The Castle Church Door

10. What is the difference between the law and the gospel? A. The law is the a doctrine that God has implanted in human nature and has repeated and renewed in his Commandments. In it He holds before us, as if in a manuscript, what it is we are and are not to do, namely, obey him perfectly both inwardly and outwardly. he also promises eternal life on the ...

I will respond to Dr. Clark’s post seriatim. 1. This qualification is well-taken. Olevian is his own man, and has many things in his background influencing his theology, of which one of the more important influences is Calvin’s teaching. This seems nuanced enough for anyone. 2. My argument is not really taking this form. I certainly do not mean to imply in the slightest that Clark has misread Olevian, as ...

Many thanks to Dr. Clark for taking the time to respond to me. There are some very helpful clarifications there of what he was trying to accomplish in writing his book. I am still left with a few questions that I would like to lay out there. 1. I agree that there is very little substantive difference between Calvin’s duplex gratia and Olevian’s duplex beneficium. This is not all ...

Dr. Clark invited me to read his book a while back. So I bought the book and read it. And I’m very glad I did. It is very well-written and very well researched. I say I am writing a book review. However, it must not be thought that I am any sort of expert in the field of historical theology. I write this post very much from the ...

This is why so much depends on the benefit of justification, and it is rightly denominated the article on which the church either stands or falls. For the fundamental question that arises in this connection is this: What is the way that leads to communion with God, to true religion, to salvation and eternal life: God’s grace or human merit, his forgiveness or our works, gospel or law, ...

I’m in the midst of an interesting discussion of baptism with a friend, who has Baptist convictions but who understands Reformed theology better than many Reformed folks. He is quite sympathetic to historic and confessional Reformed theology. For example, he affirms that covenant children are holy and reads 1 Cor 7:14 the same way Reformed people read it. He affirms that Acts 2:39 is a repetition of the ...

I have loved this quotation from Vos as soon as I read it: Before all other important things, therefore, the Sabbath is an expression of the eschatological principle on which the life of humanity has been constructed…The Sabbath brings this principle of the eschatological structure of history to bear upon the mind of man after a symbolical and a typical fashion. It teaches its lesson through the rhythmical succession ...

15. What kind of a mediator and redeemer then must we seek? One who is a true1 and righteous man, 2 and yet more powerful than all creatures, that is, One who is also true God.3 11 Cor 15:21, 22, 25, 26. 2 Jer 33:16. Isaiah 53:11. 2 Cor 5:21. Heb 7:15,16. One of the more puzzling and overlooked features of the Barthian, neo-evangelical, and covenantal moralist (i.e. FV) denial ...

Some really great arguments as to why the authors of the Westminster Confession of Faith were right in saying that the entirety of the moral law was given to Adam before the fall.