In this episode, we welcome Scott J. Hatch, author of Reformed Forum’s latest publication, Van Til and the Foundation of Christian Ethics: A God-Centered Approach to Moral Philosophy, to consider the profound relationship between theology and ethics as articulated by Cornelius Van Til. In addition to providing an original treatment of the subject, Hatch has also edited a critical edition of Van Til’s Christian-Theistic Ethics, which is included as a lengthy appendix in this volume. This never before been available, and anyone interested in the thought of Cornelius Van Til should surely get a copy for their library.

This insightful conversation illuminates Van Til’s unique approach to Christian ethics, emphasizing a God-centered moral philosophy grounded in the doctrine of the self-contained ontological Trinity. Hatch explores Van Til’s critique of moral relativism and how his theological framework offers a compelling solution to ethical dilemmas, contrasting with the perspectives of other ethicists and theologians.

The episode promises to enrich understanding of Christian ethics through the lens of Reformed theology, challenging believers to consider the foundational role of the Triune God in all moral considerations. Join us for a thought-provoking exploration of how Cornelius Van Til’s groundbreaking work continues to shape contemporary discussions on Christian ethics, offering a robust, God-centered approach that speaks to the challenges of modern moral relativism.

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:04:12 Being Introduced to Cornelius Van Til’s Theology and Apologetics
• 00:09:54 Versions of Van Til’s Ethics
• 00:21:24 The Uniqueness of Van Til’s Ethical Approach
• 00:28:42 Ethics and the Doctrine of God
• 00:36:44 Alasdair MacIntryre and Critiques of Moral Relativism
• 00:45:11 Critiques and Misunderstandings of Van Til’s Ethics
• 00:53:29 Van Til’s Value for Future Generations
• 00:59:13 For Further Study
• 01:03:54 Conclusion

Links

• Purchase Van Til and the Foundation of Christian Ethics
• Purchase from Reformation Heritage Books for international shipping options

Participants: Camden Bucey, Scott Hatch

Geerhardus Vos mounted a heavenly vantage point from which he surveyed the world and all its happenings. From the high tower of God’s Word, he saw with eagle-eye clarity the beauty and majesty of the Lord in nature and history, creation and providence. “The whole earth is full of his glory!” was his theme (Isa. 6:3). With his heart brimming with seraphic wonder, he addressed his verses to the King (Ps. 45:1).

In Vos’ nature poems, he saw the mystery of the gospel reflected in creation as in a mirror. To highlight this, he entitled one volume of his nature poetry Spiegel der Natuur (Mirror of Nature). In the mirror of nature, through the spectacles of Scripture, Vos saw that death never had the final say. He saw that the path of life was the path of the cross. He saw evil deeds ironically reversed to bring about good by the providence of God. He saw the truth of Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 42 that he had learned as a child:

Q. Since Christ has died for us, why do we still have to die?
A. Our death is not a payment for our sins, but only a dying to sins and an entering into eternal life.

In sum, he saw the glory of Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25).

Vos shares with us a glimpse in his poem “Ex Arbore Navis.” In this poem, he finds the hope of resurrection life in Christ reflected in a tree torn from the earth’s embrace but made into a beautiful ship for the open seas of eternity. Isaiah, the “salvation-poet,” as Vos called him, had once prophesied,

For the coastlands shall hope for me,
the ships of Tarshish first,
to bring your children from afar,
their silver and gold with them,
for the name of the LORD your God,
and for the Holy One of Israel,
because he has made you beautiful (Isa. 60:9).

EX ARBORE NAVIS[1]

Bound is the tree in all his growing;
Sprouting and his flowers showing,
His evening and his morning glowing,

His winter sleeping, summer waking,
His silence and the sounds he’s making.

Still grounded in his mother’s place,
Confined within a tiny space;

Until one day a tragedy,
An axman swings with cruelty.

His market value lights his face,
And tears him from the earth’s embrace.

A woeful groan he then raises,
A fit of death through him races,
Down to his roots it abases.

But behold! the cry he utters,
From the pain of death he shudders,
Finished, it forever severs,

Makes for him, a state to hope in,
A wondrous new world to open.

In the woods a hidden pillar,
Now he journeys to the miller,

Who from the thickness, round and broad,
Of his large trunk cuts plank unflawed,

And for the beams of higher estate,
The right measure he must calculate.

Then onward from the miller’s yard,
Coastward goes he to the shipyard;

There the fragrant wood, like a vow,
Is built for keel and hull and bow.

Secured from wind and weather far,
Sealed with wax, baptized with tar.

The master sees him with delight,
Glide down the slope now to alight,

Like a bird over ocean blue
To his new element he flew.

Longing for the wonders at sea,
Ready to sail, restless lies he,

Tighter and tighter pulling on
The anchor that he might be gone.

It came at last the hour set,
By tugboat pulled to an outlet,

With flag and pennants high he’s free
To sail into the open sea;

Bedecked in white, his bridegroom sail,
On crested billows rides his tail,
Like were his own currents and gale;

Like every droplet in the slough
Of despond was his servant low;

Freer than the sea from bonds and bands,
Up rivers rushes he to distant lands.

You say this is a poetic device,
In real life groundless, it cannot suffice.

Believe me I know of what I sing,
A ship is also a living thing.

Lord, when death soon draws itself near,
Through trunk and branch goes his shear,

Freed from this narrow earthly space,
Let me go to a wider place;

After the escape, make of me,
A ship for Yourself graciously,

Assembled and made beautifully,
For the grand sail of eternity.

Reflected in this poem is that what the axman meant for evil, God meant for good (Gen. 50:20). Vos personifies the tree in the same way trees are found clapping their hands and singing for joy in Scripture (Ps. 96:12; Isa. 55:12). But here the tree is mercilessly torn from the nurturing arms of the earth. He groans and convulses in death. But death is not his destiny.

But behold! the cry he utters,
From the pain of death he shudders,
Finished, it forever severs,
Makes for him, a state to hope in,
A wondrous new world to open.

A kind of resurrection is reflected in the master shipbuilder raising the tree to new life as he forms and fashions him into a beautiful ship. Now the tree, once bound and confined, is loosed upon the open seas. Through a kind of death, his previous narrow existence has now opened into a broader existence of boundless currents of joy.

For Vos, this is more than a mere poetic device. It touches reality. It is the lifepath of the believer in Christ reflected as in a mirror. So, with the seaways to Zion in his heart (Ps. 84:5), he prays to the Lord in the final eight lines. He asks him that when he is torn from the earth by death’s cruel blow,

After the escape, make of me,
A ship for Yourself graciously,
Assembled and made beautifully
For the grand sail of eternity.

It is the true Master, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will raise his people from the dead to a more beautiful, more glorious existence. “[O]ur citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Phil. 3:20–21). Glimmering in Vos’ prayer is the good news that though we die, yet we shall live, that by grace alone we will be resurrected “at the hour set” to glorify and enjoy our Lord forever in the boundless joys of heaven—joys which earth cannot afford and none but Zion’s children know. The sea of crystal is forever before us. On its still, clear waters glisten the eternal glory of the gospel of Christ, the firstborn from the dead. With this end in mind, Vos encourages us in his sermon “Heavenly-Mindedness,” saying,

Being the sum and substance of all the positive gifts of God to us in their highest form, heaven is of itself able to evoke in our hearts positive love, such absorbing love as can render us at times forgetful of the earthly strife. In such moments the transcendent beauty of the other shore and the irresistible current of our deepest life lift us above every regard of wind or wave. We know that through weather fair or foul our ship is bound straight for its eternal port.[2]

Carried along by heavenly winds, even the Spirit of Christ in our sails, we pray: “In accord with Your covenant promise, O Lord, make of me a ship for Yourself.” Those last two words reach the apex of the religious longing of our hearts. For God, we were constituted as his image bearers in creation. From God, we fell in the sin of the first Adam. To God, we are restored and perfected by our union with the resurrected Christ in redemption. In Christ, we confess by his Spirit that even the glory of the escape of death is outshone by our God who has made us beautiful in his Son “for the grand sail of eternity.”

[1] Geerhardus Vos, Spiegel der Natuur en Lyrica Anglica (Princeton, NJ: Geerhardus Vos, 1927), 33–34. The translation is my own. I attempted to maintain the meter and rhyme scheme of the original.

[2] Geerhardus Vos, “Heavenly-Mindedness,” in Grace and Glory: Sermons Preached at Princeton Seminary (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2020), 120–21, emphasis mine.

During our symposium, “Crossroads of Conviction,” D. G. Hart had a spirited exchange with Timon Cline regarding establishmentarianism. With respect to the American founding, Dr. Hart made a comment regarding John Witherspoon (at 1:14:05 in the video). Several have asked about the relevance and meaning behind his remark.

