Unconditional Election
An Interview with J. I. Packer
MR: Dr. Packer, what exactly do people mean by unconditional election?
Packer: It is a phrase which folk use to express this thought: that because we sinners are helpless, God has to take all the steps that are necessary in order to bring us...
I really don’t care to debate the topic of federal/corporate versus individual election. This is a commonly used tactic of the anti-Calvinist who is usually not thinking about things very deeply. I know that sounds harsh, but just sample any internet discussion site where Calvinists and...
God’s existence cannot be measured by time. The past, present, and future of God’s existence are possessed by Him in one indivisible equal vividness. He has no before or afterward, no earlier or later. In fact, God transcends all temporal limitations and is without beginning or end. As such God...
Let us never ascribe to God the idea that He is the author (the doer) of sin and evil...
Evil is not something sitting in the corner smoldering as in some substance or spiritual essence. Evil has no substantial, ontological existence.
Matthew Henry is helpful here:
The tree was not evil, nor...
The CoW is covenant of works, sometimes also called the covenant of life. CoG, sometimes called the covenant of redemption, is a covenant of grace, a pre-temporal covenantal in which the Father would glorify his Son by sending him as a Mediator of foreseen sin. Salvation has been God’s plan from...
As a pastor, I was sometimes asked to re-baptize another who felt he or she was not a believer when baptized. I am not one who advocates multiple baptisms. Why? It was the providence of God that your baptism occurred when it did. Now that you are sure you have saving faith, the contemplation of...
Some various facts and other things about the Bible I have collected over the years follow.
The 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece has 138,020 words including those in double and single brackets. The NA28 has seven less words.
The electronic text of Westcott and Hort has...
Appeals to Judas as an example that refutes perseverance of the saints are often made by Pentecostals...
I would have to disagree that Judas or others like him qualify as believers. He possessed no saving faith and thus was never one of the elect of God. At best Judas was one of many that...
Three items that I have found to be very accurate and useful when it comes to choosing Bible commentaries that I want to pass along:
A Layman's Commentary Guide:
A Layman’s Commentary Guide
Commentaries for the Whole Bible:
Commentaries for the Whole Bible
Commentaries to Be Avoided...
Regularly we encounter the response to one of our firm answers to another calling attention to their error as but the sarcastic tongue-in-cheek "so nice to see the Christian love being demonstrated in your response". It is as if any clear denunciation of error, even blasphemy, is grounds for...
Notice the New Age conviction that all spiritual paths lead to the same goal. Even though these different paths may appear contradictory, they really are not. But no New Age disciple really believes that all paths are equal. All of them reject at least one spiritual path, that of biblical...
From The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell, Volume I - Theological, Lecture X - Man
Freedom of the Will
This is one of the most difficult questions in the whole compass of Metaphysical Philosophy or Christian Theology. Its inherent difficulties have been aggravated by the ambiguities...
Er, no. The author of Hebrews here makes no such claim that the believer needs evidence, rather the author asserts that the believer’s faith is the objective reality, the evidence, of what is to come.
Please study the passage and its surrounding context.
The “substance” in the passage is the...
Hebrews 6:4-6:
Heb 6:4 For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit,
Heb 6:5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,
Heb 6:6 and then have fallen away, it is...
Heb. 9:27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,
Heb. 9:28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. (ESV)
With these verses the...
26 For if we are willfully sinning after receiving the full knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice concerning sins,
27 but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and "zealous fire being about to consume the adversaries." (quoting from Isaiah 26:11)
28 If anyone did not regard...
By Sam Storms...
1. Election is a pre-temporal decision by God, a choice he made before any of us ever existed. God chose us in Christ “before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4). God “saved us,” said Paul, “and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own...
Recently a fellow wondered that given that God ordains all things should we not be just considered pawns on a chessboard?
I would like to respond to that view..
Pawns on a chessboard are not moral agents.
As our Confession states:
Chapter 3
1. God from all eternity, did, by the most wise...
Some basic principles related to understanding the will of God:
1. Where God commands, we must obey.
2. Where there is no command, God gives us freedom (and responsibility) to choose.
3. Where there is no command, God gives us wisdom to choose.
4. When we have chosen what is moral and wise, we...
To be historically accurate Jochaim Westphal (1510-1574) was the first theologian to use the term "Calvinist". He was a Lutheran theologian that debated Calvin on the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. A Calvinist, initially, was one who held to Calvin's view of the supper. That would exclude the...