Salvation

Dear Theophilus, Greetings in Jesus’ name! May his grace abound to you through his Spirit to the glory of the Father. As requested, I write to warn of a grave danger facing the church, namely, ungodly pride that leads to an arrogance dishonoring to Christ, detrimental to the unity of his body, and...
At the time of his death, Puritan Richard Baxter (1615–1691) had published approximately 150 treatises, not including countless other letters and papers. [1] The following passage comes from A Call to the Unconvered to Turn and Live , which begins with a quote from Ezekiel: Say unto them, As I live...
Pierre Du Moulin – a Patriarch of the French Reformation Little known today, Pierre du Moulin was one of the main protagonists of the French Reformation and one of the main defenders of the gospel against semi-Pelagian reinterpretations. He was born in 1568 in the Château de Buhy in north-east...
Like nearly all the Christian Festivals (however many or few our particular churches may celebrate) the events marked by Easter can easily loom large on our horizons momentarily, only to be forgotten until the following year. If we allow ourselves to lapse into this pattern we can easily lose sight...
In a 1986 speech President Ronald Reagan said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government, and I'm here to help.’” A lot of Americans appreciated Reagan’s humorous point because sometimes government does more to harm than to help. Many Americans, however,...
Johannes Maccovius, in his Theological Distinctions, treated the subject of the Divine providence toward the righteous and toward the wicked with the maxim, "In this life, what happens to good people is never bad and what happens to bad people is never good." He then appealed to the 14th Century...
As we further explore what it means to ‘preach Christ from all the Scriptures’, another key strand is to remind ourselves of the first of his threefold offices. He is not only our Priest and King; but he is primarily God’s great Prophet. It is his business to make God known. The expectation that a...
According to N. T. Wright, it is now generally agreed that an overall theme in II Corinthians is “Paul’s defense, not of his apostolic ministry in itself, but of the particular style or character of that ministry.” [1] For Wright, these arguments concerning the nature of Paul’s ministry form the...
When we think of the places in Scripture where we find the doctrine of union with Christ, most people, especially Biblical scholars, immediately think of all the material in Paul’s letters. Paul uses the words “in Christ” numerous times point to this union, he also uses the imagery of our baptism...
John Owen (1616-1683) said, “That there is such a union between Christ and believers is the faith of the catholic church and has been so in all ages.” Not only does Owen’s comment dissuade us from regarding this doctrine to be negligible and of optional interest, his comment challenges us not to be...