He who wants to hear God speak should read Holy Scripture.
~Martin Luther~
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Martin Luther – How to Hear God Speak
4 AugSALE: Charles Hodge’s Systematic Theology – 3 Volumes for $20
3 Aug
ChristianBook.com has Charles Hodge’s three volume Systematic Theology on sale again for $20.
This was the magnum opus of one of America’s most prominent theologians and offers an in-depth exploration of theology, anthropology, soteriology, and eschatology. This monumental work, now a standard for theological students, was written while Hodge served as a professor at Princeton (replacing the use of Francis Turretin’s “Elenctic Theology”) where he permanently influenced American Christianity as a teacher, preacher, and exegete. Includes a comprehensive index. Three hardcovers, from Hendrickson.”
John Calvin – General Revelation and the Spectacles of Faith
3 Aug
It is therefore in vain that so many burning lamps shine for us in the workmanship of the universe to show forth the glory of its Author. Although they bathe us wholly in their radiance, yet they can of themselves in no way lead us into the right path. Surely they strike some sparks, but before their fuller light shines forth these are smothered. For this reason, the apostle, in that very passage where he calls the worlds the images of things invisible, adds that through faith we understand that they have been fashioned by God’s word [Heb. 11:3]. He means by this that the invisible divinity is made manifest in such spectacles, but that we have not the eyes to see this unless they be illumined by the inner revelation of God through faith. And where Paul teaches that what is to be known of God is made plain from the creation of the universe [Rom. 1:19], he does not signify such a manifestation as men’s discernment can comprehend; but, rather, shows it not to go farther than to render them inexcusable. The same apostle also, even if he somewhere denies that God is to be sought far off, inasmuch as he dwells within us [Acts 17:27], in another place teaches of what avail that sort of nearness is, saying: “In past generations the Lord let the nations follow their own ways. Yet God did not leave himself without witness, sending benefits from heaven, giving rain and fruitful seasons, filling men’s hearts with food and gladness” [Acts 14:16–17; vs. 15–16, Vg.]. Therefore, although the Lord does not want for testimony while he sweetly attracts men to the knowledge of himself with many and varied kindnesses, they do not cease on this account to follow their own ways, that is, their fatal errors.
~John Calvin~
Institutes of the Christian Religion, Volumes 1 & 2, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011) Vol. 1.5.14 p. 68.
Reformed Ethics by Herman Bavinck – A New Translation Project
22 Jan
Below is an excerpt from a recent editorial in the Bavinck Review updating readers on the exciting news of a discovery and subsequent plans to translate a volume from Herman Bavinck on Reformed Ethics which will likely be produced in three English volumes:
Readers of this journal were introduced in our first issue to Dirk Van Keulen’s discovery in the Bavinck archives at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, of a large hand-written manuscript, Reformed Ethics. A small group of Bavinck scholars at the time agreed that this work should be published and translated. After Dirk Van Keulen prepared an electron- ic, transcribed version of the first half of the manuscript (560 pages), your editor began translating and annotating the work in 2012. I came to the realization in the winter of 2013/14 that at the pace I was going, it was going to take a lot longer than I had initially envisioned. With the help of a gift from the Dutch Reformed Translation Society and a number of generous benefactors, I was able to hire out the translation work, a section at a time. In addition, thanks to a grant from the Heritage Fund of Calvin Theological Society, an editorial team consisting of myself, Dirk Van Keulen, Nelson Kloosterman, and Ph.D. students Jessica Driesenga and Antoine Theron, spent the week of August 3–7, 2015 carefully editing already translated sections, establishing editorial protocol for the work as a whole. Deo volente, we will repeat this communal editorial work in the summers of 2016, 2017, and 2018. Readers of this journal who are also members of the Bavinck Society already know that the American mem- bers of the editorial team got a large surprise this summer when we learned that the Bavinck manuscript was over 1100 pages instead of the 560 total that we were working with. This also means that instead of a one-volume work, we are now projecting a three-volume work along the following lines:
I. Created, Fallen, and Converted Humanity
II. The Duties of the Christian Life (Ten Commandments)
III. The Life of the Redeemed in the World (Marriage and Family)
We are profoundly grateful to the Baker Publishing Group for its willingness to take on the enlarged project. It is our goal to have the translated and edited Volume I in the hands of the publisher January 2017.
A final word of thanks to long-time friends Harry Van Dyke and Nelson Kloosterman for the gift of their translations that enrich this volume.
~John Bolt~
Bavinck Review Volume 6, 2015.
