The Creator/creature distinction is fundamental to Christian theology. The Ancient Christian church defended it against the pagan doctrine of the eternality of matter. Scripture is very clear: "In the beginning God…". On this point, the classical, confessional Reformed theologians built their distinction . . . Continue reading →
This is the 1st episode of our series on the doctrine of God, ""I AM That I AM." In older histories of theology it used to be said of the Reformed that they started with the divine decree and deduced (i.e., drew . . . Continue reading →
This past Lord's Day morning we began the new week by hearing a sermon, an exposition of God's Word and a proclamation of the law and the gospel. In our congregation we heard a sermon from the first part of Exodus 32. . . . Continue reading →
This is the 15th and final episode of our series, "I Will Be A God to You And to Your Children." If you are just finding us, the series starts at episode 105. As we wrap up the series it seemed to . . . Continue reading →
Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956) was one of the most influential writers of the 1st half of the 20th century. He was a skeptic about religion but had a keen eye and a sharp tongue. It was he who described Sister Aimee's religion . . . Continue reading →
This series has really been about how to interpret Scripture. Christians study the same Bible, but we often read it differently. Sometimes we begin with different assumptions about the nature of things and authority. These different methods and starting points lead to . . . Continue reading →
With this episode now we dive into the question of baptism itself. So far we have been setting the stage because, from the historic, confessional Reformed point of view, the debate about infant baptism is really a debate about how to understand . . . Continue reading →
We are interrupting our series on covenant and baptism to talk to a special guest, Les Lanphere. He is one half of the Reformed Pubcast and co-moderator of the Reformed Pub on Facebook. He's also a film maker and he is in . . . Continue reading →
We are just about ready to immerse ourselves, as it were, in the question of baptism but we have at least one more thing to discuss before we get to baptism and that is this: what is baptism? In the Reformed tradition, . . . Continue reading →
In this episode we see that the benefits of the New Covenant are the benefits of the covenant of grace. There are some who see a strong discontinuity between the promises made to Abraham and the new covenant promised Jeremiah 31. There . . . Continue reading →
In the last episode, in this episode and in the next, we're looking at what Scripture says about the new covenant. We've looked at what Jeremiah 31:31-34 actually says, how Paul interprets it, and now we want to turn our attention to . . . Continue reading →
Does initiation of covenant children into the visible covenant people expire with the new covenant? Is the new covenant absolutely relatively new? Is it new relative to Abraham or new relative to Moses? These are the topics we're investigating in this episode of the Heidelcast. Continue reading →
This is episode 8 of our series: I will be a God to You and to Your Children. Last time we looked at circumcision, about which we saw that, just as with the bloodshed of the sacrifice of pigeons, bulls, goats, and . . . Continue reading →
This is episode 7 of our series: I will be a God to You and to Your Children. For the last two episodes we have been thinking about what is temporary and what is permanent in the history of redemption. We have . . . Continue reading →
This is episode 6 of our series: I will be a God to You and to Your Children. Last time we began looking at how types and shadows help us sort out what, in the history of redemption, is temporary and what . . . Continue reading →
This is part 5 of the series: I Will Be A God To You And To Your Children. Last time we looked at the distinction between the substance of the covenant of grace and its accidents or its outward (external) administration throughout redemptive . . . Continue reading →
This is part 4 of the series: I Will Be A God To You And To Your Children. Last time we considered whether it's right to speak of a "covenant of grace." We saw that, from the very beginning of redemptive history, . . . Continue reading →
Last time we looked at some of the challenges we face in learning how to interpret Scripture properly and how the Ancient Christian Churches and the Reformed churches read the Scriptures, with Christ at the center. One way to understand this unity . . . Continue reading →
This is part 2 of the series: I Will Be A God To You And To Your Children. We're talking about how to read the Scriptures, about what Scripture says about the covenant of grace, its administration, and baptism. One of the . . . Continue reading →
One of the most frequent topics and questions for discussion on the Heidelblog has been this: Who should be baptized and why? To anticipate an objection: some will say that the Heidelcast should not be addressing this subject because it causes needless . . . Continue reading →
Remember our definition of the covenant of works. It was that legal arrangement into which God voluntarily condescended to enter and by which he promised eternal blessedness to Adam, on the condition that Adam by personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience should keep . . . Continue reading →
The doctrine of the covenant of works was taught by the Dutch, the Germans, the French, the Swiss, the English, the Scots, and the Irish. It was taught in the 1560s (it was arguably implied in the 1561 Belgic Confession's phrase "commandment . . . Continue reading →
For a doctrine that was almost universally held by Reformed theologians from the 1560s through the 19th century, and confessed explicitly twice in the Westminster Confession of Faith (1648), in the Westminster Larger Catechism, in the Savoy Declaration (1658), as well as . . . Continue reading →
What's the big deal about being Presbyterian or Reformed? After all, isn't it enough to love Jesus? Honestly, no. Of course you should love Jesus but then what? If someone else personally paid for all your legal offenses out of his own . . . Continue reading →
In contemporary Reformed Christianity, even in confessional churches, i.e., those churches where they not only formally hold the historic confessions but where they still profess to believe and seek to practice what we confess, two of the most disposable doctrines seem to . . . Continue reading →
Christians in the USA live in an increasingly confused, confusing time. Hostility to the faith seems to be increasing. We seem to be witnessing a growing hostility even to the very idea that there is such a thing as nature with fixed . . . Continue reading →
We in the Reformed world are in the midst of another controversy over sanctification, salvation, good works, and conditions in the covenant of grace. Are we justified by grace alone through faith alone but saved by grace, through faith and works? Is . . . Continue reading →
Evangelical involvement in politics has perhaps never been more intense. The George W. Bush administration had an office of faith-based initiatives. The Obama administration continues to hold prayer breakfasts and regularly invokes the Christian faith when it serves favored policy goals. The . . . Continue reading →
Confessional Reformed theology, piety, and practice does not seem to be sweeping the field in North America but it is prospering in other parts of the globe. In this episode Dan Borvan joins us to get us up to speed about the . . . Continue reading →
As you read this the churches, the theology, piety, and practice represented by confessionally Reformed and Presbyterian Churches is almost statistically invisible. Of the 60 million evangelicals in North America only a tiny fraction actually identify with the confessional Reformed and Presbyterian churches . . . Continue reading →
