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Counterfeit Gospels: Temporary Salvation
Of all the Baptist denominations, I always stood very near the Particular Baptists. It was only recently that it was pointed out to me by my friend Richard Schade of Grand Rapids that, at times, movements had arisen amongst their ranks who believed, like many non-Baptists, that salvation was as short-lived as the will of the ‘saved’ would have it. He called this ‘time salvation’, which was quite a new term to me. I had always believed since my own conversion that salvation must be ‘for keeps’ otherwise it is not salvation. I immediately began to look into this mystery, starting on a helpful book on the subject by an Elder Boaz which I found on the Internet Archive. Boaz wrote at the turn of…
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Redemption Secured And Applied: As Seen By John Gill
Nowadays many Christians speak of a redemption which Christ accomplished theoretically for all but which worked out practically only for a few. This would seem like a great waste of divine energy – if it were true. Fancy preaching on a redemption accomplished but not applied. What a false gospel that would be! We rarely meet up with Absolute Universalism amongst Evangelicals; that is the idea that Christ has died for all and thus all will be ultimately saved. We do, however, meet up with the teaching that Christ has died for all men everywhere, should they wish to accept it. This belief, once found only amongst Pelagians and Arminians, is an even more questionable dogma than Universalism. The latter still looks to God to…
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Responsibilities And Duties: Radical Views Expressed By Sam Waldron And Curt Daniel
Our duty-faith friends tell us that their idea of responsibility is synonymous with their idea of duty. For Curt Daniel for instance, recently interviewed by Sam Waldron, the synonyms of responsibility have remained constant since before the Fall. These are: accountability, obedience, duty, liability, obligation, morality and what he calls ‘oughtness’. These terms according to Daniel depict the natural obligations or responsibilities of man towards God which man has always had. In these matters man as a natural agent has always had the freedom to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to God. This is because, Daniel says, no man is neutral in his response to God. If man were neutral in his relationship to God, he would have ceased to be man. Thus, even though he…
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Mottos On The Walls
My mother Gladys Ella, née Hume, started going to Sunday and elementary school a year before the outbreak of the First World War in England. When I left home to do my apprenticeship in Sweden in the mid 1950s, Mum sent me a chain of letters, mostly from Memory Lane. Here is a letter she sent me on her earliest childhood entitled ‘Mottos on the Wall.’ Mum was brought up in a poverty-stricken home bereft of a father but could write the account given below in joyous remembrance. How different it was then to the grumpy groaning of modern society who have no Scriptural ‘Mottos on the Walls’: How well I remember the Mottos once hanging on our bedroom walls. They were coloured and framed,…
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The Synod of Dort
The Synod of Dort (1618-9): Milestone of the Reformation The background The Dutch town of Dortrecht (Engl. Dort), may be unfamiliar to many an English-speaking Christian but it was the place where the churches of Holland, Britain, Germany and Switzerland held a great ecumenical conference which resulted in their unanimous agreement concerning the doctrines of grace reflected in the clear teaching of Scripture and the orthodox faith since New Testament times. From the start, Britain played a major role in this conference due to several factors, the most well-known being the influence of James I on the Continent. James had studied the works of Vorstius, one of the Continent’s Arch-Arminians and was alarmed that he had been chosen to take Jacob Arminius’ place at Leyden…
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Calvinism: An Introduction and Comparison with the Main Historic Christian Alternatives With the Principal Relevant Historical Councils and Creeds Stephen Paynter April 2020
Review Article Calvinism: An Introduction and Comparison with the Main Historic Christian Alternatives With the Principal Relevant Historical Councils and Creeds Stephen Paynter April 2020 I have been recently sent an online copy of Stephen Paynter’s new book, or rather a new version of a work done in 2014, by Academia.edu free of charge. This academic consortium has kindly provided me for several years with many gems both small and large from writers on theology, missiology and church history. It is rarely, however, that I receive works from them dealing solely with evangelical, Reformed issues. This is also the more surprising because Dr Paynter is a software engineer and neither a theologian nor a pastor. The aims of the book Paynter’s aim is to define…
