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July 2020 Standard Bearer preview article
This article is written by Rev. James Laning and will be published in the July 2020 issue...
The Antithesis in Paradise
Scripture teaches no dualism, but an antithesis. There are no two primal causes and eternal principles, constantly warring with each other, but God is one. He alone is eternal and the primal cause and there is no other eternal principle or primal cause next to him. Neither is he both good and evil, nor are the principles of good and evil to be traced to his being, for he is a light and there is no darkness in him. But this good and glorious God according to his eternal and sovereign good pleasure wills to reveal his praises, his eternally adorable virtue antithetically, that is, in opposition to darkness. Darkness, evil, sin are not primal principles, eternally coordinate with light, goodness, righteousness, but the former are subservient to the latter, darkness must serve to bring out the glory of the light, the devil serves to enhance the unsearchable riches of God's being and virtues and works.
In the light of this idea of an antithesis we can understand the placing of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” in paradise. By means of it, God carries the antithesis into the life and before the consciousness of man, made after his image.
September 15, 2019 Standard Bearer preview article
The covenant and Dordt: Election, the foundation
The doctrine of election is the foundation of the Reformed truth of salvation by grace alone. The first head of the Canons of Dordt establishes the doctrine of double predestination in answer to the first point of the Remonstrants. The Arminians placed this doctrine first in their five objections (remonstrances), knowing that if they could successfully change the Reformed teaching of election to a conditional election, the rest of their teaching (errors) would follow logically. If election (and therefore, salvation) depended on man’s choosing it, then Christ died for all to make that choice a possibility, and fallen man is not dead, and grace is resistible, and perseverance unto eternal life depends on man.
A Covenant Home: What Is It Like?
Some years ago, on a visit to the south, I found myself in front of a home, which had, hanging over the front door, a sign upon which were the words: "In This House Christ Is King." I found this intriguing and immediately thought of the firm statement of Joshua to Israel just before his death: "But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."It would be equally appropriate for a covenant family to have a sign hanging over the front door of its home, with the words engraved on it: "This Home is a Covenant Home." Such a family would want all who visited it to understand that the home they were about to enter was a special kind of home, a unique home, a home which differed from countless thousands of homes throughout the country or the world.
If you saw such a sign appropriately fixed above the front door of a house, what precisely would you expect to find inside? Would you enter with some firm ideas concerning what to expect? Or would you say: "I have no idea of what a covenant home is like."
God's Everlasting Covenant of Grace in Spanish
Two years ago Editorial Doulos, an evangelical Spanish publisher, requested permission from the RFPA to...
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