To contextualize the comment, I recommend reading D. G. Hart and John R. Muether, “Turning Points in American Presbyterian History Part 4: A National Presbyterian Church, 1789.” In this brief article, Hart and Muether describe how the establishment of the first General Assembly in Philadelphia in 1789 marked the beginning of a more structured and unified Presbyterian ministry in the new republic. The election of John Witherspoon, the only minister to sign the Declaration of Independence, as the moderator of the first General Assembly highlighted the close ties between the new nation and the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (PCUSA).

The political independence of the United States allowed churches to establish denominational structures free from Old World governance and enabled a more direct response to American conditions. Prior to the General Assembly, there were calls for revisions to the church’s foundational documents. The most notable changes were made to the Westminster Confession, particularly regarding the roles of the civil magistrate and synods.

The revisions to the Westminster Confession and the broader ecclesiastical adjustments of the era were not merely administrative changes; they were reflections on the essence of Presbyterianism in a new political and cultural context. While Presbyterians perhaps had the opportunity to push for a federal established church, they did not. There were inconsistencies and ironies. Still, many—including Hart and Muether—see this as a positive development.

Watch the full panel discussion on Dr. Alan Strange’s Empowered Witness featuring panelists Timon Cline, D. G. Hart, and C. N. Willborn.

In this episode, we sit down with David Hall, Senior Pastor of Midway Presbyterian Church in Powder Springs, GA, and a prolific author, to discuss his latest book, Irony and the Presbyterian Church in America: The First Fifty Years. Hall’s work, a historical and analytical exploration of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), offers a unique perspective on the denomination’s fifty-year journey since its inception in 1973. Through the lens of irony, reminiscent of Greek dramas, Hall examines the PCA’s evolution within the wider context of American Presbyterianism.

David Hall is the author of more than 40 books, including influential titles like Savior or Servant? Putting Government in Its Place and The Legacy of John Calvin. As the Founder and Senior Fellow of the Kuyper Institute and a leading figure in the Calvin500 celebration, Hall’s expertise offers a profound look into the PCA’s successes, challenges, and the critical question: can it avoid the decline that other religious communions have faced?

Links

• Reformation & Worship Conference

Chapters

• 0:00:07 Introduction
• 0:02:10 The Reformation Worship Conference
• 0:15:10 A History of the PCA at 50
• 0:19:54 This Book among Other Histories of the PCA
• 0:23:33 Irony as a Theme for the PCA
• 0:36:34 Looking Backward and Forward
• 0:40:06 Perspective for the Future of the PCA
• 0:47:57 Joining and Receiving: The RPCES and OPC
• 1:00:58 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Carlton Wynne, David W. Hall

Since 2008, we have been taking time around New Year’s Day to bring you some of the top moments from the preceding year. We have several great clips lined up for you today.

The Top Episodes of 2023 (by YouTube views)

1. Dan Ragusa — Preterism and 2 Peter 3 (YouTube)
2. Gray Sutanto and Cory Brock — A Theological Introduction to Neo-Calvinism (YouTube)
3. Greg Beale — The New Testament Use of the Old Testament (YouTube)
4. Carlton Wynne — Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (YouTube)
5. Camden Bucey — The Importance of Cornelius Van Til for Today (YouTube)
6. Jim Cassidy — Introducing and Interpreting Karl Barth (YouTube)
7. Danny Olinger — Christianity and Liberalism: Introduction (YouTube)
8. Lane Tipton — Exitus and Reditus in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (YouTube)
9. Jonathan Master — Reformed Theology (YouTube)
10. Michael Beck — Covenant Theology and Cultural Engagement in the Thought of Meredith G. Kline (YouTube)

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:03:26 The Top 10 Episodes of 2023
• 00:15:13 [Dan Ragusa] Preterism and 2 Peter 3
• 00:24:22 [Gray Sutanto and Cory Brock] A Theological Introduction to Neo-Calvinism
• 00:30:14 [Greg Beale] The New Testament Use of the Old Testament
• 00:39:28 [Carlton Wynne] Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion
• 00:46:58 [Camden Bucey] The Importance of Cornelius Van Til for Today
• 01:00:24 [Jim Cassidy] Introducing and Interpreting Karl Barth
• 01:12:16 [Danny Olinger] Christianity and Liberalism: Introduction
• 01:16:59 [Lane Tipton] Exitus and Reditus in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas
• 01:25:09 [Jonathan Master] Reformed Theology
• 01:34:52 [Michael Beck] Covenant Theology and Cultural Engagement in the Thought of Meredith G. Kline
• 01:40:52 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Carlton Wynne, Cory Brock, Dan Ragusa, Danny Olinger, Greg Beale, Jim Cassidy, Jonathan Master, Lane G. Tipton, Michael Beck, Nathaniel Gray Sutanto

Lane Tipton and Camden Bucey reflect on the recent Reformed Forum Theology Conference on J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism before turning to a discussion of their new booklet, Unfolding Redemption: Exploring the History and Order of Salvation.

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:03:35 Reflecting on the 2023 Reformed Forum Conference
• 00:08:27 Machen and Denominational History
• 00:17:02 The Church and Culture
• 00:28:09 The History and Order of Salvation
• 00:35:41 The Unchanging Person of the Son
• 00:42:29 Jesus Declared to Be the Son of God in Power
• 00:55:05 The Benefits of Adoption
• 01:07:44 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

Richard Gamble and Jeff McDonald join us again. On this episode, McDonald introduces several significant points about William Jennings Bryan, including his early life and upbringing in a strong evangelical tradition, his belief that schools and universities posed a problem to religious freedom, and his concern that students could be led away from faith into unbelief if they fell under the influence of mind worshipers. He also notes Bryan’s political career and his advocacy for economic and religious freedom, as well as his influence on the Democratic party and his ongoing relevance to current political issues.

Jeffrey McDonald is a Presbyterian minister, historian, and author of John Gerstner and the Renewal of Presbyterian and Reformed Evangelicalism in Modern America (Wipf & Stock, 2017).

Richard M. Gamble is Professor of History and holds the Anna Margaret Ross Alexander Chair in History and Politics at Hillsdale College.

Chapters

• 00:07 Introduction
• 02:40 The Presbyterian Scholars Conference
• 10:27 William Jennings Bryan
• 18:48 Misconceptions about Bryan
• 22:05 Bryan’s Background
• 26:49 The Round Table Club
• 32:30 Concerns Regarding Religious Freedom and Education
• 37:11 Responding to Secularism
• 39:04 Machen and Libertarianism
• 41:11 Surprising Findings about Bryan
• 50:17 Bryan as a Nebraskan
• 53:26 Learning from Bryan
• 58:17 Conclusion

Links

• David W. Beggington, ed., The Gospel and Religious Freedom: Historical Studies in Evangelicalism and Political Engagement (Baylor University Press)
• Christ the Center episode 776 — Melvin Grove Kyle, J. Gresham Machen, and the League of Evangelical Students
• Christ the Center episode 599 — John Gerstner and the Renewal of Presbyterian and Reformed Evangelicalism
• Christ the Center episode 593 — The Battle Hymn of the Republic and Civil Religion

Books

• Jeffrey S. McDonald, “Advancing the Evangelical Mind: Melvin Grove Kyle, J. Gresham Machen, and the League of Evangelical Students”
• Richard M. Gamble, A Fiery Gospel: The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the Road to Righteous War (Religion and American Public Life)
• Richard M. Gamble, The War for Righteousness: Progressive Christianity, the Great War, and the Rise of the Messianic Nation. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2003.
• Richard M. Gamble, The Great Tradition: Classic Readings on What It Means to be an Educated Human Being. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2007.
• Richard M. Gamble, In Search of the City on a Hill: The Making and Unmaking of an American Myth. New York: Continuum/Bloomsbury, 2012.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jeff McDonald, Richard M. Gamble

Camden Bucey recently lectured on “The Importance of Van Til for Today” for the OPC’s Presbytery of Michigan and Ontario at Harvest OPC in Wyoming, MI. Jim Cassidy and Camden discuss the main points of the lecture before we turn to a recording of the lecture and its accompanying Q&A session.

Cornelius Van Til (1895–1987) has shaped the field of Reformed apologetics, drawing upon the strengths of Old Amsterdam and Old Princeton. But his impact extends beyond apologetics, affecting broader theological discussions and the identity of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In this lecture, we explore the enduring relevance of Van Til’s work and thought, analyzing his theological contributions against the backdrop of his historical context while tracing their resonance in our own.

