RNS has a story about the Vatican’s policy of “pontifical secrecy.” Read the story. The approach Rome is taking toward the problem of sex abuse by priests reminds one of the policies followed in the inquisition. What was established for the preservation . . . Continue reading →
Justification
Edward Leigh on Defending the Gospel
Chris has it at the GK.
Still A Stumbling Block
A Heidelblog Classic from January 9, 2007: —— A Jewish critic of Dr Laura Schlessinger (for her public abandonment of orthodox Judaism) writes: “The late Yeshayahu Leibovitz pointed out that the quintessential symbol of Christianity is Jesus dying on the cross for . . . Continue reading →
The Nine Points Stand!
Thanks to our reporter at synod in London, Ontario we learn that the Nine Points of Pastoral Advice, adopted by Synod 2007, will remain force. The appeal brought by the consistory of Hills URCNA (on procedural grounds) was rejected. Synod 2007 acted . . . Continue reading →
The URCNA Justification Report Stands
More good news from the floor of the synod of the URCNA. Despite the pre-synod opposition from a few sources (e.g., Nampa, ID) the justification report was not only strengthened by synod but it also passed without audible dissent. Apparently the body . . . Continue reading →
Office Hours: But Through Faith Alone-Guy Waters on the NPP and the FV
The latest episode of Office Hours is up and it is a discussion with Prof. Guy Waters about the nature of the New Perspectives on Paul and the nature of the self-described “Federal Vision,” movement. We talk about what Paul really said . . . Continue reading →
The Social Crisis is Too Great to Be Arguing About… (Updated)
The various social crises facing the West are great but the Roman empire was already in crisis when God the Holy Spirit empowered Christ’s apostles to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. Rome fell. The gospel and Christ’s church continued. Another empire, Christendom, replaced the old Roman Empire but it fell too. The kingdom of God, as manifested chiefly in this world in the visible, institutional church, continued. Social crises are important but they aren’t more important than the gospel. Seeing that is a key difference between actually being Reformed and being just another social conservative with a passing interest in the Reformation (as it suits whatever social agenda is in view). Continue reading →
Is “Covenant Membership” A Synonym for “Righteousness”?
That’s what N. T. Wright proposes. Remarkably, a number of evangelical and Reformed folk seem ready to accept Wright’s re-definition of justification or, in some cases, to downplay the consequences of Wright’s re-definition. Wright says: “‘Justification’ in the first century was not . . . Continue reading →
John Samson is Reading Always Reformed
He likes the passage from R. C.’s chapter (p. 190) part of which says, [Luther] wondered, why is it that people are still spending their money on indulgences and on what [he] called the Pope’s second-hand junk? He said, the Pope is . . . Continue reading →
Is the Gospel Preached or Lived?
Re-published from February 17, 2008. Colin raised this question a while back on Unashamed Workman. He asked for comments and, as Mike had just touched on this during the WSC “Missional and Reformed” Conference, I piped up:
Legal and Gospel Mortification
Ralph Erskine (1685-1752) was the brother of Ebeneezer Erskine and a defender of the Reformation doctrines of justification and sanctification against the neonomians and legalists of his day. Mortification is the old-fashioned way of saying, “dying to self.” In the Heidelberg Catechism . . . Continue reading →
Maybe They Really Don’t Get It
Over the years of battling the moralists (Federal Visionists, Norman Shepherd et al) I’ve not always been certain whether the moralists understand the orthodox doctrine of justification and reject it or if they think they are really teaching it. Here’s a post . . . Continue reading →
Office Hours: Union with Christ
Office Hours talks with John Fesko, Academic Dean and Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at WSC, about his new book: Beyond Calvin: Union with Christ and Justfication in Early Modern Reformed Theology (1517-1700). There is some confusion about the Reformed doctrine . . . Continue reading →
Semi-Pelagianism and Faith as the Instrument of Existential-Mystical Union with Christ (Pt 3)
Part 2 That faith which secures eternal life; which unites us to Christ as living members of his body; which makes us the sons of God; which interests us in all the benefits of redemption; which works by love, and is fruitful . . . Continue reading →
Semi-Pelagianism and Faith as the Instrument of Existential-Mystical Union with Christ (Pt 4)
Part 3. William Perkins on Mystical Union: The benefits which we receive by this Mystical union are manifold. For it is the ground of the conveyance of all grace. The first is, that by means hereof every Christian as he is a . . . Continue reading →
In By Grace, Stay in By Faithfulness? (2)
In the first part we quickly introduced the basic doctrine of covenant nomism, namely that God has established a system whereby sinners are admitted to the covenant by grace and they stay in or they retain that status or they retain the . . . Continue reading →
Office Hours: Fesko on Galatians
The latest Office Hours is just out. In this episode Office Hours talks with John Fesko, Professor of Systematic Theology and Historical Theology at Westminster Seminary California, about his new commentary on Galatians. We talked about the setting of Galatians (when, where, to . . . Continue reading →
Who Are the True Catholics? (5a): Justification
Part 4: Who are the True Catholics (4): Assurance of Salvation In theological terms, there were two principles of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation: the formal principle and the material principle. The first, the formal principle, was the doctrine that Scripture is the . . . Continue reading →
Perkins on the Two Covenants in Gal 4:24-25
(HT: Particular Voices) The two testaments are the Covenant of works and the Covenant of grace, one promising life eternal to him that does all things contained in the law; the other to him turns and believes in Christ. And it must . . . Continue reading →
Calvin On A Mistaken Confidence In Works
We, too, when treating of the righteousness of faith, do not contend against the substance of works, but against that quality with which the sophists invest them,1 inasmuch as they contend that men are justified by them. Paul, therefore, divested himself—not of . . . Continue reading →