Here indeed is pure and real religion: faith so joined with an earnest fear of God that this fear also embraces willing reverence, and carries with it such legitimate worship as is prescribed in the law. And we ought to note this . . . Continue reading →
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Calvin: God Gives Us Ministers So As Not To Swallow Us By His Majesty
We have seen heretofore, that Eliu intending to rebuke Job, protested that he himself was a mortal man as Job was, to the end he should not complain that he was handled with too high a power. And so he showed that . . . Continue reading →
Where Was Your Church Before Luther?
Josiah writes to the HB: Often when we think of the reformation we think back to 1517 when Martin Luther nailed the 95 Thesis on the church door in Wittenberg Germany but we describe it in such a way that it’s almost . . . Continue reading →
Calvin: The True Rule Of Righteousness Is Sought Sola Scriptura
Here I beseech the godly, if they know the true rule of righteousness is to be sought from Scripture alone, religiously and earnestly to ponder with me how Scripture may, without quibbling, be duly brought into agreement with itself. John Calvin, Institutes . . . Continue reading →
Relics Remain
It is a general, if unstated, assumption among moderns that whatever the causes of the Reformation might have been, they must be long past. Often, however, that assumption is ill-founded. In fact, the fundamental causes for the Reformation (e.g., the Roman denial . . . Continue reading →
Calvin On Colossians 2:20: Reject Encroachments Upon Christian Liberty
In short, when persons have once taken upon them to tyrannize over men’s souls, there is no end of new laws being daily added to old ones, and now enactments starting up from time to time. How bright a mirror there is . . . Continue reading →
Calvin On The Discovery Of The Empty Tomb
We now come to the closing scene of our redemption. For the lively assurance of our reconciliation with God arises from Christ having come from hell as the conqueror of death, in order to show that he had the power of a . . . Continue reading →
Calvin: Paul Excludes All Works, Even Those Wrought By The Spirit
This righteousness then, which God communicates to man, and accepts alone, and owns as righteousness, has been revealed, he says, without the law, that is, without the aid of the law; and the law is to be understood as meaning works; for . . . Continue reading →
Calvin: Psalm 88 Is A Form Of Prayer For The Afflicted
O Jehovah! God of my salvation! Let me call upon you particularly to notice what I have just now stated, That although the prophet simply, and without hyperbole, recites the agony which he suffered from the greatness of his sorrows, yet his . . . Continue reading →
Calvin: Paul Distinguishes Between Law And Gospel
Hence, also, we see the error of those who, in comparing the Law with the Gospel, represent it merely as a comparison between the merit of works, and the gratuitous imputation of righteousness. This is indeed a contrast not at all to . . . Continue reading →
Calvin On Luke 2:10: God Invites All Indiscriminately To Salvation
For God had promised Christ, not to one person or to another, but to the whole seed of Abraham. If the Jews were deprived, for the most part, of the joy that was offered to them, it arose from their unbelief; just . . . Continue reading →
Between Magic And Mere Memory
When Christians receive the Lord’s Supper or when people are baptized, what happens? Is it the case that, as Rome claims, at consecration, the elements of bread and wine are transformed (transubstantiated) so that they are no longer, in substance, bread and . . . Continue reading →
Calvin Contra Sadoleto: Sola Scriptura
As I hasten to a conclusion, I am compelled to pass by your calumny, that, leaning entirely to our own judgment, we find not in the whole Church one individual to whom we think deference is due. That it is a calumny, . . . Continue reading →
Geneva Catechism (1545): The Judgment Is A Delight For Believers
Q. 83. Does it give any delight to our conscience that Christ will one day be the judge of the world? A. Indeed singular delight. For we know assuredly that he will come only for our salvation. Q. 84. We should not . . . Continue reading →
Calvin Addressed The Same Objections To Infant Baptism That We Hear Today
[responding to Art. 1 of the Schleitheim Confession]…But I reply, first of all, that infant baptism is not a recent introduction, nor are its origins traceable to the papal church. For I say that it has always been a holy ordinance observed . . . Continue reading →
Scott Swain On Warfield’s Revision Of The Doctrine Of The Trinity
We may shed further light on the nature of Warfield’s position by looking at the broader historical-theological context within which it emerges. Toward the conclusion of his ISBE article, Warfield offers a brief sketch of the history of Trinitarian doctrine. On his . . . Continue reading →
Of Calvin, Social Justice, And The Theology Of The Cross
Yesterday (August 13) was the 477th anniversary of a small but symbolic event in Reformation history. On that date in 1541 John Calvin returned to Geneva from Strasbourg, where he had been a happy exile for about three years. On his first . . . Continue reading →
Does Calvinism Lead To Domestic Violence?
Few bogeyman frighten Moderns as much as Calvin apparently does. He has been frightening them since about the onset of the European, British, and American Enlightenment movements and has served as a bogeyman for longer than that. He was caricatured during his . . . Continue reading →
Calvin On Thanksgiving
It ought to be particularly noticed, that it is no ordinary token of gratitude which he promises, but such as God required for rare blessings; namely, that the faithful should come into his sanctuary, and there bear solemn testimony to the grace . . . Continue reading →
Calvin: Christians Should Not Fear That God Is Continually Offended By The Remnant Of Sin
And this is the reason why the author of The Letter to the Hebrews refers to faith all the good works of which we read as being done among the holy fathers, and judges them by faith alone [Heb. 11:2 ff.; 11:17; . . . Continue reading →