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Christ as Mediator entered the federal relation in which Adam stood in the state of integrity, in order to merit eternal life for the sinner. This constitutes the active obedience of Christ, consisting in all that Christ did to observe the law in its federal aspect, as the condition for obtaining eternal life.... Christ merits more for sinners than the forgiveness of sins. According to Gal. 4:4,5 they are through Christ set free from the law as the condition of life, are adopted to be sons of God, and as sons are also heirs of eternal life, Gal. 4:7. All this is conditioned primarily on the active obedience of Christ. Through Christ the righteousness of faith is substituted for the righteousness of the law, Rom. 10:3,4.

[I]f Christ suffered only the penalty imposed on man, those who shared in the fruits of His work would have been left exactly where Adam was before he fell... still confronted with the task of obtaining eternal life in the way of obedience.

We believe that the ceremonies and symbols of the law ceased at the coming of Christ, and that all the shadows are accomplished; so that the use of them must be abolished among Christians; yet the truth and substance of them remain with us in Jesus Christ, in whom they have their completion. In the meantime we still use the testimonies taken out of the law and the prophets to confirm us in the doctrine of the gospel, and to regulate our life in all honorableness to the glory of God, according to His will.

The coming of Jesus Christ at his incarnation marked the beginning of a glorious new redemptive age with a corresponding set of blessings (the already). Yet this new age is not fully consummated and will be fulfilled in the future (the not yet). Christians today can experience a measure of the blessings and promises of heaven while still living in a fallen world that is groaning for the consummation.

The already / not yet concept is expressed in the New Testament's distinct and pronounced tension between what God has already done in fulfilling the promised of the Old Testament and what God will do yet in the future. It can be said that the already / not yet structure gives the New Testament a strong forward-looking focus.

Although antinomianism has a complicated history, it refers primarily to the view that we do not have to obey God's law since we are justified by grace alone. If legalism confuses law and gospel, antinomianism severs the connection entirely. Paul challenges both in his teaching on union with Christ in Romans 6, where Christ is the answer both to sin's guilt and tyranny.

22. What, then, is necessary for a Christian to believe?
All that is promised to us in the Gospel, which the articles of our catholic, undoubted Christian faith teach us in summary.

23. What are these articles?
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord: who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from there He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, a holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

The operation of the Holy Spirit after the day of Pentecost differed from that which from that which the prophets in their official capacity enjoyed. The Holy Spirit came upon the prophets as a supernatural power and worked upon them from without. His action on them was frequently repeated but was not continuous. The distinction between His activity and the mental activity of the prophets themselves was made to stand out rather clearly. On the day of Pentecost, however, He took up His abode in the hearts of the apostles and began to work upon them from within. Since He made their hearts His permanent abode, His action on them was no more intermittent but continuous, but even in their case the supernatural work of inspiration was limited to those occasions on which they served as organs of revelation. But because of the more inward character of all the Spirit's work, the distinction between His ordinary and His extraordinary work was not so perceptible. The supernatural does not stand out as clearly in the case of the apostles as it did in the case of the prophets. Notwithstanding this fact, however, the New Tesyament contains several significant indications of the fact that the apostles were inspired in their positive oral teachings. Christ solemnly promised them the Holy Spirit in their teaching and preaching, Mt 10:19,20; Mk 13:11; Lk 12:11,12; 21:14,15; Jn 14:26; 15:26; 16:13. In the Acts of the Apostles we are told repeatedly that they taught "being full of," or "filled with" the Holy Spirit. Moreover, it appears from the Epistles that in teaching the churches they conceived of their word as being in very deed the word of God, and therefore as authoritative, 1 Cor 2:4, 13; 1 Thess 2:13.

"Between his resurrection and his ascension to God's right hand, the Lord Jesus taught the original apostles that the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms all predicted the Messiah's suffering, rejection, death, resurrection, outpouring of the Spirit, and worldwide reign through the servants of his Word. The fruit of this intensive forty-day hermeneutics course is heard in the apostolic sermons preserved in the book of Acts, as well as in the Gospels themselves and the other New Testament books. Apostolic preaching, therefore, must be Christ-centered."

Arminianism is primarily the theological system inspired by Jacobus Arminius, and by extension any similar theological position. Historical Arminianism belongs to 17th century Holland where it was condemned by the Synod of Dort (1618-19). Its basic, anti-Calvinist tenets were contained in the "Remonstrance" (1610): 1) predestination is conditioned by God's foreknowledge of man's belief; 2) Christ died for all and all can benefit by his atonement; 3) although fallen and in need of grace, man cooperates in his regeneration; 4) grace is not irresistible; 5) grace can be lost and hence final perseverance is not assured.

In its wider use, designating a theological viewpoint, the term Arminianism applies first of all to an emphasis on the freedom to accept grace.

Q. 80 Can true believers be infallibly assured that they are in the estate of grace, and that they shall persevere therein unto salvation?
A. Such as truly believe in Christ, and endeavor to walk in all good conscience before him, may, without extraordinary revelation, by faith grounded upon the truth of God's promises, and by the Spirit enabling them to discern in themselves those graces to which the promises of life are made, and bearing witness with their spirits that they are the children of God, be infallibly assured that they are in the estate of grace, and shall persevere therein unto salvation.

Q. 81 Are all true believers at all times assured of their present being in the estate of grace, and that they shall be saved?
A. Assurance of grace and salvation not being of the essence of faith, true believers may wait long before they obtain it; and, after the enjoyment thereof, may have it weakened and intermitted, through manifold distempers, sins, temptations, and desertions; yet are they never left without such a presence and support of the Spirit of God as keeps them from sinking into utter despair.

"A doctrine concerning Scripture’s attributes developed in the Reformation churches as a counter to Roman Catholicism on the one hand and Anabaptism on the other. The key issue was the nature and extent of scriptural authority. Rome honors church and tradition above Scripture, while Anabaptism respects the inner word at the expense of the external word of Scripture. In Roman Catholicism the precedence of the church over Scripture eventually led to the dogma of papal infallibility. Here, materially, Scripture is unnecessary. Over against this position, the Reformers posited their polemical doctrine of Scripture’s attributes: authority, necessity, sufficiency, and perspicuity."

(354-430) More is known about Augustine than about anyone else in classical antiquity. When he was about nineteen, he read Cicero's now-lost Hortensius, which introduced him to philosophy; became acquainted with the Categories of Aristotle; attempted to read the Bible, but was repelled by the sytle of the available Latin translations; and join Manichaeism. In 384 he was appointed rhetor to the imperial court of Milan. There he began listening to sermons of the bishop, Ambrose, at first for their style, and later for their content. Through them he came to realize that Scripture can be interpreted in more than a literal sense. He was baptized by Ambrose on Easter of 387. In 388 he formed a community of fellow Christians dedicated to serving God. In 391 he moved to Hippo and served church there as presbyter, bishop, and beginning in 396 as chief pastor until his death.

Augustine's literary output is immense, and a major reason for his enduring influence on western Christian thought. Besides hundreds of sermons and letters, he has left us over ninety treatises, which fall into three main groups: commentaries on biblical books; polemical writings, such as those against Pelagianism; and various books on theological subjects. He is especially known for three works: Confessions, The Trinity, and The City of God.

Christianity is often called a book-religion. It would be more exact to say that it is a religion which has a book. Its foundations are laid in apostles and prophets, upon which its courses are built up in the sanctified lives of men; but Christ Jesus alone is its chief cornerstone. He is its only basis; he, its only head; and he alone has authority in his Church. But he has chosen to found his Church not directly by his own hands, speaking the word of God, say for instance, in thunder-tones from heaven; but through the instrumentality of a body of apostles, chosen and trained by himself, endowed with gifts and graces from the Holy Ghost, and sent forth into the world as his authoritative agents for proclaiming a gospel which he placed within their lips and which is none the less his authoritative word, that it is through them that he speaks it. It is because the apostles were Christ's representatives, that what they did and said and wrote as such, comes to us with divine authority. The authority of the Scriptures thus rests on the simple fact that God's authoritative agents in founding the Church gave them as authoritative to the Church which they founded. All the authority of the apostles stands behind the Scriptures, and all the authority of Christ behind the apostles. The Scriptures are simply the law-code which the law-givers of the Church gave it.

If, then, the apostles were appointed by Christ to act for him and in his name and authority in founding the Church--and this no one can doubt; and if the apostles gave the Scriptures to the Church in prosecution of this commission--and this admits of as little doubt; the whole question of the authority of the Scriptures is determined. It will be observed that their authority does not rest exactly on apostolic authorship. The point is not that the apostles wrote these books (though most of the New Testament books were written by apostles), but that they imposed them on the Church as authoritative expositions of its divinely appointed faith and practice.

We receive all these books, and these only, as holy and canonical, for the regulation, foundation, and confirmation of our faith; believing without any doubt all things contained in them, not so much because the Church receives and approves them as such, but more especially because the Holy Spirit witnesses in our hearts that they are from God, and also because they carry the evidence thereof in themselves. For the very blind are able to perceive that the things foretold in them are being fulfilled.

In the United States, the term is commonly applied to people with birth years after World War II and before the Vietnam War. The beginning and end dates of the baby boom is popularly identified as starting in 1946 and ending in 1964, during which 76 million American children were born. Boomers account for about 39 percent of Americans over the age of 18 and 29 percent of the total population.

Steve Gillon has suggested that one thing that sets the baby boomers apart from other generational groups is the fact that "almost from the time they were conceived, Boomers were dissected, analyzed, and pitched to by modern marketers, who reinforced a sense of generational distinctiveness." The effect of the baby boom continued to be analyzed and exploited throughout the 1950s and 60s.

The baby boomers were the first group to be raised on television, and television has been identified as "the institution that solidified the sense of generational identity more than any other." Starting in the 1950s, people in diverse geographic locations could watch the same shows, listen to the same news, laugh at the same jokes. Television showed idealized family settings such as "Father Knows Best" and "Leave it to Beaver." Later the boomers watched scenes from the Vietnam War, the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The boomers also found that their music, Rock 'n Roll, was another expression of their generational identity.

In 1993, Time magazine reported on the religious affiliations of baby boomers. Citing Wade Clark Roof, the articles stated that about 42% of baby boomers were dropouts from formal religion, a third had never strayed from church, and one-fourth of boomers were returning to religious practice. The boomers returning to religion has shown were "usually less tied to tradition and less dependable as church members than the loyalists." They are also more liberal.

For Paul in 1 Corinthians 12 it is unthinkable that anyone could be a member of the Body of Christ, united to Christ by faith and a member of the church whom he redeemed by his death, and yet for that person not to have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. "Baptism in Spirit" brought about our incorporation into the Body. We were "baptized into one Body" by the one Spirit. It is unthinkable that someone might be a member of the Body, yet not have been baptized by the Spirit, for all who are in the Body have entered into the Body through the door of Spirit-baptism.

Calvin was born and raised at Noyon in north­ern France. He studied at the Universities of Paris, Orleans and Bourges and became an admirer of Erasmian humanism. At some stage in the early 1530s he underwent a 'sudden conversion' (described in the preface to his commentary on the Psalms) and aligned himself with the Reformation. Persecution forced him to flee France and he settled at Basle. While passing through Geneva in 1536 he was con­scripted by Farel to take part in the ministry in that duty. Calvin was to spend the rest of his life there, apart from a time of exile from 1538 to 1541, spent mostly at Strasburg.

