In his farewell letter to the PCA, Jason Stellman says that he has concluded that “the teaching that sinners are justified by a once-for-all declaration of acquittal on God’s part, based upon the imputation of Christ’s righteousness received by faith alone, is not reflective of . . . . Continue Reading »
What follows is an oblique contribution to a debate between my friends Doug Wilson and James Jordan. Doug has recently addressed an issue - regeneration - on which he and Jim have disagreed for a number of years. I hope that the brief discussion below will untangle the debate somewhat. In my view, . . . . Continue Reading »
Every theologian is a negative theologian in the sense that there are certain traditions and theologies that he defines himself against . Protestants have always defined themselves against Catholics, Lutherans against Reformed and vice versa, and within each tradition there are subtraditions that . . . . Continue Reading »
Christ is Risen! With those words, we enter a new season of the church calendar. We move from the preparatory, penitential season of Lent to the festive celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. The transition is real, but we can easily misunderstand it. We misunderstand Lent if we think that Lent . . . . Continue Reading »
Stephen’s brief summary of Moses killing the Egyptian returns again and again to the dik - root, “justice.” Moses acts when he sees that one of his brothers is suffering adikia , injustice (the verb is adikeo , Acts 7:24). Moses intervenes by doing ekdikesis , by avenging justly; . . . . Continue Reading »
TF Torrance in a selection from the anthology noted in an earlier post describes the rationale for the distinction of active and passive obedience in Reformed theology. They don’t differ with regard to time - Christ begins to suffer His passive obedience with the incarnation. Jesus is the . . . . Continue Reading »
The church calendar teaches us about Jesus, so we can be faithful disciples. In Epiphany, we focus on the manifestation of Jesus, culminating today in His glorification the Mount of Transfiguration. On Wednesday, we enter the season of Lent, when we re-focus on the suffering and sacrifice of . . . . Continue Reading »
At the beginning of the millennium, the saints sit on thrones and “judgment is given to them” (Revelation 20:4). The phrase is ambiguous: Does this mean “the power to judge was given them” or “they received a favorable judgment from the court?” The context of . . . . Continue Reading »
Gregory of Nyssa ( Against Eunomius 3.3) recognizes that the crux (!) of the debate between Arian and orthodox is the cross: “we say that the God who was manifested through the cross must be honored in the same way as the Father is honored while they consider the Passion as an obstacle to . . . . Continue Reading »
Thomas (ST II-II, 2, 1) offers this neat spectrum of varieties of “acts of intellect” that have “unformed thought devoid of a firm assent”: Thos that “incline to neither side” are doubts; those that “incline to one side rather than the other, but on account . . . . Continue Reading »
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