-
SINAI – The Way Of Death
Sinai is a desert; a barren, desolate, inhospitable and largely lifeless place. How suitable that God should give the law in Sinai. It is the place of death and the killing letter. Here Moses received the Ten Commandments on two tables of stone. Today travellers to Mount Sinai reach the summit along a steep track of 3,750 so-called steps of penitence between two towering walls of solid rock. It is a fitting reminder of how Moses’ two tablets of stone have, by design, shut out the light of grace and weighed down the poor convicted soul. Making it, says Paul “the ministration of death”. How adamant the “killing letter” of the law has proved to be by its relentless condemnation and its barren, fruitless “yoke…
-
Maurice Roberts And Hyper-Calvinism
Those ‘Theological Swearwords’ ‘Antinomianism and Hyper-Calvinism’ Again Some years ago in the Evangelical Times, one of their directors, John Legg, referred to the terms ‘Antinomianism and Hyper-Calvinism’ as ‘theological swearwords’ and used them indiscriminately with his co-director Errol Hulse to describe my practice of preaching the whole of the gospel to the whole man wherever I was placed by God to do so. This irresistible calling led to my marching 35 kilometers a day through swampy marshland and glacier-covered territory with a map and compass to help me find the way and a fishing rod, snares and a small casting-net in order so I could feed myself so I could take the gospel to nomad Lapps and to my work on and for the Native…
-
Covenant
COVENANT The Scripture sense of this word is the same as in the circumstances of common life; namely, an agreement between parties. Thus Abraham and Abimelech entered into covenant at Beersheba. (Gen. 21:32.) And in like manner, David and Jonathan. (1 Sam. 20:42.) To the same amount, in point of explanation, must we accept what is related in Scripture of God's covenant concerning redemption, made between the sacred persons of the GODHEAD, when the holy undivided Three in One engaged to, and with, each other, for the salvation of the church of God in Christ. This is that everlasting covenant which was entered into, and formed in the council of peace before the word began. For so the apostle was commissioned by the Holy Ghost,…
-
Covenant
COVENANT A contract, or agreement between two or more parties on certain terms. The terms are made use of in the Scriptures for covenant in Hebrew and Greek. The former signifies choosing, or friendly parting; as in covenants each party, in a friendly manner, consented, and so bound himself to the chosen terms; the latter signifies testament, as all the blessings of the covenant are freely disposed to us. The word covenant is also used for an immutable ordinance, Jer. 33:20. a promise, Exod. 34:10. Is. 59:21. and also for a precept, Jer. 34:13,14. In Scripture we read of various convenants; such as those made with Noah, Abraham, and the Hebrews at large. Anciently covenants were made and ratified with great solemnity. The Scriptures allude…
-
1 Of The Decrees Of God In General
A Body Of Doctrinal Divinity, John Gill Having considered the nature, perfections, and persons in God, I shall now proceed to treat of his acts and operations; which are such as are worthy of a Being possessed of those perfections which have been described; and so must be worthy of our notice. God is “actus purus et simplicissimus”; he is all act; if one may so say; having nothing passive in him; and therefore must be active and operative; “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work”, (John 5:17) in which words there is a term fixed, unto which God had worked, the then present time Christ spoke them; but none from whence he began to work: he had not only worked in providence till then,…
-
2 Of The Special Decrees Of God Relatiing To Election
A Body Of Doctrinal Divinity, John Gill The special decrees of God respecting rational creatures, commonly go under the name of “predestination”; though this sometimes is taken in a large sense, to express everything that God has predetermined; and so it takes in all that has been observed in the preceding chapter; which some call eternal providence, of which, temporary providence is the execution; for with God there is not only a provision of things future, but a provision for the certain bringing them to pass; and the counsel and will of God is the source and spring of all things, and the rule and measure according to which he works, (Eph. 1:11) but predestination is usually considered as consisting of two parts, and including…