Calvin was the greatest Reformed theologian of the sixteenth century and is today read far more widely than any other Reformed theologian. This fact can be misleading. Calvin's influence was profound, but he was by no means the only influential Reformed theologian of the century. However great he may have been, he stood in a tradition that began before him and on which he was but one of a number of important influences. The Reformed tradition has always been more than and wider than Calvin.

Calvin's genius was to imbibe the existing Protestant (especially Reformed) tradition and to construct out of it his own creative synthesis. The durability of his contribution is due both to the skill with which he created the synthesis and to the 'lucid brevity' with which he expressed it. It is because of his success in both areas that he became and remained the most influential Reformed theologian.

Calvin is often seen as the man of one book: his Institutio. This is very misleading. While he devoted considerable time to producing the five major editions of that work, he spent signifi­cantly more time on biblical exegesis. He commented on almost all of the books of the New Testament and covered much of the Old Testament (Hexateuch, Psalms and all of the prophets except for the second half of Ezekiel) in commentaries or (published) lectures. He also preached regularly through books of the Bible, preaching almost two hundred times a year for much of his time in Geneva. Just as the Institutio is widely read today, his commentaries have also remained popular and are among the few precritical commentaries still of interest to biblical scholars.

Calvin also published many polemical works, primarily against Roman Catholics but also against Anabaptists and other radicals and against Lutherans and other Protestants. He also published many works for church use, such as confessions of faith, catechisms and liturgies.

1. Those people whom God according to his purpose calls into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord and regenerates by the Holy Spirit, he also sets free from the reign and slavery of sin, though in this life not entirely from the flesh and from the body of sin.

2. Hence daily sins of weakness arise, and blemishes cling to even the best works of God's people, giving them continual cause to humble themselves before God, to flee for refuge to Christ crucified, to put the flesh to death more and more by the Spirit of supplication and by holy exercises of godliness, and to strain toward the goal of perfection, until they are so freed from this body of death and reign with the Lamb of God in Heaven.

We believe and profess one catholic or universal Church, which is a holy congregation of true Christian believers, all expecting their salvation in Jesus Christ, being washed by His blood, sanctified and sealed by the Holy Spirit.

This Church has been from the beginning of the world, and will be to the end thereof; which is evident from this that Christ is an eternal King, which without subjects He cannot be. And this holy Church is preserved or supported by God against the rage of the whole world; though it sometimes for a while appears very small, and in the eyes of men to be reduced to nothing; as during the perilous reign of Ahab the Lord reserved unto Him seven thousand men who had not bowed their knees to Baal.

Furthermore, this holy Church is not confined, bound, or limited to a certain place or to certain persons, but is spread and dispersed over the whole world; and yet is joined and united with heart and will, by the power of faith, in one and the same Spirit.

Q. How do we come to know that Christ came to make us right with God?

A. The holy gospel tells me. God himself began to reveal the gospel already in Paradise; later, he proclaimed it by the holy patriarchs and prophets, and portrayed it by the sacrifices and other ceremonies of the law; finally, he fulfilled it through his own dear Son.

There is a huge difference between Christianity and much of Evangelicalism. Christianity defines the gospel as "Jesus Christ is God who assumed our flesh, lived a perfect life in our place under the law, fulfilled it perfectly, bore our debt for having broken the law, and then was raised the third day for our justification." The whole gospel is completely about Jesus Christ and everything contained in that gospel happened between the years 1 to 33 AD [sic]. That gospel was finished in 33 AD and then it was proclaimed and it is still being proclaimed to the ends of the earth.

The Evangelical version of that is: no, the gospel really is, not just includes, but the gospel really is Jesus in my heart; my being born-again (it is not that the gospel brings about my new-birth), but the gospel is my new-birth. And therefore, the gospel is my moral transformation.

Brothers and sisters, if you hold that second view there is no reason at all for you to criticize the Medieval [Roman Catholic] church because the doctrine of justification for the Medieval church was, "What happens inside of you. Your sanctification." This is what the whole Reformation was about, and why we need a second reformation.

The Church is in duty bound to guard its holiness by the exercise of proper discipline. The purpose of discipline in the Church is twofold. In the first place it seeks to carry into effect the law of Christ concerning the admission and exclusion of members; and in the second place it aims at promoting the spiritual edification of the members of the Church by securing their obedience to the laws of Christ. Both of these aims are subservient to a higher end, the maintenance of the holiness of the church of Jesus Christ. If there are diseased members, the Church will first of all seek to effect a cure, but if this proves impossible, it will put away the diseased member for the protection of the other members. While all the members of the Church are in duty bound to warn and admonish the wayward, only the officers of the Church can apply Church censures. The latter can deal with private sins only when these are brought to their attention according to the rule given in Matt. 18:15-17, but are in duty bound to deal with public sins even when no formal accusation is brought.

...the restoration of the church is the work of God, and no more depends on the hopes and opinions of men, than the resurrection of the dead, or any other miracle. Here, therefore, we are not to wait for facility of action, either from the will of men, or the temper of the times, but must rush forward through the midst of despair. It is the will of our Master that his gospel be preached. Let us obey his command, and follow whithersoever he calls. What the success will be it is not ours to inquire. Our only duty is to wish for what is best, and beseech it of the Lord in prayer; to strive with all zeal, solicitude, and diligence, to bring about the desired result, and at the same time to submit with patience to whatever that result may be. Groundless, therefore, is the charge brought against us of not having done all the good which we wished, and which was to be desired. God bids us plant and water. We have done so. He alone gives the increase. What, then, if he chooses not to give according to our wish? If it is clear that we have faithfully done our part, let not our adversaries require more of us: if the result is unfavorable, let them expostulate with God.

The church-growth movement is one of the church's most deliberate and important responses to the crisis of authority of faith in modern culture. (Other prominent but less laudable responses are the resort to the therapeutic revolution or to a politicized faith.)

To be sure, many church-growth advocates see the church’s problem simply as a matter of out-of-date structures and out-of-touch communication, which can all be remedied easily. This naivete trivializes a crisis that is far more massive than they realize. But it is not surprising that when the church, and its ministers and preaching, are all widely perceived as "irrelevant" in the modern world, such a resort to new forms of authority and relevance appears justified as well as necessary.

Church membership and adherence are regulated to the theological and institutional understanding of the church. Church membership has both spiritual and legal dimensions.

On the Protestant view, the church is the communion of saints instituted by the Holy Spirit. Church membership, then, is essentially being a part of the communion of saints. It begins with the work of the Holy Spirit, who brings one into this fellowship through the preaching of the Gospel. Baptism is incorporation into the body of Christ and the people of God. Participation in the gifts of the Eucharist (I can use Lord's Supper) confers fellowship with other church members in anticipation of perfected fellowship with God.

The legal aspect of church membership is connected to the spiritual-it confers both the rights and duties of this membership. The rules of the various churches differ on how membership is attained and how it ends, as well as how membership rights may be suspended. The rights include participation in worship and ministry and voting. Duties include participation in worship, rendering diaconal service, and giving financial support.

The earthly cities, taking their cue from the history of human rebellion from the fall to Babel to pagan Rome, know only power, not grace. They all belong to "the city of this world, a city which aims at dominion" and is itself dominated by a lust for power. Because of God's providential restraint, however, even this earthly city is capable of generating culture, civic morality and justice, as well as other essential characteristics of human community.

With this perspective, clearly distinguishing between the nature, goals, and methods of both kingdoms, Augustine was able to hold out optimism about what Christians could do in the fallen world around them while not confusing the heavenly kingdom and its earthly manifestation in the present (the Church) with the kingdoms of this world.

What a different approach this was from Jerome, Augustine's famous contemporary, who exclaimed, "What is to become of the Church now that Rome has fallen?" There was for Jerome a certain correspondence between Rome and the kingdom of God. Hadn't Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion?

Augustine said that even a "Christian" nation is still a kingdom under judgment, a kingdom of power and domination to be sharply distinguished from the kingdom of Christ and its progress through grace rather than glory.

Augustine's theological conviction at this point made him view sacked Rome as a mission field rather than a battlefield. Viewed in terms of the latter, one such as Jerome could only conclude that a devastating blow had been dealt to Christ's cause. But viewed from Augustine's perspective, God had brought the pagans to the missionaries!

We believe that, because of the depravity of mankind, our gracious God has ordained kings, princes, and civil officers. He wants the world to be governed by laws and policies, in order that the licentiousness of men be restrained and that everything be conducted among them in good order. For that purpose He has placed the sword in the hand of the government to punish wrongdoers and to protect those who do what is good (Rom 13:4).

Moreover, everyone - no matter of what quality, condition, or rank - ought to be subject to the civil officers, pay taxes, hold them in honour and respect, and obey them in all things which do not disagree with the Word of God. We ought to pray for them, that God may direct them in all their ways and that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way (1 Tim 2:1, 2).

First, that believers, one and all, as members of the Lord Jesus Christ, are partakers with Him in all His treasures and gifts; second, that each one must feel himself bound to use his gifts readily and cheerfully for the advantage and welfare of other members.

All saints, that are united to Jesus Christ their Head, by His Spirit, and by faith, have fellowship with Him in His grace, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory: and, being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other's gifts and graces, and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and outward man.

The nineteenth general council of the Catholic Church was held at Trent in several phases from 1545 to 1563. When the council opened in the northern Italian city of Trent, it was too late for a reconciliation between the various religious factions, although this was the reason there had been calls for a council since the 1520s…. The council, with a great sense of moderation, systematically adhered to the criterion of responding to the objections raised by the Protestants on each issue, constantly resisting the temptation to draw up a summary of Catholic theology on each of the subjects it dealt with…. While the Protestants were absent, various national and theological currents as well as striking differences of opinion gave rise to tensions that were difficult to resolve.

Corinth was located on the isthmus that connects the Peloponnese with the rest of Greece. Not only was it ideally situated to control north-south trade, but because the port of Lechaeum lay a mile and a half to the north (on the Gulfof Corinth) and Cenchreae (Rom. 16:1) was just over seven miles to the east on the Saronic Gulf, it also provided an indispensable land link between east and west.

The wealthy and ancient city of Corinth was utterly destroyed by the Romans in 146 B.C., and its citizens were killed or sold into slavery. Roman might ensured that the prohibition against rebuilding it was respected. Nevertheless, a century later Julius Caesar founded the city afresh, this time as a Roman colony, and from 29 B.C. on, it served as the seat o a proconsul and the capital of the senatorial province of Achaia. The new city was populated by people from various parts of the empire, doubtless not a few of them retired soldiers. According to Strabo, many were freedmen from Rome, whose status was only a cut above slaves. Jews were certainly included in the new citizenry (a broken inscription of uncertain date, with the words "Synagogue of the Hebrews," has been discovered, confirming Acts 18:4). Some Greeks were also residents of the new Corinth, perhaps large numbers of them; but the Romans dominated the scene with their laws, culture, and religion. Much of the empire had been thoroughly Hellenized, however, so not only was the lingua franca Greek but doubtless many ties-religious, philosophical, and cultural-were quickly reestablished with the rest of the Greek peninsula. From Asia and Egypt came various mystery cults. Because there was no landed aristocracy in the new Corinth, there arose an aristocracy of wealth. Inevitably, the poor were correspondingly despised or ignored (see 1 Cor. 11:17-22).

