RFPA Blog News

Government and Providence

25 February, 2022

This providential rule by God must be believed, for what we see does not always appear to be under God’s wise rule. Instead of order we see disorder in creation and society; instead of justice we see injustice, chaos, and apparent disarray in history and creation. Faith nevertheless believes and confesses that God is in control, that nothing happens by chance, and that by God’s grace all is for good. Faith holds that all things must work for the good of God’s people, and that they must work together for that good, to those who love God.

Samson Forfeits his Office (1): A Wicked Plot

21 February, 2022

The enemy asks, “Tell me how your witness as a Christian might be utterly ruined, so that you make yourself utterly ineffective as a Christian, and even come under church discipline. Tell me how Canons 5:5 might become true of you. How might you very highly offend God, incur a deadly guilt, grieve the Holy Spirit, very grievously wound your conscience, and sometimes lose the sense of God’s favor for a time?” “Tell me how hypothetically such a thing might happen.”

The Christian must not say, “Well, you could tempt me to commit a terrible sin, and you could drive me on in my impenitence until I am hardened in my sin, so that I refuse to listen to the admonitions of my fellow church members, my family and friends, and the elders. That would accomplish your goal.”

The Christian must flee from such a question, he must flee from the Delilah who would ask such a question, and he must flee to Jesus Christ. “Lord, help me; sin tempts me; I feel its allure, its attraction. Strengthen me by the power of thy Holy Spirit given in the cross.”

The Creeds, Assurance, and Good Works (2): Canons 1:12

16 February, 2022

We observe these things in ourselves “with a spiritual joy and a holy pleasure.” These things do not make us proud because we see them as “fruits,” fruits which we could never bring forth except in union with Jesus Christ. These things give us joy and pleasure and we conclude, “I could never have these things (faith, reverence for God, sorrow over my sin, and a desire to have a life conformed to God’s standard) if I were not elect.” These fruits are not perfect, of course (for our best works are defiled with sin and we have many evil inclinations in our hearts), but they are real, genuine fruits, fruits in which we observe the effect of the grace of God in our lives. That gives us spiritual joy and holy pleasure. And it gives us spiritual joy and holy pleasure to observe them in our fellow believers, in our children and young people, in our friends and family, in our fellow church members.

A letter from Hendrik de Cock

15 February, 2022

Faith does not change either; whether we read Paul, or Augustine, or Calvin, or our fathers, or the present-day heroes of faith, it must be the same and remain the same. God’s Spirit enlightens and renews the understanding in the same manner, so that the true church of the Lord is always united in the truth and in love, being of one mind and one in endeavor, as the congregation of Jerusalem. In unbelief there is no real unity but a universal opposition to the truth, because the wisdom of God is foolishness with man. Oh, if only we may properly learn to understand and love one another in the Spirit, and learn to edify the congregation of the Lord in the Spirit.

The Living God

12 February, 2022

In ourselves we are weak, nothing, less than nothing, by nature sold under sin. However, the “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” must become again the shibboleth in Jesus’ church.

The Creeds, Assurance, and Good Works (1): Heidelberg Catechism, A. 86

10 February, 2022

If good works are not the basis, the cause, the reason, the instrument, or the means of our assurance, what do we make of Answer 86 of the Heidelberg Catechism, which gives our good works a certain role? Answer 86 in response to the question, “Why must we—who are saved “merely of grace, through Christ, without any merit of ours” (Q86)—“still do good works,” we read (among other things) this: “also, that every one may be assured in himself of his faith by [German, "aus;" or "out of"] the fruits thereof.”

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