Reformed Theologian Quotes

The most thoroughly and relentlessly damned, banned, excluded, condemned, forbidden, ostracized, ignored, suppressed, repressed, robbed, brutalized and defamed of all 'Damned Things' is the individual human being. The social engineers, statisticians, psychologists, sociologists, market researchers, landlords, bureaucrats, captains of industry, bankers, governors, commissars, kings and presidents are perpetually forcing this 'Damned Thing' into carefully prepared blueprints and perpetually irritated that the 'Damned Thing' will not fit into the slot assigned it. The theologians call it a sinner and try to reform it. The governor calls it a criminal and tries to punish it. The psychologist calls it a neurotic and tries to cure it. Still, the 'Damned Thing' will not fit into their slots.

If I speak in the tongues of Reformers and of professional theologians, and I have not personal faith in Christ, my theology is nothing but the noisy beating of a snare drum. And if I have analytic powers and the gift of creating coherent conceptual systems of theology, so as to remove liberal objections, and have not personal hope in God, I am nothing. And if I give myself to resolving the debate between supra and infralapsarianism, and to defending inerrancy, and to learning the Westminster Catechism, yea, even the larger one, so as to recite it by heart backwards and forwards, and have not love, I have gained nothing.

To revolt on behalf of an ignorant people, is like to set yourself on fire in order to light the way for a blind man!

What distinguishes the arid ages from the period of the Reformation, when nations were moved as they had not been since Paul preached in Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome, is the latter's fullness of knowledge of God's Word. To echo an early Reformation thought, when the ploughman and the garage attendant know the Bible as well as the theologian does, and know it better than some contemporary theologians, then the desired awakening shall have already occurred.

God once spoke through the mouth of an ass. I will tell you straight what I think. I am a Christian theologian and I am bound not only to assert, but to defend the truth with my blood and death. I want to believe freely and be a slave to the authority of no one, of a council, a university, or pope. I will confidently confess what appears to me to be true whether it has been asserted by a Catholic or a heretic, whether it has been approved or reproved by a council.

1517 Theologian Martin Luther writes The Ninety-Five Theses, protesting against clerical abuses. It triggers the start of the Reformation.

Truth is immortal

The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes – Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli of England (1844) The most wonderful thing is that great Protestant and reformed theologians who belong to [Illuminism] still believe that the religious teaching imparted in it contains the true and genuine spirit of the Christian religion. Oh! men, of what cannot you be persuaded? – Adam Weishaupt (Nachtrag von weitern Originalschriften) I got illumination and ideas from the Freemasons that I could never have obtained from other sources…I have learned a great deal from Marxism…The whole of National Socialism is based on it – Adolph Hitler (comments made to Herman Rauschning) When all is said and done, we might

Influential theologian J. Gresham Machen perhaps said it best: False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the Gospel. We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation to be controlled by ideas which prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion. (Machen, CC, 7)

In principle, to be sure, the Reformation idea of the universal priesthood of all believers meant that not only the clergy but also the laity, not only the theologian but also the magistrate, had the capacity to read, understand, and apply the teachings of the Bible. Yet one of the contributions of the sacred philology of the biblical humanists to the Reformation was an insistence that, in practice, often contradicted the notion of the universal priesthood: the Bible had to be understood on the basis of the authentic original text, written in Hebrew and Greek which, most of the time, only clergy and theologians could comprehend properly. Thus the scholarly authority of the Reformation clergy replaced the priestly authority of the medieval clergy.

In short, an astonishingly broad spectrum of theologies of justification existed in the later medieval period, encompassing practically every option that had not been specifically condemned as heretical by the Council of Carthage. In the absence of any definitive magisterial pronouncement concerning which of these options (or even what range of options) could be considered authentically catholic, it was left to each theologian to reach his own decision in this matter. A self-perpetuating doctrinal pluralism was thus an inevitability.

Thus, by no later than the thirteenth century, the leading Christian theologians had fully debated the primary aspects of emerging capitalism – profits, property rights, credit, lending and the like. As Lester K. Little summed up: ‘In each case they came up with generally favorable, approving views, in sharp contrast to the attitudes that had prevailed for six or seven centuries right up to the previous generation.’60 Capitalism was fully and finally freed from all fetters of faith.

Even at that age I already believed in you, and so did my mother and the whole of my household except for my father. But, in my heart, he did not gain the better of my mother's piety and prevent me from believing in Christ just because he still disbelieved himself. For she did all that she could for me to see that you, my God, should be a father to me rather than he. In this you helped her to turn the scales against her husband, whom she always obeyed because by obeying him she obeyed your law, thereby showing greater virtue than he did.

This is a game that has been played over and over—in fact, for twenty-four centuries—before audiences of almost infinite variety. At some point long ago, the game became a doubles match, for the two Greek philosophers were joined by two medieval Christian theologians: Plato by Augustine of Hippo, who could nearly equal him in style and seriousness; Aristotle by Thomas Aquinas, nearly as styleless as Aristotle but, though overweight, ungainly, and blinking in the sun, extremely thoughtful and genial—the sort of athlete who is always undervalued.

The medieval period based its scriptural exegesis upon the Vulgate translation of the Bible. There was no authorized version of this text, despite the clear need for a standardized text that had been carefully checked against its Hebrew and Greek originals. A number of versions of the text were in circulation, their divergences generally being overlooked. It was not until 1592 than an 'official' version of the text was produced by the church authorities, sensitive to the challenges to the authority of the Vulgate by Renaissance humanist scholars and Protestant theologians.

The common Calvinist experience of life as a refugee, or of being part of a host community that received refugees, led to lasting international connections between individuals and communities...As churches became established in Switzerland, the Palatinate, Scotland, England and Bearn, and the churches in the Netherlands, France, Hungary and Poland battled for legal recognition and survival, princely courts, noble houses, universities and colleges also became locations for interactions between many Calvinists. Theologians, clergy, students, booksellers, merchants, diplomats, courtiers and military officers became involved in networks of personal contacts, correspondence, teaching and negotiation.

The rising influence of lay piety is particularly marked upon the Mariological controversies of the late medieval period. Two rival positions developed: the maculist position, which held that Mary was subject to original sin, in common with every other human being; and the immaculist position, which held that contrary view that Mary was in some way preserved from original sin, and was thus to be considered sinless. The maculist position was regarded as firmly established within the High Scholasticism of the thirteenth century. The veneration of the Virgin within popular piety, however, proved to have an enormously creative power that initially challenged, and subsequently triumphed over, the academic objections raised against it by university theologians.

For the humanists, whatever authority Scripture might possess derived from the original texts in their original languages, rather than from the Vulgate, which was increasingly recognized as unreliable and inaccurate. In that the catholic church continued to insist that the Vulgate was a doctrinally normative translation, a tension inevitably developed between humanist biblical scholarship and catholic theology...Through immediate access to the original text in the original language, the theologian could wrestle directly with the 'Word of God,' unhindered by 'filters' of glosses and commentaries that placed the views of previous interpreters between the exegete and the text. For the Reformers, 'sacred philology' provided the key by means of which the theologian could break free from the confines of medieval exegesis and return ad fontes to the title deeds of the Christian faith rather than their medieval expressions, to forge once more the authentic theology of the early church.

In 1517, few western Christians worried that Muslims might have a more convincing message to offer than Christianity or that Christian youth might start converting to Islam. The Turks were at the gate, it's true, but they weren't in the living room, and they certainly weren't in the bedroom. The Turks posed a threat to the physical health of Christians, but not to the spiritual health of Christianity. Muslims were in a different boat. Almost from the start, as I've discussed, Islam had offered its political and military successes as an argument for its doctrines and a proof of its revelations. The process began with those iconic early battles at Badr and Uhud, when the outcome of battle was shown to have theological meaning. The miracle of expansion and the linkage of victory with truth continued for hundreds of years. Then came the Mongol holocaust, which forced Muslim theologians to reexamine their assumptions. That process spawned such reforms as Ibn Taymiyah. Vis-a-vis the Mongols, however, the weakness of Muslims was concrete and easy to understand. The Mongols had greater killing power, but they came without an ideology. When the bloodshed wound down and the human hunger for meaning bubbled up, as it always does, they had nothing to offer. In fact, they themselves converted. Islam won in the end, absorbing the Mongols as it has absorbed the Turks before them and the Persians before that. ... The same could not be said of the new overlords. The Europeans came wrapped in certainty about their way of life and peddling their own ideas of ultimate truth. They didn't challenge Islam so much as ignore it, unless they were missionaries, in which case they simply tried to convert the Muslims. If they noticed Islam, they didn't bother to debate it (missionaries are not in the debating business) but only smiled at it as one would at the toys of a child or the quaint relics of a more primitive people. How maddening for the Muslim cognoscenti! And yet, what could Muslims do about it?