A creed is a confession of faith; put into concise form, endowed with authority, and intended for general use in religious rites, a creed summarizes the essential beliefs of a particular religion. According to this definition, there are three Christian creeds: the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian.

The Protestant confessions of the Reformation era were intended to restore to the church its true image and identity, which, it was widely agreed, had been obscured by the abuses of the later Middle Ages. The heart of the Reformation creeds is the rediscovery of the Gospel as, in Luther's memorable phrase, "the real treasure of the church." The church, Luther held, is the creation of the gospel; it is the word of God in Jesus Christ that makes the church the church.

Lutheran Confessions
The Book of Concord containing: Luther's Large and Small Catechisms, the Augsburg Confession, Melanchthon's Apology for the Augsburg Confession, Luther's Smalcald Articles, Melanchthon's Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope, and the Formula of Concord.

Reformed Confessions
The Westminster Standards containing: The Westminster Confession of Faith, the Larger Catechism, and the Smaller Catechism. (Primarily used in Presbyterian Churches)

The Three Forms of Unity containing: The Belgic Confession of Faith, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of the Synod of Dort. (Primarily used in Reformed Churches)

Reformed Baptist Confession
The London Baptist Confession of 1689

Strictly, the term denotes a certain movement of rationalistic thought which was manifested chiefly in England from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century.

Affirmatively, deists hold to (1) the existence of a personal God, Creator and Rule of the universe; (2) the obligation of divine worship; (3) the obligation of ethical conduct; (4) the necessity of repentance from sins; (5) divine rewards and punishments, here, and in the life of the soul after death. These five points were stated by Lord Herbert Cherbury (1583-1648), called the father of deism.

Negatively, the deists generally denied any direct intervention in the natural order on the part of God. Though they professed faith in personal Providence, they denied the Trinity, the incarnation, the divine authority of the Bible, the atonement, miracles, any particular elect people such as Israel or the church, or any supernatural redemptive act in history."

We believe that Jesus Christ, according to his divine nature, is the only Son of God -- eternally begotten, not made nor created, for then he would be a creature. He is one in essence with the Father; coeternal; the exact image of the person of the Father and the "reflection of his glory," being in all things like him. He is the Son of God not only from the time he assumed our nature but from all eternity, as the following testimonies teach us when they are taken together.

Moses says that God "created the world"; and John says that "all things were created by the Word," which he calls God. The apostle says that "God made the world by his Son." He also says that "God created all things by Jesus Christ." And so it must follow that he who is called God, the Word, the Son, and Jesus Christ already existed when all things were created by him. Therefore, the prophet Micah says that his origin is "from ancient times, from eternity." And the apostle says that he has "neither beginning of days nor end of life." So then, he is the true eternal God, the Almighty, whom we invoke, worship, and serve.

Historical Protestantism maintains that the doctrinal truths embodied in dogmas are either contained explicitly in Scripture, or are deduced from it by "good and necessary consequence." Dogmas are not mere repetitions of Scripture statements, but careful, albeit human and therefore fallible, formulations of doctrines contained in the Word of God.

The Christian consciousness not only appropriates the truth, but also feels an irrepressible urge to reproduce it and to see it in its grand unity. While the intellect gives guidance and direction to this reflection, it is not purely an intellectual activity, but one that is moral and emotional as well. The understanding, the will, the affections, in short, the whole person, is brought into play. All the faculties of his soul and all the movements of his inner life contribute to the final result. Broader still, it is not merely the individual Christian, but rather the Church of God as a whole, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, that is the subject of this reflective activity.

The utterance of praise to God; thanksgiving.

The best-known doxologies of the Christian church are Gloria in excelsis, or the greater doxology; Gloria Patri, or the lesser doxology; and the closing stanza of Thomas Ken's morning and evening hymns, beginning, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow,” sung to the tune "Old Hundredth" from the Genevan Psalter but also to "Duke Street", by John Hatton and "The Eighth Tune" by Thomas Tallis.

Doxology is the offering of worship to God in "wonder, love, and praise", exalting him, glorifying him and proclaiming his greatness in "humble adoration"... Theology can make no real progress without the spirit of worship. Doctrine and doxology belong together. Worship divorced from sound doctrine degenerates into superficial emotionalism. Doctrine divorced from true worship lapses into barren intellectualism.

That eternal act of God whereby He, in His sovereign good pleasure, and on account of no foreseen merit in them, chooses a certain number of people to be the recipients of special grace and of eternal salvation in and by Jesus Christ.

The fact that God chooses some and passes by others does not warrant the charge that He is guilty of injustice. If God owed the forgiveness of sin and eternal life to all men, it would be an injustice if He saved only a limited number of them. But the sinner has absolutely no right or claim on the blessings which flow from divine election. As a matter of fact, he has forfeited these blessings. We must admit that God would have been perfectly just if He had not saved any (Mt. 20:14,15; Rom.9:14,15).

Because our election is "in Christ," we should not search for it in ourselves. Those who cling to Christ can be assured that they are among God's elect people.

The complex cultural movement of 18th-century Europe. The relationship of the Enlightenment to religion has been widely misrepresented, largely by a failure to admit fully its claims to distance from the Christian world. It was essentially the use of powerful new ideas to influence a social situation, to reconstruct an entire culture, to provide intellectual justification for the practical efforts of practical men. Yet the lumières, as they called themselves, were hardly practical; nor were most of them influential men of affairs. Hume and Gibbon in Britain, Lessing and Kant in Germany, and the host of philosophers - Voltaire, Rousseau, Helvetius, Holbach, Diderot, d'Alembert, and the rest - mounted an attack that undermined effectively both an obsolete socio-political order and the religious attachments by which the old regime sought to preserve itself and clothe itself with sacred authority. C.L. Becker's thesis that Enlightenment was a derivative, vulgarized statement of traditional Christian values, a secularized faith, hope, and charity, is largely discredited as a distortion. Religion, which meant Christianity, was essentially and radically challenged by a vigorous, hostile secularism. Cassirer is surely mistaken in describing Enlightenment as fundamentally religious.

A simple diagram can illustrate what we mean by emergent thinking. Think of a cross section of a tree. Each ring represents not a replacement of the previous rings, not a rejection of them, but an embracing of them, a comprising of them, and inclusion of them in something bigger. The tree's previous growth is integrated into, and in fact is essential to, the tree's continuing growth and strength. (315)

There are many kinds of thinking. Some thought is discursive, tracing the development of an idea in a linear way. Some is polemical, staging a winner-takes-all fight between ideas. Some is analytical, breaking down complex wholes into simple parts or tracing complex effects back to simpler causes. But some thought seeks to embrace what has come before -- like a new ring on a tree -- in something bigger. This is emergent (or integral, or integrative) thinking. (316)

Emergent Christians look at the world as "our Father's world." We stand wide-eyed, trying to take in what's going on here, understanding it as an unfolding story, an emergent family drama, with birth, growth, struggle, maturity, death, and resurrection. We see God not as a potentate trying to keep serfs under control in the stasis of perpetual childhood, but rather as a parent inviting us to grow and mature, to become as good as beautiful and true as we can become -- to emerge... What we will be is not yet clear to us. (321-322)

...I believe there is something above and beyond the current alternatives of modern fundamentalism/absolutism and pluralistic relativism. I know this is so hard to envision...This "above and beyond" is, I believe, the way of Jesus, which is the way of love and the way of embrace. It integrates what has gone before so that something new can emerge. It is, again, what I believe Jesus means by "the kingdom of God," a reality into which we have been emerging through the centuries, which is bigger than whatever we generally mean by "Christianity" but at the same time is what generously orthodox Christianity is truly about

We believe that Jesus Christ according to His divine nature is the only begotten Son of God, begotten from eternity, not made, nor created (for then He would be a creature), but co-essential and co-eternal with the Father, the very image of his substance and the effulgence of his glory, equal unto Him in all things. He is the Son of God, not only from the time that He assumed our nature but from all eternity, as these testimonies, when compared together, teach us. Moses says that God created the world; and St. John says that all things were made by that Word which he calls God. The apostle says that God made the world by His Son; likewise, that God created all things by Jesus Christ. Therefore it must needs follow that He who is called God, the Word, the Son, and Jesus Christ, did exist at that time when all things were created by Him. Therefore the prophet Micah says: His goings forth are from of old, from everlasting. And the apostle: He hath neither beginning of days nor end of life. He therefore is that true, eternal, and almighty God whom we invoke, worship, and serve.

We know by experience that singing has great force and vigor to move and inflame the hearts of men to invoke and praise God with a more vehement and ardent zeal. Care must always be taken that the song be neither light nor frivolous; but that it have weight and majesty (as St. Augustine says), and also, there is a great difference between music which one makes to entertain men at table and in their houses, and the Psalms which are sung in the Church in the presence of God and his angels. But when anyone wishes to judge correctly of the form which is here presented, we hope that it will be found holy and pure, seeing that it is simply directed to the edification of which we have spoken.

And yet the practice of singing may extend more widely; it is even in the homes and in the fields an incentive for us, as it were, an organ of praise to God, and to lift up our hearts to him, to console us by meditating upon his virtue, goodness, wisdom and justice: that which is more necessary than one can say. In the first place, it is not without cause that the Holy Spirit exhorts us so carefully throughout the Holy Scriptures to rejoice in God and that all our joy is there reduced to its true end, because he knows how much we are inclined to rejoice in vanity. As thus then our nature draws us and induces us to seek all means of foolish and vicious rejoicing; so, to the contrary, our Lord, to distract us and withdraw us from the temptations of the flesh and of the world, presents us all possible means in order to occupy us in that spiritual joy which he recommends to us so much.

True faith is not only a certain knowledge, whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in his word, but also an assured confidence, which the Holy Ghost works by the gospel, in my heart; that not only the others, but to me also, remission of sin, everlasting righteousness and salvation, are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ's merits.

(The Heidelberg Catechism, Question 21, "What is true faith?")

The Reformers were unanimous and explicit in teaching that justifying faith does not justify by any meritorious or inherent efficacy of its own, but only as the instrument for receiving or laying hold on what God has provided in the merits of Christ. They regarded this faith primarily as a gift of God and only secondarily as an activity of man in dependence on God.

Q. Why do you say that by faith alone you are right with God?
A. It is not because of any value my faith has that God is pleased with me. Only Christ's satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness make my right with God. And I can receive this righteousness and make it mine in no other way than by faith alone.

Q. Why can't the good we do make us right with God, or at least help make us right with him?
A. Because the righteousness which can pass God's scrutiny must be entirely perfect and must in every way measure up to the divine law. Even the very best we do in this life is imperfect and stained with sin.

Q. It is by faith alone that we share in Christ and all his blessings: where then does that faith come from?
A. The Holy Spirit produces it in our hearts by the preaching of the holy gospel, and confirms it through our use of the sacraments.

