Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are signs of union (Rom 6:3-5) and communion (1Cor. 10:16) with Christ. As a result, they signify union (1Cor. 12:13) and communion among believers as members of Christ’s spiritual body (1Cor. 10:17). Yet these symbols…
Up to this point it has been shown that, for John Knox, the Lord’s Supper is ordained of God; Christ is truly, but spiritually present; and it is a great blessing, but a blessing that is reserved for God’s own…
In my last article, I noted that a covenant has three basic elements: parties, promises, and conditions. The parties of the covenant of grace vary depending upon which perspective of the covenant is being considered. Externally or administratively speaking the…
John Knox’s position on the Lord’s Supper is most formally set forth in his 1550 A Summary, According to Holy Scriptures, of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper (Works, 3:71-75.) This short work of only 3 pages is nonetheless full in…
Stephen Marshall (1594-1655) argued that infants of believers should be baptized because 1) they are within the covenant of grace and belong to the kingdom of Christ, 2) they are made partakers of the inward grace of baptism. In a…
In the previous two articles (see 1, 2), we have considered one argument for and one objection to infant baptism from the writings of Stephen Marshall (1594-1655). We are now going to turn our attention to a benefit of infant…
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…
Exuberant over an experience, an oh-so-sweet manifestation of divine providence, you delightedly seek to give God praise in telling your story. “It was such a ‘God thing’,” you proclaim. As you see it, God wove together an otherwise inexplicable combination…
The idea of ‘the means of grace’ has undergone an encouraging rehabilitation in the life and ministry of many Reformed churches in recent years. This has come as a healthy corrective to pressure from the wider church to embrace ideas…
Say it aint so, but the Puritans cut and pasted their own material across their works! I think it was Mark Jones who once made this point in relation to Thomas Goodwin. Well, John Owen did it too. For example, his…
