In our service, passing the peace has a threefold significance. From one perspective, it is a response to the sermon. The sermon announces the reconciliation of all things in Christ Jesus, and passing the peace symbolizes the reconciliation we have with one another now that the dividing wall has been broken down through the cross. From another angle, the passing of the peace highlights a dimension of our offerings. During the passing of the peace, we bring our offerings to... Read more
In his commentary on 1 Kings 17-19, M. B. Van’t Veer has this insightful comment about the difference between OT and NT: “We could say that the Lord attacked the powers of darkness, the kingdom of satan on earth [in the old covenant] within the boundaries of Canaan. The land of rest was also the land of struggle, the land where the Kingdom of the Lord did battle with the powers of Satan. There the blows rained down as the... Read more
In his commentary on 1 Kings 17-19, M. B. Van’t Veer has this insightful comment about the difference between OT and NT: “We could say that the Lord attacked the powers of darkness, the kingdom of satan on earth [in the old covenant] within the boundaries of Canaan. The land of rest was also the land of struggle, the land where the Kingdom of the Lord did battle with the powers of Satan. There the blows rained down as the... Read more
Perhaps the central dogmatic/systematic challenge raised by the New Perspective on Paul is the claim that Paul’s concerns about “Law” do not have to do with an eternal, unchanging expression of God’s righteousness but with the contingent and temporary institutions and regulations of the Mosaic order. This really does challenge a central conviction of Protestant Orthodoxy, one that Gerhard Forde has explored in his 1969 The Law-Gospel Debate . (I’ve heard reports that this was one issue that Richard Gaffin... Read more
Frank James, translator of Vermigli’s treatises on predestination and justification, has these intriguing comments on Vermigli’s views on the relation of justification and regeneration: “Vermigli’s understanding of forensic justification is not particularly unusual. Indeed, it corresponds generally with the Reformed branch of the Reformation. What is unusual is the inclusion of regeneration and sanctification under the rubric of justification. Like his friend and mentor Bucer, Vermigli had long espoused a threefold justification, which includes three distinguishable but inseparable components: regeneration,... Read more
Peter Vermigli offers this charming and helpful comment on the definition of faith as “substance” (Greek, hypostasis ) in Hebrews 11:1: The word “is derived from the verb hyphistamai , which signifies ‘to sustain, receive, not to yield to one rushing blindly.’ Hence, a soldier is called hypostatos if he is trusting and does not turn back to the enemy, but goes up against them and resists them. Thus, in believing there is need of strength and patience on account... Read more
Vermigli discusses the role of works in salvation, arguing that those who do not live uprightly and practice virtue “shall not come to eternal salvation,” yet these works are the “fruits of faith and effects of justification, not causes.” He understands the fathers’ references to “something more” than faith in this sense: Yes, something more is required, but this is not in conflict with sola fide. Their comments are more about the nature of faith than about justification, and Vermigli... Read more
In his study of Shakespeare’s use of the heroic tradition of classical antiquity, Hero & Saint , Reuben Brower points out that Coriolanus is modeled on the ancient heroes of Greece and Rome, particularly Achilles: “Perhaps Coriolanus is most like Achilles in his passionate pride, in his ‘choler,’ in his shifting from ‘rage to sorrow,’ emotions that lie very close together, as Plutarch had noted. But he comes nearest to the essence of Homer’s hero in his absoluteness, in his... Read more
Craig Carpenter offers a careful comparison of Calvin and Trent on justification in an article in WTJ (2002). A few specifics: 1) He summarizes the Tridentine position by following Robert Godfrey’s analysis, but perceptively suggests that Godfrey illegitimately collapses everything into an opposition of infusion/imputation: “His focus on the language of imputation and infusion . . . does not permit him to seize upon the ideas of ‘ingrafting,’ ‘union,’ and ‘membership in Christ’s body’ at work in Trent’s statement on... Read more
1) Jezebel sends a messenger, a mal?ak , which in Hebrew is the same word as angel, anticipating the angel of Yahweh later in the chapter. The chapter shows us contrasting angels, an angel of death and an angel that raises the ?dead?Ewith a touch and gives food. 2) Jezebel is seeking a sort of justice, life for life and soul for soul. She has been making Elijah and the prophets of Yahweh the scapegoats for some time, but the... Read more
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