Finney's understanding of what a revival is:
A revival is not a miracle, nor dependant on a miracle, in any sense. It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means--as much so as any other effect produced by the application of means.

The essence of free will is choosing according to our desires. The will is free to choose whatever it desires. With regard to salvation, the question then becomes, what do fallen human beings desire? Jonathan Edwards said that as fallen human beings we retain our "natural freedom" (the power to act according to our desires), but lose our "moral freedom" (the disposition, inclination, and desire of the soul for righteousness). In the Fall, we lost all desire for God. But because we can still choose according to our desires, we choose to sin and are accountable to the judgment of God. In this sense, the freedom of our will is a curse. All human beings desire to flee from God unless and until the Holy Spirit performs a work of regeneration. That regeneration changes our desires so that we will freely repent and be saved.

This understanding of human free will is not deterministic because determinism teaches that our actions are completely controlled by something external to us, making us do what we don't want to do. This is coercion and is opposed to freedom. How can our choices be determined but not coerced? Beause they are determined by something within -- by what we are and by what we desire. They are determined by ourselves. This is self-determination, which is the very essence of freedom.

The general revelation of God is prior to His special revelation in point of time. It does not come to man in the form of verbal communications, but in the facts, the forces, and the laws of nature, in the constitution and operation of the human mind, and in the facts of experience and history. The Bible refers to it in such passages as Ps. 19:1, 2; Rom. 1:19, 20; 2:14, 15.

While Pelagians, Rationalists, and Deists regard this revelation as adequate for our present needs, Roman Catholics and Protestants are agreed that it is not sufficient. It was obscured by the blight of sin resting on God's beautiful creation. The handwriting of the Creator was not entirely erased, but became hazy and indistinct. It does not now convey any fully reliable knowledge of God and spiritual things, and therefore does not furnish us a trustworthy foundation on which we can build for our eternal future. The present religious confusion of those who would base their religion on a purely natural basis clearly proves its insufficiency. It does not even afford an adequate basis for religion in general, much less for true religion. Even gentile nations appeal to some supposed special revelation. And, finally, it utterly fails to meet the spiritual needs of sinners. While it conveys some knowledge of the goodness, the wisdom, and the power of God, it conveys no knowledge whatever of Christ as the only way of salvation.

This does not mean, however, that general revelation has no value at all. It accounts for the true elements that are still found in heathen religions. Due to this revelation gentiles feel themselves to be the offspring of God (Acts 17:28), seek after God if haply they might find Him (Acts 17:27), see in nature God's everlasting power and divinity (Rom. 1:19, 20), and do by nature the things of the law (Rom. 2:14). Though they live in the darkness of sin and ignorance, and pervert the truth of God, they still share in the illumination of the Word (Jn 1:9), and in the general operations of the Holy Spirit (Gen. 6:3). Moreover, the general revelation of God also forms the background for His special revelation. The latter could not be fully understood without the former. Science and history do not fail to illumine the pages of the Bible

The Global Soul may see so many sides of every question that he never settles on a firm conviction. He may grow so used to giving back a different self depending on his environment that he loses sight of who he is when nobody is around. Everywhere is made up of everywhere else, and our very souls have been put into circulation. Yet even global beings need a home. We live in an anthology of generic spaces: the shopping mall, the food court, the hotel lobby, which bear the same relation to life, perhaps, that Musak does to music. The global soul is a ventriloquist, an impersonator for an undercover agent. The question that most haunts him is, "Who are you today?"

[As human beings] we have many objections, barriers, biases, acculturations, conditions, misconceptions, presuppositions, distortion of facts, and any number of excuses. It is the goal of Christian apologetics to remove these hindrances that stand between a person and the cross of Christ. As a result, some Christians see apologetics as pre-evangelism; it is not the gospel, but it prepares the soil for the gospel.... Whatever its relation to the gospel, apologetics is an extremely important enterprise that can profoundly impact unbelievers and be used as the tool that clears the way to faith in Jesus Christ.

1. Good works are only such as God hath commanded in His holy Word, and not such as, without the warrant thereof, are devised by men, out of blind zeal, or upon any pretence of good intention.

2. These good works, done in obedience to God's commandments, are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith: and by them believers manifest their thankfulness, strengthen their assurance, edify their brethren, adorn the profession of the gospel, stop the mouths of the adversaries, and glorify God, whose workmanship they are, created in Christ Jesus thereunto, that, having their fruit unto holiness, they may have the end, eternal life.

3. Their ability to do good works is not at all of themselves, but wholly from the Spirit of Christ. And that they may be enabled thereunto, beside the graces they have already received, there is required an actual influence of the same Holy Spirit to work in them to will, and to do, of His good pleasure: yet are they not hereupon to grow negligent, as if they were not bound to perform any duty unless upon a special motion of the Spirit; but they ought to be diligent in stirring up the grace of God that is in them.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
(Romans 3:21-26)

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
(1 Corinthians 15:3-6)

Refers to secret doctrines and practices of mysticism whereby a person may come to enlightenment or realization that he or she is of the same essence as God or the Absolute. The Greek word gnosis means knowledge, though of a particular kind, namely the knowledge of one’s own divinity, acquired not by a rational exercise of the mind but by its very opposite, by mystical altered states of consciousness that seek to silence the mind. Knowing this, one is freed from the fragmentary and illusory material and intelligible world of the Creation and liberated from moral and physical control of Yahweh, the foolish Creator.

The term, a German word, literally meaning "salvation-history", was coined in the eighteenth century and used in the nineteenth century by certain theologians who rejected Schleiermacher's attempt to rest theology upon religious feeling and emphasized the primacy of the biblical historical revelation. One way that this term is used today is to insist that the total history of revelation and salvation is connected with real events in actual history, of which Christ is both the center and the culmination. From all the variety of the New Testament elements there emerges one picture of the Christ-event from pre-existence to parousia. This view does not make the Christian religion dependent upon the vicissitudes of historical research; it is faith in Christ which makes sense of the witness of the biblical records, and faith is essential to the right understanding of their historical content. The stress is upon the acts of God in history.

Christianity rests on historical facts which come to our knowledge through a revelation given and completed more than nineteen centuries ago. And the correct interpretation and understanding of these facts can only result from the continual prayers and meditation, from the study and struggles, of the Church of all ages. No one Christian can ever hope to succeed in assimilating and reproducing properly the whole content of the divine revelation Neither is one generation ever able to accomplish the task. The formation of dogmas is the task of the Church of all ages, a task which requires great spiritual energy on the part of successive generations. And history teaches us that, in spite of differences of opinion and protracted struggles, and even in spite of temporary retrogressions, the Church's insight into the truth gradually gained in clarity and profundity. One truth after another became, the center of attention, and was brought to ever greater development. And the historical Creeds of the Churches now embody in concentrated form the best results of the reflection and study of past centuries. It is at once the duty and the privilege of the Church of our day to enter into that heritage of bygone years, and to continue to build on the foundation that was laid.

From the beginning, the Christian gospel, as indeed the name "gospel" or "good news" implies, consisted in an account of something that had happened. And from the beginning, the meaning of the happening was set forth; and when the meaning of the happening was set forth, then there was Christian doctrine. "Christ died"-that is history; "Christ died for our sins"-that is doctrine. Without these two elements, joined in an absolutely indissoluable union, there is no Christianity.

It is perfectly clear, then, that the first Christian missionaries did not simply come forward with an exhortation; they did not say: "Jesus of Nazareth lived a wonderful life of filial piety, and we call upon you our hearers to yield yourselves, as we have done, to the spell of that life." Certainly that is what modern historians would have expected the first Christian missionaries to say, but it must be recognized that as a matter of fact they said nothing of the kind.

...The great weapon with which the disciples of Jesus set out to conquer the world was not a mere comprehension of eternal principles; it was an historical message, an account of something that had recently happened; it was the message, "He is risen." The world was to be redeemed by the proclamation of this event. And with the event went the meaning of the event; and the setting forth of the event with the meaning of the event was doctrine. These two elements are always combined in the Christian message. The narration of the facts is history, the narration of the facts with the meaning of the facts is doctrine. Such was the Christianity of the primitive church.

From the Christian perspective idolatry may be defined as a worship of a god that man creates instead of worshipping the God who created man. Or it is being ultimately concerned with that which is not ultimate. In biblical times idolatry was associated with pagan religions and graven images. But through its history Christianity has recognized that man's idolatry takes more subtle forms. Thus John Wesley could say, 'We have set up our idols in our hearts; ... we worship ourselves, when we pay that honor to ourselves which is due to God alone. Therefore, all pride is idolatry.

Simply, to credit or reckon. Through Adam, the guilt of sin is imputed to all men; through Christ, righteousness is imputed to believers (Rom 5:12-21). On the cross, Christ exchanged his righteousness for man's sinfulness (2 Cor 5:21) by means of imputation. The sins of believers were imputed (credited) to Christ on the cross, and the righteousness that belonged to Jesus Christ was imputed (credited) to believers. Thus, believers possess an "alien" righteousness and can stand before a righteous God.

We confess, therefore, that God has fulfilled the promise which He made to the fathers by the mouth of His holy prophets, when He sent into the world, at the time appointed by Him, His own only-begotten and eternal Son, who took upon Him the form of a servant and became like unto man, really assuming the true human nature with all its infirmaties, sin excepted; being conceived in the womb of the blessed virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit without the means of man; and did not only assume human nature as to the body, but also a true human soul, that He might be a real man. For since the soul was lost as well as the body, it was necessary that He should take both upon Him, to save both.

Therefore we confess (in opposition to the heresy of the Anabaptists, who deny that Christ assumed human flesh of His mother) that Christ partook of the flesh and blood of the children; that He is a fruit of the loins of David after the flesh; born of the seed of David according to the flesh; a fruit of the womb of Mary; born of a woman; a branch of David; a shoot of the root of Jesse; sprung from the tribe of Judah; descended from the Jews according to the flesh; of the seed of Abraham; since he took on him the seed of Abraham, and was made like unto his brethren in all things, sin excepted; so that in truth He is our Immanuel, that is to say, God with us.

Indicative: The mood of Greek verbs that presents the verbal idea as being actual or real, as opposed to that which is only possible or intended.

Imperative: The mood of Greek verbs that normally expresses a command or some similar declaration of volition. The one giving the command speaks to something that is in the realm of the possible and makes it known that he or she wants this to be actualized.

Islam is a major world religion founded by Muhammad in Arabia in the early 7th century AD.

The Arabic word islam means "submission"-specifically, submission to the will of the one God, called Allah in Arabic. Islam is a strictly monotheistic religion, and its adherents, called Muslims, regard the Prophet Muhammad as the last and most perfect of God's messengers, who include Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and others. The sacred scripture of Islam is the Qur'an, which contains God's revelations to Muhammad. The sayings and deeds of the Prophet recounted in the sunna are also an important source of belief and practice in Islam. The religious obligations of all Muslims are summed up in the Five Pillars of Islam, which include belief in God and his Prophet and obligations of prayer, charity, pilgrimage, and fasting. The fundamental concept in Islam is the Shari'ah, or Law, which embraces the total way of life commanded by God. Observant Muslims pray five times a day and join in community worship on Fridays at the mosque, where worship is led by an imam. Every believer is required to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, the holiest city, at least once in a lifetime, barring poverty or physical incapacity. Muslims are enjoined to defend Islam against unbelievers through jihad.