In the light of the evidence it is hard to believe that most crusaders were motivated by crude materialism. Given their knowledge and expectations and the economic climate in which they lived, the disposal of assets to invest in the fairly remote possibility of settlement in the East would have been a stupid gamble. It makes much more sense to suppose, in so far as one can generalize about them, that they were moved by an idealism which must have inspired not only them but their families. Parents, brothers and sisters, wives and children had to face a long absence and must have worried about them: in 1098 Countess Ida of Boulogne made an endowment to the abbey of St Bertin 'for the safety of her sons, Godfrey and Baldwin, who have gone to Jerusalem'.83 And they and more distant relatives — cousins, uncles and nephews - were prepared to endow them out of the patrimonial lands. I have already stressed that no one can treat the phenomenal growth of monasticism in this period without taking into account not only those who entered the communities to be professed, but also the lay men and women who were prepared to endow new religious houses with lands and rents. The same is true of the crusading movement. Behind many crusaders stood a large body of men and women who were prepared to sacrifice interest to help them go. It is hard to avoid concluding that they were fired by the opportunity presented to a relative not only of making a penitential pilgrimage to Jerusalem but also of fighting in a holy cause. For almost a century great lords, castellans and knights had been subjected to abuse by the Church. Wilting under the torrent of invective and responding to the attempts of churchmen to reform their way of life in terms they could understand, they had become perceptibly more pious. Now they were presented by a pope who knew them intimately with the chance of performing a meritorious act which exactly fitted their upbringing and devotional needs and they seized it eagerly. But they responded, of course, in their own way. They were not theologians and were bound to react in ways consonant with their own ideas of right and wrong, ideas that did not always respond to those of senior churchmen. The emphasis that Urban had put on charity - love of Christian brothers under the heel of Islam, love of Christ whose land was subject to the Muslim yoke - could not but arouse in their minds analogies with their own kin and their own lords' patrimonies, and remind them of their obligations to avenge injuries to their relatives and lords. And that put the crusade on the level of a vendetta. Their leaders, writing to Urban in September 1098, informed him that 'The Turks, who inflicted much dishonour on Our Lord Jesus Christ, have been taken and killed and we Jerusalemites have avenged the injury to the supreme God Jesus Christ.

It is for his great mental faculties that I dread him," said he. "It is incalculable what evil such a person as he may do, if so disposed. There is a sublimity in his ideas, with which there is to me a mixture of terror; and, when he talks of religion, he does it as one that rather dreads its truths than reverences them. He, indeed, pretends great strictness of orthodoxy regarding some of the points of doctrine embraced by the reformed church; but you do not seem to perceive that both you and he are carrying these points to a dangerous extremity. Religion is a sublime and glorious thing, the bonds of society on earth, and the connector of humanity with the Divine nature; but there is nothing so dangerous to man as the wresting of any of its principles, or forcing them beyond their due bounds: this is of all others the readiest way to destruction. Neither is there anything so easily done. There is not an error into which a man can fall which he may not press Scripture into his service as proof of the probity of, and though your boasted theologian shunned the full discussion of the subject before me, while you pressed it, I can easily see that both you and he are carrying your ideas of absolute predestination, and its concomitant appendages, to an extent that overthrows all religion and revelation together; or, at least, jumbles them into a chaos, out of which human capacity can never select what is good. Believe me, Mr. Robert, the less you associate with that illustrious stranger the better, for it appears to me that your creed and his carries damnation on the very front of it.

At the heart of the Reformation message was a rejection of the power of individual believers, or of the church acting on their behalf, to affect God's judgment about who should be saved and who should be damned. Martin Luther had been convinced, like Augustine, of the powerlessness and unworthiness of fallen humanity, and struck by the force of God's mercy. Good works could not merit this mercy, or affect a sovereign God; instead individual sinners were entirely dependent on God's mercy and justified (saved) by faith alone. Jean Calvin, a generation later, developed more clearly the predestinarian implications - since some men were saved and some were damned, and since this had nothing to do with their own efforts, it must mean that God had created some men predestined for salvation (the elect). This seemed to imply that He must also have predestined other men for damnation (double predestination), a line of argument which led into dangerous territory. Some theologians, Calvin's close associate Beza among them, went further and argued that the entire course of human history was foreordained prior to Adam and Eve's fall in the Garden of Eden. These views (particularly the latter, 'supralapsarian' arguments) seemed to their opponents to suggest that God was the author of the sin, both in Eden and in those who were subsequently predestined for damnation. They also raised a question about Christ's sacrifice on the cross - had that been made to atone for the sins of all, or only of the elect? Because of these dangers many of those with strong predestinarian views were unsure about whether the doctrine should be openly preached. Clever theologians, like expensive lawyers, are adept at failing to push arguments too far and there were many respectable positions short of the one adopted by Beza. But predestination was for many Protestants a fundamental - retreat from this doctrine implied a role for free will expressed in works rather than justification by faith. It thus reopened the door to the corruptions of late-medieval Christianity.

It serves the American socialists as a leading argument in their endeavor to depict American capitalism as a curse of mankind. Reluctantly forced to admit that capitalism pours a horn of plenty upon people and that the Marxian prediction of the masses' progressive impoverishment has been spectacularly disproved by the facts, they try to salvage their detraction of capitalism by describing contemporary civilization as merely materialistic and sham. Bitter attacks upon modem civilization are launched by writers who think that they are pleading the cause of religion. They reprimand our age for its secularism. They bemoan the passing of a way of life in which, they would have us believe, people were not preoccupied with the pursuit of earthly ambitions but were first of ali concerned about the strict observance of their religious duties. They ascribe ali evils to the spread of skepticism and agnosticism and passionately advocate a return to the orthodoxy of ages gone by. It is hard to find a doctrine which distorts history more radically than this antisecularism. There have always been devout men, pure in heart and dedicated to a pious life. But the religiousness of these sincere believers had nothing in common with the established system of devotion. It is a myth that the political and social institutions of the ages preceding modem individualistic philosophy and modem capitalism were imbued with a genuine Christian spirit. The teachings of the Gospels did not determine the official attitude of the governments toward religion. It was, on the contrary, thisworldly concems of the secular rulers—absolute kings and aristocratic oligarchies, but occasionally also revolting peasants and urban mobs—that transformed religion into an instrument of profane political ambitions. Nothing could be less compatible with true religion than the ruthless persecution of dissenters and the horrors of religious crusades and wars. No historian ever denied that very little of the spirit of Christ was to be found in the churches of the sixteenth century which were criticized by the theologians of the Reformation and in those of the eighteenth century which the philosophers of the Enlightenment attacked. The ideology of individualism and utilitarianism which inaugurated modern capitalism brought freedom also to the religious longings of man. It shattered the pretension of those in power to impose their own creed upon their subjects. Religion is no longer the observance of articles enforced by constables and executioners. It is what a man, guided by his conscience, spontaneously espouses as his own faith. Modern Western civilization is thisworldly. But it was precisely its secularism, its religious indifference, that gave rein to the renascence of genuine religious feeling. Those who worship today in a free country are not driven by the secular arm but by their conscience. In complying with the precepts of their persuasion, they are not intent upon avoiding punishment on the part of the earthly authorities but upon salvation and peace of mind.

A man may not be a vocational theologian, but in his home he must the resident theologian. The apostle Paul, when he is urging women to keep silent in church, tells them that "if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home" (1 Corinthians 14:35). The tragedy is that many modern women have to wonder why the Bible says they should have to ask their husbands. "He doesn't know." But a husband must be prepared to answer his wife's doctrinal questions, and if he cannot, then he must be prepared to study so that he can remedy the deficiency. This famous passage is not such a restriction for wives as it is a requirement for husbands. If he doesn't know, he must find out.

All Protestants are Crypto-Papists,’ wrote the Russian theologian Alexis Khomiakov to an English friend in the year 1846. ‘ . . . To use the concise language of algebra, all the West knows but one datum a; whether it be preceded by the positive sign +, as with the Romanists, or with the negative − as with the Protestants, the a remains the same. Now a passage to Orthodoxy seems indeed like an apostasy from the past, from its science, creed, and life. It is rushing into a new and unknown world.’ Khomiakov, when he spoke of the datum a, had in mind the fact that western Christians, whether Free Churchmen, Anglicans, or Roman Catholics, have a common background in the past. All alike (although they may not always care to admit it) have been profoundly influenced by the same events: by the Papal centralization and the Scholasticism of the Middle Ages, by the Renaissance, by the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and by the Enlightenment. But behind members of the Orthodox Church — Greeks, Russians, and the rest — there lies a very different background. They have known no Middle Ages (in the western sense) and have undergone no Reformations or Counter-Reformations; they have only been affected in an oblique way by the cultural and religious upheaval which transformed western Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Christians in the west, both Roman and Reformed, generally start by asking the same questions, although they may disagree about the answers. In Orthodoxy, however, it is not merely the answers that are different — the questions themselves are not the same as in the west. (p.1–2)

The pattern of promise and fulfillment runs throughout the pages of Holy Scripture. Jesus Christ and his humble entrance into human history lie at the center of biblical eschatology, the last things, and the millennial age. This explains in part why Reformed theologians see the Old Testament in terms of promises about the Redeemer and the New Testament in terms of their fulfillment. This view preserves the redemptive-historical unity between the testaments. The Bible does not have two divergent testaments bound under one cover. Rather, the Bible is one book with one ultimate author and one central character who appears in two testaments, the Old of promise and the New of fulfillment.

