The Calvinist International
Is faith our righteousness? No, faith is the sole instrument whereby God graciously imputes to us the righteousness of Christ. Where Do We Draw the Heresy Line? In my recent book, Faith.Hope.Love, I devote a section of the book to affirming the Reformed doctrine of justification by faith against the Arminian doctrine of justification […]
The debate over John Piper’s theology of works and salvation has caused a minor stir in the confessional Reformed community. I say minor because, it seems to me, a lot fewer people actually care than we might (wish to) think. Mr. Brad Mason has written a post that a number of people I know are […]
When we speak of good works being necessary for final salvation we need to make use of words and phrases to explain the meaning of this aspect of our salvation. By far the most common phrase I have come across in Reformation and Post-Reformation dogmatics concerning good works being necessary for final salvation is the […]
So Athanasius, anyway, from the end of the first section of On the Incarnation of the Word: And it is fitting that we who speak about this [i.e., salvation] first speak about the creation of all things, and about God, its [i.e., creation’s] demiurge, in order that someone may contemplate that its [i.e., creation’s] renewal has […]
In Institutes 2.9.2, Calvin says what he means by “the Gospel”: “[Jesus Christ] has in his flesh completed all the parts of our salvation.” By the Gospel, I understand the clear manifestation of the mystery of Christ. I confess, indeed, that inasmuch as the term Gospel is applied by Paul to the doctrine of faith (2 Tim. […]
In his discussion of the First Commandment in the Enchiridion theologicum, Niels Hemmingsen observes that no man satisfies it–as, indeed, is true of the other nine as well. This should cause the mind “to contemplate its own impurity and to recognize its deserved punishment.” The punishment our wickedness deserves in general is the curse; specifically, it […]
Calvin, on Psalm 98:1 (“Sing unto Jehovah a new song, for he hath done marvelous things: his own right hand, and the arm of his holiness, hath gotten him the victory”) and a parallel passage in Isaiah 59:16; characteristically eloquent. What is the righteousness of God? “[T]he illustration of his mercy, grace, and faithfulness”: In both […]
As the title indicates, more will need to be said, but the thoughts seem to warrant a note, even if it is something like a sticky note with a “To Do” list on it. The recent post on Ursinus is obviously relevant, but so are the older observations on Martin Luther, particularly his view of […]
Origen, in his Commentary on Romans, poses an interesting solution to the question of what keeps the free will from falling away once it has been restored to God by grace: Now precisely what it is that would restrain the freedom of will in the future ages to keep it from falling again into sin, […]
As the old carol proclaims: Heaven and earth in little space; res miranda. Wondrous indeed, but not an end in itself; as another carol says, the end of it was to save us all from Satan’s power, when we had gone astray and finally, as the famous hymn declares, God and sinners, reconciled. A reason […]