Peter (5): Maintaining an Assurance of Persevering 

What follows is the fifth and final entry of a series of articles written by Rev....

Peter (4): “Much more careful and solicitous to continue in the ways of the Lord”

Grace does not make a man passive. Grace makes a man diligent. When a child of God is graciously restored from melancholy falls and delivered from enormous sins, the result is not presumption, as if the child of God thinks that he can walk in the same sins again without God’s chastisement, but even more diligence: “more diligently.” And if he does again become presumptuous, such a child of God is simply provoking God to increase the blows of his rod, so that he “falls[s] into more grievous torments of conscience” (Canons 5:13). Who can contemplate that without trembling?

Peter (3): Certainly and Effectually Renewed to Repentance 

That’s how the experience of salvation works. We are emotional creatures, not unfeeling blocks of wood. Sin affects our emotions. Sin affects our consciences. Sin is a matter not only of outward activity, but also of the heart. That’s why sin is called uncleanness and filth in the Bible: it makes us feel dirty. That’s why salvation is called cleansing and washing: not only does it make us clean, but it makes us feel clean.

Peter (2): Losing the Sense of God’s Favor for a Time

Oh, the bitterness of sin! Oh, the misery of a guilty conscience! Oh, the misery of one who grieves the Holy Spirit! Do not provoke the Lord to chastise you, for he has many instruments with which to bring you to repentance and he knows exactly which rod to use to break your stubborn heart. Unlike an earthly father, he does not sob helplessly while his children go on in sin, but neither does he smile benignly. Instead, in love he applies the rod to bring us to repentance. And yet he never applies that rod, painful as it is, in his hatred, but always and only in his love. If you want to call the blows from the Father’s rod the experience of the Father’s favour and fellowship, the Canons do not: they call it the loss of the sense of God’s favour (Canons 5:5), which is “more bitter than death” (Canons 5:13). 

Peter fell. Peter fell lamentably. But Peter did not fall beyond the power of God’s grace to restore him. 

Peter (1): Sinfully Deviating From the Guidance of Divine Grace

by Rev. Martyn McGeown  In Canons 5:4 the Reformed faith addresses the question of “lamentable...

A Reader Asks: “Was Peter’s experience of fellowship conditioned on his repentance?”

Dear Rev. McGeown,

In your third blog post on the RFPA blog recently, “Abiding in Christ’s Love” (Nov. 18, 2019), you wrote the following: “Peter had to learn that the hard way: when he denied Jesus, he did not abide in the consciousness of Jesus’ love. Jesus loved Peter, but Peter had to weep bitterly with tears of repentance—which were the fruit of God’s grace—before he came to the renewed assurance of Jesus’ love for him.”