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Wolfgang Musculus – Walking Worthy

1 Nov

1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called – Eph. 4:1

The Ephesians had been called to the faith of Christ, and so their way of life had to correspond to that calling. For that to happen it was necessary for them to consider what the calling was to which they had been called, who had called them, how he had called them and for what purpose. Without working all that out they would not be able to walk in a way that would be worthy of their calling. They had been called when they were still walking in sin, indeed they were dead in sin, cut off from Christ, from the fellowship of the saints and from God himself. Paul wanted the Ephesians to remember that, as he said to them in chapter 2, “Therefore remember that you were once Gentiles; at that time you were without Christ.” Recalling their former lostness and pagan way of life was an easy way to remind them that after they had been called by grace they were expected to live in a different way from the one they had lived in before.

~Wolfgang Musculus~




Reformation Commentary on Scripture: Galatians, Ephesians (Downers Grove, IL; IVP Academic; 2012) p. 241.

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Herman Bavinck – The Mighty Witness of the Church

31 Oct

The witness given by believers to divine revelation, to Scripture that is, though not universally human is universally Christian. In making this confession, all of Christianity speaks with a single voice. The testimony of the Holy Spirit is not the witness of a private spirit but of one and the same Spirit who dwells in all believers. Calvin, in discussing this witness, stated he was describing nothing but the experience of all believers. It is a mighty witness that the church of all the ages has borne to Scripture as the word of God. On no other dogma is there so much unanimity.

~Herman Bavinck~




Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 1: Prolegomena (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2003) p. 591.

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John Calvin – God’s Eternal Election

30 Oct

4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. – Eph. 1:4

God’s eternal election is the basis both of our calling and of all the benefits that we receive from him… The timing of our election shows that it had to be free and could not have depended on any works of ours. …

Holiness and blamelessness are the fruits of election…. Those who are not elect retain their natural disposition, which cannot change except by divine intervention…. This verse is also a reminder that there is no room of licentiousness among the elect, because holiness of life is tied to the grace of election… Nor does this mean that we attain perfection in this life. We have the goal set before us, but we do not reach it until our race is done. Why do some people think of predestination as a useless and even poisonous doctrine? No doctrine is more useful, as long as it is handled properly, as Paul does here. It reveals the infinite goodness of God and gives us our knowledge of his mercy…. Election is the ultimate proof that we cannot claim any righteousness for ourselves.

~John Calvin~




Reformation Commentary on Scripture: Galatians, Ephesians (Downers Grove, IL; IVP Academic; 2012) p. 241.

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Herman Bavinck – Is the State of Religion Hopeless?

29 Oct

Let me grant, in the first place, that the believer cannot cite a deeper ground for revelation than its divine authority, which he or she recognizes by faith. But this is not to say that believers have nothing to say to the opponents of that revelation. True: they have no airtight proofs; they cannot move the opponent toward faith; but they have at least as much to say in defending as the opponent has in attacking scriptural authority. Unbelief, too, is rooted, not in proofs and arguments, but in the heart. In this respect believers and unbelievers are in exactly the same position. Their convictions are integrally bound up with their whole personality and are only a posteriori supported by proofs and arguments. And now, when the two parties oppose each other with these a posteriori proofs and arguments, the position of believers is not less favorable than that of unbelievers. God is sufficiently knowable to those who seek him and also sufficiently hidden to those who run away from him. “There is enough light for those who only desire to see and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition. There is enough clarity to illumine the elect and enough darkness to humble them. There is enough darkness to render the reprobate sightless and enough clarity to condemn them and to render them inexcusable.” The state of religion, theism, revelation, and Scripture is not as hopeless as science has for years wanted us to believe.

~Herman Bavinck~




Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 1: Prolegomena (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2003) p. 590.

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Charles Spurgeon – Jesus Christ as My Brother

22 Oct

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Before I enter into the illustration of this truth I wish to make one statement, so that all objections may be avoided as to the doctrine of my sermon. Our Saviour Jesus Christ, I say, was chosen out of the people; but this merely respects his manhood. As “very God of very God” he was not chosen out of the people; for there was none save him. He was his Father’s only-begotten Son, “begotten of the Father before all worlds.” He was God’s fellow, co-equal, and co-eternal; consequently when we speak of Jesus as being chosen out of the people, we must speak of him as a man. We are, I conceive, too forgetful of the real manhood of our Redeemer, for a man he was to all intents and purposes, and I love to sing,

“A Man there was, a real Man, Who once on Calvary died.”