Download the handout

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:03:13 The Importance of Van Til for Today
• 00:09:20 Previewing the Main Points of the Lecture
• 00:24:50 Darryl G. Hart Introduction
• 00:26:47 Camden Bucey Introduction
• 00:31:20 Confessional Faithfulness
• 00:50:28 A Distinctly Reformed Witness
• 01:02:47 Doctrine of God
• 01:29:09 Questions and Answers
• 01:47:13 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jim Cassidy

Today, we turn to pages 318–322 of Vos’ Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments to explore the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. Our goal is to offer a nuanced understanding by identifying both the similarities and differences between John’s baptism of Jesus and the baptisms John performed upon the people.

Vos aims to steer clear of two misconceptions: the first being that Jesus’ baptism and the people’s baptisms were entirely distinct events, and the second that they were essentially the same.

The baptism of Jesus holds dual significance. Firstly, it serves as a public and objective revelation of the Holy Spirit’s glory, manifested as the Spirit descended from heaven onto Jesus. Secondly, it has a sacramental meaning for Jesus himself, as he received something from the Spirit that furthered his earthly mission, which was a journey of suffering leading to glory.

In addition, we’ll examine the connection between Jesus’s baptism and his role as the Messiah, offering insights into both pneumatology—the study of the Holy Spirit—and eschatology—the study of end times.

Chapters

• 00:07 Introduction
• 00:37 Discussing the Recent Course on Aquinas’ Trinitarian Theology
• 09:49 John’s Baptism of Jesus
• 23:22 The Redemptive-Historical Roles of Jesus and John
• 27:05 Jesus Identifies with His People
• 29:55 The Objective Office of Messiah
• 41:42 The Descent of the Spirit upon Jesus
• 46:54 The Sacramental Significance of Jesus Baptism
• 50:31 The Beginning of the New Creation
• 58:49 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

We turn to pp. 315–318 of Geerhardus Vos’s book, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments to discuss revelation connected with John the Baptist. Our discussion examines the complexities of John’s role in the grand scheme of Biblical theology, unearthing profound insights about revelation and prophecy. We explore John’s unique connection with Elijah, and the significance of his testimony to Jesus and baptism.

Join us as we ponder Vos’s interpretation of Biblical revelation, shedding light on how it relates to the shadowy figure of John the Baptist. We navigate the delicate interplay between Old Testament prophecy and New Testament fulfillment, guided by the astute scholarship of Vos.

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Introduction
• 00:02:49 Thoughts on Studying Vos
• 00:14:10 John the Baptist and Elijah
• 00:21:50 Dispensational Interpretations of OT Prophecy
• 00:30:11 Repent in Preparation of the Coming of Christ
• 00:34:37 John’s Baptism
• 00:43:47 The OT Background to the Baptism of John
• 00:51:27 Considering John’s Baptism Redemptive-Historically
• 01:01:50 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

Ryan Noha and Camden Bucey discuss two new courses from Reformed Academy as well as the new online community and several upcoming events. Camden, Jim Cassidy, and Lane Tipton will be attending a meetup in Dallas on August 1, 2023 while Camden and Carlton Wynne will be present for a meetup in Atlanta on August 11. Reformed Forum will also be hosting an online symposium on Reformed Moral Theology on August 24, 2023. Information is available on our calendar.

After discussing all these matters, we include Jim Cassidy’s first lecture from a new course on Barth as well as a recording of a live Q&A session with Jim on the lecture.

Links

• The Gospel of John: A Study in the Truth (Chapters 1–10)
• Van Til and Barth: A Confessionally Reformed Critique

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:03:02 Course on 1 Peter with Kevin Chiarot
• 00:06:14 John 1–10: A Study in the Truth
• 00:10:02 Van Til and Barth: A Confessionally Reformed Critique
• 00:16:25 Our Online Community
• 00:18:02 Local Meetups in Dallas and Atlanta
• 00:21:37 Symposium on Reformed Moral Theology
• 00:31:12 Online Study Groups
• 00:35:09 Jim Cassidy, Karl Barth Lecture 1
• 01:19:15 Live Q&A with Jim Cassidy
• 02:05:02 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jim Cassidy, Ryan Noha

Brian DeJong speaks about his biography of Arthur Franklin Perkins, a Presbyterian minister serving in Merrill, Wisconsin in the 1920s and 1930s. For his bold stand for truth, and against error and unbelief, Perkins was persecuted and prosecuted by his own Presbytery. Leaving the PCUSA in 1936, he became a constituting member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and the convener and first moderator of its Presbytery of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan. After suffering a nervous breakdown, he died on December 29, 1936. This is his tragic and triumphant story about standing against tyranny in his day and age.

Links

• Purchase the book on Amazon
• Watch the promotional video for the book
• Standing against Tyranny Conference videos
• Brian DeJong, “A History of Presbyterianism in Wisconsin” (Christ the Center episode 788)

Chapters

• 00:07 Introduction
• 03:08 Resources on Machen
• 06:24 Presbyterians in Wisconsin
• 13:00 Introduction to Arthur Perkins
• 19:00 Crescent Lake Bible Camp
• 24:35 The Nature of Church Power
• 30:02 Correspondence with Machen
• 33:52 Community Presbyterian Church in Merrill, Wisconsin
• 37:16 Perkins’ Health and Eventual Death
• 43:09 How to Get a Copy
• 47:50 Conclusion

Participants: Brian DeJong, Camden Bucey

On the 100th anniversary of the publication of Christianity and Liberalism, we consider J. Gresham Machen’s critique of the liberal theological perspective on Jesus Christ, contrasting it with the traditional, orthodox Christian view. Machen argues that liberal theology often misrepresents Christ as a mere teacher of righteousness and neglects his divine aspects and teachings. He counters that Christ is not merely an example, but the very object of Christian faith. He also challenges liberal theologians’ struggle to reconcile Jesus’s sinlessness with their evolutionary worldview and argues against a deistic view of God, advocating instead for theism which allows for both God’s works of creation and providence. Machen discusses the issue of miracles in relation to Christian faith, asserting that one cannot selectively believe in parts of Christ’s life, such as dismissing the virgin birth. Ultimately, Machen invites the reader to believe upon Christ as portrayed in Scripture.

Chapters

• 00:07 Introduction
• 04:15 Reflecting on Machen and the Doctrine of Christ
• 10:47 Machen’s Writing Style
• 19:02 The Messianic Self-Consciousness
• 24:07 Modern Christologoy
• 32:16 Jesus Is Not a Mere Example but the Object of Faith
• 38:23 Miracles and the Supernatural Kingdom
• 44:41 Addressing Perennial Errors
• 48:40 Pastoral Considerations
• 56:34 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger, Lane G. Tipton

We turn to pp. 309–310 of Geerhardus Vos’s book, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments to discuss aspects of the nativity. The convergence of the coming of Jehovah and the coming of the Messiah is found in Jesus Christ and revealed particularly at the time of the nativity. Two Old Testament roots support this convergence: the circle of Mary and Joseph, who stand in the line of David, and the circle of Zacharias and Elizabeth, where the idea of Jehovah’s coming prevails.

Additionally, Vos notes that the name “Jesus” means “Jehovah is Salvation,” signifying Jesus’ divine identity as the one who delivers his people from the guilt and power of sin. Finally, Vos emphasizes that the inclusion of the Gentiles into God’s covenant people is another important aspect of Jesus’ redemptive work revealed with the incarnation.

Chapters

• 00:07 Introduction
• 01:31 The Coming of the Son of David
• 11:41 The Coming of the Lord
• 15:43 John the Baptist’s Ministry
• 21:45 The Name of “Jesus”
• 27:54 Simeon and the Inclusion of the Gentiles
• 36:42 Jesus Has No Earthly Father
• 39:52 Creation and Incarnation
• 50:09 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

This is the 100th anniversary of the publication of J. Gresham Machen’s book, Christianity and Liberalism. Danny Olinger and Camden Bucey speak with Lane Tipton about the third chapter of Machen’s classic, which addresses the relationship between God and man.

In this chapter Machen responds to the theological views of Schleiermacher and Von Harnack, which focus on religious experience rather than God’s supernatural acts in history. Machen argues that the doctrine of God and man revealed in Scripture is the basis for the gospel. It forms the presuppositional substructure of Christianity, to which modern liberalism is diametrically opposed. He affirms a natural knowledge of God in conscience and history. Jesus’ use of the words of prophets and psalmists reveals the character of God and gives significance to the Old Testament heritage of Jesus’ teaching. Machen envisions this revealed theology as the “root of Christianity,” not a natural religion, and one that rests on the teaching of the Old Testament as interpreted by Jesus Christ and his apostles.

