Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Rounding Out the Traditional Doctrine of Justification Justification and the Church The traditional Protestant doctrine of justification fails to fully hold together the soteriological (forgiveness of sins) and the ecclesiological (covenant membership). This is part of a larger problem, of course, namely, the dichotomizing of church and salvation. Biblically and…
John Piper’s book, Counted Righteous in Christ: Should We Abandon the Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2002) is, from any perspective, a passionate work. Nevertheless, I find I need to disagree with parts of it. The reason I do this is not because John Piper’s book does…
What follows is a handout for a Sunday School class I have taught recently at my church . Presbyterian doctrine teaches what the Bible says about God sovereign control over history and his unconditional choice (election) to bring some people to everlasting glory while allowing others to remain in unbelief…
“Covenantal Nomism” sounds like a description of tiny contract-loving creatures who live underground. But it is actually a recent term used to describe the pattern of religious belief and practice in first-century Palestinian Judaism. The idea is that God graciously establishes a structured relationship based on promises, a “covenant,” with…
What follows deals primarily with two essays, one by Dr. Douglas Kelly and the other by The Rev. Richard Phillips . My reason for writing this essay is that many people are confidently saying things about N. T. Wright that I believe are contrary to fact. I choose Dr. Kelly…
The Bible is often treated as a book of rules with directions for living. To some extent, that is true; but it is neither the whole truth nor the most important truth about the book. Ultimately, the Bible is a story about God and man and their reconciliation in Christ.…
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In a 1953 speech delivered in New York marking the 20th anniversary of the Holodomor, the Ukrainian famine, Raphael Lemkin retold the chilling story of the Soviet Union's deliberate liquidation of Ukraine's churches, its “soul” and its “brain.” “Going along with this attack on the intelligentsia was an offensive against…
Psalm 45 begins as a song of praise by a court poet for a victorious king. Halfway through it turns into an epithalamion. As a complete poem, it a rollicking ol' romance. After the opening promise to compose a “made-thing” (Heb., ma'asah ) for the king, the poet celebrates the…
On the third day after Jesus’ death, women came to the tomb to dress the body and found the tomb empty, heard from angels that Jesus had risen from the dead, and shortly after encountered Jesus Himself. It really happened. If it really happened, then the power of tyrants is…
Holy Saturday is the mystery of God’s silence, and it is a great mystery. But the Son of God cannot claim Sheol as its Lord without turning death upside down. Death cannot hold Him. He is too big. Silence cannot muzzle the eternal Word, not forever. His descent is harrowing…
Jesus’ death does not contradict His sovereignty. It is a revelation of His sovereign Lordship. Jesus’ life and death reveals that God is Lord not only over all things He is Lord in all things. He is not only Lord over the safe confines of heaven, but Lord in the…
Anthony Pagden is worried about the rise of religion in the past several decades ( The Enlightenment: And Why It Still Matters ). He fears “the outcome might indeed be something close to the nightmare dreamed up by the contemporary American philosopher and psychologist Daniel Dennett: ‘The Enlightenment is long…
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