What these diverse experiences, to which were added that in the International Commission of Theologians founded by Paul VI,45 after the Council, and above all that in the Consilium for the reform of the liturgical books,46 have most firmly impressed upon me is the truth of Newman’s quip on the inability of committees in general to produce anything of value.

Again, if Scripture is the ultimate authority, how should it be interpreted? Lutherans and Anglicans tended to say that interpretations should follow the broad themes of the gospel that unite all parts of the Bible (yet long, arduous discussions between Lutheran and Anglican theologians in the 1530s resulted mostly in frustration at the inability to find a common expression of their faith). Most of the Anabaptists held that the key to interpreting Scripture was to follow New Testament commands literally, and especially to imitate the life of Christ, while reading the Old Testament symbolically. Many Reformed Protestants approached the Bible as a unified whole, but with special emphasis on the way that Old Testament revelation, especially God’s covenant with Abraham, led to New Testament realities like God’s covenanting with individuals, churches, and nations (though some who were not Reformed flatly denied that God any longer covenanted with nations).

In historic Reformed theology theologians have reflected upon these and other texts and concluded that God employs a threefold imputation in the course of the redemption of the elect. First, God imputes Adam’s first sin to all human beings. Second, in the redemption of the elect, He imputes the sins of the elect to Christ. And third, He imputes Christ’s righteousness, or His obedience, to the elect.

Western theologians who disagree with aspects of their church’s teaching or practice mostly remain dedicated to their particular church with a hope and expectation that they can influence it, change it, or reform it. By contrast, the true Orthodox theologian does not try to change, develop, or improve the Orthodox Church but seeks to conform his own mind to the mind of Christ and the Church, to achieve a deeper understanding of what has already been received.

Before Luther's vehemence many humanists and others desirous of reform in the church now began to lose confidence that he was the prophet for whom they so earnestly waited. Erasmus had committed himself firmly to neutrality. Now his hostility to Luther hardened. A Louvain theologian, Peter Barbirius, tried to coax him into an alliance against Luther. Erasmus replied bitterly on August 13, 1521. He said he had read less than a dozen pages of Luther, and he reproached those who had attacked Luther as a seditious person inciting the common people to revolt-as Latomus had done, although Erasmus did not mention him by name. His bitterness and hostility extended to the Lutheran camp and to those Lutherans who "by odious means" had tried to seduce him to their side. Yet, said he to Barbirius, "I fear that they are very numerous who with mighty invective attack secondary propositions among Luther such as, Although one may do good works, they are sinful,' although they themselves do not believe in that which creates the foundation of our faith, that the soul survives the death of the body."'' Erasmus called such a paradoxical statement a "secondary proposition," and we may be tempted to follow his lead. On one level Luther's declaration that all good works are tainted with sin sounds like modern questions based on sociobiology and psychological inquiry. Is selfless human action possible, or is there in the very performance of an unselfish act a superior sense of generosity and magnanimity that are desirable emotional rewards for benevolence? At a certain point such questions may seem to lead only to sophomoric squabbles over meaningless issues. For Luther something grand and fundamental was at stake. That was that morality could not become a substitute for intimate involvement in the drama of redemption. To those satisfied with their conduct in the world (as most of us usually are) Luther's message was one of radical introspection, intended to drive us not to the enumeration of our sinful acts but to the examination of the spirit that motivated them. In the complexity of that infinite rejection of our own power of disinterested benevolence, we were to be driven to a saving despair about ourselves and into the arms of Christ, who alone could save us. Morality without Christ might have value in the world in helping people get along with one another, and Luther never denied the role of reason in helping human beings create orderly societies. By his assertion that we sin when we do good works, he made a frontal assault on Renaissance intellectuals enamored not only with classical literature but with the proud sense of culture that was part of it. He implicitly attacked the pride not only of those who found virtue in giving alms, going on pilgrimage, and the like but also of those who claimed to be good because they imitated virtuous men of classical times. Luther made Christ the only virtue and made it impossible to speak of goodness in any way without calling Christ into the argument.

The universal Church touched every corner of western Europe and practically all aspects of life from politics to market behavior, but it was not a monolithic institution. Very much the opposite: Because it channeled and encompassed practically all spiritual life, the Church, by necessity, had to be a big tent. It contained multitudes: poor, illiterate priests in isolated rural parishes with secret wives and broods of children, who rarely saw their uninterested parishioners; charismatic Dominican preachers capable of attracting crowds of thousands in towns and cities; places like the brand-new castle church of Wittenberg, built in Renaissance style and packed with holy relics in expensive gilded cases; towering Gothic cathedrals, already centuries old, dominating the skylines of the continent’s prosperous urban centers and serving as headquarters for rich, powerful bishops who pulled political strings from London to Leipzig; leaky-roofed monasteries, housed by a few elderly monks in threadbare robes begging for donations to fix a tumbledown refectory; university theologians steeped in the brutally dense works of Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham who spent their time teaching students and arguing about scholastic philosophy; devout laywomen, reading books of hours in the privacy of their prosperous homes; sword-swinging Hospitaller Knights, soldier-monks in armor and black habits, beheading Muslim sailors on the decks of galleys under a blue Mediterranean sky. The Church was all of these things: corrupt and saintly, worldly and mystical, impossibly wealthy and desperately impoverished.

When one theologian of the period says that the “priority” for the prophets is “spiritual repentance” and not “socio-economic reform,” that assumes the spiritual and material are separated in a way they are clearly not by the prophets.39 Isaiah 1 urges socioeconomic reform (“Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow”) and spiritual repentance (“Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow”) in the span of two verses (vv. 17–18).

Franzmann, a Bible interpreter and theologian, was also a hymn writer. In a hymn on the Reformation, he concludes with a beautiful, unforgettable prayer. He asks that the Holy Spirit would breathe on his “cloven church once more, That in these gray and latter days, There may be men whose life is praise, Each life a high doxology, to Father, Son, and unto Thee.”3 When our theology becomes doxology, it not only is sung but creates lives of “high doxology”—lives in which we truly no longer live, but having been crucified with Christ, we live in and through him (cf. Gal. 2:20). As Jesus prayed, “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us. . . . I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one” (John 17:21, 23).

Pragmatically, there is an evident need for the continuation of many of the functions of the original apostles. This would include church planting, laying good foundations in churches, continuing to oversee those churches, appointing the leaders, giving ongoing fatherly care to leaders, and handling difficult questions that may arise from those churches. There are really only three ways for churches to carry out these functions: 1. Each church is free to act totally independently and to seek God’s mind for its own government and pastoral wisdom, without any help from outside, unless the church may choose to seek it at any particular time. When we started the church which I am still a part of, for example, we were so concerned to be ‘independent’ that we would not even join the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, although we adopted their trust deed and constitution because that would prevent us being purely independent. We were at that time very proud of our ‘independence’! 2. Churches operate under some sort of structured and formal oversight, as in many denominations today, where local church leaders are appointed by and accountable to regional leadership, whether ‘bishops’, ‘superintendents’ or ‘overseers’. It is hard to justify this model from the pages of the New Testament, though we recognize that it developed very early in church history. Even the word episkopos, translated ‘bishop’ or ‘overseer’, which came to be used of those having wider authority and oversight over other leaders and churches, was used in the New Testament as a synonym for the local leaders or elders of a particular church. The three main forms of church government current in the institutional church are Episcopalianism (government by bishops), Presbyterianism (government by local elders) and Congregationalism (government by the church meeting). Each of these is only a partial reflection of the New Testament. Commenting on these forms of government without apostolic ministry, Phil Greenslade says, ‘We assert as our starting point what the other three viewpoints deny: that the apostolic role is as valid and vital today as ever before. This is to agree with the German charismatic theologian, Arnold Bittlinger, when he says “the New Testament nowhere suggests that the apostolic ministry was intended only for first-century Christians”.’39 3. We aim to imitate the New Testament practice of travelling ministries of apostles and prophets, with apostles having their own spheres of responsibility as a result of having planted and laid the foundations in the churches they oversee. Such ministries continue the connection with local churches as a result of fatherly relationships and not denominational election or appointment, recognizing that there will need to be new charismatically gifted and friendship-based relationships continuing into later generations. This is the model that the ‘New Apostolic Reformation’ (to use Peter Wagner’s phrase) is attempting to follow. Though mistakes have been made, including some quite serious ones involving controlling authority, and though those of us involved are still seeking to find our way with the Holy Spirit’s help, it seems to reflect more accurately the New Testament pattern and a present-day outworking of scriptures such as 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4. ‘Is the building finished? Is the Bride ready? Is the Body full-grown, are the saints completely equipped? Has the church attained its ordained unity and maturity? Only if the answer to these questions is “yes” can we dispense with apostolic ministry. But as long as the church is still growing up into Christ, who is its head, this ministry is needed. If the church of Jesus Christ is to grow faster than the twentieth century population explosion, which I assume to be God’s intention, then we will need to produce, recognize and use Pauline apostles.’40

It has been a great source of sadness to me to see two schools of thought within the evangelical church over many decades. Those who come glorying in manifestations of power sometimes seem dismissive of those whom they regard as “cold theologians.” I once heard a man speaking at a large conference say that theology was the enemy of the church and if only we could abandon doctrinal perspectives, the church would be a happier place. What tragic nonsense! We also see and hear those who love theological insight and savour the doctrines of Scripture expressing equally dismissive remarks about Christians who are enjoying God’s power, as though they were mere children preoccupied with experience. How I long for a recovery of true biblical Christianity where the apostle Paul, who wrote the book of Romans, also raised the dead! It seems that profound theology and great signs and wonders happily cohabited in Paul’s life and ministry.

