Westminster Assembly

C ontemporary Christian sayings are not necessarily new. In the last article, I pointed out that Edward Reynolds, an important member of the Westminster Assembly, encouraged us to ask what would Jesus do in a particular situation. Reynolds is not alone in building a bridge between the Puritans and...
The morning air was still cold when Martin Luther entered the shop of Peter the barber. Peter was not only the local barber but a surgeon able to perform minor surgeries like bloodletting and tooth extraction. Likely his specialty cut as a barber prior to the Reformation was the tonsure or the...
I n this article, I want to look at a fourth reason that suggests that the Westminster Confession of Faith does not teach baptismal regeneration, and that is the conditional nature of baptism. The sacraments are not efficacious and effectual means of salvation to all recipients, but only to some...
T hus far we have noted what the Westminster Standards teach concerning the nature and purpose of baptism, and the relationship between the Word and sacraments. The Standards' position on these two points suggests that the Assembly rejected the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. In this article,...
I recently read an article that offered a disturbing statistic. The author claimed that 40% of students who enter college will not complete their degree. He also claimed that over 60% of this group would not drop out due to financial reasons but a good number would stop because they simply don’t...
The Westminster Confession of Faith … What is it? Is it a document that presents cold intellectual faith? Dead Orthodoxy as it seems to some… Is it a historical artifact that has no relevancy to the pastor or the people of God? Is it an idol that reformed Christians elevate to a higher standard of...
I n the last article we looked at the nature and purpose of baptism according to the Westminster Standards. We noted that the Standards emphasize the sealing function of baptism and that as a seal it is designed to confirm the baptizand’s interest in Christ and to strengthen faith and all other...
It is possible to make disciples that are just too new. Case in point. In his book, The Creedal Imperative (Crossway, 2012), Carl Trueman relays the story of a pastor who regularly declared his devotion to Scripture by dismissing creeds and confessions. With the Bible held high before his church,...
One of the landmark documents of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (1643-1653) is the Confession of Faith. This confession was created to provide a doctrinal basis for unity across the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Although in God’s inscrutable providence the confession did...
When it comes to the Westminster Confession of the Faith, we often do not think very much about how we might be able to study the Confession’s use of Scripture. In fact, most of us probably do not get very far beyond acknowledging the proof texts that the Confession offers. Yet the use of Scripture...