After the exodus the people of Israel were not only organized into a nation, but were also constituted the Church of God. They were enriched with institutions in which not only family devotion or tribal faith but the religion of the nation could find expression. The Church did not yet obtain an independent organization, but had its institutional existence in the national life of Israel. The particular form which it assumed was that of a Church-State. We cannot say that the two coalesced altogether. There were separate civil and religious functionaries and institutions within the bounds of the nation. But at the same time the whole nation constituted the Church; and the Church was limited to the one nation of Israel, though foreigners could enter it by being incorporated into the nation. In this period there was a marked and greater clearness in the apprehension of the truth. The worship of God was regulated down to the minutest details, was largely ritual and ceremonial, and was centered in one central sanctuary.

"Those whom God effectually calls He also freely justifies, not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting them as righteous, not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone. They are not justified because God reckons as their righteousness either their faith, their believing, or any other act of evangelical obedience. They are justified wholly and solely because God imputes to them Christ's righteousness. He imputes to them Christ's active obedience to the whole law and His passive obedience in death. They receive Christ's righteousness by faith, and rest on Him. They do not possess or produce this faith themselves, it is the gift of God."

When Paul draws a contrast between the law and the gospel, he is thinking of this aspect of the law as the broken law of the covenant of works, which cannot justify, but can only condemn the sinner. From the law in this particular sense, both as a means for obtaining eternal life and as a condemning power, believers are set free in Christ, since he became a curse for them and met the demands of the covenant of works on their behalf. The law in this particular sense and the gospel of free grace are mutually exclusive.

There is another sense, however, in which the Christian is not free from the law. The law is the expression of man's natural obligations to his God. It is pure Antinomianism to maintain that Christ kept the law as a rule of life for his people, so that they need not worry about this anymore. The law lays claim, and justly so, on the entire life of man in all its aspects, including his relation to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel itself consists of promises and is no law; yet there is a demand of the law in connection with the gospel. The law not only demands that we accept the gospel and believe in Jesus Christ, but also that we lead a life of gratitude in harmony with its requirements.

Now, in order that both doctrines, that of the Law and that of the Gospel, be not mingled and confounded with one another, and what belongs to the one may not be ascribed to the other, whereby the merit and benefits of Christ are easily obscured and the Gospel is again turned into a doctrine of the Law, as has occurred in the Papacy, and thus Christians are deprived of the true comfort which they have in the Gospel against the terrors of the Law, and the door is again opened in the Church of God to the Papacy, therefore the true and proper distinction between the Law and the Gospel must with all diligence be inculcated and preserved, and whatever gives occasion for confusion inter legem et evangelium (between the Law and the Gospel), that is, whereby the two doctrines, Law and Gospel, may be confounded and mingled into one doctrine, should be diligently prevented. It is, therefore, dangerous and wrong to convert the Gospel, properly so called, as distinguished from the Law, into a preaching of repentance or reproof [a preaching of repentance, reproving sin]. For otherwise, if understood in a general sense of the entire doctrine, also the Apology says several times that the Gospel is a preaching of repentance and the forgiveness of sins. Meanwhile, however, the Apology also shows that the Gospel is properly the promise of the forgiveness of sins and of justification through Christ, but that the Law is a doctrine which reproves sins and condemns.

In the sphere of religion, in particular, the present time is a time of conflict; the great redemptive religion which has always been known as Christianity is battling against a totally diverse type of religious belief, which is only the more destructive of the Christian faith because it makes use of traditional Christian terminology. This modern non-redemptive religion is called "liberalism."... [This] movement is so various in its manifestations that one may almost despair of finding any common name which will apply to all its forms. But manifold as are the forms in which the movement appears, the root of the movement is one; the many varieties of modern liberal religion are rooted in naturalism-that is, in the denial of any entrance of the creative power of God (as distinguished from the ordinary course of nature) in connection with the origin of Christianity.

The term "means of grace" is sometimes used in a very general sense to denote whatsoever may minister to the spiritual welfare of believers, such as the Church, the preaching of the Word, the sacraments, the sabbath prayer, etc. It is generally employed in a more restricted sense, however, as a designation of the Word of God and the sacraments. Strictly speaking, only these two can be regarded as means of grace. When we speak of the Word we think very specifically of the Word of God as it is contained in Scripture and as it is preached to the Church, It is the Word of God's grace, and as such the most important means of grace.

The sacraments cannot exist as a means of grace and are not complete without the Word. The Word and the sacraments agree in that both have God for their authorand Christ as their central content, and in their appropriation by faith.

We believe that God, who is perfectly merciful and just, sent His Son to assume that nature in which the disobedience was committed, to make satisfaction in the same, and to bear the punishment of sin by His most bitter passion and death. God therefore manifested His justice against His Son when He laid our iniquities upon Him, and poured forth His mercy and goodness on us, who were guilty and worthy of damnation, out of mere and perfect love, giving His Son unto death for us, and raising Him for our justification, that through Him we might obtain immortality and life eternal.

We believe that God, who is perfectly merciful and just, sent His Son to assume that nature in which the disobedience was committed, to make satisfaction in the same, and to bear the punishment of sin by His most bitter passion and death. God therefore manifested His justice against His Son when He laid our iniquities upon Him, and poured forth His mercy and goodness on us, who were guilty and worthy of damnation, out of mere and perfect love, giving His Son unto death for us, and raising Him for our justification, that through Him we might obtain immortality and life eternal.

When Christian Smith and his fellow researchers with the National Study of Youth and Religion at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill took a close look at the religious beliefs held by American teenagers, they found that the faith held and described by most adolescents came down to something the researchers identified as "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism."

As described by Smith and his team, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism consists of beliefs like these: 1. "A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth." 2. "God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions." 3. "The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself." 4. "God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem." 5. "Good people go to heaven when they die."

That, in sum, is the creed to which much adolescent faith can be reduced. After conducting more than 3,000 interviews with American adolescents, the researchers reported that, when it came to the most crucial questions of faith and beliefs, many adolescents responded with a shrug and "whatever."

Narcissism describes the character trait of self love. The word is derived from a Greek myth. Narcissus was a handsome Greek youth who rejected the desperate advances of the nymph Echo. As punishment, he was doomed to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Unable to consummate his love, Narcissus pined away and changed into the flower that bears his name, the narcissus.

In terms of the self, narcissism refers to any aspect of the complex state of self-esteem, and includes such things as overweening pride, arrogance, and sensivity to insult. A contemporary workable definition of narcissism is a cognitive, affective, and motivational preoccupation with the self.

A relationship can be thought of as narissistic if the individuality of the other is ignored and the focus in one way or another is on the person himself rather than the other person.

Christians who believe but don't know why are often insecure and comfortable only around other Christians. Defensiveness can quickly surface when challenges arise on issues of faith, morality, and truth because of a lack of information regarding the rational grounds for Christianity. At its worst this can lead to either a fortress mentality or a belligerent faith, precisely the opposite of the Great Commission Jesus gave in Matthew 28:19-20. The charge of the Christian is not to withdraw from the world and lead an insular life. Rather, we are to be engaged in the culture, to be salt and light.

The solution to this problem is for believers to become informed in doctrine, the history of their faith, philosophy, logiv, and other disciplines as they relate to Christianity. They need to know the facts, arguments, and theology and understand how to employ them in a way that will effectively engage the culture. In short, the answer is Christian apologetics.

The scholars at the forefront of this movement -- E.P. Sanders, James D.G. Dunn, N.T. Wright, and others -- have been pioneering a new approach to the letters of the first-century apostle to the Gentiles, Paul of Tarsus.

At its core is the recognition that Judaism is not a religion of self-righteousness whereby humankind seeks to merit salvation before God. Paul's argument with the Judaizers was not about Christian grace versus Jewish legalism. His argument was rather about the status of Gentiles in the church. Paul's doctrine of justification, therefore, had far more to do with Jewish-Gentile issues than with questions of the individual's status before God.

We believe, since this holy assembly and congregation is the assembly of the redeemed and there is no salvation outside of it, that no one ought to withdraw from it, content to be by himself, no matter what his status or standing may be. But all and everyone are obliged to join it and unite with it, maintaining the unity of the church. They must submit themselves to its instruction and discipline, bend their necks under the yoke of Jesus Christ, and serve the edification of the brothers and sisters, according to the talents which God has given them as members of the same body.

To observe this more effectively, it is the duty of all believers, according to the Word of God, to separate from those who do not belong to the church and to join this assembly wherever God has established it. They should do so even though the rulers and edicts of princes were against it, and death or physical punishment might follow.

All therefore who draw away from the church or fail to join it act contrary to the ordinance of God. s.

The fact that Christ was anointed to a threefold office finds its explanation in the fact that man was originally intended for this threefold office and work. As created by God, he was prophet, priest, and king, and as such was endowed with knowledge and understanding, with righteousness and holiness, and with dominion over the lower creation. Sin affected the entire life of man and manifested itself not only as ignorance, blindness, error, and untruthfulness; but also as unrighteousness, guilt, and moral pollution; and in addition to that as misery, death, and destruction. Hence it was necessary that Christ, as our Mediator, should be prophet, priest, and king. As Prophet He represents God with man; as Priest He represents man in the presence of God, and as King He exercises dominion and restores the original dominion of man.

6.2 - Our first parents, by this sin, fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and we in them whereby death came upon all: all becoming dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.

6.3 - They being the root, and by God's appointment, standing in the room and stead of all mankind, the guilt of the sin was imputed, and corrupted nature conveyed, to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation, being now conceived in sin, and by nature children of wrath, the servants of sin, the subjects of death, and all other miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal, unless the Lord Jesus set them free.

6.4 - From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.

The term designates both the teachings of Pelagius, a fourth-century Christian monk, and any teaching that minimizes the role of divine grace in salvation. It was Pelagius' views on the Christian life, his moral rigorism, his high regard for the law, and his emphasis on discipline and the human will that laid the foundation for the controversy that gave birth to what has come to be known as Pelagianism.

Pelagius was offended when he read in Augustine's Confessions that humans must necessarily and inevitably sin even after baptism. Augustine's phrase "Give what you command and command what you will" seem to him to undermine the moral law and the quest for perfection, because it placed responsibility for righteousness on God rather than on the human will.

Pelagius did not, as is often thought, deny the necessity of grace. Grace was to be understood as the revelation of God's purposes and will, the wisdom by which humans are stirred to seek a life of righteousness.... Pelagius saw no opposition between the laws of the old covenant and the gospel. He saw grace as a precept and example, a view that led him to overestimate human capability and thus to invite criticism.

The Pentecostal movement is one of the more spectacular religious phenomena of the twentieth century. Born as the century began it now claims several million Americans and millions more overseas.

