The Calvinist International
Earlier this year, an article at TGC Australia started a controversy over the question of the temptations and impeccability of Christ. In the article, Ed Shaw wrote, “I’m wanting the young people who come to this event to know that Jesus is the one person that they can fully trust with their sexualities, identities and […]
In Institutes 3.3.19, John Calvin gives a “summary of the gospel” (cf. 3.3.1), in which he makes the important point that “the gospel,” the good news that Scripture and the church proclaim, includes not only the forgiveness or remission of sins (justification), but also renewal (sanctification), which derives from the general category of repentance. Both […]
So let’s talk about effeminacy. This came up as final point of criticism in my Mere Orthodoxy critique of the gay Christianity of Revoice and Spiritual Friendship. Now, I knew that “going there” would upset a lot of people. It’s basically touching the third rail to even say the word “effeminate” today. And yet, it’s […]
Some time ago, I started a little series on Calvin’s use of classical authors in the Institutes. In the first two parts, we looked at Calvin’s references to Plato and to Vergil and Lucretius. In this installment, we will see what use he makes of the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC-AD 17/18). As far as I […]
Calvin continues to argue that the Son of God is Yahweh by drawing out the implications of various biblical texts. For example: the New Testament contains instances of prayer directed to Christ; therefore Christ must be Yahweh. Translation Otherwise, not only would Stephen have violated the lawful form of prayer when he prayed to Christ […]
In the first chapter of their confession of faith, on Holy Scripture, the Westminster Divines say (among other things): VI. The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from […]
One of the disputed points in the recent debates over justification, sanctification, and the ordo salutis is whether there is such a thing as a “final justification” in the Reformed tradition, and, if so, what place the believer’s good works play in that justification. Some have reacted viscerally against the very idea of applying the […]
A core principle of Reformational sacramentology was that the “presence” of the Lord was in the rites themselves as performed rather than (statically) in the elements themselves, and was to be accessed by faith. Or, to put it another way: that Christ was exhibited and offered objectively in the rites, but was appropriated subjectively by […]
In the first chapter of Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, “Relation of Sacred Eloquence to Biblical Exegesis,” W.G.T. Shedd discusses what “originality” might mean for the “sacred orator,” for he has just said that the study of sacred revelation does indeed grant an originality to “religious thinking and discourse.” Shedd writes: Originality is a term often employed, […]
Continuing an exercise begun the other day… Calvin refers to the Roman poets Vergil and Lucretius exactly once in the Institutes of the Christian Religion, in the same passage of 1.5.5, “The Knowledge of God Conspicuous in the Creation, and Continual Government of the World.” The passage begins with a criticism of Aristotle, to which we […]