Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
A Brief Comparison of Calvin’s Institutes with the Westminster Confession and Catechisms regarding the shape of imputation This essay is a brief argument that the soteriology of John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion regarding union with Christ and the imputation of his righteousness is the same as…
The thoughts in this paper were largely prompted by a study of Walter E. Krebs, “The Word and the Sacraments,” Mercersburg Review (July, 1867), 366-383. The discussion in this paper presupposes my earlier studies of baptism, “Baptismal Efficacy and the Reformed Tradition: Past, Present, and Future” and “Calvin on Baptism,…
Sometimes our systematic theology creates an illusion of precision. For example, we distinguish the ground and instrument of justification. Justification is grounded in Christ’s work alone, and is instrumentally received by faith alone. That makes good sense and guards us from thinking that faith itself is somehow meritorious. All the…
Whenever we participate in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, we remember Christ and His Work for us. We remember. And in remembering, we imitate God, as His creatures made after His image. God remembers. This is mysterious to us because we usually think of remembering in the context of our…
It is standard in paedobaptist circles to argue for the baptism of infants out of the Old Covenant system. Because there is no explicit command in the New Testament, we are left to the broader principles and patterns of Scripture. In the Old Covenant, we continually find that the children…
Luther popularized the law/gospel hermeneutic. Luther argued that any demands God made upon us fell into the category of “law” and could only condemn. By contrast, anything God gave us was “gospel” and came with no strings attached. Calvin paid lip service to this law/gospel antithesis, even though it was…
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“God speaks in Jesus in and through the texts of the Old and New Testament,” writes Francis Watson in an appreciative critique of Robert Jenson's Systematic Theology . “These texts do not merely report divine speaking, they enact it; and that they do so is the distinctive work of the…
In a 2002 essay on “The Bible and the Trinity, Jenson reflected on the Trinitarian features of Genesis 22, the Aqedah. Some are obvious and traditional - the relationship between the Angel of Yahweh and Yahweh. Some not so much. Jenson stresses that the issue at stake in Yahweh's test…
David Turner offers a detailed study of Jesus' “woes” to the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23 ( Israel's Last Prophet ). He sets the polemic in the context of a Deuteronomistic theological perspective as employed by the prophets of Israel. Together, these add up to a “motif of prophetic…
Here’s an effort to summarize Robert Jenson’s take on God-and-time, written with faux-Jensonesque pithiness. Is God eternally and infinitely the eternal and infinite God that He is? Of course. He’s God. Is God dependent on creation for His fulfillment? Of course not. He’s God. The biblical God uniquely does not…
Robert Jenson begins his classic The Triune Identity with a succinct analysis of the religious import of human action. “Every human action moves from what was to what is to be: It is carried and filled by tradition but intends new creation” (1). Every action proposes and is something new;…
In his closing at one of the second-tier GOP Presidential debate, Governor Bobby Jindal expressed a perspective that is common among conservative Christians: “The reality is the idea of America is slipping away. As Christians, we believe that the tomb is empty. As Americans, we believe that our best days…
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