Links

• D. G. Hart, Machen and the Presbyterian Controversy (YouTube playlist)
• Audio version of Christianity and Liberalism, chapter 3
• Lane Tipton, “Pantheism in Contemporary Scholarship” (video)

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:07:34 Machen and the Shorter Catechism
• 00:12:12 Schleiermacher and Von Harnack
• 00:30:15 Liberalism, Barthianism, and Knowing God
• 00:35:49 The Universal Fatherhood of God and the Universal Brotherhood of Man
• 00:44:54 The Problem with Liberalism’s Doctrine of God
• 00:53:00 Machen Considered Liberalism as Pantheistic
• 01:02:08 Christian Experience with the Living God
• 01:08:07 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger, Lane G. Tipton

This is the 100th anniversary of the publication of J. Gresham Machen’s book, Christianity and Liberalism. Danny Olinger and Camden Bucey welcome D. G. Hart to discuss the second chapter of Machen’s classic, which addresses doctrine. The heart of the matter is that Christianity is a supernatural religion built on the fact that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, accomplished redemption for his people in history. Machen understood that both are essential: the supernatural and the fact that it occurs in history. Machen wrote:

But if any one fact is clear, on the basis of this evidence, it is that the Christian movement at its inception was not just a way of life in the modern sense, but a way of life founded upon a message. It was based, not upon mere feeling, not upon a mere program of work, but upon an account of facts. In other words it was based upon doctrine (Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, 20).

And from the beginning, the meaning of the happening was set forth; and when the meaning of the happening was set forth then there was Christian doctrine. “Christ died”—that is history; “Christ died for our sins”—that is doctrine. Without these two elements, joined in an absolutely indissoluble union, there is no Christianity (Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, 27).

Links

• OPC Ruling Elder podcast
• D. G. Hart, Machen and the Presbyterian Controversy (YouTube playlist)
• D. G. Hart, Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism (Christ the Center, episode 609)
• Audio version of Christianity and Liberalism, chapter 2

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger, Darryl G. Hart

On the heels of teaching a course on Cornelius Van Til’s interpretation of the theology of Karl Barth, Lane Tipton speaks with Camden Bucey about Barth’s theology and the surprising architectonic similarities with features of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:11:59 Van Til and Barth
• 00:15:16 Including Barth in an Apologetics Curriculum
• 00:22:00 Learning More about Barth This Time Around
• 00:29:52 Ecumenical Possibilities between Barth and Post-Vatican II Catholicism
• 00:47:15 Definitional vs. Systemic Agreement on Justification and Thomas Aquinas
• 00:55:16 Wood, The Whole Mystery of Christ: Creation as Incarnation in Maximus the Confessor
• 01:02:47 White, Trinitarian Theology
• 01:07:25 Machen, the Presbyterian Conflict, and the Afscheiding
• 01:22:27 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

Brian DeJong explores the history of Presbyterianism in Wisconsin by focusing on several key figures in the development Presbyterian churches in the area.

In 1821, the Stockbridge Mohican Indians relocated to the Fox River area, just north of Appleton. These Indians had been under the Christian ministries of David Brainerd, Jonathan Edwards, and John Sergeant in Massachusetts. They eventually moved to the eastern shore of Lake Winnebago. The Rev. Jesse Miner came to minister among them in 1825. Later, Mr. Cutting Marsh served among them as well.

Rev. DeJong also describes the ministries of Rev. Moses Ordway and Stephen Peet in Green Bay and beyond and Peter Zonne in what is known today as Cedar Grove. Overall, we gain a sense of the pioneering mindset and strong commitment to missions and church planting among these early Wisconsin Presbyterians.

Links

• Henry Stephen Lucas, Netherlanders in America
• Robert P. Swierenga, Dutch Chicago: A History of the Hollanders in the Windy City
• Christ the Center episode 713, The Committee of Nine and Evangelicalism
• Stephen Peet, History of the Presbyterian and Congregational Churches and Ministers in Wisconsin
• Christ the Center episode 339, Dutch Immigration and American Presbyterianism
• Brian DeJong Sunday school lesson on Presbyterians in Wisconsin

Chapters

• 00:00:08 Introduction
• 00:05:01 Presbyterianism in Wisconsin
• 00:16:16 Edwards, Brainerd, and the Stockbridge Indian Tribe
• 00:26:20 Moses Ordway
• 00:35:57 Stephen Peet
• 00:44:58 Pieter Zonne
• 00:50:29 The OPC in Wisconsin
• 00:58:15 Takeaways from Studying Wisconsonites
• 01:06:57 Conclusion

Participants: Brian DeJong, Camden Bucey

Today we welcome Cory C. Brock and N. Gray Sutanto to speak about their book, Neo-Calvinism: A Theological Introduction (Lexham Academic), which is an excellent initiation and explication of neo-Calvinism as a nineteenth- and early twentieth-century movement in the Netherlands. It was “a revival of Reformed confessionalist theology in the Netherlands roughly beginning with the rise of Kuyper as a theology, with the founding of the Vrije Universiteit in 1880, the formation of the Gereformeerde Kerken in 1892, and its systematization in the theological output of Herman Bavinck (p. 4).”

Cory C. Brock is minister at St. Columba’s Free Church of Scotland in Edinburgh and adjunct lecturer in theology at Edinburgh Theological Seminary and Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi. Heh is the author of Orthodox yet Modern: Herman Bavinck’s Use of Friedrich Schleiermacher.

N. Gray Sutanto is assistant professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., and the author of God and Knowledge: Herman Bavinck’s Theological Epistemology of God. He is an associate fellow at the Neo-Calvinism Research Institute.

Links

• Along with James Eglinton and Marinus DeJong, Drs. Brock and Sutanto host the Grace in Common podcast.
• N. Gray Sutanto, “Consummation Anyway” Journal of Analytic Theology, Vol. 9, Summer 2021

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:01:24 Grace in Common
• 00:04:26 Defining Neo-Calvinism
• 00:15:08 What Is “Neo” about Neo-Calvinism?
• 00:21:37 Grace Restores/Perfects Nature
• 00:32:13 Anonymous Neo-Calvinists
• 00:40:54 Catholicity and Ecumenicity
• 00:48:45 Worldview
• 01:00:34 Developing a Global View of Christianity
• 01:08:45 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Cory Brock, Nathaniel Gray Sutanto

Danny Olinger and Camden Bucey discuss the preface and introduction to J. Gresham Machen’s book, Christianity and Liberalism. This is the 100th anniversary of the publication of this important work. In this episode, we discuss the historical circumstances that led Machen to address the Ruling Elders Association of Chester Presbytery. His address was eventually expanded to become this classic work.

Links

• Robert Tarullo’s audio recording of this chapter.
• J. Gresham Machen, “Liberalism or Christianity.” The Princeton Theological Review 20.1 (1922): 93-117.
• D. G. Hart, ed. J. Gresham Machen: Selected Shorter Writings
• D. G. Hart, Machen and the Presbyterian Controversy
• Lefferts Loetscher, The Broadening Church: A Study of Theological Issues in the Presbyterian Church Since 1869
• John Updike, “Pigeon Feathers“

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:01:55 The Significance of the Book
• 00:07:17 Historical Background
• 00:27:43 Conservatives and Moderates
• 00:40:19 Modernity
• 00:51:42 Modern Art, Science, and H. G. Wells
• 00:57:31 The Rights of Individuals
• 01:06:23 What Christianity Is
• 01:09:25 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger

Jim Cassidy and Camden Bucey bring in the New Year with a discussion of bible reading plans, tools, and strategies. They preview several of the projects that lay ahead at Reformed Forum, including a new course on the theology of Karl Barth. Dr. Cassidy introduces a list of recommended reading on Karl Barth and different interpretations of the theologian’s theology before speaking about Barth’s unique Christology.

Recommended Reading on Karl Barth

• Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics
• Karl Barth, Der Römerbrief; The Epistle to the Romans
• Cornelius Van Til, Christianity and Barthianism
• Cornelius Van Til, The New Modernism: An Appraisal of the Theology of Barth and Brunner
• James Cassidy, God’s Time for Us
• George Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth: The Shape of His Theology
• Bruce McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development 1909–1936
• Bruce McCormack, “Grace and Being: The Role of God’s Gracious Election in Karl Barth’s Theological Ontology” in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth
• Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts
• Christiane Tietz, Karl Barth: A Life in Conflict (see also Christ the Center episode 730)
• Tyler J. Frick, Karl Barth’s Ontology of Divine Grace
• Bruce McCormack, The Humility of the Eternal Son: Reformed Kenoticism and the Repair of Chalcedon
• Paul T. Nimmo, Being in Action: The Theological Shape of Barth’s Ethical Vision

Chapters

• 00:07 Introduction
• 03:34 Giving Update
• 08:46 Reading Plans for the New Year
• 21:44 Introducing Karl Barth
• 26:06 Recommended Reading on Barth
• 35:04 Interpretations of Barth
• 46:51 Barth’s Christology
• 58:35 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jim Cassidy

Jeff McDonald discusses Melvin Grove Kyle and the growth of the League of Evangelical Students (LES) founded by J. Gresham Machen and Princeton Seminary students in 1925. Both Kyle and Machen were scholarly leaders in the LES and served on the organization’s board together. In his paper on the subject, Dr. McDonald establishes the importance of Melvin Grove Kyle as a leading evangelical scholar and biblical archaeologist. He also explains the origins and growth of the LES and how various Presbyterians influenced the organization and sought to advance a broader evangelical Protestant intellectual life in the difficult period of the 1920s and 1930s.

