A Goodly Heritage

 The sovereignty of God in salvation is in a unique way exemplified in God’s election of sinners to salvation . In the Old Testament, one of the most significant episodes is the revelation of the redemptive name Jehovah. There have been various attempts to interpret the precise meaning of this name. The older view that Jehovah expresses the self-determination, the independence, the sovereignty of God in the redemptive sphere, appears to be the most acceptable and tenable. The key to its meaning is found in the formula, “I am that I am” (Exod. 3:14). In all that God does for His people He is determined from within Himself. Paraphrased the formula would run, “What I am and what I shall be in relation to my people, I am and shall be in virtue of what I myself am. The explanation of my actions and relations, promises and purposes, is in myself, in my free self-determining will.” The correlate of this sovereignty in the choice and salvation of His people is the faithfulness and un...

Man was created upright and therefore with the character that constituted him for, and endowed him with the ability to perform, righteousness. Such a position is demanded by the fact that he was very good and was created in the divine image. If he was very good, he was such in terms of the categories that define his nature as man, and if he bore the divine image, he must have borne it in the fullest terms of the Scripture definition. At the suggestion of Satan, man disobeyed and fell into sin and under its guilt. Satan tempted man to sin; this temptation was the  occasion  of man's fall. It was not, however, the  cause . No external power or influence can cause a rational being to sin. The sin of Adam was a movement of defection and apostasy and transgression in Adam's heart and mind and will, and for that movement he was responsible and he alone was the agent and subject. The temptation of Satan did not constitute the sin of Adam. It was the voluntary acquiescence ...

Whatever position we may take on the question at issue, we cannot, on any scriptural basis, get away from the notion of restricted communion. The Lord's supper is not for all indiscriminately as the gospel is. The Lord's supper is chiefly commemoration and communion. It is for those who discern the Lord's body, who can commemorate his death in faith and love. And since the supper is also Communion it is obviously for those who commune with Christ and with one another in the unity of the body which is the church. There can be no communion without union and therefore the central qualification for participation is union with Christ. The Lord's supper is for those who are his. It is part of the whole counsel of God that those conditions be clearly and insistently set forth, to the end that those who are eligible partake and those who are not refrain. This is just saying that preaching on this question is directed to ensuring that what is registered in the forum of each...

This fact does not mean, however, that the atoning work of Christ is not to be interpreted in terms of propitiation.5 There are passages in which the language of propitiation is expressly applied to the work of Christ (Rom. 3:25; Heb. 2:17; I John 2:2; 4:10). And this means, without question, that the work of Christ is to be construed as propitiation. But there is also another consideration. The frequency with which the concept appears in the Old Testament in connection with the sacrificial ritual, the fact that the New Testament applies to the work of Christ the very term which denoted this concept in the Greek Old Testament, and the fact that the New Testament regards the Levitical ritual as providing the pattern for the sacrifice of Christ lead to the conclusion that this is a category in terms of which the sacrifice of Christ is not only properly but necessarily interpreted. In other words, the idea of propitiation is so woven into the fabric of the Old Testament...

MAN was created in the image of God, a self-conscious, free, responsible, religious agent. Such identity implies an inherent, native, inalienable obligation to love and serve God with all the heart, soul, strength, and mind. This God could not but demand and man could not but owe. No created rational being can ever be relieved of this obligation. All that man is and does has reference to the will of God. But man was also created good, good in respect of that which he specifically is. He was made upright and holy and therefore constituted for the demand, endowed with the character enabling him to fulfil all the demands devolving upon him by reason of God’s propriety in him and sovereignty over him. As long as man fulfilled these demands his integrity would have been maintained. He would have continued righteous and holy. In this righteousness he would be justified, that is, approved and accepted by God, and he would have life. Righteousness, justification, life is an invariable co...