Professor John Murray

A gem in Professor John Murray’s Collected Writings 4: Studies in Theology, is his treatment of the sonship of Jesus. In an article entitled “Jesus the Son of God” (Chapter Four), Murray helps the reader understand the centrality of the title ‘Son of God’ for our confession of faith and preaching of Jesus, as well as the meaning of the eternal Fatherhood and eternal Sonship of Christ.

The contemplation of the eternal Sonship has always been a challenge to our finite minds. If you have been blessed by the reading of his classic work entitled Redemption Accomplished and Applied, you will be eager to explore the four volume set of his Collected Writings.

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C.H. Spurgeon

We will look at [Paul's] books. We do not know what the books were about, and we can only form some guess as to what the parchments were. Paul had a few books which were left, perhaps wrapped up in the cloak, and Timothy was to be careful to bring them. Even an apostle must read.

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Pastor Edward Donnelly

What does it mean to be called ‘Reformed’? We could answer historically and explain that the word refers to the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. That astounding rediscovery of scriptural truth was spearheaded by reformers such as John Calvin and was enshrined in profound, comprehensive confessions of the church such as the Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, Canons of Dort and Westminster Confession of Faith. Reformed Christians are the spiritual descendants of that era. Or we could approach the question theologically. The Reformed faith, often know as Calvinism, emphasizes such doctrines as the sovereignty of God, predestination, the helpless fallennes of human beings and the irresistible and triumphant working of God’s grace. To hold ‘the Reformed faith’ is to believe these and other related doctrines.

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This book is an edited version of five messages which Dr. Carson preached at a conference on the West Coast. In my judgment, they represent Dr. Carson at his best. The material is thoroughly exegetical, intensely pastoral, and bristles with gripping illustrative material.

I highly recommend it as a book that will not only be refreshing and challenging to pastors and preachers, but will strengthen the faith and deepen the love and devotion to the person of Christ in every child of God who reads it in dependence upon the Holy Spirit.

–Albert N. Martin

John Reuther

The Holy Spirit, by Benjamin B. Warfield

Amityville, NY: Calvary Press, 1997 ed.

This collection of articles and sermons by Benjamin B. Warfield is now in its second printing. I recently mentioned to the publisher that if there were ever to be another edition of this collection, a rearrangement of the chapters might make it even more useful. Warfield’s expositions of the person and work of the Spirit span the whole spectrum of the theology of the Spirit. Warfield does not deal with key doctrines of the Spirit as Author of Scripture, the baptism in the Spirit, or the fruit and gifts of the Spirit. But the subjects of which he does treat offer us the very best exposition and devotional application.

My article is a survey of Warfield’s material on the Spirit in this proposed re-arrangement, resulting in the following order of the doctrines of the Spirit dealt with here: Old Testament revelation of the Spirit (chs. 13, 14, 1, and 7); Pentecost (ch. 6); convicting work in the world (ch. 2); regeneration (ch. 11); sealing (ch. 10), witness to sonship (ch. 5), leading (ch. 4), praying in the Spirit (ch. 6), strength (ch. 9), the love of and grieving the Spirit (ch. 12), and the purity of the believer in the world (ch. 8). There are a few other miscellaneous chapters in the book relating to confessions and book reviews.

1. The Spirit of God in the Old Testament: Shorter, p. 113 – Is the Holy Spirit is a distinct hypostasis in the OT? The foundation for the Trinity is laid there in such a remarkable way that the OT saint had no hesitation in confessing his beloved shema (Deut. 6:4). There is a tendency in the direction of hypostatizing the Spirit in the OT. A premature revelation of this would have brought harm to the people, but the foundation was laid there. Warfield speaks of the pervasive work of the Spirit in OT times, whose goal was “the preserving of the seed unto the day of planting,” while in the NT period it is for the “perfecting of the fruitage and the gathering of the harvest.”

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Reviewed by John Reuther

The Christian life is a dynamic life. It is a life of growth, progress, and transformation. Christian spirituality is being in Christ, having the Spirit of God in us, and living a God-ward and Spirit-filled life. Paul summarizes it majestically in Romans 8:9. “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness” (Rom. 8:9-10). See how dynamic a true disciple is! We are no longer fleshly, but spiritual. The Spirit of God and Christ dwells in us. And our spirits are alive because of righteousness. If this is true of you, then I would think that you would have a great interest in studying and understanding the person and work of the Holy Spirit.

Here is a great study tool for you. In this article I would like to take you on a guided tour of the book where I will stop the bus and tell you a little bit about what we are seeing here and there. I will also describe other places where you may do just fine by looking as the bus travels along the countryside.

As I mentioned in the short book review, there is much about the Holy Spirit that we need to explore. Ferguson’s book is an intermediate book on the Spirit. It is not written on the popular level (written for a broad audience), nor written on the scholarly (with technical and complex language) level. As an intermediate volume, you will find the book easy going for the most part, but challenging in certain parts. The challenge comes as the author tries to explain how the doctrine of the Holy Spirit developed at certain periods of church history.

