their gracious and gradual conformity to Christ (sanctification), i.e., for their salvation from the wrath to come and their deliverance from the bondage of sin, they are . . . Continue reading →

Olevianus On The Distinction Between Law And Gospel

R. Scott Clark

on June 20, 2017

10 Q. What is the difference between the law and the gospel? A. The law is a doctrine that God has implanted in human nature and has repeated and renewed in His commandments. In it He holds before us, as if in . . . Continue reading →

Believer, You Are Being Graciously Sanctified

R. Scott Clark

on June 20, 2017 | 2 Comments

An HB reader writes to ask “in what senses are we under the covenant of works?” I reply Christians are in no sense under the covenant of works for our standing with God or for our salvation. Our justification and our sanctification . . . Continue reading →

Caspar Olevianus Defines The Gospel

R. Scott Clark

on June 18, 2017 | 5 Comments

9 Q. Could you give a more definitive explanation of what the gospel is? A. The gospel, or the good news that delights the heart of the poor condemned sinner, is a revelation of the fatherly and immutable will of God, in . . . Continue reading →

Lesbian Atheist: Nature, Science, And Facts Matter

R. Scott Clark

on June 16, 2017 | 5 Comments

Although I describe myself as transgender (I was donning flamboyant male costumes from early childhood on), I am highly skeptical about the current transgender wave, which I think has been produced by far more complicated psychological and sociological factors than current gender . . . Continue reading →

Missing Mandate And Better Metrics: Understanding the 2017 PCA General Assembly

David Hall

on June 15, 2017 | 20 Comments

By TE David W. Hall Midway Presbyterian Church, Powder Springs, Georgia If broad churchmen were looking for a mandate to increase female ordination in the PCA, based on a concessive study, that didn’t happen on this issue at this PCA Assembly. The . . . Continue reading →

Synod of Herbon (1586): Weekly Communion Most Corresponds To Christ’s Ordinance

R. Scott Clark

on June 15, 2017

45. The Lord’s Supper shall be celebrated at least every month, and everyone at their location should strive that if the whole congregation cannot participate every Sunday (which most corresponds to Christ’s ordinance and to apostolic custom and is greatly desired), at . . . Continue reading →

Did The Covenant Of Grace Begin In The New Covenant?

R. Scott Clark

on June 14, 2017 | 32 Comments

One frequently reads that the only real differences between Particular Baptists and the Reformed is over baptism. That claim, however, misses some fundamental differences. Baptists withhold the rite of covenant initiation from the children of believers on the ground that the New . . . Continue reading →

Machen: The Regulative Principle Governs The Church

R. Scott Clark

on June 14, 2017 | 1 Comment

Machen’s reasoning here was an extension of the Regulative Principle. In the Presbyterian and Reformed tradition this principle has typically been applied to public worship. It teaches that we may only worship God as he has commanded us to worship him in . . . Continue reading →

Is It “Lutheran” To Say That We Are Mystically United To Christ Through Faith?

R. Scott Clark

on June 13, 2017 | 3 Comments

I regularly get this question or its variant (is it semi-Pelagian to say that we are mystically united to Christ through faith?). I have answered the latter here. It might help the discussion if the reader consults the prior essay before continuing . . . Continue reading →

The Scots Confession (1560)

R. Scott Clark

on June 13, 2017

THE CONFESSON OF THE Faith and Doctrine, Belevit and professit be the PROTESTANTIS of Scotland,Exhibitit to the Estaitis of the same in Parliament, and be their publick Votis authorisit, as a Doctrine groundit upon the infallibil Worde of God, Aug. 1560. And . . . Continue reading →

Second Helvetic Confession: No More Special Revelation

R. Scott Clark

on June 13, 2017 | 2 Comments

Wherefore when this Word of God is now preached in the church by preachers lawfully called, we believe that the very Word of God is proclaimed, and received by the faithful; and that neither any other Word of God is to be . . . Continue reading →

Office Hours: Where Are They Now? Bill Godfrey

R. Scott Clark

on June 12, 2017

The primary mission of Westminster Seminary California is to prepare men for pastoral ministry. This is has been our primary mission since 1980. We have graduated more than eleven hundred students. About 70% of our graduates go on to pastoral ministry. Indeed, . . . Continue reading →

If We May Pray Uninspired Words, Why May We Not Sing Them?

R. Scott Clark

on June 11, 2017 | 10 Comments

What the Fathers called the “rule of faith” (which included both doctrine and practice) and what Calvin called the “rule of worship” Christians in the Presbyterian and Reformed tradition have called the “regulative principle of worship” since the mid-20th century. That rule, . . . Continue reading →

French Confession (1559)

R. Scott Clark

on June 11, 2017

THE FRENCH SUBJECTS WHO WISH TO LIVE IN THE PURITY OF THE GOSPEL OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. To the King. Sire, we thank God that hitherto having had no access to your Majesty to make known the rigor of the persecutions . . . Continue reading →

Why The Reformed Churches Do Not Re-Baptize Roman Converts

R. Scott Clark

on June 11, 2017 | 27 Comments

XXVIII. In this belief we declare that, properly speaking, there can be no Church where the Word of God is not received, nor profession made of subjection to it, nor use of the sacraments. Therefore we condemn the papal assemblies, as the . . . Continue reading →

The Late-Modern Emperor Has No Clothes

R. Scott Clark

on June 11, 2017

…Perhaps the dumbest man in the room is not the man who cannot understand gibberish, but the man who cannot see gibberish for what it is. And perhaps the most dangerous people on campus are those who understand this human weakness and . . . Continue reading →