He was not man and God amalgamated–the two natures suffered no confusion–he was very God, without the diminution of his essence or attributes; and he was equally, verily, and truly, man. It is as a man I speak of Jesus this morning; and it rejoices my heart when I can view the human side of that glorious miracle of incarnation, and can deal with Jesus Christ as my brother–inhabitant of the same mortality, wrestler with the same pains and ills, companion in the march of life, and,for a little while, a fellow-sleeper in the cold chamber of death.

~Charles Spurgeon~




Spurgeon’s Sermons (Spokane, Washington; Olive Tree Bible Software; 2010) eBook. Vol. 1, Sermon No. 11; Titled: The People’s Christ; Delivered on Sabbath Morning, February 25, 1855.

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Herman Bavinck – What is the Testimony of the Holy Spirit

18 Oct

The testimony of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers is found not to be a new revelation or communication of unknown truths. It is essentially distinct from prophecy and inspiration; it only causes us to understand the truth that exists outside and independently of us as truth and therefore confirms and seals it in the human consciousness.

~Herman Bavinck~




Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 1: Prolegomena (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2003) p. 588.

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Charles Spurgeon – If He Had Not Risen Up

17 Oct

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Beloved, our Saviour Jesus Christ finished the great work of making us what we are, by his ascension into heaven. If he had not risen up on high and led captivity captive, his death would have been insufficient. He “died for our sins,” but he “rose again for our justification.” The resurrection of our Saviour, in his majesty, when he burst the bonds of death, was to us the assurance that God had accepted his sacrifice; and his ascension up on high, was but as a type and a figure of the real and actual ascension of all his saints, when he shall come in the clouds of judgment, and shall call all his people to him. Mark the man-God, as he goes upward towards heaven; behold his triumphal march through the skies, whilst stars sing his praises, and planets dance in solemn order; behold him traverse the unknown fields of ether till he arrives at the throne of God in the seventh heaven, Then hear him say to his Father, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do; behold me and the children thou hast given me; I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course; I have done all; I have accomplished every type; I have finished every part of the covenant; there is not one iota I have left unfulfilled, or one tittle that is left out; all is done.” And hark, how they sing before the throne of God when thus he speaks: “Thou hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.”

~Charles Spurgeon~




Spurgeon’s Sermons (Spokane, Washington; Olive Tree Bible Software; 2010) eBook. Vol. 1, Sermon No. 10; Titled: The Kingly Priesthood of the Saints; Delivered on Sabbath Morning, January 28, 1855.

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Jonathan Edwards – Mount Zion

16 Oct

This city of Jerusalem is therefore called the holy city; and it was the greatest type of the church of Christ in all the Old Testament. It was redeemed by David, the captain of the hosts of Israel, out of the hands of the Jebusites, to be God’s city, the holy place of his rest for ever, where he would dwell. So Christ, the Captain of his people’s salvation, redeems his church out of the hands of devils, to be his holy and beloved city. And therefore how often does the Scripture, when speaking of Christ’s redemption of his church, call it by the names of Zion and Jerusalem! This was the city that God had appointed to be the place of the first gathering and erecting of the christian church after Christ s resurrection, of that remarkable effusion of the Spirit of God on the apostles and primitive Christians, and the place whence the gospel was to sound forth into all the world; the place of the first christian church, that was to be, as it were, the mother of all other churches through the world; agreeable to that prophecy, Isa. ii. 3, 4. “Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem: and he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people,” &c. Thus God chose mount Zion whence the gospel was to be sounded forth, as the law had been from mount Sinai.

~Jonathan Edwards~






The Works of Jonathan Edwards Vol. 1 (Peabody, MA; Hendrickson Publishers, Inc; 2007) p. 554. A History of the Work of Redemption

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John Paton: I Saw Him Watching All the Scene

15 Oct

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.

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Martin Luther – No Tongue of People or Angels

10 Oct

I leave it to orators to expound the theme of the inestimable grace and glory that we have in Christ Jesus. Let them tell us how we who are miserable sinners, children of wrath by birth, may obtain this honor, so that by faith in Christ we can become children and heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ, lords of heaven and earth. There is no tongue of people or of angels that can proclaim the glory of this magnificently enough.

~Martin Luther~






Reformation Commentary on Scripture – Galatians, Ephesians (Downers Grove, IL; IVP Academic; 2011) p. 126

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