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Alan Dunn

I. God’s Presence in Worship

In the Old Covenant, worship was located in the temple, but the location was significant only because God was there. We worship where God is present. Although it is true that God is everywhere, He is yet pleased to meet with His people in a special covenantal and personal way as we draw near to Him in worship. He says in Exodus 20:24 I will come to you. In Exodus 23:15 He calls Israel to appear before Me. In worship, we come face to face with God. Psalm 27:8 When Thou didst say, “Seek My face,” my heart said to Thee, “Thy face, O Lord, I shall seek.” God’s worship was never intended to be an external, heartless ritual, but a genuine enjoyment of God Himself.

In the New Covenant more light is shed upon the special covenantal presence of God. Jesus promises where two or three have gathered together in My name, there I am in their midst. (Matthew 18:20) 1 Corinthians 3:16 tells us that today the church is the New Covenant temple of God. The gathered church is the place where God’s special covenantal presence is localized among His worshippers. In John 4:21-24 Jesus tells us that God’s worship is not tied to a geographical location, but is found wherever believers gather to worship in spirit and truth: for such people the Father seeks to be His worshippers.Our gathering in the name of Christ is a holy convocation because of the special covenantal presence of our God who meets with us as we draw near to Him by faith.

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D. Scott Meadows

John Calvin’s spiritual eyes were filled with Jesus Christ, whose glory he sought to accentuate at every opportunity. Calvin’s theology was, at its heart, redemptive, evangelical theology. Without neglecting the Father or the Spirit, Calvin saw Christ as the theme of the whole Bible and at the center of man’s reconciliation with God. On Luke 24.46, Calvin wrote,

By these words we are likewise taught what it is that we ought chiefly to learn from the Law and the Prophets; namely, that since Christ is the end and the soul of the law, whatever we learn without him, and apart from him, is idle and unprofitable. Whoever then desires to make great proficiency in the Scriptures ought always to keep this end in view.

The more familiar I have become with Calvin’s thought, the more clearly I grasp its Christocentrism. As a great expert on Calvin, T. H. L. Parker observed,

Calvin’s gospel, like that of the Scriptures, is concerned with Jesus Christ. It is concerned with Him as the Son of God and the suffering Servant; as the one who has died for our sins and risen again for our justification; as the eternal Lord. He emphasizes the place he gives to Christ and makes it explicit by working it out in regard to the whole of theology (with, as we have seen, some inconsistencies¹) and of the life of the Church and of the individual Christian².

Likewise, Sinclair Ferguson has offered his analysis of the centrality of Christ in Calvin’s theology: “Everything lacking in us is given to us by Christ; everything sinful in us is imputed to Christ; and all judgment merited by us is borne by Christ.”³

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D. Scott Meadows

John Calvin: An Appreciation

Last year’s quincentennial of Calvin’s birth piqued my interest considerably. A fellow pastor said he did not know of a single definitive biography of Calvin, so I began researching the options. From what I have discovered, since 1975 a satisfying text has been T. H. L. Parker’s John Calvin (Lion Paperback), which I can now commend warmly.

Parker’s shorter book, Portrait of Calvin (1954), has its own charm and is available to download as a free PDF file.¹ Reformed Baptist scholar and historian Michael Haykin expressed his opinion that it was a much more enjoyable book than the later, longer work by Parker. In my judgment that depends whether the reader seeks detailed information or an overview.

A strong contender for status as a definitive work is a new book by F. Bruce Gordon, Calvin (2009, Yale University Press), which is enthralling me so far through chapter seven of 18. It seems a realistic portrayal, faults and all, while remaining essentially sympathetic. It exhibits the skillful writing and careful scholarship of another great biography from YUP, Jonathan Edwards: A Life, by George Marsden, which I recommend highly.

Besides these, I have been working through more than a few books by or about Calvin, especially in the last year, a sampling of which I have brought to show you. A quick annotated bibliography follows.

As conservative, evangelical, Reformed Christians and pastors, we have so much of great importance to appreciate in John Calvin. Secular philosopher and historian Will Durant called Calvin’s Institutes “one of the ten books that shook the world.” Pastor Walter Chantry told me personally that he found his breath often taken away by Calvin’s commentaries, and recommended that if I must choose between the two, I should buy them before acquiring Institutes. In his last pastoral theology module (August 2009), Pastor Albert N. Martin at 75 expressed his judgment that a young pastor ought to resolve early in his ministry to read all Calvin’s commentaries straight through.

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Reviewed by D. Scott Meadows

The Imperative of Preaching: A Theology of Sacred Rhetoric
John Carrick
Banner of Truth

Presence and Implications of the Exemplary Imperative

Carrick quotes other respected Reformed theologians on the matter who appear to share his concerns about EW-RHP—men like Jay Adams, Hendrik Krabbendam, John R. de Witt, John Frame, and J. Douma. More importantly, Carrick shows that the Apostle Paul used historical examples as the basis for exhorting his hearers (citing 1 Cor 10.1-14), a classic concern of the RH school. Exhorting from example is also found in Hebrews, as P. E. Hughes (Visiting Professor of New Testament at WTS) noted in his excellent commentary:

The simplest sense [of 11.4] remains the best sense, namely, that Abel by his example of faith and righteousness still speaks to us today, even though he has so long been dead. The spectacle of his trustful integrity, even in the face of violence, should inspire us to persevere and to overcome by the same means. His was certainly an example that the faltering readers of this epistle were in need of emulating (123).

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