For some time now I have been interested  in the typology of Israel in relation to Christ and the NT church. Among the books I have found helpful are David E. Holwerda’s Jesus and Israel: One Covenant or Two, O. Palmer Robertson’s The Israel of God, Hans K. Larondelle’s Israel in Prophecy: Principles of Prophetic Interpretation, and Meredith Kline’s Kingdom Prologue. James Dennison also wrote a very helpful article that appeared in Banner of Truth Magazine, Issue 171 – December 1977, pp. 6-11, 32. This particular article is titled “The …

One of the chief promises God made to Abraham was that his descendants would be as numerous as the sand of the sea. The point is not that we try to calculate how much sand there is and then draw a numerical parallel. Obviously there is too much sand on the shore to number. Throughout the period of revelation, from the time of Abraham to Christ, we find hints that the LORD is fulfilling this promise. One such place is 1 Kings 4:20 where we read, “Judah and Israel …

Here .

Here is the audio from the 2009 Next Conference :

The Preeminence of Christ (Joshua Harris)
Christ’s Incarnation (D.A. Carson)
Christ’s Life (Kevin DeYoung)
Christ’s Death (C.J. Mahaney)
Christ’s Resurrection (Sinclair Ferguson)
Christ’s Return (Sinclair Ferguson)

HT: Justin Taylor

Over at Historia Salutis, the Rev. Jim Cassidy has a very nice explanation of two of our Lord’s miracles recorded in Mark 6. The divine nature of Christ is exhibited in His mighty works as the Good Shepherd, the God of Israel spoken of in Psalm 23 and elsewhere in the OT. You can read it here .

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard someone in the church warn against proof texting. Proof-texting, of course, is that method of defending theological truth by means of appeal to one particular verse of the Bible. I readily admit that often proof-texting is abused and used to draw faulty conclusions. This is most evident in the false teaching of the cults and heretical sects of Christianity–specifically with regard to their doctrine of God, Christ, man and salvation. Within orthodox Christianity, it is seen in the realm of …

Our last post concluded on a small slice of the infra- and supralapsarian views of grace by saying it was a real issue and not a myopic study of flavors. How one perceives the moment of regeneration directly contributes to views of adoption, faith, baptism, forgiveness, sanctification, scripture and sacrament. For Bavinck and the Reformed, these doctrines ultimately arrive at our fellowship with other believers and may impact personal faith in God.

This is very exciting news! Ronald Alexander, son of the Rev. Eric J. Alexander has constructed a website in honor of his father’s life and ministry. You can access it here. You will find a biography, sermons he preached at St. George’s Tron during his 20 year ministry , and links to other resources. This site will be a great blessing to the church since Rev. Alexander is one of the best gifts Christ has given His church in our day. Among the sermon series posted are those on Job, …

The Yale University and University of Glasgow sponsored Jonathan Edwards and Scotland Conference, for which I went to Scotland, ended last Tuesday. There were several significant lectures given. Of the ones that I was able to attend, David Bebbington’s lecture, “A Historical Review of Revivals,” Adriann Neele’s talk, “Petrus Van Masstricht: Exchanges in Scotland, the Netherlands, and America,” and Michael McClenahan’s, “New England’s Nemesis: John Tillotson and the dismantling of Puritanism,” were the most intellectually valuable.
David Bebbington did a outstanding job (which is typical of his work) of outlining a …

Our last post summarized Bavinck’s definition of sin as a non-physical ethical force that is not exactly ‘non-being’ but certainly strives in that direction. Death, the result of sin, was pronounced as judgment in Genesis 2 but there is more mystery and complication to this ‘death sentence’ than there is certainty.

I have recently written a post over at Historia Salutis that deals with Old Covenant Theocratic sanctions in redemptive history. You can find this post here.

In our last few posts we’ve been plowing through Bavinck’s analysis of original sin and what was lost by the fall. Human beings did not become ‘sub’ creatures after breaking the covenant or works, but something changed. The original relationship and integrity with God was destroyed when sin took advantage of the commandment. Here is a brief look at Bavinck’s analysis of the nature of sin in what he describes as ‘mystery in variety’.

Revelation 1:5-10 really is the master key to unlock the structure of the book. While the throne of God, the trumpets, bowls, and seals all play a central role in this book, the book would be, as I noted in the previous post, meaningless without its Christological structure. Put simply, the book is about Jesus Christ–specifically with regard to His first and second coming. And is this a surprise to us? It shouldn’t be if we have come to see that the Bible is about the Lord Jesus Christ and …

When I was an intern at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, I had the privilege of working with Dr. David Apple and the mercy ministry outreach. From a youth, my dad frequently took me to nursing homes where he would help lead worship services. John H. Skilton, late Professor of New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, introduced my father to this great need. John visited almost every nursing home in Philadelphia. He left a testimony of real desire to see the kingdom of God advance in the lives …

The second introduction, or the second feature of the introduction, of the book of Revelation is actually a Triune salutation. John writes:
“Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits before the throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and freed from our sin with His own blood and has made us kings and priests to our …

The introduction to the book of Revelation is of supreme importance if we are ever to come to a right understanding of its content. There are actually two introductions. The first comes in verse 1:1-4. The book opens with these words:
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even …

First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, MS has recently added a page where you can download audio files of talks, given over the past 5 years, at the Twin Lakes Fellowship . You can find them here . It looks like they may be in the process of adding more.