The first distinctive of the Biblical Gospel over against the message taught by Rome was the role of God. Rather than God simply providing a way of salvation, the Reformers discovered that the Bible taught that God actually saved men. That is, rather than salvation being dependent upon men’s striving to take advantage of the plan made available by God, the real Gospel taught that God was able to save men independent of any action on man’s part. God, the Reformers taught, was absolutely sovereign in the matter of salvation. He had, from time immemorial, chosen, elected, predestined to save certain men and bring them into fellowship with Himself, and, since God will never fail to do that which He purposes, those whom God has chosen will be saved! Rather than a man-centered message that made the operative factor man and man’s will and decisions, the Bible presented a God-centered message in line with the words of the Psalmist, “Our God is in heaven; He does whatever pleases Him” (Psalm 115:3). Next, the Reformers found that the Biblical teaching about man was very different than the elaborate system worked out by medieval theologians such as Thomas Aquinas. They found that sin had affected all of man, to the point that Paul could say, “There is none righteous, there is none who understands, there is not one who seeks after God” (Romans 3:10-11). This meant that even man’s will was enslaved to evil, incapable of seeking after God or doing right. Outside of the sovereign work of God by the Holy Spirit, man was utterly helpless to even will to be saved, let alone be saved through whatever system of works, ceremonies, penances, etc. that might be presented. “And you, being dead in your transgressions...” (Eph. 2:1) is how the Apostle expressed it. Dead in sin, not just wounded by sin, deprived of some original righteousness by sin, hindered by sin. This was a radical concept in that day, for it clearly meant that all the “aids” or “helps” that could possibly be concocted would be of no avail to someone who is dead! No amount of sacraments could help a dead person—God had to act first to bring spiritual life. This also meant that faith and repentance had to be gifts of God, for they were not within the ability of sinful man.

Further, theologians as well as laypeople came to believe that Eve’s female descendants were temptresses, as well. Luther, on the other hand, thought Adam and Eve both sinned because of unbelief.4 Luther also believed that depicting women as sources of temptation and wickedness bordered on blasphemy.5 Women were created by God, and God’s work should not be criticized. “Thus we are: I a man, you a woman, just as God made us, to be honored and respected as Godly work. Man has no right to despise or scoff at woman’s body or character, nor has woman any right to denigrate man. Rather each should honor the appearance and body of the other as a divine good work, an achievement that is pleasing even to God Himself.”6

What if, Paxton questioned, the Adventist church’s teaching about justification contradicts this central emphasis of the Reformation? What if there is a fundamental difference between the Adventist teaching on justification and that of the Reformers? If Adventist teaching about justification—a doctrine crucial to the Protestant Reformers—contradicted that of the Reformation itself, how can Adventists then logically claim to be a continuation of the work of the Reformers? How can they say they are in continuity with the Protestant Reformation? This was the question Paxton insistently posed.

One Reformed theologian, A. A. Hodge, gives the following list of distinctions between true assurance and false assurance: TRUE ASSURANCE FALSE ASSURANCE begets unfeigned humility begets spiritual pride leads to diligence in holiness leads to slothful indulgence leads to honest self-examination avoids accurate evaluation leads to desire for more intimate fellowship with God is cold toward fellowship with God

Junius was one of the most highly regarded Reformed theologians in Europe. Junius was renowned for his labors as an exegete and translator of the New Testament and for a series of major treatises, the most influential of which, De theologia vera (True Theology), is here for the first time translated into English.

natural theology. The discipline that attempts to gain knowledge of God apart from any special revelation from God. Natural theologians have typically tried to infer God’s existence through theistic arguments such as the cosmological and teleological arguments as well as by reflecting on generic human experience. Catholic theology has traditionally affirmed the value of natural theology, while many Protestants, especially from the Reformed tradition, have been less enthusiastic about its prospects.

Most people who follow the old school regarding the post-Reformation have never actually read much or maybe even anything by post-Reformation theologians and preachers. They simply repeat what they were told by their professors in seminary, or what they have read in books that follow the Calvin versus the Calvinists paradigm. The result is a continuing prejudice against these theologians. This is unfortunate because there is a lot that can be learned from studying the writings of these men – both their scholastic academic works, and their sermons and other writings for non-theologians. Through these men too, our Saviour has worked to gather, defend, and preserve his church. For our brothers in the post-Reformation too, we can give thanks to our gracious sovereign God.

Influential Swiss theologian and leader of *dialectical theology, known for, among other things, his opposition to liberalism, his emphatic Christocentrism and his fresh approach to *revelation. He

The Swiss current of Reformed theology of Francis Turretin and Johann Heinrich Heidegger differed from the French approach exemplified by the Academy of Saumur. The northern German Reformed line of Bremen or of the Middle-European Herborn Academy differed from that of the Franeker theologians in the tradition of William Ames. At Leiden, the Cocceian or federalist approach was not identical with the Voetian project at Utrecht. Likewise, the British variety of Reformed theology (John Owen, Richard Baxter), with all its diversity, and the several types of Reformed teaching on the Continent each had an emphasis of their own. Methodologically, this means that we no longer can canonize Geneva, or contrast a non-scholastic Calvin with the later scholastic Calvinists as if they represented a uniform movement.

Peter of Blois, a medieval theologian who died nearly three hundred years before Luther was born, expressed a sense of gratitude for the Christian writers of antiquity which should also characterize our attitude toward the reformers of the sixteenth century: “We are like dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants; thanks to them, we see farther than they. Busying ourselves with the treatises written by the ancients, we take their choice thoughts, buried by age and human neglect, and we raise them, as it were, from death to renewed life.

She married Luther in 1525 and became actively involved in his ministry and helped to provide for them financially by managing their household, farm, brewery and other properties. As the wife of such a prominent theologian, she helped promote a positive view of Protestant family life. Together they had six children, four of whom survived to adulthood.

Craig Blaising. In his effort to reform the dispensational tradition, Blaising looks back regretfully over several generations infected by “a methodological deficiency in the very hermeneutic that it proposed.” Blaising accurately notes that, like most of fundamentalism and evangelicalism at the time [into the 1960s], [dispensationalism] possessed no methodological awareness of the historicity of interpretation.... Furthermore, this hermeneutical deficiency was structured into the very meaning of dispensational thought and practice in its advocacy of clear, plain, normal, or literal interpretation.... We have, then, a generation of theologians who find identity in a self-conscious hermeneutic that lacks methodological awareness of the historical nature of interpretation — a situation that under the pressures of apologetical exigencies seems particularly vulnerable to the danger of anachronism. In more general terms, Blaising observes that “the problem is the failure to recognize that all theological thought, including one’s own theological thought, is historically conditioned by the tradition to which that theologian belongs as well as personal and cultural factors such as education or experience.

Current religiosity and ethics, especially those that replace the story of the cross with demands for social reform, have produced many a theology of glory. It still flourishes along with its attendant despair. There is no cure through the law. It will take some dying. So we are already on the way to the cross.

Much of the church rapidly lost the Reformers’ consciousness of the noetic effects of sin, the impact of fallen human nature in darkening the unregenerate mind. Later theologians readily forgot that sin generates an unconscious drive to construct systems of understanding the world which suppress the knowledge of the real God, systems which deform and distort the facts and theories they incorporate.

Himalayan Sonneteer Sonnet 9 I don't obey the law, I write them. I am the school where reformers, And public servants learn the rudiments. I don't follow science, I am science. I am the university where scientists, Shrinks 'n philosophers develop sapience. I believe in no God, I am walking Godliness. I am the cosmic record that makes, Monks and theologians grow sentience. I am the end of all half-knowledge, I am the beginning of sight beyond sight. Whoever finds me in their heart's mirror, Can never be tamed by apish fright.

