Topic Archives: Salvation

When you’re out for your permitted daily exercise (in the UK) these days, you can’t help noticing the pictures of rainbows children have painted and put up in their windows. The idea started in Italy and spread to many different countries as a symbol of hope in dark times — the message seems to be […]

And all the multitudes that came together to this sight, when they beheld the things that were done, returned smiting their breasts. — Luke 23:48 Six hours our Lord has hung upon the cross. Upon the cross! We are very nearly at the point at which we can no longer contemplate putting even deliberate murderers […]

It is something of a commonplace in these days to read about the ‘psychology of conversion’ or the ‘anatomy of a soul’, and often enough what masquerades under such titles is but an onslaught on faith and a denigration of both conversion and the notion of the soul. It is in stark contrast to this […]

The following, with minor alterations, is taken from Vol. 2 of Sermons by the late Edward Griffin (1770-1837), 1839. These volumes contain an excellent memoir by William B. Sprague. * * * According to the plan of grace revealed in the Gospel, God has taken the work of salvation into his own hands. The great […]

The New Testament never speaks of God being reconciled to man but always of man being reconciled to God. The supreme example of this is Paul’s statement in 2 Corinthians 5:18 ff., ‘All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; […]

The Cross does not merely tell us that God forgives, it tells us that that is God's way of making forgiveness possible. It is the way in which we understand how God forgives. I will go further: how can God forgive and still remain God? -- that is the question.

No doctrine has received greater attention than the Atonement. And yet, comparing the studies of the present with those of the past, and the emphases of the Bible with those of its interpreters, one begins to suspect that several aspects of the doctrine are not receiving the attention they deserve. Its Horror This is true, […]

Now, you are aware that there are different theories of Redemption. All Christians hold that Christ died to redeem, but many Christians do not teach the same redemption. We differ as to the nature, of atonement, and as to the design of redemption. For instance, the Arminian holds that Christ when He died, did not […]

‘Regeneration’ is a key word in Reformed theology. As with other key words it is possible to approach an understanding of it from a number of different directions. From the point of view of the work of Christ it may be said that regeneration takes place in a human soul as a result of Christ’s […]

Just as it is written: ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’ What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire […]

I remember group projects in high school and college. They normally did not go well. Either a brainiac, an egomaniac, or a sluggard usually messed things up. Too many people contributing to one common project caused things to just not be as good as if one person is doing a project. The reality is, most […]

To read John Owen on the doctrine of the atonement is to encounter a unique exercise in biblical theology being channelled through rigorous reason. In The Death of Death Owen’s full rhetorical and logical prowess is on display. He handles the opposing viewpoints of his theological interlocutors with sincerity, but also with a rational severity […]

The Lord Christ was crucified. But he has risen from the dead and the resurrection is God’s public declaration that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God and that his death on that tree satisfied justice once and for all. And this Jesus has ascended up and sat down at the right hand of God, and he […]

In some churches, it is a word that conjures up images of an angry and capricious God who acts arbitrarily to save some, but consigns most sinners—including deceased infants—to eternal perdition. For many professing Christians, it is the mother of all swear words. Let the pastor breathe it in the presence of the deacon board […]

I was brought up in the kind of evangelical church that drummed into us as children that Jesus died ‘to save us from our sins’. The cross of Jesus was the centre of the message at summer camps, holiday Bible clubs, and youth group talks. The message was that Jesus had died in my place, […]