Bible

Johann Heermann and the Comfort of the Cross In the spring of 1630, while the Thirty-Year War raged around Europe, pastor and poet Johann Heermann wrote a hymn to inspire his congregation to meditate on Christ’s suffering. Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended, that we to judge thee have in hate...

Every year a late night talk show host encourages parents to prank their kids with a faux profession that they devoured all their little pumpkins’ Halloween candy. [1] The show features videos sent in of children throwing monstrous fits of rage and heartache until the parents reveal they are “just...

John Calvin called justification as “the main hinge on which religion turns” and said we must devote great attention to it ( Institutes, III.xi.1). When we consider justification’s role in the order of salvation it plays a crucial role in distinction from other element but not in separation from...

Imputation of the Active Obedience of Christ Jonathan and James are joined by Alan Strange. Alan is professor of church history at Mid-America Reformed Seminary, and a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The question is posed: How important is the doctrine of the active obedience of...

To know how to act, we need to know what story we are in. Without suggesting that anyone wants to create a false narrative about the corona virus, the media can lead us to think we are in a short story when we are in a novel. In a sports-crazed nation, we hear that opening day for Major League...

I indicated in the introduction to this series that there was an ordo docendi to the ordo salutis . My comment had the placement of union with Christ in mind. Where does it belong? Do we place it at the end of the list of benefits as John Murray did in his understandably famous Redemption...

Perhaps the most thorough definition of regeneration came from the pen of Herman Witsius, the 17th century Dutch theologian, in his work, The Economy of the Covenants : “Regeneration is that supernatural act of God whereby a new and divine life is infused into the elect person, spiritually dead,...

In the Western, North American, capitalist culture from which I write, we have nearly no experience of interaction that isn’t based in some way on a transactional relationship. All of life is seen as give and take. But in our society, we seek to get as much as we are able, while giving as little as...

Today Theology for Everyone begins a new series. It is a familiar topic. However, it is one that needs to be set within a context. We are going to explore the ordo salutis or the order of salvation. For those not familiar with the expression it primarily deals with the application of the gospel to...

Betsey Stockton and Her Love for God’s Image-Bearers Whatever Betsey had imagined her foreign mission to be, it was not this. The group of Hawaiian men who came rowing toward her ship in their canoes was frightening: “Their appearance was that of half man and half beast—naked—except a narrow strip...