Here are the complete MP3 audio files from my ordination service:
Dr. Philip G. Ryken – Sermon Preached at the Ordination of Nicholas T. Batzig (1 Cor. 16:1-9)
Rev. James T. Obrien – Charge to Nicholas T. Batzig
Dr. James E. McGoldrick – Charge to the Presbytery

Here is a sermon by Joel Beeke on Christ being forsaken at the cross.

I want to take a moment to introduce a new website. Camden Bucey has recently founded Historia Salutis to be a Reformed, biblical-theological website. For those of you who are not familiar with the title, I’d like to explain its significance. The title Historia Salutis simply means “the History of Salvation.” Most of our readers will be familiar with the theological phrase, ordo Salutis, which means the Order of Salvation (or the order of the application of salvation). The historia salutis is the work of Jesus Christ in obtaining salvation …

Ben Shaw, Professor of Old Testament at GPTS, has started a series of posts, entitled “Notes on the Bible,” over at GPTS Rabbi. This is obviously inspired by Jonathan Edwards’ Notes on Scripture. Dr. Shaw has already worked his way through most of Genesis and part of Matthew. These are exceptionally helpful exegetical, biblical and systematic expositions of various texts. You can find the most recent links below:
Genesis 1-6; and Matthew 1-2
Genesis 6-12; and Matthew 3-4
Genesis 13-18; and Matthew 5
Genesis 19-23; and Matthew 5:43-6:34
Genesis 24-26; and Matthew 7:1-8:15
Genesis 27-35; and …

I cannot believe that there is an electronic copy of this masterpiece available online. C.C. Jones’ History of the Church of God is an amazing work, written by one of the greatest, yet lesser known, Southern Presbyterians of the 19th Century. The genius of this work is found in the way that Jones attempts to blend Systematic and Biblical Theology as he treats the Old Testament Revelation. I hope that all of you will take advantage of having access to this work. It is almost impossible to find a hard …

T. Desmond Alexander, author of this very helpful book, has just come out with a new book, From Eden to the New Jerusalem. While I personally think that Alexander employs too much critical scholarship at times, this looks like it will be a profitable contribution in the realm of BT. You can also find a list of Dr. Alexander’s articles and essays here.

I have wanted to post something for a while on the section of Geerhardus Vos’ Biblical Theology, at the beginning of his chapter on New Testament Revelation, in which he explains the development of the New Testament in terms of Jesus preaching the facts of His atoning death on the cross, and glorious resurrection from the dead, and the Apostles interpreting those facts. My good friend Steve Shanley has explained the gist of Vos’ argument in the following manner:
Vos argues for the unity of OT revelation to Christ’s words and …

Many months ago I posted some recommendations on a few biblical theological works, hard to find but theologically superb. Because blog posts get lost in the mix, I thought I would re-post this one for readers. You can read the Biblical Theological Recommendation post here. You can find the other posts in the series Of Making Many Books There is No End here.

Harry S. Stout, in the preface to The Works of Jonathan Edwards vol. 22, explained that very early in his ministry Edwards began to be driven by a desire to subject theology to the history of the world. This of course culminated in Edwards masterpiece History of the Work of Redemption. As Stout traced the history of Edwards writings and correspondence in regard to this matter he provided a quote from History of the Work of Redemption in which Edwards acknowledges the method of subjecting theology to its historical outworking. …

Gary Johnson reminded us of an article by Geerhardus Vos, published in the Princeton Theological Review 4.3 (July 1906), that dealt with the historical reliability of Scripture. With all the opinions about this subject being bandied about this article comes as a reminder that this debate is not a new one. You can read the article here.

Last week we interviewed Mark Garcia on Christ the Center. Mark is the author if Union with Christ and Two-fold Grace in Calvin’s Theology. You can listen to the interview here

I have been wanting to post a link to the sermon that Derek Thomas preached at the 2008 Twin Lakes Fellowship for some time now. Dr. Thomas preached about the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. This message was a model of biblical theological preaching. While I greatly appreciate this model I do want to note that it is not the only model of preaching. In fact, Derek Thomas’ sermons are not always like this. Sometimes, our Reformed applicatory preaching needs to be tempered with a biblico-theological emphasis. This is …

A while back I posted a lecture that Sinclair Ferguson delivered at the first Westminster Confession of Faith Conference, hosted by RPTS. The lecture was on “Baptism and the Westminster Assembly” and was the most convincing historical defense of infant baptism I have heard. Now, Michael Lynch over at 21st Century Table Talk has given a summary of the main points. This is very beneficial since the lecture was a very intellectually full message. You can find this summary here. You can listen to the lecture here. The …