The subject of God's providence and sin places us before an unfathomable mystery. This we readily concede and confess. And we have no intention of comprehending and understanding this mystery. On the one hand, man is a free responsible being. He performs iniquity because he loves it. He is unmolested in his sinning, is never forced or coerced. Besides, he never wills or desires anything else than sin, does not rest until and unless he commits evil, is a slave of iniquity, but always a very willing slave. He is always free, only however in this moral sense of the word. He is never sovereignly free. On the other hand, God is the living God. He alone is God. We cannot afford to lose this truth. If we lose this truth we lose God. And, losing God, we lose all. Read More
Antinomianism is a real heresy that denies the necessity of good works in the life of the justified Christian. It is also a false and slanderous charge against the gospel of grace raised by those who hate that doctrine. Practically ignoring real antinomianism in the church world and its real root in the idea of God’s universal grace, Mark Jones in his book Antinomianism attempts to list certain theological characteristics of antinomians by means of which they can be sniffed out....
Christopher Gordon believes that the “sanctification debate” within Reformed circles may have become Arminian (for his article click here). He explains that this move towards an Arminian view of sanctification is a response to what some in Reformed circles believe is “an over emphasis on justification and a narrow definition of the gospel” that leads to “antinomianism.” Gordon writes, “Many explicitly fear that the word gospel is being defined too narrowly. So when people communicate that all they need is the...
Earlier this week I received notice that Phil Johnson (known for his popular website devoted to Charles Spurgeon and for his close association with John MacArthur) accuses the Protestant Reformed Churches and Herman Hoeksema of bad theology for rejecting “the free offer of the gospel.” Johnson has created three webpages with links to websites that promote what he considers bad theology. One page is entitled “Bad theology,” the second “Really bad theology,” and the third “Really, really bad theology.” On the...
by: Rev. Martyn McGeown (published in the British Reformed Journal) *** Read the first article in this series here. SUBSCRIBE TODAY! In our last editorial, we began to examine Phillip R. Johnson’s definition of hyper-Calvinism in his influential on-line article, “A Primer on Hyper- Calvinism.” We distinguished between a serious call (the Latin term serio in Canons III/IV:8) and a gospel “offer.” We noted that it is the Arminian—and not the Calvinist—who defines serious (serio) as “a sincere and completely unhypocritical...
Editorial: Hyper-Calvinist! (1) by: Rev. Martyn McGeown (published in the British Reformed Journal) Introduction Recently, brethren have brought to my attention Phillip R. Johnson’s “A Primer on Hyper-Calvinism.”1 They were offended that he called the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) hyper-Calvinists: “The best known American hyper-Calvinists are the Protestant Reformed Churches.” My initial reaction was to ignore such accusations—I prefer to answer exegetical arguments, and Johnson’s “Primer” does not offer any such arguments. I imagine he does do exegesis, just not in this...
