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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Philip Ryken and Michael LeFebvre end their Our Triune God: Living in the Love of the Three-in-One with a chapter on “the Joyous Trinity.” They close the book with this: “Eric Masall insisted that the Trinity is never merely a doctrine but always meant to be a grateful joy. To…
1 Peter 2 ends with a rich little exhortation to follow the example of Christ’s trustful suffering (v. 21). For starters, we can note the word “example,” which in Greek is hupogrammos . This is a New Testament hapax legomenon , but outside the Bible it refers to a tool…
What is Trinity House for? Three things: We aim to advance the reformation of the church and, through the church, to promote the renewal of culture; in furthering reformation, we aspire to be a site of fraternal, charitable ecumenical debate; and to deepen reformation, we want to facilitate theological scholarship,…
Bavinck ( Reformed Dogmatics: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation ) pre-channels NT Wright: “All that is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, and commendable in the whole of creation, in heaven and on earth, is gathered up in the future city of God—renewed, re-created, boosted to its highest glory. The…
Pastor Ralph Smith continues his series of essays on Deuteronomy 14 at the Trinity House site.
What did the sexual revolution sow? What is being reaped? John Witte ( From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition (Family, Religion, and Culture) ) summarizes with these chilling words: “The wild oats sown in the course of the American sexual revolution have brought forth…
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