The unique Pentecostal experience begins in the conscious search for the gift of speaking in tongues as a sign of having been blessed with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That baptism may be defined as the dwelling of the Holy Spirit in the individual believer. from the initial experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues, the believer may expect to also manifest other gifts of the Holy Spirit as originally manifested in the New Testament church (I Cor. 12:4-11). Those gifts include healing, prophecy, wisdom (knowledge unattainable by natural means), and discernment of spirits (seeing nonphysical beings such as angels and demons).

Over against the position of the Roman Catholic Church, the reformers stressed the perspicuity of Scripture. They did not intend to deny that there are mysteries in the Bible which transcend human reason, but freely admitted this. Neither did they claim such clarity for Scripture that the interpreter can well dispense with scientific exegesis...Moreover, they did not even assert that the way of salvation is so clearly revealed in Scripture that every man, whether he be enlightened by the Holy Spirit or not, and whether or not he be deeply interested in the way of salvation, can easily understand it. Their contention was simply that the knowledge necessary unto salvation, though not equally clear on every page of Scripture, is yet conveyed to man throughout the Bible in such a simple and comprehensible form that one who is earnestly seeking salvation can, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, by reading and studying the Bible, easily obtain for himself the necessary knowledge, and does not need the aid and guidance of the Church and of a separate priesthood. Naturally, they did not mean to minimize the importance of the interpretations of the Church in the preaching of the Word. They pointed out that Scripture itself testifies to its perspicuity, where it is declared to be a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our path. The prophets and the apostles, and even Jesus Himself, address their messages to all the people and never treat them as minors who are not able to understand the truth…Because of its perspicuity, the Bible can even be said to be self-interpretive.

Most often postmodernism is simply a code word for something new, a supposed break with the past (modernity) and the dawn of a radically new era. Of course, a more modern description of an era could hardly be found, as academic postmodernists will be the first to point out. On a host of points (notions of tradition, language, the critique of autonomy, progress, presence and absence, and so on), thinkers actually classed as postmodern have a lot to teach us about what popularizers of postmodernism fail to recognize is little more than "most-modernism."

There is just too much of the modern in the post­modern to be able to speak in sweeping terms of a major paradigm shift in culture. Postmodernism-or whatever one wishes to designate our brief moment in history-is the culture in which Sesame Street is considered educational; sexy is the term of approbation for everything from jeans to doctoral theses; watching sitcoms together at dinner is called family time; abortion is con­sidered choice; films sell products; and a barrage of images and sound bites selected for their entertainment and commercial value is called news. This general trend in culture translates into hipper-than-thou clubs passing for youth ministry, informal chats passing for sermons, and brazen marketing passing for evangelism, where busyness equals holiness, and expository preaching is considered too intellectual. This trend can account in part for homes in which disciplined habits both of domestic culture and instruction in Christian faith and practice give way to niche marketing and churches becoming theaters of the absurd.

This take on postmodernism is hardly new. Marxist intellectual Alex Callinicos' illuminating analysis of postmodernism concludes that it is little more than the result of the self-obsessed "flower children" of the revolu­tionary '60s now taking their place in the professional "new middle class." In other words, postmodernism and boomer go hand in hand. Fellow Marxist Terry Eagleton adds, "Radicals, for example, are traditionalists, just as conservatives are; it is simply that they adhere to different traditions." This appraisal fits perfectly with what I see in my experience of contemporary evangelicalism. Postmodernism is the new code word for mission, a new way of enforcing not just change but particular changes that have particular ideological assumptions. One can even detect a note of fatalism in chal­lenges that verge on bullying: "Get with it or get left behind." This is just the way things are now, so we had better adapt. Sweeping endorsements or sweeping denouncements make for light work.

Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition founded by three American philosophers: Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and John Dewey. Starting from Alexander Bain's definition of belief as a rule or habit of action, Peirce argued that the function of inquiry is not to represent reality, but rather to enable us to act more effectively.

James and Dewey both wanted to reconcile philosophy with Darwin by making human beings' pursuit of the true and the good continuous with the activities of the lower animals - cultural evolution with biological evolution.

All three of the founding pragmatists combined a naturalistic, Darwinian view of human beings with a deep distrust of the problems which philosophy had inherited from Descartes, Hume, and Kant. They hoped to save philosophy from metaphysical idealism, but also to save moral and religious ideals from empiricist or positivist skepticism. Their naturalism has been combined with an anti-foundationalist, holist account of meaning by subsequent philosophers of language.

The true preaching of the Word is the most important mark of the Church. While it is independent of the sacraments, these are not independent of it. The true preaching of the Word is the great means for maintaining the Church and for enabling her to be the mother of the faithful. That this is one of the characteristics of the true Church is evident from such passages as John 8:21, 32, 47; 14:23; 1 John 4:1-3; 2 John 9. Ascribing this mark to the Church does not mean that the teaching of the Word in a Church must be perfect before it can be regarded as a true Church...But there is a limit beyond which a Church cannot go in the misrepresentation or denial of the truth, without losing her true character and becoming a false Church. This is what happens when fundamental articles of faith are publicly denied, and the doctrine and life are no more under the control of the Word of God.

"Preaching is the Ellis Island of God's kingdom, the port of entry for 'strangers and aliens' through which we must constantly pass again and again throughout our lives. We come in with our own scripts, our own storied selves, and instead of editing them here and there, God rewrites them entirely in the light of his own plot....The point is not to find a place for God in our story but to receive the good news that God has found a place for us in his. There is a seat for us at the table of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, even though we didn't even belong in the same neighborhood."

Protesting against a special sacrificing priesthood, sacramentalism, and papal teaching authority, the Reformers asserted the primacy of the word of God as present in Scripture, sermon, and sacraments. Early Reformers designated themselves simply "the preachers." The preaching of the word was proposed as the instrument through which justification comes about and the Holy Spirit is given. The Reformed tradition especially extolled praching as the primary function of the ministry.

The high value set on preaching as characteristic of the Reformation was exemplified by Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin. A close alliance between the biblical word and the preached word was observed through the expository sermon, closely following the scriptural text. The original esteem for preaching the word has never been lost in Protestantism.

Question: Since then we are made partakers of Christ and all his benefits by faith only, whence does this faith proceed?

Answer: From the Holy Ghost, who works faith in our hearts by the preaching of the gospel, and confirms it by the use of the sacraments.

Roman Catholicism
The Roman church has a doctrine of transubstantiation: in the supper the substance in the elements of bread and wine are changed in the substance of the body and blood of Christ while the accidents--i.e. appearance, taste, touch and smell--remain the same. The Council of Trent added the veneration of the consecrated elements is adoration, the same worship that is given to God. This has been called the doctrine of consubstantiation, that Christ is in, with, and under the elements.

Lutheran
Luther rejected transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the Mass, he still believed that Christ is bodily present in the Lord's Supper and that his body is received by all who partake of the elements. While he acknowledged the mystery, he was certain of the fact of Christ's real corporeal presence inasmuch as he has said when he instituted the Supper, "This is my body."

Zwinglianism
Zwingli thought the doctrine of physical eating is absurd and repugnant to common sense. Moreover God does not ask us to believe that which is contrary to sense experience. The word "is" in the institution means "signifies," or "represents," and must be interpreted figuratively.

Reformed
Calvin's view of the Lord's Supper appears to be a mediate position between the views of Luther and Zwingli, but is in fact an independent position. Calvin held that there is a real reception of the body and blood of Christ in the Supper, only in a Spiritual manner. Calvin held, with Zwingli, that after the ascension Christ retained a real body, which is located in heaven. With Luther Calvin believed that the elements in the Supper are signs that exhibit the fact that Christ is truly present.

By giving His Word to the Church, God constituted the Church the keeper of the precious deposit of the truth. While hostile forces are pitted against it and the power of error is everywhere apparent, the Church must see to it that the truth does not perish from the earth, that the inspired volume in which it is embodied is to be kept pure and unmutilated, in order that its purpose may not be defeated, and that it be handed on faithfully from generation to generation. It has the great and responsible task of maintaining and defending the truth against all the forces of unbelief and error (1 Tim. 1:3, 4; 2 Tim. 1:13; Tit. 1:9-11).

Propitiation properly signifies the turning away of wrath by an offering.

... While God's wrath is not mentioned as frequently in the NT as the Old, it is there. Man's sin receives its due reward, not because of some impersonal retribution, but because God's wrath is directed against it (Rom 1:18, 24, 26, 28)....The paradox of the OT is repeated in the New that God himself provides the means of removing his own wrath. The love of the Father is shown in that he "sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10). The purpose of Christ's becoming "a merciful and faithful high priest" was "to make propitiation for the sins of the people" (Heb 2:17). His propitiation is adequate for all (1 John 2:2).

The consistent Bible view is that the sin of man has incurred the wrath of God. That wrath is adverted only by Christ's atoning offering. From this standpoint his saving work is properly called propitiation.

Prosperity Gospel: An offshoot of Pentecostalism, the prosperity gospel is characterized by the teaching that believers can "declare," "speak," or "claim" their blessings (material, physical, and spiritual well-being) into existence. It is also known as "positive confession," or more derisively as "name-it-claim-it." Key leaders in the movement include Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, Joyce Meyer, T. D. Jakes, Benny Hinn, and Paul and Jan Crouch.

"Protestantism" generally covers the range of Christian churches that owe their origins, directly or indirectly, to the Reformation of the 16th century. At the second Diet of Speyer (1529) the representatives of the Reformers "protested" in favor of the liberty of individuals to choose their own religion according to their conscience. Their opponents described them as "Protestants," while they preferred to call themselves "evangelicals."

Despite its numerous components, and its pluralism, Protestantism may be characterized by reference to certain widely share convictions. Priority is given to salvation, and to justification by faith alone. Believers are justified before God not by their works or their merit, but by grace alone. The Bible provides the exclusive standard for the Christian life, and derives is meaning from its central figure, Jesus Christ, the sole mediator between God and human beings. Faith consists, not in acceptance of a doctrine, but in a living and personal relationship with God. The church is a community of believers who have committed themselves to listening to the word of God and to celebrating the sacraments together. Only baptism and the Lord's Supper are recognized as sacraments since they were established by Jesus Christ himself.

What characterizes these psalms, with very few exceptions (notably Psalm 88), is the confidence that the situation can be changed if God wills to intervene.... The psalmists are not like Greek tragedians who portray a no-exit situation of fate or necessity; rather, they raise a cry out of the depths in the confidence that God has the power to lift a person out of the "miry bog" and to set one's feet upon a rock (Ps. 40:1-3). Hence the laments are really expressions of praise, offered in a minor key in the confidence that Yhwh is faithful and in anticipation of a new lease on life.

The Qur'an (or Koran) is the sacred scripture of Islam, regarded by Muslims as the infallible word of God, revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.

The book, first compiled in its authoritative form in the 7th century, consists of 114 chapters (surahs) of varying length, written in Arabic. The earliest surahs call for moral and religious obedience in light of the coming Day of Judgment; the ones written later provide directives for the creation of a social structure that will support the moral life called for by God. The Qur'an also provides detailed accounts of the joys of paradise and the terrors of hell. Muslims believe that the God who spoke to Muhammad is the God worshiped by Jews and Christians but that the revelations received by those religions are incomplete. Emphasis on the stern justice of God is tempered by frequent references to his mercy and compassion. The Qur'an demands absolute submission (islam) to God and his word, and it serves as the primary source of Islamic law. It is regarded as immutable in both form and content; traditionally translation was forbidden. The translations available today are regarded as paraphrases to facilitate understanding of the actual scripture.