Dr. McDonald is pastor of Avery Presbyterian Church in Bellevue, Nebraska and the author of John Gerstner and the Renewal of Presbyterian and Reformed Evangelicalism in Modern America (Wipf & Stock, 2017).

Links

• Jeffrey S. McDonald, “Advancing the Evangelical Mind: Melvin Grove Kyle, J. Gresham Machen, and the League of Evangelical Students“
• Christ the Center episode 599 — John Gerstner and the Renewal of Presbyterian and Reformed Evangelicalism

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 09:39 Historical Context
• 11:34 United Presbyterians and Xenia Seminary
• 20:15 Evangelical Cooperation
• 26:52 Evangelicals and the Life of the Mind
• 32:26 Pan-Presbyterian Dissent from Theological Liberalism
• 39:50 The Enduring Legacy of Melvin Grove Kyle
• 47:22 Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism
• 51:09 Additional Projects
• 52:55 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jeff McDonald

Carlton Wynne, Lane Tipton, and Camden Bucey turn to pp. 54–58 of Cornelius Van Til’s The Defense of the Faith to discuss the Christian theory of knowledge. In this section, Van Til speaks of God’s knowledge of the world and then man’s knowledge of God.

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:28 God’s Knowledge of the World
• 07:41 The Plan of God to Create the World
• 13:13 The Pantheistic Switch
• 24:31 God’s Free Knowledge Does Not Imply an Eternal Creation
• 35:32 Refusing to Concede to Rationalism
• 43:10 Man’s Knowledge of God
• 49:46 Devotional Thoughts on the Creator-Creature Distinction
• 56:45 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Carlton Wynne, Lane G. Tipton

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob returns to a reading of Geerhardus Vos’s 1903 book, The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church. In chapter 7, “The Essence of the Kingdom continued: The Kingdom in the Sphere of Righteousness,” Vos explains the relationship between the kingdom and righteousness.

Participants: Robert Tarullo

In this episode, we bring you the third plenary address from our 2022 Theology Conference wherein we considered, “The Covenantal Tale of Creation, Christ, and Consummation: The Life and Work of M. G. Kline.” This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Meredith G. Kline. We will take the opportunity to consider his unique contributions by exploring several covenantal and eschatological themes he identified throughout the Old and New Testaments.

Danny Olinger is General Secretary for the Committee on Christian Education for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He is the author of Geerhardus Vos: Reformed Biblical Theologian, Confessional Presbyterian.

Links

• Nathan Feldmeth, S. Donald Fortson III, Garth M. Rosell, and Kenneth J. Stewart, Reformed and Evangelical Across Four Centuries: The Presbyterian Story in America
• Mark Noll, America’s Book: The Rise and Decline of a Bible Civilization, 1794-1911
• Jeffrey S. McDonald, “Advancing the Evangelical Mind: Melvin Grove Kyle, J. Gresham Machen, and the League of Evangelical Students“

Chapters

• 0:00:00 Introduction
• 0:08:01 The Biblical Theology of Vos-Kline-Gaffin
• 1:00:45 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob returns to a reading of Geerhardus Vos’s 1903 book, The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church. In chapter 6, “The Essence of the Kingdom as the Supremacy of God in the Sphere of Saving Power,” Vos explain why the concept of the kingdom of God is so thoroughly God-centered and God-glorifying.

Participants: Robert Tarullo

Dr. Arlin Migliazzo speaks about Henrietta Mears, who was arguably the single most influential woman in the shaping of modern evangelicalism. Key figures in the early modern evangelical movement like Bill Bright, Harold John Ockenga, and Jim Rayburn frequently cited her teachings as a formative part of their ministry. Graham himself stated that Mears was the most important female influence in his life other than his mother or wife.

Dr. Migliazzo is the author of Henrietta Mears: Mother of Modern Evangelicalism (Eerdmans, 2020). He is Professor Emeritus of History at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington. His many publications include books, articles, and essays on ethnic studies, the Pacific Northwest, colonial South Carolina, church-related higher education, the history of evangelicalism, and comparative democratic development.

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 04:39 Mears’s Biography
• 14:46 Mears’s Constitution
• 16:27 Sunday School at First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood
• 21:32 The Attraction of Mears
• 27:07 The Available Historical Sources
• 29:51 Gospel Light
• 35:13 Forest Home
• 40:15 Mears’s Relationship with Other Evangelical Figures
• 47:04 Lessons from the Life of Henrietta Mears
• 57:46 Conclusion

Participants: Arlin Migliazzo, Camden Bucey, Jim Cassidy

This the second installment of a quarterly series of interviews highlighting the Lord’s work in the lives and ministries of our Reformed Forum faculty. Lane Tipton, Fellow of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Reformed Forum and pastor of Trinity OPC in Easton, Pennsylvania, sits down with Ryan Noha to discuss his conversion through a Leviticus 16 sermon on TV, his zeal for Christian education and global missions, and his joyful service of the Lord in his family, church, and the work of Reformed Forum as the George Bailey of Glenside.

Lane, I’m familiar with your background and how you came to know the Lord, but it’s always a joy to hear of the old, old story of the gospel and how the Lord brings the finished work of Christ to bear effectually upon his people. Would you tell us how you were converted and then eventually became a minister in the OPC?

I grew up in a Southern Baptist home. My mother was a devout and godly woman. Her parents were both wonderful Christians. My father was not a believer, but my mother would have us attend worship with her every Sunday morning. From the earliest time I can remember, I was sitting under the gospel, but I did not accept and embrace it. After I hit about age 13, my mom did not require me to go to church but gave me the opportunity to either go or not go, and I decided I wouldn’t go. I went through my junior high and high school years without really going to church at all, without attending any worship services at all. I played a year of football on a scholarship out of Tascosa at Eastern New Mexico State University. I was thinking about pursuing a law degree and thought when I came home that summer that it would be a really wise thing to read my Bible and get a little bit of familiarity with the Judeo-Christian ethic, given the fact that I was wanting to pursue law.

I turned to Jesus’ denunciation of the Pharisees almost instantly where he was denouncing them in Matthew 23 and following for being whitewashed tombs, clean on the outside, but inside full of dead men’s bones. I recognized that he was speaking in his word to me, and that I was in danger of the judgment. A few days later on a Sunday morning, I turned on the television, and a man was preaching on Leviticus 16 and the Day of Atonement. He then talked about the blood of a sacrificial offering, a sin offering, being brought into the most holy place and satisfying the wrath of God. He talked about a scapegoat, having the sins of Israel confessed over its head and being driven outside the camp, bearing away the guilt of God’s people. He said these were types of Jesus. And I instantly recognized that my release from my sin, and my fear, and my guilt, and my burden was found in the wrath-propitiating, blood sacrifice of Jesus who bore away my sin. I saw instantly in that typology that Jesus was like the scapegoat, who had taken my sin away from me as far as the east is from the west. He had shed his blood for my sin and satisfied God’s wrath. And I repented of my sin; I asked the Lord to forgive me. I was elated. I thought, goodness, how could I have not seen this all of these years? I instantly told my mom who just came into the room and was weeping tears of joy. She had been praying for this for 19 years. And the Paul Harvey aspect of the story is that of all people to preach that sermon, it happened to be Jimmy Swaggart, believe that or not.

So I was converted and within a few months had found my way toward the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. I had received through some men, who were in Amarillo at the time, interested in Reformed theology, some literature that led me toward the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. As I read systematic theologies—Louis Berkhof, some B. B. Warfield, a little bit of Van Til—I was very quickly led by conviction to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. I came to appreciate immensely Machen’s commitment to the spirituality of the church, his critique of liberalism as a different religion, the militancy of the OPC, its self-conscious embrace of being a pilgrim people, maintaining faithfulness to the gospel, not seeking cultural influence or affluence, but seeking rather to worship the Lord as engaged pilgrims, taking every thought captive, making it obedient to Christ, seeking the things above by faith, entering Sabbath rest, and being concerned most of all for the worship of the Triune God and giving a consistent, faithful witness to the world and calling all men and women, boys and girls everywhere to repent. That sent me on a path toward going to seminary.

