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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The sermon text this morning will be eerily familiar to some of you. Jesus has cleared out the temple, dramatizing its future destruction, and now He has set up shop at the heart of Judaism, teaching in the temple courts. The leaders of Israel, the chief priests and scribes, want…
Stones, as I’ve said, are all over the place in Luke 19-21. One more indication of this: When the scribes and chief priests debate about how to answer Jesus’ question about John’s baptism, they worry that the people might stone them if they deny John. They “do not know” where…
The debates in Luke 20 are focused on the issue of leadership and authority. The basic question is, Who is going to set the direction for the future of Israel — Jesus and His followers, or the establishment. A number of things follow from this: 1) Jesus’ parable of the…
Odd how things come in clumps. Prior to last evening, I had never even heard of the popular Victorian novelist and historian Edward Bulwer-Lytton. I first came across his name in an intriguing TLS article by Oswyn Murray, who claimed that Bulwer-Lytton had a special place in the development of…
It is a strange feeling to be reminded by a radical like Terry Eagleton of the existence of what Russel Kirk called the permanent things. Writing in Sweet Violence , his recent study of tragedy, Eagleton says “Radicals are suspicious of the transhistorical because it suggests that there are things…
1) There’s a new symmetry to the story of the challenge to Jesus’ authority in verses 1-8. On the one hand, there’s a clear chiastic structure: A. Authority: Question B. John’s baptism: Question B. John’s baptism: No answer A. Authority: No answer There’s also the pattern of alternative speakers: A.…
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