The rapture conveys the idea of the transporting of believers from earth to heaven at Christ’s second coming. When used by dispensational writers, the term refers to Christ’s secret coming with all believers are suddenly removed from the earth before the great tribulation. Those who believe this sudden, secret event takes place seven years before Christ’s bodily return hold to a premillennial, pretribulational view of the rapture. This is the position taken by dispensationalists.

Many Protestants have historically seen this even as one aspect of the general resurrection at the end of the age…. Those who place this event at the visible return of Christ to the earth hold to a postribulational view of the rapture. Historic premillennialism, amillennialism, and postmillennialism are all committed to this view.

Old Testament events, offices, and institutions (hereafter OTEOI) are invested by God with spiritual significance as integral steps in his history-long project to reverse sin and its effects... these OTEOI point beyond themselves, symbolizing the comprehensive, eschatological salvation that is God's purpose for history and that has been inaugurated by Christ in his first coming and that will be consummated by Christ in his second coming.

To understand how any OTEOI preaches Christ and finds its fulfillment in him, we first must grasp its symbolic depth in its own place in redemptive history. Then we need to consider how the OTEOI's original symbolic depth (the aspect of redemption to which it pointed in shadow-form) finds final and complete fulfillment in Christ. Finally, we must identify and articulate how its message applies to ourselves and our listeners.

The apostles' proclamation of Christ as the fulfillment of all God's promises provides abundant direction for the grateful outworking of this good news in personal discipline, family life, church life, and public life in the marketplace-and, if necessary, in a prison, like Paul.

In modern historiography the term Reformation is customarily applied to a series of religious protests and reforms that swept Europe during the sixteenth century. To speak of the Reformation, then, is not to speak of a single, coherent movement with a single leader and a unified program. At the same time, the term encompasses more than a disparate collection of movements unrelated to one another and sharing few or no common characteristics. Collectively, these parallel movements sought to reform the Western church in ways that went well beyond previous reform movements within Western Christendom in both degree and kind. Using scripture as their primary authority and the early church as a model ... these movements rejected the authority of the papacy and, to varying degrees, much of traditional belief and practice that had grown up within Medieval Catholicism. They also attempted to reestablish the church ... in accord with their often varying understandings of scripture and early Christianity.

The Reformed confession is the only reasonable basis for a stable definition of the Reformed theology, piety, and practice. To embrace the Reformed confession is to embrace God's Word as confessed by the Reformed Churches in public, ecclesiastical, and authoritative documents. It is to confess a biblical, evangelical, vital, churchly, manifestation of the catholic faith. It begins with God's Word, it is devoted to God's free, life-giving grace in Christ as administered in Christ's church in the pure preaching of the gospel, the pure administration of the sacraments, and the administration of church discipline.

According to Scripture repentance is wholly an inward act, and should not be confounded with the change of life that proceeds from it. Confession of sin and reparation of wrongs are fruits of repentance. Repentance is only a negative condition, and not a positive means of salvation. While it is the sinner's present duty, it does not offset the claims of the law on account of past transgressions. Moreover, true repentance never exists except in conjunction with faith, while on the other hand, wherever there is true faith, there is also real repentance. The two are but different aspects of the same turning, -- a turning away from sin in the direction of God. It should be borne in mind, however, that the faith and repentance cannot be separated; they are simply complementary parts of the same process.

On the Lutheran side, repentance and the remission of sin are two main "heads of doctrine" and comprise the elements of saving faith. Repentance requires a right concept of sin, and true conversion adds to this, requires, faith in Christ's priestly work and the forgiveness of sin. The source of repentance is the external Word of God and, in the narrow sense, is a work of the law creating in the sinner terrors of God's righteous condemnation. The Gospel is then preached to the contrite, and announces to him/us/me that solely for the sake of Christ and His vicarious atoning death the sinner is absolved-- solely "for Christ's sake."

Repentance is not just a "once for all act" but is part of the daily experience of the Christian. Luther stated, "The whole Christian life is one of continual repentance." Repentance is a "fruit of faith" and flows from a love of God as an effect of being converted.

Resurrection is not resuscitation. We are not talking about a body brought back to its former life, a body that needs food, can get sick, can age, and must eventually die again. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, he did not resurrect him; he resuscitated him. A resurrected state, however, is a body that is physical yet incorruptible-it cannot die, age, or become ill.

Reverence is the acknowledgement of God's transcendence and majesty, and the creature's comparative littleness; of the divine lordship, justice, and sovereign claims. Such reverence expresses awe before the absolutely holy, as well as a deference and submission based on a sense of complete dependence.

Revivalism, narrowly defined, is the use of special techniques to awaken interest in religion. More broadly, it embraces those Christian movements whose thought-life and culture honour this formalized pursuit of spiritual renewal. Its distinguishing elements include charismatic evangelists, mass audiences, Bible-based preaching, a gospel of repentance, the elevation of the heart and experience over head and theology, and the proliferation of dramatic, often physical, experiences of conversion. Revivalism has been primarily, but not exclusively, a feature of evangelical Protestant movements; its roots and characteristic expressions are North American, but the phenomenon has spread throughout the globalizing of Anglo-American evangelicalism. For Christians it has continued to raise questions about divine agency, the role of human instrumentality, and the psychological, sociological, and teleological role of revival in the late-modern world. Concerns over showmanship, evanescence, and manipulation of the vulnerable, questionable spiritual outcomes, and even charlatanism jostle alongside apprehensions of the Holy Spirit and God's power.

VII. All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.

IX. The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.

Sanctification is the fruit of justification. It is the gracious and continuous operation of the Holy Spirit by which He delivers the justified sinner from the pollution of sin, renews his whole nature in the image of God, and enables him to perform good works. Sanctification never reaches perfection in this life (believers continue to struggle with sin), but by virtue of the believer's union with Christ, real conformity to the image of Christ occurs by means of the Word and sacraments.

The Reformation insisted on the centrality of Christ to the entire Scripture. This centrality does not result merely from the fact that Christ is the goal and center of the messianic and covenantal history between the call of Abraham and the eschaton, but also from the ultimate focus of meaning of every text in Scripture on the work of God in Christ. Luther could insist that the genuine books of Scripture were known by their witness to Christ. Ursinus likewise declared that Christ is taught throughout the whole of Scripture as the foundation of doctrine and as the summation and focal point of the biblical message. On the one hand, this view could lead to a highly Christological reading of the Old Testament, particularly of the Psalms and the prophets. On the other, granting the relationship between Christ as the word incarnate and Scripture as the accommodated form of the eternal word and wisdom of God, it served to reinforce the doctrine of Scriptural authority and to main a more dynamic view of the text in relation to doctrine.

Q. 24. What is sin?
A. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, any law of God, given as a rule to the reasonable creature.

Q. 25. Wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate where into man fell?
A. The sinfulness of that estate where into man fell, consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of that righteousness wherein he was created, and the corruption of his nature, whereby he is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite unto all that is spiritually good, and wholly inclined to all evil, and that continually; which is commonly called original sin, and from which do proceed all actual transgressions.

The teaching of the Reformers and of their scholastic successors that grace alone is the ground of salvation and that individuals are justified by grace alone through faith. The term allows only grace to be the active power in justification and leaves nothing to the human will or to human works. Synergism, or cooperation between man and God, is therefore effectively ruled out of the initial work of salvation. Even faith is a result of grace and cannot be considered as the result of human effort.

As evangelical faith becomes secularized, its interests have been blurred with those of the culture. The result is a loss of absolute values, permissive individualism, and a substitution of wholeness for holiness, recovery for repentance, intuition for truth, feeling for belief, chance for providence, and immediate gratification for enduring hope. Christ and his cross have moved from the center of our vision.

We reaffirm that our salvation is accomplished by the mediatorial work of the historical Christ alone. His sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification and reconciliation to the Father.

We deny that the gospel is preached if Christ's substitutionary work is not declared and faith in Christ and his work is not solicited.

It is only through Scripture that we receive any knowledge of the direct revelations of God in the past. We know absolutely nothing about God's revelations among Israel through the prophets and finally in Christ, except from the Bible. If this is set aside, we abandon the whole of God's special revelation, including that in Christ. It is only through the word of the apostles that we can have communion with Christ. Consequently, it is unthinkable that God gave a special revelation and then took no measures to preserve it inviolate for coming generations. Scripture derives its significance exactly from the fact that it is the book of revelation. By means of Scripture God constantly carries His revelation into the world and makes its content effective in the thought and life of man. It is not merely a narrative of what happened years ago, but the perennial speech of God to man. Revelation lives on in Scripture and brings even now, just as it did when it was given, light, life, and holiness. By means of that revelation God continues to renew sinners in their being and consciousness. Scripture is the Holy Spirit's chief instrument for the extension and guidance of the Church, for the perfecting of the saints, and for the building up of the body of Jesus Christ.

[Edward L. Bernays] argued that the P.R. professional could "continuously and systematically" perform the task of "regimenting the public mind." He wasn't talking about lying. He was talking about artful, staged half- truth. It's the kind of sly deception that we've come to associate with the Reagan Administration's intricately scripted photo ops (the cowboy hats, the flannel shirts, the horse), with the choreographed folksiness of Clinton's Town Hall meetings, with the "Wag the Dog" world of political operatives, and with the Dilbertian byways of boardroom euphemism, in which firing is "rightsizing" and dismembering companies becomes "unlocking shareholder value." Edward L. Bernays invented spin.

Spin, the political columnist E.J. Dionne wrote recently, "obliterates the distinction between persuasion and deception."

The spin fantasy offers a far more satisfying explanation for the world around us. Spin suggests a drama, a script to decode, a game played at the highest of levels. Spinning is the art of telling a story, even when there is no story to tell, and this is irresistible (particularly to journalists, who make a living by telling stories even when there is no story to tell). In truth, the world of persuasion is a good deal more prosaic. Ideas and candidacies--not to mention albums--are sold by talking plainly and clearly, and the louder and faster the whirring of the spinners becomes, the more effective this clarity and plainspokenness will be.

In this way, then, things are well-balanced, and you satisfy at the same time God's kingdom inwardly and the kingdom of the world outwardly, at the same time suffer evil and injustice and yet punish evil and injustice; at the same time do not resist evil and yet resist it. For in the case you consider yourself and what is yours, in the other you consider your neighbor and what is his.

"The process of propitiation envisaged in the Bible is one which involves an element of substitution. In both the Old and New Testaments the means of propitiation is the offering up of a gift, the gift of a life yielded up to death by God's own appointment. The Scripture is clear that the wrath of God is visited upon sinners or else that the Son of God dies for them.... Either we die or He dies. But 'God commendeth His own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us' (Rom 5:8)."

"By the blood of Christ a propitiation is effected so that those who are of faith no longer need fear the wrath. Thus we see that, whereas originally sinners were liable to suffer from the outpouring of the wrath of God, Christ has suffered instead of them, and now they may go free. But to say this is to say substitution."

