Covenant Theology

When I was a child there were times when my mother, exasperated by my behavior, would ask: “Who do you think you are!?” My unruly and arrogant conduct revealed that I was not thinking rightly about myself. Understanding salvation from sin is like this. Rightly understanding salvation means rightly...

Some Christians resist belief in the doctrine of irresistible grace. These brothers and sisters find the teaching that grace conquers all pushback repugnant. How could an all-loving God run roughshod over the freedom of his human creation? This is a misunderstanding of the doctrine for sure. We...

How do you know if you are doing theology as it should be done? In one sense it could be by asking the obvious question as to whether or not it is orthodox. Is it in step with the historic creeds and confessions of the faith? That indeed must be requisite to all attempts to faithfully articulate...

This week on Theology on the Go, our host, Dr. Jonathan Master is joined by Dr. Joel Beeke. Dr. Beeke is President and Professor of Systematic Theology and Homi­letics at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, a pastor of the Heritage Reformed Congregation in Grand Rapids, Michigan, editor of...

The third point in Reformed theology’s famous acrostic suffers from something of an identity problem. As it has been often observed, the preferred way to describe the doctrine in question is that of either definite atonement or particular redemption, owing to the traditional term’s rather negative...

How many people do you know who wear glasses? Perhaps you yourself wear them. Glasses are a wonderful help for people who are near or far sighted. When the lens of our eye fails to bring the image into focus on our retina, our vision is blurred or impaired. Glasses correct the focal distance to our...

John 17 contains the wonderful prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ in which he bears his soul to the Father shortly before his death on the cross for elect sinners-soon-to-be-saints. In this prayer Jesus is asking that his manifest glory, which he had from before the world was created, would be his...

Faithful preachers and teachers in the Church have always looked for effective ways to communicate their points. The acronym TULIP, of course, is a device meant to communicate the core of the doctrine of human salvation. Like all pedagogical devices, it is not meant to explain everything that could...

Johannes Cocceius, The Doctrine of the Covenant and Testament of God , trans. Casey Carmichael, vol. 3, Classic Reformed Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2016). 408pp. Hardcover. J ohannes Cocceius (1603-1669) was one of the foremost figures in the so-called Dutch Further...

Exuberant over an experience, an oh-so-sweet manifestation of divine providence, you delightedly seek to give God praise in telling your story. “It was such a ‘God thing’,” you proclaim. As you see it, God wove together an otherwise inexplicable combination of events to deliver a wonderful—even...