It was a strangely quick movement from my conversion to pursuing the OPC and coming to a profound appreciation of Machen and his militancy and humility, and the church as it has been called by Charlie Dennison, “the church of the brokenhearted,” the church that mourns. This is not the norm, this kind of policy and worship and doctrine and this heavenly-mindedness. I have been in the OPC years and years now. I joined the Abilene congregation in 1989, if my memory serves, so it’s been a while.

I rejoice to hear of the Lord’s grace in your life afresh, not only that he was pleased to raise you from the deadness of your sin, but to grant you such rapid growth and maturity, even that you would see Christ in all of Scripture from day one and then dive right away into the deep end of Reformed theology with Machen and all the greats. This is truly a wonderful grace and profound mercy. I’d love to hear about the Lord’s gracious work in your family, as well. Would you introduce us to the Tiptons and share with us how the Lord is leading you all through this current season of life?

I met my wife, Charlene, when I came back from Southwestern Oklahoma State University. She has five uncles who have been or still are Orthodox Presbyterian ministers. We met in Abilene, Texas in 1992. About 10 months later, we were married. Everyone was saying, you guys need to get married. And I was all excited about us—you didn’t have to encourage me! She’s a beautiful, godly, intelligent, wonderful woman. Soon after that, we went to seminary, Westminster California. And by the time 1998 came around, we had our first child, Lauren; a few years later, Lyle; a few years after that, Trevor; a few years after that, Katie or Kaitlyn. And so we have four children. The oldest, Lauren, is now married. Lyle and Trevor are at Geneva playing basketball. And I will admit, tearing it up, and I’m very thankful for that. They’re godly young men walking with the Lord. Katie is class president just flourishing at Phil-Mont school founded by Cornelius Van Til. It’s all worked out in an amazing way.  Char and I are coming up on our 30th anniversary this next year. She works in the OPC home offices. She has been working there for several years now and does a fantastic job.

We’ve been here in Glenside since 1998, and it’s wonderful. I’m serving at Trinity OPC in Easton. It’s about 50 minutes from here. The family is doing great. They are a delight to my heart. They love the Lord and are all flourishing. I am so thankful. I’ve joked around before; I’ll adapt it, transpose it into this: I’m the George Bailey of Glenside, brother. I am just so thankful, so happy, and so richly blessed to have this family. They are, outside of the Lord, just the truest and purest joy of my heart.

Now as long as you mentioned Phil-Mont Academy and Van Til, I’ve got to ask, did you and Char have a devotional yet over that 1961 Van Til editorial I shared with you? The one that was published by Willow Grove Christian Day School, “The Whole Armour of God”?

Not yet. But talk about a letter that just states all that my wife has said before! Char has said before a number of times that she loves obviously loves Van Til. She and I married in part around a passionate commitment to Christian education. When I was in seminary out in California, Char taught at a Christian school. She taught years before that in Reformed Christian schools. She is just a fantastic teacher. We homeschooled our children. But when we first met, she and I read Van Til’s Essays on Christian Education as devotional literature and would marvel at the wonderful, robust, Reformed Trinitarianism, and Covenant Theology, and antithesis, and understanding of common grace, and the proper and indispensable role of Christian education from a Reformed world-and-life view. We fell in love around that. And so when we came to the Philadelphia area, and Phil-Mont was within ten minutes of our house, founded by Van Til—it’s just wonderful. So we’ll get around to that essay. I’m sure we’ll have numbers of discussions about it. Char has said, and I agree in certain ways with this, that Van Til might be at his very best when he’s talking about Christian education. You know, there’s a lot of “best” about Van Til, but one of his brightest points is talking about a consistently Reformed theological education for covenant children.

I couldn’t agree more. Now, you mentioned that you’re currently serving as pastor of Trinity OPC in Easton, Pennsylvania. What is your beloved congregation like and how is the Lord using the ordinary means of grace to gather and perfect the saints at Trinity?

I’ve been at Trinity in Easton for around a decade. Right before I arrived, the pastor left to join the Roman Catholic communion, which was a devastating blow to the congregation. For the past decade, I’ve had the unparalleled privilege of pastoring and shepherding and encouraging the saints in their walk with the Lord. As I said, apart from the Lord, my family is my chief delight, but just right in there, just as an unqualified delight is the service of the saints at Trinity. The elders, Charlie DeBoer, Joe Olliff, Luke DeBoer, Ian Parkin—a dear brother passed away about a year ago, went to be with the Lord—serving alongside those dear brothers in such a loving and giving congregation has been an oasis in the wilderness for me. I have delighted in my service, to know and love the congregation, to preach, teach, and serve alongside those brothers on the Session. The congregation over the years has grown to be what I would consider now to be a thriving, vibrant congregation filled with delightful people. I don’t want to overuse the George Bailey allusion, so I’ll change here, but I’ve been spoiled. And there is no end in sight from my side in terms of the service there. It continues to be an increasing joy for me. To see the way the Lord blesses through slow, steady, self-conscious means of grace, through Word and sacrament, through visiting and getting to know them as brothers and sisters in the Lord, walking beside them, bearing burdens, turning them to the sufferings and the comfort that are in Jesus Christ. I’ve always wanted to be a pastor; I was never initially aspiring to be a professor. And the Lord has granted me one of the deepest desires of my heart. Once again, I’m just so thankful for it.

That is tremendous, brother. To follow up for those who don’t know, who is George Bailey? And would your elaborate a bit upon what you’re preaching and teaching through these days and share any particular insights you might have from your studies in the Word?

If you remember, Jimmy Stewart played George Bailey in an all-time Christmas classic, It’s A Wonderful Life. And the long story short is that he finds that the money, the influence, the opportunity for notoriety, that all of those things pale mightily in comparison to having a group of people, family and friends, who gather around and love you and rejoice when you rejoice and mourn when you mourn. I don’t want to spoil it in case there are some younger folks out there who haven’t seen it, but at the end of the movie, when everyone’s coming into the house, doing something that’s just beautiful—I can’t resist the analogy. It’s delightful, whether it’s you brothers at Reformed Forum, whether it’s a number of dear brothers throughout the world, my loving family, the dear congregation, the Lord has just blessed me. And so I really do mean it, partly as a joke, but partly true: I’m like the George Bailey of Glenside, brother. I’m very thankful for it.

I’ve been preaching for some time on the book of Ephesians. I took about a one-year break and did some work on Hebrews 12 during the pandemic to talk about the unshakable kingdom. No matter what happens in this world, we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Over the past several months, I’ve been preaching through the armor of God and Ephesians 6, which is Christ, and have looked at how that armor is fundamentally putting on Christ, his ordinances, his Word, his Spirit, and by faith rising up with his people to fight against the principalities and powers of this present evil age, to set forth the truth of the gospel and its antithetical, full-orbed glory, and to recognize that no matter what happens in terms of the escalation of evil around us in the culture or in the world, Jesus Christ has established his Church. The gates of hell will not prevail against it because the Lord who is our armor has gone before us, destroyed his and our enemies and is in the process of making them a footstool for his feet, which will reach its climax in his glorious, visible second coming.

It’s been a delight to preach through that that book, and I’m kind of coming up on the end of it. You never know; I can’t ever calculate how many more sermons are in the hopper for it. But we’re moving toward the end of the Ephesians 6, and it has been an unusually rich feast for me to preach through. You think you understand the text until you work on it week in and week out for weeks, months, or years, and so it has been peculiarly rich for me. I’ve been very encouraged doing it. Of course, I have—I don’t want to diminish any other congregations in the world—but I might have the most patient and loving congregation in the OPC. They have stayed through it all, and we’ve taken a slow, careful look at that text and just feasted on the Christ who is revealed in it. It’s been a delight.

Now you’re a bit unusual as a minister in the OPC because you not only have the privilege of preaching twice every Lord’s day and doing Sunday school and visitation and serving the saints in Easton, but you’re also a Fellow of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Reformed Forum. How are you actively engaged in the Colossians 1:28 mission of Reformed Forum in that particular capacity?

Let me begin by saying Reformed Forum has been and always will be a pure labor of love for me. You do not find anything like it anymore. In the past, there were some that were striving for this, but the combination of militancy and love, distinctive commitments to the Confession, Van Til, Vos Kline, and the development of what you might call the old Westminster theology or the first generation OPC theology, enriched by people like Kline, Gaffin, Strimple, and others—that’s unique to Reformed Forum. The ministry is so distinctive, while at the same time not succumbing to these biblicist, mutualist perversions that you find in the evangelical and ostensibly “Reformed” world of contemporary vintage in the last 20 years. At Reformed Forum you’ve got a catholic, Reformed, robust ministry of Reformed theology with Colossians 1:28 as the mission, seeking to present everyone mature in Christ.