John Paton: I Saw Him Watching All the Scene
10 Aug
They encircled us in a deadly ring, and one kept urging another to strike the first blow or fire the first shot. My heart rose up to the Lord Jesus; I saw Him watching all the scene. My peace came back to me like a wave from God. I realized that I was immortal till my Master’s work with me was done. The assurance came to me, as if a voice out of Heaven had spoken, that not a musket would be fired to wound us, not a club prevail to strike us, not a spear leave the hand in which it was held vibrating to be thrown, not an arrow leave the bow, or a killing stone the fingers, without the permission of Jesus Christ, whose is all power in Heaven and on Earth. He rules all Nature, animate and inanimate, and restrains even the Savage of the South Seas. In that awful hour I saw His own words, as if carved in letters of fire upon the clouds of Heaven: “Seek, and ye shall find. Whatsoever ye shall ask in My Name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” I could understand how Stephen and John saw the glorified Savior as they gazed up through suffering and persecution to the Heavenly Throne!
~John G. Paton~
John G Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides. An Autobiography. (Edinburgh, Scotland; The Banner of Truth Trust; 1994) p. 207.
Lemuel Haynes – Death’s Empire Shall In Ruin Lye
1 Aug
O meditate on sudden Death,
And ever keep it near,
Be ready to resign your Breath,
When you the Summons hear.
Walk cheerful on in Wisdom’s ways
That when thou com’st to die,
Thou may’st behold thy Husband’s Face,
To all Eternity.
Heaven won’t admit a single Sigh,
Nor feel a twingling pain:
Death’s Empire shall in ruin lye,
And never rise again.
And now, come let us one and all,
Be actually prepared,
And hearken to the awful call
That we have lately heard.
O! why should we gon on so hard,
And boast of Days to come,
When Death stands with a naked sword
To cast us in the Tomb.
We know we do exist to Day,
But yet we cannot tell
But the next Moment we must say
Unto the World farewell.
Lord, guide us by thy Counsels here,
That when we come to die,
Angels our precious souls may bear
Up to they Throne on high.
~Lemuel Haynes~
Black Preacher to White America: The Collected Writings of Lemuel Haynes, 1774-1833 – A Poem, Occasioned by the Sudden and Surprising Death of Mr. Asa Burt ed. Richard Newman (Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Publishing, Inc, 1990) p. 7-8.
Martin Luther – How to Fight For Joy Like a Justified Sinner
27 Jul
When the devil throws our sins up to us and declares that we deserve death and hell, we ought to speak thus: “I admit that I deserve death and hell. What of it? Does this mean that I shall be sentenced to eternal damnation? By no means. For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction in my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Where he is, there shall I be also.”
~Martin Luther~
John Calvin – Jesus Christ: The Object of Faith
21 Jul
Indeed, it is true that faith looks to one God. But this must also be added, “To know Jesus Christ whom he has sent” [John 17:3]. For God would have remained hidden afar off if Christ’s splendor had not beamed upon us. For this purpose the Father laid up with his only-begotten Son all that he had to reveal himself in Christ so that Christ, by communicating his Father’s benefits, might express the true image of his glory [cf. Heb. 1:3]. It has been said that we must be drawn by the Spirit to be aroused to seek Christ; so, in turn, we must be warned that the invisible Father is to be sought solely in this image. Augustine has finely spoken of this matter: in discussing the goal of faith, he teaches that we must know our destination and the way to it. Then, immediately after, he infers that the way that is most fortified against all errors is he who was both God and man: namely, as God he is the destination to which we move; as man, the path by which we go. Both are found in Christ alone. But, while Paul proclaims faith in God, he does not have in mind to overturn what he so often emphasizes concerning faith: namely, that all its stability rests in Christ. Peter, indeed, most effectively connects both, saying that through him we believe in God [1 Peter 1:21].
~John Calvin~
Institutes of the Christian Religion, Volumes 1 & 2, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011) Vol. 1.3.2.1. p. 543-544.
Jonathan Edwards – The Joy of the Resurrection
10 Dec1703-1758. Reformed Preacher and Theologian in New England.
[The] resurrection of Christ is the most joyful event that ever came to pass; because hereby Christ rested from the great and difficult work of purchasing redemption, and received God’s testimony, that it was finished. The death of Christ was the greatest and most wonderful event that ever came to pass; but that has a great deal in it that is sorrowful. But by the resurrection of Christ, that sorrow is turned into joy. The Head of the church, in that great event, enters on the possession of eternal life; and the whole church is, as it were, begotten again to a lively hope, 1 Pet. 1:3. Weeping had continued for a night, but now joy cometh in the morning.
~Jonathan Edwards~
The Works of Jonathan Edwards Vol. 1: A History of the Work of Redemption (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2008), 585-586.
B.B. Warfield – Study and Prayer Go Together
15 Nov1851-1921. Reformed Theologian in America and Principle of Princeton Seminary in the line of Charles Hodge.
Sometimes we hear it said that ten minutes on your knees will give you a truer, deeper, more operative knowledge of God than ten hours over your books. ‘What!’ is the appropriate response, ‘than ten hours over your books, on your knees?, Why should you turn from God when you turn to your books, or feel that you must from your books in order to turn to God? If learning and devotion are as antagonistic as that, then the intellectual life is in itself accursed and there can be no question of a religious life for a student, even of theology.
~B.B. Warfield~
The Religious Life of Theological Students
The Old Guys 