I don't obey the law, I write them. I am the school where reformers, And public servants learn the rudiments. I am the university where scientists, Shrinks 'n philosophers develop sapience. I am the cosmic record that makes, Monks and theologians grow sentience. I am the end of all half-knowledge, I am the beginning of sight beyond sight. Whoever finds me in their heart's mirror, Can never be tamed by apish fright.

I don’t know.” The cat says, “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.” Many people today are like that. They have no idea where they are and no clue where they’re going. Their whole lives consist of wandering about aimlessly, without purpose, design, meaning, or significance. It’s one thing to be lost; it’s another to be lost and not know it. When a person is in that state, it is inevitable that they will experience a crisis and realize they have no idea where they are or how they got there. God puts a priority on seeking people like that. After the lost coin and the lost sheep, Jesus turns His attention to people. The parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–32) is a familiar story, and it’s important to keep the focus where it belongs: not on the lost son, but on the father and his great joy at the repentance and return of the son. When the father sees his son far off, he races down the road and embraces him, kills the fatted calf, gives the signet ring to him, and clothes him with a cloak of honor. As he says to the older brother, “It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found” (v. 32). This parable tells us what God is like. He runs after the lost, and He rejoices when one person is redeemed. That is the mission of the church, and each of us has a responsibility to make sure that the lost are sought and found. We’re not dealing with coins or sheep, and we’re not dealing with dogs or keys. We are dealing with people whom Christ loves. He said so Himself. About the Author Dr. R.C. Sproul was founder of Ligonier Ministries, founding pastor of Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Fla., first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine. His radio program, Renewing Your Mind, is still broadcast daily on hundreds of radio stations around the world and can also be heard online. He was author of more than one hundred books, including The Holiness of God, Chosen by God, and Everyone’s a Theologian. He was recognized throughout the world for his articulate defense of the inerrancy of Scripture and the need for God’s people to stand with conviction upon His Word.

Justification by grace through faith” is the theologian’s learned phrase for what Chesterton once called “the furious love of God.” He is not moody or capricious; He knows no seasons of change. He has a single relentless stance toward us: He loves us. He is the only God man has ever heard of who loves sinners. False gods—the gods of human manufacturing—despise sinners, but the Father of Jesus loves all, no matter what they do. But of course, this is almost too incredible for us to accept. Nevertheless, the central affirmation of the Reformation stands: Through no merit of ours, but by His mercy, we have been restored to a right relationship with God through the life, death, and resurrection of His beloved Son. This is the Good News, the gospel of grace.

Suzuki-roshi's students in America were laypeople who practiced like monks. This seemed so innovative, so unprecedented, that scholars and theologians told the students at Zen Center that they were the vanguard of a Buddhist reformation. And Suzuki-roshi apparently believed this was true. He had asked Richard to reform Buddhism in Japan. But seen from Japan, the Zen Center model might have looked like backwards Buddhism. For almost two hundred years, the monks in Japan had been practicing as laypeople. When Suzuki-roshi arrived in America, he inverted the model by necessity; he had to begin with laypeople because there were no American monks. It was a long road from Sokoji to Tassajara. But they got there. They escaped from the world and holed up in a monastery. And then they transformed Tassajara. And it began to look a lot like Eiheiji. During services, the Americans even managed to chant in Japanese. What was the big difference? The distinction was really a matter of degree. What distinguished the Americans from the Japanese was their determination to sustain the intensity of monastic practice after they left the monastery.

The Irish Articles contain Reformation themes that also are found in the work of other Reformed theologians. The Thirty-Nine Articles (1563) are also important, though, because Ussher used many of its statements in the Irish Articles; indeed, the Thirty-Nine Articles not only were used by the Church of England, but were adopted in 1560 by the Irish Anglican church.7 The Thirty-Nine Articles also served, in a sense, as a source document for the Westminster Standards, as the Westminster divines originally were given the task of revising the articles before they were called upon to write a new confession of faith and catechisms.

For centuries the church, while affirming Genesis 2 and the goodness of marriage, conceded the distractions of domestic life. One medieval solution proposed to divide the “housekeeping” among the people of God. Married people would tend to “earth” while monks and nuns, who renounced marriage, would do the work of heaven, praying “for the world, in the world’s stead.”7 During the Reformation, theologians like John Calvin and Martin Luther abolished what had become a sacrosanct division between celibates and married. By developing the concept of vocation, they taught that domestic obligation could be rendered as service to God, just as prayer and fasting were forms of worship: “Everyone [was] now expected to live all their lives coram Deo; before the face of God.”8 At the most fundamental level, vocation became a Christological category—a way of baptizing the housekeeping as sacred duty performed to God in the service of one’s neighbor.

Let us review. Because no man has been saved in any way other than through the grace of God since the fall, the Reformed considered that there had been only one covenant of grace in the whole history of redemption. The covenant of grace was the substance by which seventeenth-century theologians united the Bible, from whence came their paradigm: one covenant under several administrations. In establishing a distinction between the internal substance and the external administration of the covenant of grace, the Presbyterians managed to maintain the unity of this covenant while admitting a certain disparity between

the different administrations. What is more, by separating the substance and administration, the paedobaptists introduced a notion of mixed nature within the covenant of grace by which they explained that “unconverted” people could be in the covenant without taking part in its substance, yet being hermetically contained in its administration. Finally, in considering the old and new covenants simply as administrations of the same covenant by insisting on the identity of their substance, the paedobaptists perpetuated a principle given to Abraham: “I will be your God and the God of your posterity.” This principle allowed the paedobaptists to consider their children as members of the covenant of grace and to justify a legitimate place for them—that of the unregenerate who participate nevertheless in the covenant of grace and who receive the seal: formerly circumcision, now baptism. This understanding of the covenant of grace was very widespread amongst the Reformed theologians of the seventeenth century.

The answer depends on what is meant by the word free. In some senses of the word free, everyone agrees that we are free in our will and in our choices. Even prominent theologians in the Reformed or Calvinistic tradition concur. Both Louis Berkhof in his Systematic Theology (pp. 103, 173) and John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion16 are willing to speak in some sense of the “free” acts and choices of man.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism was written in 1646 by a group of English, Irish, and Scottish Reformed theologians. It begins with the question, “What is the chief end of man?” and offers the reply, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

Let God be good,” cried Erasmus the moralist. “Let God be God,” replied Luther the theologian. Although

From the period of development to the present, Reformed theologians have debated the finer points (particularly the relation of the Sinai covenant to the covenant of grace). Nevertheless, a consensus emerged (evident, for example, in the Westminster Confession) affirming the three covenants I have mentioned: the eternal covenant of redemption; the covenant of works; and the covenant of grace. With these last two covenants, Reformed theology affirmed (with Lutheranism) the crucial distinction between law and gospel, but within a more concrete biblical-historical framework...Ironically, just at the moment when so much Protestant biblical scholarship is rejecting a sharp distinction between law and gospel, Ancient Near Eastern scholars from Jewish and Roman Catholic traditions have demonstrated the accuracy of that seminal distinction between covenant of law and covenants of promise. P.13

This was the side which Ruskin acted up when he stayed as Gladstone’s guest – ‘We had a conversation once about Quakers,’ Gladstone recalled, ‘and I remarked how feeble was their theology and how great their social influence. As theologians, they have merely insisted on one or two points of Christian doctrine, but what good work they have achieved socially! – Why, they have reformed prisons, they have abolished slavery, and denounced war.’ To which Ruskin answered, ‘I am really sorry, but I am afraid I don’t think that prisons ought to be reformed, I don’t think slavery ought to have been abolished, and I don’t think war ought to be denounced.

What does it mean to be a Christian? Charles Hodge, one of the great nineteenth-century Reformed theologians, sees the answer in this text: “It is being so constrained by a sense of the love of our divine Lord to us, that we consecrate our lives to him.”6

If revival should ever occur, it will revolve around the energetic resolve of doctrinally accurate church members, ministers and theologians of our day bound together in the truth.  Revival has often happened when the country or state is under their greatest duress of sin and blindness.  However, no matter how far a country or state may sink into sin, or despise the Gospel, revival will never occur at the expense of the truth.  Wickliffe was in his Roman Catholic Oxford, Huss in his dark Bohemia, and Luther was in his religiously superstitious Germany.  Calvin and Zwingli were Roman Catholic priests turned Christian in a politically tender Switzerland, and the Scottish Presbyterians were facing the onslaught of a Roman Catholic persecution.  This is how God brings revival – in deep darkness and distress, but never at the expense of the truth.  For, as our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ said, only the truth shall set you free.

Reformed theologians, however, self-consciously see the doctrine of God as informing the whole scope of Christian theology. That’s one of the reasons why Calvinists tend to focus so much on the Old Testament. We’re concerned about the character of God as defining everything—our understanding of Christ, our understanding of ourselves, our understanding of salvation.