My service, whether it pertains to the Reformed Academy and teaching courses on Van Til, Reformed Forum conferences—we’ve got one coming up that I’m so excited I can barely contain myself over—or the books that I’ve been graciously given the opportunity to write for Reformed Forum—Foundations of Covenant Theology, the Van Til book [The Trinitarian Theology of Cornelius Van Til], and several on the way—all continues to be a joy in the Lord. I don’t feel like in any of this that I’m working. I’m serving with joy, gladness, and peace and would not want to be anywhere in the whole world serving in except Reformed Forum. So again, I said about pastoring that the Lord’s given me the desire of my heart. Serving with Reformed Forum, though, it’s just been a delight that the Lord has brought. There are people that I won’t mention by name, but they have engaged in extraordinary giving and continue to give in ways that astound me to enable this kind of ministry. They have my deepest gratitude and admiration in the Lord. So, brother, as long as the Lord continues to cause Reformed Forum to flourish, and I have the ability and capacity and strength to serve, the duty is delight. They go right together.

To have over 3800 students in 75 countries involved at Reformed Forum, and to see it exploding in terms of worldwide outreach and ministry and serving the global church so profoundly, that especially gives me unbridled joy in the Lord. I pray that the Lord will continue making Reformed Forum this growing servant of the universal, worldwide Church. I love everything about Reformed Forum, but that, in particular, really is close to my heart to be able to serve brothers and sisters in different countries, under great persecution, who otherwise don’t have access to this kind of theology. To be able to serve them with rich, Reformed theology in the way that Reformed Form enables, and with the quality in terms of the platform and the presentation, as men committed to the deeper Protestant conception, it’s very exciting. I’m thankful to be a part of it, and I’m thankful to see the way the Lord has been blessing it. I’ve been amazed at the way that the Lord is causing Reformed Forum’s ministry to explode throughout the world. And it’s all of the Lord, so we give him glory.

In terms of that worldwide explosion, would you at liberty to share about any of the work that you’ve done with our brethren in China or Cambodia?

I’ll give you just one example. I’ve had an opportunity with a dear brother to talk to numbers of brothers in China, engaging in the training of pastors. I’ve taught a course to brothers in the Lord who are serving and pastoring. I just recently recorded some sermons that will be a part of a conference coming up, and I believe that there are going to be around 1200 people attending. For the last decade, I’ve had opportunities pre-COVID to go to Hong Kong to engage in service of these Chinese brothers and sisters. I can just testify to this: the Lord is giving them extraordinary grace and deep conviction. If Reformed theology in seminaries in this country is on the decline, which it is, and if the broad evangelicalism of this country is strangling true piety and vibrant doctrine, which it is, if liberalism and Barth and the post-conservative evangelical, post-liberal movements are divesting the system of doctrine of its vitality and substance, which it is—as you see a relative decline in the West, these brothers are on fire. The persecution that they are receiving is only causing more and more joy and vigor and militancy to make Christ known and to have an opportunity to serve. I’m going to stop because this gets me choked up, brother, but to have the honor and the privilege to serve such brothers whose hearts are so clearly cruciform and cross-stamped, serving the Lord, not seeking treasure on Earth but in heaven, it’s amazing. That opportunity and ongoing attempts to partner with those brothers, it’s just a delight.

Amen, brother. What you’re saying resonates in a peculiar way with me as I’ve had the great joy of regularly corresponding and working with many brothers and sisters in mainland China and Taiwan through our Reformed Academy. I’m consistently blown away by how they are willing to joyfully lay their lives down for the gospel. They often suffer much hardship for the sake of our Savior in their families and work, and yet at the end of the day, they still have the Spirit-wrought energy and zeal do the difficult work of translation and subtitle correction for us at Reformed Forum. They labor for nothing but for the glory of God and to see the riches of the Reformed faith flourish in their land. I’m truly in awe of what the Lord is pleased to do in bringing Reformed Forum these connections with saints that weren’t on my radar, but they were on the Lord’s radar. He is bringing the Church, his global family, together even while the world is at war. Chinese believers and Western believers are loving one another and are growing unto perfection in Christ.

It is of the Lord. They are the dearest of brothers and sisters, so praise the Lord for them.

As we come to the close of our interview, how might our friends and supporters around the world pray for you and your ministry?

I really appreciate you asking. Pray for my wife to continue to flourish and for our relationship to grow; for my children to continue to flourish and walk with the Lord as they’re doing; for faithfulness in ministry at Trinity, preservation of the elders and growth of the congregation. Pray also for the work at Reformed Forum to move forward with people recognizing that we give all of our resources up front for free. Pray that the Lord would raise up people to support Reformed Forum’s work so that this global outreach, these 3800 plus students from 75 countries, could continue to be served. Pray that the Lord would make Reformed Forum faithful in serving the church and not be distracted by any other mission outside of the mission of Colossians 1:28, to seek to present everyone mature in Christ through the presentation of what the Scriptures teach as received and expounded and enriched in our Reformed confessional tradition. Prayer along all those lines, and that the Lord would make me personally faithful in love and in truth for the sake of Christ would be deeply appreciated.

Harrison Perkins speaks about Samuel Miller’s views on Presbyterianism. Dr. Perkins has edited a new edition of Miller’s Presbyterianism: Its History, Doctrine, Government, and Worship, which has been published by Log College Press.

Samuel Miller, the first professor of Ecclesiastical History and Church Government at Princeton Theological Seminary and a prolific author, published this introduction and defense of Presbyterianism in 1835. Originally titled Presbyterianism: The Truly Primitive and Apostolical Constitution of the Church of Christ, Miller covers the basics of Presbyterian belief and practice, grounding his material in the Scriptures primarily and church history secondarily.

Dr. Harrison Perkins is Stated Supply at Oakland Hills Community Church in Farmington Hills, Michigan
Visiting lecturer in systematic theology at Edinburgh Theological Seminary and online instructor at Westminster Theological Seminary. He is the author of Catholicity and the Covenant of Works: James Ussher and the Reformed Tradition, of which he spoke on Christ the Center episode 677.

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Introduction
• 00:03:20 Update and Current Projects
• 00:09:35 Editing Samuel Miller’s Presbyterianism
• 00:17:46 Samuel Miller’s Biography
• 00:20:37 The History of Presbyterianism
• 00:33:51 Presbyterian Doctrine
• 00:40:17 The Practicality of Presbyterian Principles
• 00:45:47 Presbyterian Government
• 00:49:23 Presbyterian Worship
• 01:05:23 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Harrison Perkins, Jim Cassidy

You can contrast the deeper Modernist conception of Karl Barth to the deeper Protestant conception of Vos and the deeper Catholic conception of Aquinas. For Vos, Adam comes from God, wholly inclined toward God and in natural religious fellowship with God, standing in no need of grace. According to the deeper Catholic conception, Adam comes from God riddled with concupiscence and in need of ontologically re-proportioning and ethically re-proportioning grace.

For Barth in the deeper Modernist conception, when Adam is created, he is instantly the first sinner. This is concupiscence radicalized. Adam does not stand in need of a covenant according to the deeper Protestant conception, nor does he stand in need of ontologically infused and elevating grace according to the deeper Catholic conception, Adam stands in need of the Christ event.

What makes the deeper Modernist conception so distinctive is that Jesus Christ is not a promised future redeemer. He does not come in terms of redemptive history, coming out of heaven in the fullness of time to take to himself a true body and a reasonable soul, die for sin, and rise and ascend to heaven. For Barth, the Christ event is at the very beginning the alpha point of God’s relation to Creation in geschichte in a supra-temporal dimension, wholly hidden from history.

According to Barth, the Christ event has always been occurring. And when Adam was created, he was so defective and stained in sin, he needed that supra-temporal indirect Christ event. Barth has the lowest of all views of Adam as a creature and the most deviant of all views of Jesus Christ, because there is no history of special revelation of which Christ is the consummation. There is merely an abstract positive supernal Christ event to which man in history never has any direct access. It is the polar opposite of Vos’s deeper Protestant conception.

Adapted from a transcript of the video.

The Modernist-Fundamentalist Controversy occurred in the 1920s. When I teach it, I typically talk about the social aspects of it, the high points being the Scopes Trial of 1925 and the effort to remove the teaching of evolution from public schools. This wasn’t simply an anti-science movement, though there were clearly aspects of that. Indeed, “science vs. faith” is a recurring theme in the history of Christianity.

