Why do you believe what you believe and live the way you live? You make decisions every day that affect you and others around you. Your beliefs shape those decisions, and your beliefs are shaped by some authority, an authority that you listen to. Isn’t that right? If you had a brain tumor and needed surgery, you’d be very interested in what Dr. Bartolome Oliver thought because, with over 47 years of experience, he’s probably the top neurosurgeon in the world. If Dr. Oliver spoke...
After Jesus rose from the dead, he spent time with two disciples on their way to Emmaus. You can read about it in Luke 24. They didn’t recognize him for a long while, but as he walked and talked with them, he taught them about himself from the Scriptures. What Scriptures? Luke 24:27 says, “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” The New Testament hadn’t been written yet. Jesus used the Old Testament to...
Sometimes our loved ones live their lives in unbelief, and then they die. Did God regenerate their heart and grant them faith before their last breath? Did they confess (perhaps silently in mind or heart) Christ before their heartbeat for the last time? We don’t know. We do know that every unbeliever who dies in their sin and misery apart from Christ will be condemned and suffer forever in hell. However, we also know that God can save and rescue right up to the time of death. We know that...
When addressing the question of the signs of the Holy Spirit, J. I. Packer wrote: “What then are the signs that Christ’s self-effacing Spirit is at work? Not mystical raptures, nor visions and supposed revelations, nor even healings, tongues, and apparent miracles; for Satan, playing on our psychosomatic complexity and our fallenness, can produce all these things (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:9ff.; Colossians 2:18). The only sure signs are that the Christ of the Bible is acknowledged...
11. HOW WE MAY KNOW THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT DWELLS IN US We may know if the Spirit of God dwells in us by his effects, or gifts, which include a correct knowledge of God, regeneration, faith, peace of conscience, and the beginning of new obedience to God. . . . We may also know if the Holy Spirit dwells in us, by the testimony which he bears with our spirit that we are the children of God. So also comfort in the midst of death, joy in afflictions, a firm purpose to persevere in faith...
Sometimes believers struggle with the assurance of salvation. They may ask themselves, “Do I truly have the Holy Spirit?” They ask this because they sincerely want to possess the Holy Spirit but are often reminded of their spiritual weakness which can be unsettling. We need the comfort of the gospel of God’s free grace, the gospel that God grants His beloved people His Holy Spirit. Take comfort in the following wisdom from Zacharias Ursinus. It will be well worth...
To talk out of both sides of your mouth is to say something that contradicts what you said before. A person might give one opinion to one person and turn around and give the opposite opinion to another person. That’s talking out of both sides of the mouth, and sometimes preachers do it in their sermons. For example, if a preacher said at the beginning of his sermon, “Jesus is the Son of God,” and then a little later in his sermon added, “Jesus’ miracles are simply myths,” you’d...
Dispensational theology makes Israel and the church into two distinct peoples of God. This is one of the stark differences between Dispensational theology and Reformed/Covenant theology. As Heidelberg 54 explains, Reformed thinkers believe that “the Son of God, out of the whole human race, from the beginning of the world to its end, gathers, defends, and preserves for Himself . . . a Church chosen to everlasting life.” The church began in the Garden of Eden, not at Pentecost. This...
“Moreover, He is ever making intercession for those that are His, pleading for their acceptance on the basis of His completed sacrifice, and for their safe-keeping in the world, and making their prayers and services acceptable to God. The Lutherans stress the fact that the intercession of Christ is vocalis et realis, while the Reformed emphasize the fact that it consists primarily in the presence of Christ in man’s nature with the Father, and that the prayers are to be considered as the...
“The subject of this exaltation was the Theanthropos; not the Logos specially or distinctively; not the human nature exclusively; but the theanthropic person. When a man is exalted it is not the soul in distinction from the body; nor the body in distinction from the soul, but the whole person.” [1] “Christ was, indeed, always glorious, but was not always exalted in the office of mediator, which is to say, in his kingdom and priesthood. The consummation of his glory, which...
