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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Leviticus 23 has five speeches of Yahweh: A. Sabbath, Passover, Unleavened Bread, vv 1-8 B. First Sheaf, Pentecost, Gleaning, vv 9-22 C. Trumpets, vv 23-26 B’. Day of Coverings, vv 26-32 A’. Booths, vv 33-44 Several links in this structure are worth noting. First, the chapter begins and ends with…
Pentecost is a bread feast, a feast of leaven (Leviticus 23:17).  Animals are brought as offerings, plenty of them, but these are brought “with the bread,” accompaniments to the bread rather than the other way round. It’s quite fitting, then, that after the leaven of the Spirit came upon the…
The presentation of the first sheaf (Leviticus 23:9-13) provides a neat little allegory of redemption.  The first sheaf is presented on the day after the sabbath, the day of resurrection.  It is the “beginning” of the harvest (v. 10), and Leviticus uses the same word as is used in Genesis…
When Paul talks about the “fullness of time,” he’s likely alluding back to the calendar of Leviticus 23.  Pentecost is calculated from the day of the first sheaf, and the time is described as a “complete” set of sabbaths.  The word translated as “complete” is tamim , which describes perfect…
Adorno neatly sums up the intention and result of Kant’s aesthetics in a cople of lines: “the significance of Kantian subjectivism as a whole lies in its objective intention, its attempt to salvage objectivity by means of an analysis of subjective moments.” And, noting that Kant “posits something as form…
1 Peter 1:3: Blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. As Pastor Sumpter mentioned in the sermon this morning, Peter’s…
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