Free Republic

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. - Gal. 5:1-3 Last time, we saw that in order to have an abiding place in the church, we need the Lord Jesus Christ as our foundation. There are many who claim to be children of God who have never been born...

"You search the Scriptures in vain, thinking that you have eternal life in them, not realizing that it is they which testify concerning me." With these words, our Lord confronted what has always been the temptation in our reading of Holy Scripture: to read it without Christ as the supreme focus of revelation. Many people who come to embrace the specific tenets of the Protestant Reformation (grace alone, scripture alone, Christ alone, to God alone be glory, faith alone, etc.) are liberated by the good news of God's free grace in Christ. Pastors who used to preach a human-centered...

How many of us try to clean ourselves up before approaching the Lord's Table, as if there were some degree or level of purity that we could reach that would make us acceptable to God? The command to love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself should be sufficient to make you recognize your utter inability to do so. In all likelihood, the thinking that we have to make ourselves right and acceptable before God before he will accept us probably derives its origin from the influential but flawed theology of Pietism. For what man could ever...

Getting Justification WrongAll orthodox Christians believe that there is but one plan of salvation for fallen man, and that this plan is revealed in Scripture. That’s good, of course. But we must be sure we have the plan right. God’s plan of redemption is no trifling matter, and false doctrines (which the apostle Peter described as “damnable heresies”) have led many astray because they are almost orthodox. But in eternal matters, sometimes almost isn’t good enough. Such is the case with the historic Arminian view of justification. Now, Arminianism has mellowed considerably over the years; Arminians have become less consistent...