Paul uses the verb “eagerly await” a number of times. What is he waiting for? He awaits the Savior from heaven (Philippians 3:20), the apocalypse of the Lord Jesus (1 Corinthians 1:7), the revelation of the sons of God (Romans 8:19), the adoption of sons and redemption of the body . . . . Continue Reading »
It’s frequently said these days that Luther was an innovator in his doctrine of justification. He appealed to Augustine, but distorted Augustine in the process of defending his forensic understanding of justification. Mark Ellingsen ( SJT , 2011) argues that such assessments fail to recognize . . . . Continue Reading »
Barth points out that God is Lord of the city of man as welll as the city of God, and that God loves and cares for all that He has made. What then does election mean? Barth answers, “He is favorably disposed to the pure only in order that they may be at His disposal for service to the . . . . Continue Reading »
A 2010 dissertation by David C. Fink traces the “confessionalization” of the Protestant doctrine of justification. Fink summarizes his work in this abstract: “This dissertation lays the groundwork for a reevaluation of early Protestant understandings of salvation in the sixteenth . . . . Continue Reading »
Protestants often find the idea of “deification” unsettling. When we hear “God became man, so that man might become God,” it sounds as if someone has erased the distinction between Creator and creature. But that pithy summary of the gospel comes from Athanasius, a . . . . Continue Reading »
Warren Gage, the always-stimulating Professor of Old Testament at Knox Seminary, sent along the following to post here. The remainder of this post is from Warren. The heart of the Christian gospel is the penal, substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ. As we should expect, this most salvific of . . . . Continue Reading »
Is the Reformation dead? It may be a surprising question to us, especially since we’re commemorating Reformation Day this morning. But it’s a question worth asking. When we assess Protestantism honestly, we find that there are good reasons to wonder. Over the past couple of centuries, . . . . Continue Reading »
Luther wrote: “The ‘righteousness of God’ . . . is the righteousness by which God is righteous, and we are righteous by the same righteousness, just as by the same word God makes us be and we indeed are what he is, so that we may be in him and his being may be our being.” . . . . Continue Reading »
Bucer wrote, “Because by faith we embrace this righteousness and benevolence of God, it shines in us, and thus he imparts himself, so that also we, too, are driven by some zeal for righteousness.” He’s got just about everything you’d want there: Righteousness comes by faith; . . . . Continue Reading »
In his Grace and Christology in the Early Church (Oxford Early Christian Studies) , Douglas Fairbairn argues that the Christololgical debates of the fifth century were also debates about the nature of grace. Is grace only an assisting power that enables us to cooperate with God (Nestorian) or . . . . Continue Reading »
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