(1) Karl Barth was not an evangelical. He was a European Protestant wrestling with how to salvage Protestant Christianity in the wake of World War I, which exposed the debacle of liberal theology. Barth was not an inerrantist or a revivalist, and he was wrestling with a different array of issues than the “battle for the Bible.” (2) Karl Barth is on the side of the good guys when it comes to the major ecumenical doctrines about the Trinity and the atonement. Barth is decidedly orthodox and Reformed in his basic stance, though he sees the councils and confessions mainly as guidelines rather than holy writ. (3) Karl Barth arguably gives evangelicals some good tips about how to do theology over and against liberalism. Keep in mind that Karl Barth’s main sparring partner was not Billy Graham or the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, but the European liberal tradition from Friedrich Schleiermacher to Albert Ritschl. For a case in point, whereas Schleiermacher made the Trinity an appendix to his book on Christian Faith because it was irrelevant to religious experience, Barth made the Trinity first and foremost in his Church Dogmatics, which was Barth’s way of saying, “Suck on that one, Schleiermacher!” (4) Evangelicals and the neoorthodox tend to be rather hostile toward each other. Many evangelicals regard the neoorthodox as nothing more than liberalism reloaded, while many neoorthodox theologians regard evangelicals as a more culturally savvy version of fundamentalism. Not true on either score. Evangelicalism and neoorthodoxy are both theological renewal movements trying to find a biblical and orthodox center in the post-Enlightenment era. The evangelicals left fundamentalism and edged left toward a workable orthodox center. The neoorthodox left liberalism and edged right toward a workable orthodox center. Thus, evangelicalism and neoorthodoxy are more like sibling rivals striving to be the heirs of the Reformers in the post-Enlightenment age. There is much in Karl Barth that evangelicals can benefit from. His theology is arguably the most christocentric ever devised. He has a strong emphasis on God’s transcendence, freedom, love, and “otherness.” Barth stresses the singular power and authority of the Word of God in its threefold form of “Incarnation, Preaching, and Scripture.” Barth strove with others like Karl Rahner to restore the Trinity to its place of importance in modern Christian thought. He was a leader in the Confessing Church until he was expelled from Germany by the Nazi regime. He preached weekly in the Basel prison. His collection of prayers contain moving accounts of his own piety and devotion to God. There is, of course, much to be critical of as well. Barth’s doctrine of election implied a universalism that he could never exegetically reconcile. Barth never could regard Scripture as God’s Word per se as much as it was an instrument for becoming God’s Word. He never took evangelicalism all that seriously, as evidenced by his famous retort to Carl Henry that Christianity Today was Christianity Yesterday. Barth’s theology, pro and con, is something that we must engage if we are to understand the state of modern theology. The best place to start to get your head around Barth is his Evangelical Theology, but note that for Barth, “evangelical” (evangelische) means basically “not Catholic” rather than something like American evangelicalism. Going beyond that, his Göttingen Dogmatics or Dogmatics in Outline is a step up where Barth begins to assemble a system of theology based on his understanding of the Word of God. Then one might like to launch into his multivolume Church Dogmatics with the kind assistance of Geoffrey Bromiley’s Introduction to the Theology of Karl Barth, which conveniently summarizes each section of Church Dogmatics.

Another reformer before Luther was the Bohemian Jan Hus, who was born in 1369 and became a theologian at Prague University. Hus was greatly influenced by Wycliffe and spoke strongly against indulgences and the papacy, specifically criticizing the pope for his use of military power, holding that the church could not wield the sword. Hus was condemned as a heretic at the Council of Constance and suffered burning at the stake in 1415. But his followers, known as Hussites, continued the movement long after his death.

One of the responsibilities of the pastor as political theologian, then, is to help the people of God “read” the festivals of their own polis, whether the annual militarized Thanksgiving festivals that feature gladiators from Dallas or the rituals of mutual display and haughty purity that suffuse online regions of “social justice.” Our politics is never merely electoral. The polis doesn’t just rear to life on the first Tuesday of November. Elections are not liturgies; they are events. The politics of the earthly city is carried in a web of rituals strung between one occasional ballot box and the next. Good political theology pierces through this, unveils it—not to help the people of God withdraw but to equip them to be sent into the thick of it.

Until the Reformation, universities were chartered by ecclesiastical authorities to further the mission of the church and to supply the church with canon lawyers and learned clergy.34

clearly the pastoral office was considered a viable vocation for theologians during the Reformation and post-Reformation eras.45 Conclusion The pastor theologian has had a

Wanting to hold on to some form of scriptural value, [modern] theologians modified their view of inspiration. One approach reduced its inspired character to religious-ethical matters only and allowed for all kinds of historical, geographical, and other error. The Word of God was to be distinguished from Scripture. Only doctrine is immediately inspired; in the rest error was easily possible. A split was created between “that which is needed for salvation” and “the incidentally historical.” This distinction is impossible; in Scripture, doctrine and history are completely intertwined.

Whoever says that God wills sin does not know what God or sin is. For sinning is always to do or to omit something against the will of God, 1 John 2:5-6.

Some historians make very modest claims about the world behind the text; others construct metanarratives of their own. N. T. Wright identifies himself as a historian with a mandate to understand the New Testament authors in light of their own historical context (Second Temple Judaism); the alternative to reading them on their own terms in their own world is to misinterpret them.57 In Wright’s opinion, this is precisely what patristic and Reformation theologians have done with doctrines like justification by faith: “If you want to understand how ideas and phrases are used in the first century it helps to look at the first century, not the fourth century [i.e., Nicaea] . . . (still less the sixteenth century AD [i.e., the Reformation]!).

Running through the works of the great theologians—like Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Owen, and Jonathan Edwards—is the grand theme of the majesty of God. These men stood in awe before his holiness. This posture of reverence and adoration is found throughout the pages of Scripture itself. Calvin writes: Hence that dread and amazement with which, as Scripture uniformly relates, holy men were struck and overwhelmed whenever they beheld the presence of God. When we see those who previously stood firm and secure so quaking with terror, that the fear of death takes hold of them, nay, they are, in a manner, swallowed up and annihilated, the inference to be drawn is, that men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance, until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God. Frequent examples of this consternation occur both in the Book of Judges and the Prophetical Writings [Judg. 13:22; Isa. 6:5; Ezek. 1:28; 3:14; Job 9:4; Gen. 18:27; 1 Kings 19:18]; so much so, that it was a common expression among the people of God, “We shall die, for we have seen the Lord.”7

The professor Craig Dykstra of Duke Divinity School once said, “The life of the Christian faith is the practice of many practices.”[21] What I’m calling “the practices,” most people call “the spiritual disciplines.”[22] My friend and co-worker Strahan calls them “altars of availability.” Ruth Haley Barton calls them “sacred rhythms”;[23] the late pastor Eugene Peterson, “rhythms of grace”;[24] Reformed theologians, “means of grace.”[25] But to translate into a more secular vernacular, they are essentially habits that are based on the life (read: lifestyle) of Jesus.

Church history has had its share of detractors who view libertarian free will as hazardous to the Christian faith. In 1757, the philosopher, theologian, and pastor, Jonathan Edwards, wrote in a letter: I think the notion of liberty, consisting in a contingent self determination of the will, as necessary to morality of men’s dispositions and actions almost inconceivably pernicious.… Notions of this kind are one of the main hindrances of the success of the preaching of the Word, and other means of grace in the conversion of sinners.

【V信83113305】：Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) stands as a prominent institution in American theological education, committed to the Reformed tradition rooted in the authority of Scripture and the historic Westminster Confession. With multiple campuses across the United States, RTS offers a rigorous curriculum designed to equip students for ministry, scholarship, and cultural engagement. Its faculty, comprising respected theologians and practitioners, emphasizes the integration of biblical truth with practical ministry application. The seminary’s distinctives include a strong focus on grace-centered theology, expository preaching, and missional outreach. By fostering spiritual formation and intellectual depth, RTS continues to shape leaders who serve the global church with theological fidelity and pastoral compassion.，【V信83113305】定制-改革宗神学院毕业证RTS毕业证书,改革宗神学院毕业证RTS毕业证学校原版100%一样,RTS改革宗神学院毕业证书加急制作,RTS改革宗神学院毕业证学校原版一样吗,加急定制-RTS学位证改革宗神学院毕业证书,一比一制作-RTS文凭证书改革宗神学院毕业证,百分比满意度-RTS改革宗神学院毕业证,100%满意-RTS毕业证改革宗神学院学位证,100%收到-RTS毕业证书改革宗神学院毕业证,100%加急制作-RTS毕业证学校原版一样

