Heaven

The Vigils We Keep

Pierce Hibbs
Oct 14, 2016
I always see the fresh flowers, hanging by the roadside in the fleeting dark of the morning—mostly red and white roses. They raise and lower their heads with each passing car as if to keep the time for us. The picture, too, they have replaced—a boy no more than sixteen, wearing a yellow and green-...

The Missing Message

Nick Batzig
Sep 28, 2016
While preparing talks for a forthcoming Reformation Conference, I happened across Heiko Oberman's outstanding 1961 Theology Today lecture, " Preaching and the Word in the Reformation ," in which he set down what he believed to have been the three most important aspects of the preaching among the...

Have More Heaven on Earth with Jesus to Prepare to Leave Earth for Jesus

Grant Van Leuven
Sep 15, 2016
Let us meditate on what Jesus said to the thief next to Him on the cross, as recorded in Luke 23:43: “Verily … Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise”. [1] In union with Christ by faith, we will go immediately to a blissful place upon our death. We will leave this world of sin and misery behind us...

Wednesday @ Westminster: Why Do I Exist?

Feb 10, 2016
Why do I exist? This is what the opening question of the Westminster Larger Catechism is all about: What is the chief and highest end of man? Man's chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever. (Q...

Book Review: The Fading of the Flesh

Ryan McGraw
Feb 9, 2016
George Swinnock, The Fading of the Flesh and the Flourishing of Faith , ed. J. Stephen Yulie (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2009). 170pp. When it comes to old books, I am a purist. Ordinarily, something is lost along the way in translations or abridgments. However, as a pastor, I have...

Never Losing Sight of Heaven

Mark Johnston
Jan 26, 2016
Heaven has been splashed all over the headlines of the secular press this past week. It was, of course, because of the unexpected death of David Bowie and the way he choreographed his own departure from this world. The news of Bowie’s death came as a shock, not least because no-one apart from a...

Lay up Treasures (i.e. People) in Heaven

Mark Jones
Dec 29, 2015
Soon many will begin re-reading the Bible from cover-to-cover throughout the year. This is a practice I heartily commend. But there's another practice that has been immensely beneficial to me as I've read portions of God's word in recent times. As I read the various commands Christ gave to his...

Chapter 33.2

Scott Oliphint
Sep 4, 2013
ii. The end of God's appointing this day is for the manifestation of the glory of His mercy, in the eternal salvation of the elect; and of His justice, in the damnation of the reprobate, who are wicked and disobedient. For then shall the righteous go into everlasting life, and receive that fullness...

Chapter 32

Jeffrey Jue
Aug 26, 2013
i. The bodies of men, after death, return to dust, and see corruption: but their souls, which neither die nor sleep, having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them: the souls of the righteous, being then made perfect of holiness, are received into the highest heavens, where...

Chapter 9.5

Derek Thomas
Mar 15, 2013
v.The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to do good alone in the state of glory only. According to the Augustinian/Bostonian grammar of sin and grace, heaven is a condition of non posse peccare (not able to sin). Unlike Eden, a condition of probation, in which it was possible to sin...