We believe that this Holy Scripture contains the will of God completely and that everything one must believe to be saved is sufficiently taught in it. For since the entire manner of service which God requires of us is described in it at great length, no one-- even an apostle or an angel from heaven, as Paul says-- ought to teach other than what the Holy Scriptures have already taught us. For since it is forbidden to add to or subtract from the Word of God, this plainly demonstrates that the teaching is perfect and complete in all respects.

Therefore we must not consider human writings-- no matter how holy their authors may have been-- equal to the divine writings; nor may we put custom, nor the majority, nor age, nor the passage of time or persons, nor councils, decrees, or official decisions above the truth of God, for truth is above everything else. For all human beings are liars by nature and more vain than vanity itself.

Therefore we reject with all our hearts everything that does not agree with this infallible rule, as we are taught to do by the apostles when they say, "Test the spirits to see if they are of God," and also, "If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house."

Theology is to be defined essentially, if rather generically, as the overspill of divine faith into all the levels of human reasonableness, its wit, humor, poetic imagery, sense of analogy, power of coordination, openness to be taught, and search for reasons why, whence, how, and what it is all about. God's revelation is the source of theology, and the Holy Scripture is the record of God's special revelation. Theology is the Church thinking aloud, and here, it may be remarked, the people not the professionals, have sometimes led the way-the distinction is not that between laity and clergy.

The mention of "theologian" may suggest a professional expert. This is a special vocation for some, but all the people of God, to the extent they are called upon to think at all, are called to think theologically, for all issues, are at bottom theological.

Accordingly, Christian theology takes place within the household of the faith. To look at divine revelation from outside, in so far as that be possible, would not be theology, but a detached and critical philosophy of religion, and the same can be said about "natural theology," when treated merely as a part of the natural, moral, and metaphysical philosophy out of its context in salvation history.

This distinction can be seen as Martin Luther's most profound contribution to theological thought. Standing in opposition to the theology of glory, the theology of the cross is best understood in concert with the "the hidden God" and the "the revealed God".

Because of the Fall of man the revealed God became the hidden God. The only way the shattered fellowship could be restored was by means of redemption. God's consummate meeting place was unveiled at the cross of Christ. God is known and understood not in strength but in weakness, not in an awesome display of majesty and power but in the exhibition of a love willing to have the Son of God suffer. Unfortunately, modern man is determined to know God as the Revealed One. The heathen sees God's power in the created cosmos but is led from one degree of idolatry to another.

The theology of glory is the antithesis of the theology of the cross. So strongly did Luther feel about the distinction between these theologies that he stated unequivocally that only those who hold to and teach the theology of the cross deserve to be called theologians.

The potential danger of a theology of glory is that it could lead to a form of moralistic works righteousness, a propensity to strike a bargain with God on the basis of personal achievement. The theology of the cross repudiates humanity's own accomplishments and permits God to do everything to effect and preserve his salvation. Such theology redirects from moralistic activism to genuine receptivity.

Therefore, all people are conceived in sin and are born children of wrath, unfit for any saving good, inclined to evil, dead in their sins, and slaves to sin; without the grace of the regenerating Holy Spirit they are neither willing nor able to return to God, to reform their distorted nature, or even to dispose themselves to such reform.

According to Heiko Oberman, there were two competing understandings of the relations between tradition and Scripture in the pre-modern church. He described the first approach, the "single exegetical tradition of interpreted Scripture," as "Tradition I." The "two-sources theory which allows for extra-biblical oral tradition" he called "Tradition II." He argued that the Council of Trent represented Tradition II and the Reformers represented Tradition I.

In contrast to Tradition II, in which Scripture is controlled by a parallel source of authority in a developing tradition, the classical Reformed approach controlled tradition with the Scriptures but did not reject tradition as such. The Reformed tradition is what Johannes Wollebius called the "ministerial testimony" to the Scriptures.

The confessional Reformed approach to tradition (Tradition I), however, neither canonizes the past nor ignores it nor suspects it as an enemy, but rather it treats it with the respect deserved by fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

True saving faith is a faith that has its seat in the heart and is roots in the regenerate life. The seed of the faith is implanted by God in the heart in regeneration, and it is only after God has implanted this seed in the heart that man can actively exercise faith. The conscious exercise of it gradually forms a habit, and this becomes a powerful aid in the further exercise of faith. When the Bible speaks of this faith it generally, though not always, refers to it as an activity of man. It may be defined as a certain conviction, wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit, as to the truth of the gospel, and a hearty reliance on the promises of God in Christ.

If you want health for your souls, and if you want to be the instruments of bringing health to others, do not turn your gaze forever within, as though you could find Christ there. Nay, turn your gaze away from your own miserable experiences, away from your own sin, to the Lord Jesus Christ as He is offered to us in the gospel. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up." Only when we turn away from ourselves to that uplifted Savior shall we have healing for our deadly hurt.

It is the same old story, my friends -- the same old story of the natural man. Men are trying today, as they have always been trying, to save themselves -- to save themselves by their own act of surrender, by the excellence of their own faith, by mystic experiences of their own lives. But it is all in vain. Not that way is peace with God to be obtained. It is to be obtained only in the old, old way - by attention to something that was done once for all long ago, and by acceptance of the living Savior who there, once for all, brought redemption for our sin. Oh, that men would turn for salvation from their own experience to the Cross of Christ; oh, that they would turn from the phenomena of religion to the living God!

That that may be done, there is but one way. It is not found in a study of the psychology of religion; it is not found in "religious education"; it is not found in an analysis of one's own spiritual status. Oh, no. It is found only in the blessed written Word. There are the words of life. There God speaks. Let us attend to His voice. Let us above all things know the Word. Let us study it with all our minds, let us cherish it with all our hearts. Then let us try, very humbly, to bring it to the unsaved. Let us pray that God may honor not the messengers but the message, that despite our unworthiness He may make His Word upon our unworthy lips to be a message of life.

Reformed
The two kingdoms doctrine teaches that God rules all things, but rules all things in two fundamentally distinct ways. In the Reformed version of this doctrine, the civil kingdom consists of the state and other cultural institutions and activities of this life. God rules this kingdom as creator and sustainer, bestowing rain and sunshine and all sorts of other earthly goods upon all people and upholding some measure of justice and prosperity in their cultural lives. The spiritual kingdom, on the other hand, is a heavenly, eschatological realm, but one that has also broken into the present world through the ministry and life of the church. God rules this kingdom as redeemer, bestowing not temporal provisions of natural earthly life upon all people but the blessings of salvation and eternal life to his redeemed people.

Lutheran
Of Civil Affairs they teach that lawful civil ordinances are good works of God, and that it is right for Christians to bear civil office, to sit as judges, to judge matters by the Imperial and other existing laws, to award just punishments, to engage in just wars, to serve as soldiers, to make legal contracts, to hold property, to make oath when required by the magistrates, to marry a wife, to be given in marriage.

They condemn also those who do not place evangelical perfection in the fear of God and in faith, but in forsaking civil offices, for the Gospel teaches an eternal righteousness of the heart. Meanwhile, it does not destroy the State or the family, but very much requires that they be preserved as ordinances of God, and that charity be practiced in such ordinances. Therefore, Christians are necessarily bound to obey their own magistrates and laws save only when commanded to sin; for then they ought to obey God rather than men. (Acts 5:29)

Before the Reformation vocation was understood and experienced in two ways: being assigned to a specific station in the medieval hierarchy, such as feudal lord or serf;... and being called away from the world into a religious and higher order-be it priestly or monastic-that attains a life that is closer to the perfection God has promised, a view made popular by the medieval church.

Martin Luther modified these views and redefined vocation as a call to serve the neighbor in the world rather than withdrawing from the world.... Luther used the German word for vocation for the first time to describe a wide range of callings.

In Romans 14, the weaker brother is the Christian whose conscience has scruples (an uneasy feeling arising from conscience or principle that tends to hinder action) against certain activities which are not explicitly forbidden by God in Scripture. The weaker brother is not the person who is easily misled in doctrine; the weaker brother is the person whose conscience is not yet convinced that he or she has the liberty to participate in certain activities as a Christian.

"I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry."

"Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

"For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. But the righteousness based on faith says, ‘Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'‘ (that is, to bring Christ down) or ‘'Who will descend into the abyss?'‘ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved… How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’ But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?’ So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ."

"But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh."

"About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil."

Whenever we gather for public worship, it is because we have been summoned. That is what "church" means: ekklesia, "called out." ...[Public worship] is a society of those who have been chosen, redeemed, called, justified, and are being sanctified until one day they will finally be glorified in heaven. We gather each Lord's Day not merely out of habit, social custom, or felt needs but because God has chosen this weekly festival as a foretaste of the everlasting Sabbath day that will be enjoyed fully at the marriage supper of the Lamb. God has called us out of the world and into his marvelous light: That is why we gather.

The "word-faith" teaching may be summarized as follows: God created man in "God's class," as "little gods," with the potential to exercise what they refer to as the "God-kind of faith" in calling things into existence and living in prosperity and success as sovereign beings. Of course, we forfeited this opportunity by rebelling against God in the Garden and taking upon ourselves Satan's nature. To correct this situation, Jesus Christ became a man, died spiritually (thus taking upon Himself Satan's nature), went to hell, was "born again," rose from the dead with God's nature again, and then sent the Holy Spirit so that the incarnation could be duplicated in believers, thus fulfilling their calling to be what they call "little gods." Since we're called to experience this kind of life now, we should be successful in virtually every area of our lives. To be in debt, then, or be sick, or (as is even taught by the faith teachers) to be left by one's spouse, simply means that you don't have enough faith - or you have some secret sin in your life, because if you didn't, you would be able to handle all of these problems.

Now, while certain aspects of the this doctrine may vary from teacher to teacher - ranging from moderately aberrant to the outright heretical - the general outline remains the same. In every instance, the "Word-Faith" teaching is guilty of presenting an inflated view of man and a deflated view of God, thereby compromising God's message as revealed in the Bible. This fast-growing movement has disastrous implications and, in fact, reduces Jesus Christ to a means to an end - when in fact he is the end.

The Holy Spirit has not only a personality of his own, but also a distinctive method of working; and therefore we should distinguish between the work of Christ in meriting salvation and the work of the Holy Spirit in applying it. Christ met the demands of divine justice and merited all the blessings of salvation. But it is through the agency of the Holy Spirit that Christ's work is put in possession of those for whom he laid down his life.

The Holy Spirit originates, maintains, develops, and guides the new life. He overcomes and destroys the power of sin, renews man in the image of God, enables him to render spiritual obedience to God, to be the salt of the earth, and the light of the world. Though this work stands out as the work of the Holy Spirit, it cannot be separated from the work of Christ (John 16:13,14). The Holy Spirit's work is rooted in Christ's work.

"With its already-not yet eschatology, Scripture points us to God with us, descending to us and seating us with Christ in heavenly places. It directs us to the in-breaking of the age to come through the preaching that makes a new creation, just as that Word gave birth to the first creation. It shows us God's signs and seals that prop up our weak faith and halting obedience. He is present, but on his terms and in the manner consistent with our time in between the times. And he is present because of his promise, not because of the skill of ministers or musicians."