The Grace Of God
I recently spoke with a younger friend who is battling cancer, which has included a great deal of pain. We had not spoken for a while, and I was struck by the change in his voice when he answered the phone [...]
Every one of us, I’m sure, has a friend we wish we didn’t have. You know the sort: the obnoxious friend, the really colossal copper-plated bore, the one-subject expert, the incessant autobiographer, the crackpot inventor. The variations on this sort of friend are endless, but our response is always the same. Patiently, with gritted teeth, […]
I’m stuck. I’m having difficulty finding a home in the church. I’m either being given less than the gospel or more than the gospel. One side denies transformative grace, and the other demands adherence to a severe legalism. Shortly after I came to faith and was baptized, I was told by a well-known pastor to […]
If you want a good deed to really count, it has to be done with no thought of receiving something back in return. In technical terms, it's "disinterested benevolence." We have the ancient Stoics and the Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant to thank for the "stiff-upper-lip" approach to life. It has its pluses’there is a sense […]
So what do Lutherans think of the "doctrines of grace"? Are they "grace alone" people? Are they predestinarian? Do they believe in teaching the whole counsel of God? Many might be surprised to discover that "grace alone" is not solely a distinctive of Reformed churches. It has been a subject of great importance in the […]
What does it mean that the church is always being reformed? This question is integrally related to other questions about sin and grace, and authority and Scripture. To reflect on these issues that are relevant to faith and spiritual life, we must consider the Protestant Reformation and its continuing ramifications. Understanding the Reformation What was […]
We all know the saying, "iron sharpens iron," and Modern Reformation roundtable discussions provide just such an opportunity. For this discussion we asked three serious students of Scripture’one Reformed, one Arminian, and one Lutheran’to put their toughest questions to each other on the topic of sin and grace. The following is a record of their […]
As Luther climbed the Santa Scala in 1510 on his knees in Rome, the principal thing on his mind was the possibility of salvation. The farthest thing from his mind was the certainty of salvation, and this was because, to that point, the only theology of salvation Luther knew taught him to count on two […]
Just as Luther’s followers preferred to be called “evangelicals” but were labeled “Lutherans” by Rome, around 1558 Lutherans coined the term “Calvinist” for those who held Calvin’s view of the Supper over against both Zwingli and Luther. Despite self-chosen labels such as “evangelical” and “Reformed” (preferred because the aim was always to reform the catholic […]
The debate is as old as Christianity itself: what is the relationship between the fallen state of humanity in sin and the work of divine grace, or between God's initiative and human willing in salvation? Identifying the historical theological structure of this complicated debate will bring clarity and precision to our own reflections on the […]
With this issue, Modern Reformation celebrates twenty years in print. The publication has changed considerably since its emergence as a magazine in 1992, and even more since 1986 when our editor-in-chief Michael Horton, then a student, began with a newsletter. Through the years, however, our goal has remained unchanged: we want to see the modern […]
It has been a long time since I have read a book that has portrayed such an important topic in such a progressive manor. I found myself stopping numerous times through the first 50 pages wondering if I had understood what the author was saying-not because this is a hard book to read, but because […]
Although the events described in this 1992 reprint of Michael Horton’s article took place over 15 years ago, the core issues remain pertinent to us today and God’s grace is still the answer. The far-right National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen humiliated the reigning Socialist Party of Francois Mitterand last spring, even though Le Pen […]
Pastors are used to hearing complaints about the big words of our theological vocabulary: words such as atonement, propitiation, and eschatology. I defend these “big words” because they carry so much good news. But it is just as important to argue for the little words of theology. After all, it was Jesus who insisted, “Until […]
There is no sweeter word among Christians than "grace." It is the foundation of our relationship to God; it is the source of our life in God; it is the basis of our hope for life to come with God. As all of those prepositions demonstrate, without grace there would be no such thing as […]
