Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Camping’s Attempted Substantiation Camping attempts to justify his hypothesis with several lines of argument, all of which are erroneous. 1. Gaps in Genealogies He first mentions the fact that in some of the "begatitudes" of the Bible, generations are left out for some reason or other. Matthew 1:8 and 11,…
I am often asked why I am not an Episcopalian, since I like liturgy so much. My answer is that if I had a call to serve in Episcopal circles, I would certainly entertain it. When I have looked into such groups as the Reformed Episcopal Church, however, I have…
For Part 1, click HERE . Now, what does this mean? Are we to believe that Adam was supposed to earn "merits" before God apart from faith ? Surely nobody wants to maintain this. The traditional explainers of the covenant of works always try to nuance their theology so as…
This issue of Biblical Chronology begins a second series of studies. The first series, Vols. I:1–V:4, concerned the chronology of the Bible itself. We saw, first, that the Bible is indeed concerned with chronology, contains much chronological information, and that the chronology in the Bible is complete from creation to…
David A. Weir, The Origins of the Federal Theology in Sixteenth-Century Reformation Thought (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). A thorough reevaluation of the federal theology is desperately needed today. John Murray, in his introduction to The Covenant of Grace (1953) appropriately reminds us that it is of the essence…
An "essay" is a foray into a topic. It is not the last word. I hope that this essay or foray is a helpful word. This essay is designed as brief and suggestive. The doctrine of the covenant of works finds expression in the Westminster Standards, where it is also…
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In his Reveries of the Solitary Walker (Oxford World’s Classics) , Rousseau muses on the “complete and utterly disinterested benevolence” that he would show if he could avoid “forming an attachment to anyone in particular” and “taking on the burden of any responsibilities.” If only he could be entirely anonymous,…
It was Jodocus van Lodenstein, the Dutch reformer, who first coined epigram, ‘Ecclesia reformata semper reformanda est secundum Verbum Dei: the church is reformed and always being reformed according to the Word of God.’ Central to that ongoing reforming work in our day is the recovery of richly Biblical worship.…
INTRODUCTION As He has done before (Isaiah 41:1), Yahweh again summons the peoples to court to present their cases against Him (43:8-9). In the courtroom of history, Israel is a witness in Yahweh’s favor (43:10, 12; 44:8), proving that Yahweh alone is God (43:10). At the center of His defense…
Patrick Coleman notes in his Anger, Gratitude, and the Enlightenment Writer (pp. 9-10) that early Enlightenment writers didn’t necessarily dismiss God. They merely defanged him: “Enlightenment writers were acutely conscious of the ways in which secular as well as ecclesiastical authorities could brandish the image of an angry God to…
Locke ( Two Treatises of Government ) argues that political authority, because it exists only by the consent of free people, cannot exercise power beyond the purposes for which it was constituted. Because it exists for the protection of property, it cannot have power to take property without consent. He…
At the beginning of the first of his Two Treatises of Government , John Locke refutes the Scriptural arguments of Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha ( Filmer: ‘Patriarcha’ and Other Writings (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought) ). Filmer claims that political authority is grounded in paternal authority, and characterizes…
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