God’s Sovereignty & Prayer
The question should not be “If God is sovereign, why should we pray?” but rather, “If God is not sovereign, why should we pray?”
Our God is not like the worthless idols that we make literally or figuratively with our own hands. He alone is worthy of praise. He alone is the God of all creation. He alone can pardon our sins. He alone is the God who hears. He alone is our Father in heaven who gives us... Continue Reading
Why Get All Worked Up About Divine Simplicity? An Introduction to the Importance of the Doctrine
God is not only “one” numerically, He is also one of a kind; He is the only God and He is not an individual member of a class of like beings: He is unitas singularitatis.
Many have rejected this doctrine on the bases that it is too speculative, too philosophical, and lacks chapter and verse in the Bible. Many have also rejected it because of its wide range of theological consequences—heretics just plain hate it. But since it does appear weird and highly speculative, why get all worked up about... Continue Reading
Justified and Not Sanctified?
It is critical to how we answer the question, "What must I do to be saved?"
I got B.B. Warfield’s book on the deeper life movement, Perfectionism, several years ago to try to make sense of my former theological beliefs. I never thought I would be referring to it regarding the current discussion on sola fide. This debate is more than academic hair-splitting over theological terms. It is critical to how we answer the question,... Continue Reading
A Better Jerusalem
What is the place of the state of Israel, and the city of Jerusalem, in the consummate purposes and plan of God?
While recent developments concerning the city of Jerusalem has given us reason to revisit this subject–it would do us good to be settled in our minds about the fact that all who are united to Jesus by faith have been made children of Abraham and heirs of God (Gal. 3:29). Believers are the citizens of... Continue Reading
Cyrus, the Lord’s Anointed
Because God is fully sovereign we should expect Him to act in ways we have not anticipated because His decree controls what happens.
Isaiah knew that the Jewish exiles would find it almost impossible to recognize Cyrus, who did not truly know the Lord, as a savior. Thus, the prophet spends much of today’s passage asserting God’s sovereign right to do with His creation as He pleases. Just as it would be foolish for clay to question the... Continue Reading
The Baptism Scandal in the Reformed Churches
Why do many local Baptist churches baptize more adults per year than some entire Reformed denominations?
Now I’m guessing that all of my Reformed brethren who think someone who newly professes faith in Christ needs a couple of months of new member classes before earning the right to be baptized might have a problem with baptizing converts who six weeks earlier had been part of a mob bent on murder. Yet,... Continue Reading
Are Images Of Jesus Allowed?
The Scripture does not give a description of Jesus.
One group affirms the plain confessional view as summarized above in WLC #109, which prohibits any representation of God. Another group would object to depicting him in corporate worship, but would allow pictures of him in children’s Bibles and Sunday School material. The last group would hold that images of Jesus are not problematic since... Continue Reading
Seeing Is Not Always Believing
Scripture records occasions when even God’s people experienced disbelief after seeing miracles
“Though God has not promised to act in the same miraculous manner today as He did in the days of old, we can expect Him to move in our behalf. We don’t merit righteousness before our Father by our obedience, and the Lord’s grace is so vast that He regularly blesses us in spite of... Continue Reading
Alone, But Never Alone
Whenever the lines that distinguish these two dimensions of saving grace are blurred, it is salvation itself that becomes the casualty
“If we lose sight of the distinctiveness of justification as, according to Martin Luther, the mark of a standing or falling church, and allow it to become confused with sanctification, then the focus of faith is inclined to shift from Christ to self. This has been borne out in Catholicism historically as much as in... Continue Reading
What Sexual Theft Says About You
A letter to a would-be adulterer
You don’t really believe God when he declares that you may “be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23). If you think you can get away with it, just because you succeed (at least for a while) in hiding it from your contemporaries, as David did, you are acting as if God doesn’t... Continue Reading