【V信83113305】：Calvin University, located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is a distinguished comprehensive Christian institution in the Reformed tradition. Founded in 1876, it is named after the influential Protestant theologian John Calvin. The university is renowned for its rigorous academic programs that seamlessly integrate faith with learning across disciplines. Students are encouraged to explore the world through a lens of deep Christian conviction, preparing them for purposeful lives of service and leadership. With a strong commitment to academic excellence, a vibrant campus community, and a global perspective, Calvin University provides a transformative education that challenges students to think critically, act justly, and live wholeheartedly as Christ's agents of renewal in the world.，【V信83113305】做今年新版CU毕业证,制作美国文凭CU毕业证,高端定制CU毕业证留信认证,高端原版CU毕业证办理流程,在线办理CU毕业证offer外壳皮,在线办理CU毕业证本科硕士成绩单方法,如何办理CU毕业证一比一定制,快速办理CU毕业证如何放心,硕士博士学历CU毕业证-卡尔文大学毕业证书-真实copy原件,办理美国-CU毕业证书卡尔文大学毕业证

【V信83113305】：Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) stands as a prominent institution in American theological education, committed to the Reformed tradition and the inerrancy of Scripture. With multiple campuses across the United States, RTS offers a rigorous curriculum designed to equip students for ministry, scholarship, and service. Its faculty, composed of respected theologians and practitioners, emphasizes a blend of academic excellence and heartfelt piety. The seminary is known for its strong emphasis on biblical authority, covenantal theology, and the practical application of Reformed doctrine in contemporary contexts. Graduates of RTS often go on to serve in pastoral roles, missions, academia, and various parachurch organizations, contributing significantly to evangelical communities worldwide.，原版RTS改革宗神学院毕业证书办理流程, 办改革宗神学院毕业证RTSuniversity, 修改RTS改革宗神学院成绩单电子版gpa实现您的学业目标, RTS毕业证书改革宗神学院毕业证诚信办理, 加急办改革宗神学院文凭学位证书成绩单gpa修改, Offer(Reformed Theological Seminary成绩单)改革宗神学院如何办理?, 百分比满意度-改革宗神学院毕业证, Reformed Theological Seminary改革宗神学院多少钱, 网络办理RTS毕业证-改革宗神学院毕业证书-学位证书

【V信83113305】：Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary (PUTS) in South Korea stands as a premier institution for Reformed theological education. Rooted in the historic Christian faith and the rich tradition of Presbyterianism, it is dedicated to cultivating scholarly pastors, missionaries, and theologians. The university offers a comprehensive range of programs, from undergraduate to doctoral studies, integrating rigorous academic research with deep spiritual formation. Its curriculum emphasizes a faithful interpretation of Scripture, preparing graduates for effective ministry in a global context. As a central hub for theological discourse in Asia, PUTS significantly contributes to the global church through its commitment to orthodoxy, mission, and the advancement of theological scholarship.，장로회신학대학교diploma장로회신학대학교长老会神学大学挂科处理解决方案, 原版定制장로회신학대학교毕业证书案例, 办理长老会神学大学毕业证, 网络在线办理长老会神学大学毕业证文凭学历证书, 长老会神学大学毕业证购买, 长老会神学大学挂科了怎么办？Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary毕业证成绩单专业服务, 网上补办장로회신학대학교长老会神学大学毕业证成绩单多少钱, 长老会神学大学毕业证认证, 장로회신학대학교毕业证最安全办理办法

【V信83113305】：Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) stands as a prominent institution in American theological education, committed to the Reformed tradition and the inerrancy of Scripture. With multiple campuses across the United States, RTS offers a rigorous curriculum designed to equip students for ministry, missions, and academic pursuits. Rooted in a confessional commitment to doctrines such as sola scriptura and covenant theology, the seminary emphasizes both scholarly excellence and heartfelt piety. Its faculty, comprised of respected theologians and practitioners, fosters an environment where critical thinking and spiritual formation converge. RTS graduates serve globally, influencing churches and communities through faithful biblical exposition and Reformed distinctives, reinforcing the seminary’s mission to serve the church and advance the Kingdom of God.，【V信83113305】没-改革宗神学院毕业证书RTS挂科了怎么补救,RTS-diploma安全可靠购买改革宗神学院毕业证,网络办理RTS毕业证-改革宗神学院毕业证书-学位证书,加急办RTS文凭学位证书成绩单gpa修改,RTS毕业证认证PDF成绩单,RTS-pdf电子毕业证,最安全购买RTS毕业证方法,666办理RTS毕业证最佳渠道

【V信83113305】：Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) stands as a prominent institution in American theological education, committed to the Reformed tradition and the inerrancy of Scripture. With multiple campuses across the United States, RTS offers a rigorous curriculum designed to equip students for ministry, scholarship, and leadership. Its faculty, composed of respected theologians and practitioners, emphasizes a blend of academic excellence and heartfelt piety. The seminary’s distinctives include a strong focus on covenant theology, biblical counseling, and missional engagement. By integrating deep theological training with practical application, RTS prepares graduates to serve faithfully in diverse cultural contexts, advancing the gospel with Reformed clarity and conviction.，办理RTS改革宗神学院成绩单高质量保密的个性化服务, 制作美国文凭RTS毕业证, 专业办理改革宗神学院成绩单高质学位证书服务, 100%学历RTS改革宗神学院毕业证成绩单制作, 美国RTS毕业证仪式感|购买改革宗神学院学位证, 办理RTS文凭, 正版美国毕业证文凭学历证书, 加急定制-RTS学位证改革宗神学院毕业证书, RTS毕业证最稳最快办理方式

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【V信83113305】：Westminster Theological Seminary stands as a prominent institution in the landscape of Reformed theological education. Founded in 1929 in Philadelphia, it was established by a group of scholars, most notably J. Gresham Machen, who sought to uphold the authority of Scripture and the historic Christian faith in the face of growing liberal theology. The seminary is renowned for its rigorous academic programs and its deep commitment to the Westminster Standards. Its faculty has included some of the most influential evangelical and Reformed theologians of the 20th century, shaping generations of pastors, scholars, and missionaries. While historically connected to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, its influence extends globally, championing a vision of theology that is both confessional and culturally engaged.，修改Westminster Theological Seminary威斯敏斯特神学院成绩单电子版gpa让学历更出色, 高质威斯敏斯特神学院成绩单办理安全可靠的文凭服务, 出售威斯敏斯特神学院研究生学历文凭, WTS留学成绩单毕业证, 100%办理WTS毕业证书, 美国Westminster Theological Seminary毕业证仪式感|购买Westminster Theological Seminary威斯敏斯特神学院学位证, WTS威斯敏斯特神学院毕业证成绩单制作, 办威斯敏斯特神学院毕业证成绩单, 威斯敏斯特神学院颁发典礼学术荣誉颁奖感受博士生的光荣时刻

【V信83113305】：Westminster Theological Seminary stands as a prominent institution in the landscape of Reformed and evangelical theological education. Founded in 1929 in Philadelphia, it emerged from a commitment to preserve the historic Christian faith and the inerrancy of Scripture, principles championed by Old Princeton theologians like B.B. Warfield and J. Gresham Machen, who was its first president. The seminary is renowned for its rigorous academic program, deeply rooted in the Westminster Standards, which emphasizes the systematic study of theology, biblical languages, and practical ministry application. It has profoundly influenced global Protestantism through its faculty and alumni, producing pastors, scholars, and missionaries dedicated to thoughtful, confessional Reformed theology. The seminary continues to be a vital center for cultivating robust theological thought and pastoral excellence.，【V信83113305】没-威斯敏斯特神学院毕业证书WTS挂科了怎么补救,WTS-diploma安全可靠购买威斯敏斯特神学院毕业证,网络办理WTS毕业证-威斯敏斯特神学院毕业证书-学位证书,加急办WTS文凭学位证书成绩单gpa修改,WTS毕业证认证PDF成绩单,WTS-pdf电子毕业证,最安全购买WTS毕业证方法,666办理WTS毕业证最佳渠道

【V信83113305】：Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary (PUTS) in South Korea stands as a premier institution for Reformed theological education. Rooted in the historic Presbyterian tradition, it is dedicated to cultivating scholarly pastors, missionaries, and theologians who serve with deep faith and academic rigor. The university offers a comprehensive curriculum spanning undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs, integrating robust theological training with practical ministry skills. Its vibrant academic community is committed to Scriptural authority, spiritual formation, and global missional engagement. As a center for theological reflection and innovation, PUTS profoundly contributes to the Korean church and worldwide Christian communities, preparing leaders to faithfully address contemporary challenges.，出售장로회신학대학교证书哪里能购买장로회신학대학교毕业证, Presbyterian University and Theological Seminarydiploma安全可靠购买Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary毕业证, 장로회신학대학교长老会神学大学毕业证最安全办理办法, 장로회신학대학교本科毕业证, 장로회신학대학교长老会神学大学多少钱, 网络快速办理장로회신학대학교毕业证成绩单, 长老会神学大学毕业证장로회신학대학교毕业证学校原版100%一样, 办理장로회신학대학교长老会神学大学毕业证成绩单学历认证, 장로회신학대학교毕业证书长老会神学大学毕业证诚信办理

