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…
Showing page 232 of 309
Showing page 31 of 43
In an article in Biblica, JG McConville points out that Kings does not offer much hope based on reforming kings. On the contrary, the books shows that the efforts of reforming kings are regularly undermined by their successors. Manasseh is not some strange exception but the norm: “Far from leading…
The word “bed” is used nearly a dozen times in 1-2 Kings, and the uses represent a significant minor motif in these books. The following are some reflections on this motif, in large measure inspired by my students’ work. 1) 1 Kings begins with a report about David’s impotence and…
Conceptual difficulties that arise from attempting to express incarnation in categories drawn from the Greeks. Sarah Coakley points to one such problem in a discussion of the work of Richard Norris on the Chalcedonian settlement. She finds fault with some of Norris historical analysis, charging that he imports post-liberal obsessions…
Conceptual difficulties that arise from attempting to express incarnation in categories drawn from the Greeks. Sarah Coakley points to one such problem in a discussion of the work of Richard Norris on the Chalcedonian settlement. She finds fault with some of Norris historical analysis, charging that he imports post-liberal obsessions…
The question debated among medieval political theorists was not whether Christendom was a body, ultimately the body of Christ, but whether there was room for more than one “head” of the body. As Otto Gierke summarizes,”Mankind constituted a Mystical Body, whereof the Head was Christ. It was just from this…
“The Bible,” writes Avery Cardinal Dulles, “when it seeks to illuminate the nature of the Church, speaks almost entirely through images, most of them . . . evidently metaphorical.” Citing Pope Paul VI, Dulles lists the following images: “the building raised up by Christ, the house of God, the temple…
Showing page 1942 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
