“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God is life. There is no life apart from God. For life to be, God must give it and sustain it. There is no such thing as life that God…
In my previous article, I discussed one of Stephen Marshall’s arguments for infant baptism: infants of believers (covenant children) should be baptized because they partake of the spiritual realities signified and sealed by baptism. This is not to say that…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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,…
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. Johannes Cocceius (1603-1669) was one of the foremost figures in the…