【V信83113305】：Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) stands as a prominent institution in American theological education, committed to the Reformed tradition and the inerrancy of Scripture. With multiple campuses across the United States, RTS offers a robust curriculum designed to equip students for ministry, scholarship, and missional engagement. Its faculty, composed of respected theologians and practitioners, emphasizes a blend of rigorous academic training and heartfelt spiritual formation. The seminary’s distinctives include a strong focus on covenant theology, biblical counseling, and global missions, all rooted in a deep commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ. RTS continues to shape church leaders who are theologically grounded, pastorally sensitive, and culturally engaged, serving both the church and the world with faithfulness and vision.，办理RTS改革宗神学院成绩单高质量保密的个性化服务, 制作美国文凭改革宗神学院毕业证, RTS改革宗神学院原版购买, 改革宗神学院毕业证学历认证, 改革宗神学院毕业证成绩单学历认证最安全办理方式, 高端RTS改革宗神学院毕业证办理流程, 原版RTS改革宗神学院毕业证办理流程, 安全办理-改革宗神学院文凭RTS毕业证学历认证, 1:1原版Reformed Theological Seminary改革宗神学院毕业证+Reformed Theological Seminary成绩单

【V信83113305】：Westminster Theological Seminary stands as a prominent institution in the landscape of American theological education. Founded in 1929 in Philadelphia, it was established by a group of scholars, most notably J. Gresham Machen, who sought to uphold the historic Christian faith and the inerrancy of Scripture in the face of growing modernist theology. The seminary is renowned for its steadfast commitment to the Reformed tradition and a rigorous, classical approach to training ministers, scholars, and counselors. Its curriculum emphasizes deep exegetical study, systematic theology, and the original biblical languages. Over the decades, Westminster has produced generations of influential pastors and theologians, shaping conservative Protestant thought worldwide. It remains a pivotal center for scholarly defense of orthodox Christianity.，1:1原版Westminster Theological Seminary威斯敏斯特神学院毕业证+Westminster Theological Seminary成绩单, 威斯敏斯特神学院毕业证WTS毕业证书, 快速办理WTS毕业证如何放心, WTS威斯敏斯特神学院毕业证最稳最快办理方式, WTS假学历, 最新威斯敏斯特神学院毕业证成功案例, 如何办理WTS威斯敏斯特神学院毕业证一比一定制, 学历文凭认证WTS毕业证-威斯敏斯特神学院毕业证如何办理, 威斯敏斯特神学院电子版毕业证与美国WTS学位证书纸质版价格

【V信83113305】：Westminster Theological Seminary, located in Glenside, Pennsylvania, is a prominent Reformed Christian institution founded in 1929. It emerged from Princeton Theological Seminary as a response to theological liberalism, aiming to preserve orthodox Reformed theology. The seminary is renowned for its commitment to biblical inerrancy, covenantal theology, and the Westminster Standards. Its faculty has included influential theologians like J. Gresham Machen and Cornelius Van Til, who shaped modern Reformed apologetics. Westminster offers graduate-level programs, including Master of Divinity and Doctor of Philosophy degrees, emphasizing rigorous exegetical and theological training. The seminary’s library houses extensive resources for Reformed studies. With a global impact, Westminster continues to train pastors, scholars, and missionaries, upholding its mission to serve the church through faithful biblical scholarship and confessional fidelity.，Westminster Theological Seminary威斯敏斯特神学院毕业证制作代办流程, Offer(Westminster Theological Seminary成绩单)Westminster Theological Seminary威斯敏斯特神学院如何办理?, 办威斯敏斯特神学院毕业证成绩单, 美国WTS毕业证仪式感|购买WTS威斯敏斯特神学院学位证, 留学生买毕业证毕业证文凭成绩单办理, 哪里买WTS威斯敏斯特神学院毕业证|WTS成绩单, 一比一原版威斯敏斯特神学院毕业证购买

【V信83113305】：Central Theological Graduate University in South Korea stands as a prominent institution dedicated to advanced theological education and ministerial training. It offers a range of graduate programs designed to equip students with deep scriptural knowledge, robust theological understanding, and practical skills for church leadership and academic research. The university emphasizes a integrative approach, blending traditional Reformed theology with contemporary missional challenges. Its faculty comprises respected scholars and practitioners committed to mentoring the next generation of pastors and theologians. By fostering a rigorous academic environment and a spiritually formative community, the institution plays a significant role in shaping Christian thought and practice within Korea and the broader global context.，100%学历中央神学大学院大学毕业证成绩单制作, 中央神学大学院大学毕业证书加急制作, 办中央神学大学院大学毕业证Central Theological Graduate Universityuniversity, 办理韩国중앙신학대학원대학교中央神学大学院大学毕业证중앙신학대학원대학교文凭版本, 在线办理中央神学大学院大学毕业证成绩单, 加急多少钱办理중앙신학대학원대학교毕业证-中央神学大学院大学毕业证书, 중앙신학대학원대학교中央神学大学院大学挂科了怎么办？, 网络快速办理중앙신학대학원대학교毕业证成绩单, 韩国毕业证认证

【V信83113305】：Calvin University, located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is a distinguished comprehensive Christian institution rooted in the Reformed tradition. Founded in 1876, it is named after John Calvin, the 16th-century theologian, reflecting its commitment to integrating faith with rigorous academic inquiry. The university offers a wide array of undergraduate and graduate programs, emphasizing a worldview that connects scholarly pursuit with Christian service. Known for its strong programs in STEM, business, education, and the arts, Calvin fosters a vibrant learning community dedicated to critical thinking, ethical leadership, and global citizenship. Its beautiful campus and supportive environment prepare students to make a meaningful impact in their professions and communities.，【V信83113305】卡尔文大学毕业证成绩单制作,一比一定制-CU毕业证卡尔文大学学位证书,一比一办理-CU毕业证卡尔文大学毕业证,最便宜办理卡尔文大学毕业证书,卡尔文大学毕业证和学位证办理流程,CU毕业证在线制作卡尔文大学文凭证书,卡尔文大学毕业证成绩单原版定制,网络在线办理卡尔文大学毕业证文凭学历证书,卡尔文大学毕业证最安全办理办法,购买卡尔文大学毕业证和学位证认证步骤

【V信83113305】：Reformed Theological Seminaries (RTS) in the United States are prominent institutions dedicated to training pastors, theologians, and Christian leaders within the Reformed tradition. Founded on the principles of the Protestant Reformation, particularly the teachings of John Calvin, these seminaries emphasize the authority of Scripture, the sovereignty of God, and the doctrines of grace. With campuses across the country, including Jackson, Orlando, and Charlotte, RTS offers rigorous academic programs combining theological education with practical ministry training. The curriculum covers biblical studies, systematic theology, church history, and pastoral care, preparing students for diverse roles in churches, missions, and academia. Committed to orthodoxy and evangelism, RTS fosters a deep reverence for God’s Word while engaging contemporary cultural challenges. Its graduates serve globally, advancing Reformed theology and spreading the Gospel.，购买改革宗神学院毕业证办理留学文凭学历认证, 办改革宗神学院毕业证RTS-university, 如何办理Reformed Theological Seminary改革宗神学院学历学位证, 办美国改革宗神学院文凭学历证书, 改革宗神学院颁发典礼学术荣誉颁奖感受博士生的光荣时刻, 办改革宗神学院毕业证-university, 办理RTS毕业证

【V信83113305】：Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) stands as a prominent institution in American theological education, committed to the Reformed tradition and the inerrancy of Scripture. With multiple campuses across the United States, RTS offers a rigorous curriculum designed to equip students for ministry, scholarship, and leadership. Its faculty, comprised of respected theologians and practitioners, emphasizes the integration of biblical truth with practical application. The seminary provides a diverse range of programs, from Master of Divinity to doctoral studies, fostering a deep understanding of Reformed theology, covenant theology, and the Westminster Standards. RTS is dedicated to forming spiritually mature and intellectually grounded graduates who serve the global church with faithfulness and excellence.，【V信83113305】没-改革宗神学院毕业证书RTS挂科了怎么补救,RTS-diploma安全可靠购买改革宗神学院毕业证,网络办理RTS毕业证-改革宗神学院毕业证书-学位证书,加急办RTS改革宗神学院文凭学位证书成绩单gpa修改,RTS改革宗神学院毕业证认证PDF成绩单,RTS改革宗神学院-pdf电子毕业证,最安全购买RTS改革宗神学院毕业证方法,666办理RTS改革宗神学院毕业证最佳渠道

The scientific perspective flowered in Europe as an outworking of medieval biblical theology nurtured by the Church. Theologians pursued science for biblical reasons. Their scientific spirit germinated during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and blossomed after the sixteenth-century Reformation—after Europe became a more literate place, where people could read the Bible themselves and become consciously biblical.