But William Jennings Bryan and others were concerned about eugenics, which was a prominent feature of the scientific establishment at this point in time. Eugenics was the idea that you could breed better human beings. It is the fruition of Darwinism in many respects. There were efforts at the time to restrict unfit people from from procreating. Advocates sometimes even included Roman Catholics in this prohibition. Protestants were worried that Roman Catholics were breeding like rabbits. Eugenics was a way to try to control the population. Bryan recognized this, and the textbook that was under review during the Scopes trial did teach eugenics. So this wasn’t simply science versus faith. This was also an issue of public health.

Denominationally, there were controversies in the Baptist world over theological liberalism. There was also a controversy in the Presbyterian world over theological liberalism. Those dates don’t coincide with the Scopes trial. So you have all these controversies coming together—some denominational some political. Some historians, as people tend to do, lumped these different groups together and called them “fundamentalists.” But when you look at the particular aspects of this lump, whether Baptist or Presbyterian, they don’t line up. In some ways you lose a real sense of what was going on in the Presbyterian side of this controversy if you just call it the “Fundamentalist Controversy.”

For instance, I was recently reading a piece by a grad student at Stanford trying to link Machen and his views on inerrancy through McIntire to Schaeffer to the Christian right. This was quite a set of lumping to do. The student didn’t seem to be aware of the particular nuances to the Princeton view of inerrancy and other concerns that Machen had in his critique of liberalism.

If you just use these categories like “fundamentalist,” “evangelical,” or “mainline,” you miss a lot of the detail. For me at least what makes history fun is the variety—it’s the way things don’t line up. It’s the jostling of ideas. There’s a tension there. You can divide historians into two groups: the splitters and the lumpers. People that use “fundamentalism” as a handle are the lumpers; I’m a splitter.

Adapted from a transcript of the video.

Brad Isbell (@ChortlesWeakly) briefly steps away from the General Assembly floor, Twitter, and Presbycast to jump on another podcast mic to speak with Camden Bucey about the PCA General Assembly and the storied histories of naming the OPC and the PCA.

Mr. Isbell is a ruling elder at Covenant PCA in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Along with @Wresbyterian, he hosts Presbycast. He recently wrote, “What’s in a Denominational Name?” for the Nicotine Theological Journal. The article has also been published at The Aquila Report.

Chapters

• 00:00 General Assemblies Review
• 09:43 More in the PCA
• 15:18 PCA and OPC 50th Anniversaries
• 19:36 Denominational Names
• 32:06 Ardor and Order in the National Presbyterian Church
• 46:14 Presbyterian Collegiality
• 48:52 Church Planting Old School Ordinary Means of Grace Churches
• 53:11 Conclusion

Participants: Brad Isbell, Camden Bucey

The more than two-hundred-fifty-page PDF document available for download at the end of this introduction is a table that includes seven columns of information about each of 1268 book reviews by Benjamin B. Warfield published in the journals issued by Princeton Seminary. A brief text within the table explains the runs and titles of Princeton’s journals and provides details needed for interpreting the table. 

Warfield’s first review was published in The Presbyterian Review, April 1880, while he was professor of New Testament at Western Theological Seminary in Allegheny, and it critiques volume one of C. F. G. Heinrici’s Erklärung der Korinthierbriefe. The book is not an expository commentary but instead is concerned with history and the Corinthian people.

His last review considered two titles together and was published the month before his death in The Princeton Theological Review, January 1921. The first of the two titles is Hugo Visscher’s address about science and religion delivered before the four faculties of the Universities of Utrecht during the 284th anniversary of the institution. The second title is a tract by H. W. van der Vaart Smit that evaluated Visscher saying his view “seems to require Christianity to surrender to natural science” and it “appears to abolish all supernaturalism from the fact-basis and fact-content of Christianity.” Warfield maintained an interest in Dutch theology over the years and the Dutch showed their appreciation for his teaching when the Doctor of Sacred Theology was given him by Utrecht in 1913. 

It is appropriate that Warfield’s last review included criticism of naturalism given his life spent defending supernaturalism. In between these two reviews is a period of forty-one years during which Warfield evaluated a wide variety of books including subjects as varied as agriculture, ships, and children’s books, along with the biblical-theological-confessional titles one would expect.

Free Download: A Table of B. B. Warfield’s Book Reviews in The Presbyterian and Reformed Review and its Predecessors

Dr. D. G. Hart speaks about the Old School-New School Controversy in the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, which lasted from 1837 to 1870 in the North.

Lane Tipton and Camden Bucey turn to pages 289–296 of Geerhardus Vos’ book, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments. In this section, Vos introduces several significant interpretive practices which are critical for a proper understanding of the eschatology of the prophets. These are the principles of (1) finality and consummation, (2) prophetic idiom, and (3) the coming of the Messiah as the “gift of God.”

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:48 Finality and Consummation
• 13:53 The Forshortening of Prophetic Insight
• 22:54 Prophetic Idiom and the Future Glory of Isaiah
• 42:58 The Coming Messiah as the Gift of God
• 51:06 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

The Old Side/New Side controversy occurred in colonial presbyterianism between 1741 and 1758 with a couple of stages in between. It was a controversy that grew out of the first—I don’t like to call it great, but pretty good awakening. That’s a phrase I get from an old friend, who is now deceased, Leo Ribuffo, historian at George Washington University. It’s not my own, but I do think it’s a useful way of thinking about the way we talk about events. We say it’s great. Well, there was a Great Depression. How great was the Great Depression? We tend to think, oh, a Great Awakening, well, it must be really great!

But for those who oppose the awakening, it wasn’t so great. So that was the old side. They were concerned that the people promoting revival were violating all sorts of presbyterian procedures, preaching outside of bounds, going into the town of another church and preaching there without the permission of the pastor, ordination requirements, requiring ministers to give a conversion narrative.

That related to piety as well. Did someone need to be converted to be a minister? The old side would have said, well, of course they must be a Christian, but is conversion the only way to become a Christian? Or could you be a covenant child baptized, reared in the church, make profession of faith with not ever having a conversion experience? Those were the issues going on.

In the heat of the moment, the pro-revivalists were very concerned and very convinced that they were right and probably a tad self-righteous about it. So the old side said, no, we’d like to back away from this. The church synods went their separate ways. They reunited in 1758 with a plan of union that few people actually study. If you do look at it, it’s a curious document. It was able to heal this breach in the church.

The next stage of the presbyterian church is to form the first General Assembly in 1789. This is a very early stage of the church. Presbyterianism in America only started in 1706. So the church is in its adolescence as it’s working out these events and circumstances.

Adapted from a transcript of the video.

On May 21, 1922, Harry Emerson Fosdick preached a sermon titled “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” that helped spark the modernist-fundamentalist controversy.

Fosdick was a Baptist minister serving as an associate at First Presbyterian Church in New York and a faculty member at Union Theological Seminary. He was well-known and had published several popular religious books. Ned B. Stonehouse remarked, “the fact that a minister not even subject to the authority of Presbytery and General Assembly should have used a Presbyterian pulpit to make what was widely regarded as an attack upon the constitution disclosed a situation bordering on lawlessness” (Stonehouse, J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir, 302).

Dr. Darryl G. Hart joins Camden Bucey to speak about this infamous sermon and a new course on Machen that Dr. Hart recorded last week for Reformed Academy.

Chapters

• 0:00:00 Introduction
• 0:01:03 Dr. Hart’s Forthcoming Course on Machen
• 0:09:54 Harry Emerson Fosdick in Context
• 0:20:49 Presbyterians and Broad Ecumenism
• 0:23:53 New York and Philadelphia in Presbyterian History
• 0:28:25 A Baptist in a Presbyterian Pulpit
• 0:33:19 Fosdick Preaching from Acts 5:38–39
• 0:38:40 Fosdick and Modernity
• 0:45:07 The Soft Middle
• 0:50:02 Machen, Orthodoxy, and Modernity
• 0:56:17 The Spirits of Fosdick and Machen Today
• 1:08:06 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Darryl G. Hart

This the first installment of a quarterly series of interviews highlighting the Lord’s work in the lives and ministries of our Reformed Forum faculty. Up first is Jim Cassidy, president of the Reformed Forum board of directors and pastor of South Austin OPC in Austin, Texas. He sits down with Ryan Noha to discuss growing up Roman Catholic, giving up his life for the gospel, and serving the Lord in his family, church, and the work of Reformed Forum.

Jim, we have many longtime friends and supporters at Reformed Forum who know you well, but for those who are just meeting you for the first time or haven’t heard about your background, tell us how you made your way from Roman Catholicism into the OPC. How were you converted, and then how were you “born again” as one of Machen’s Warrior Children?

I appreciate that question. I think that growing up Roman Catholic has given me a particular perspective on the Reformation. When I was growing up Roman Catholic, the emphasis was very much upon the rules and doing what you’re supposed to do so that you don’t displease God. And if you don’t displease God, then you can get yourself out from underneath his wrath. So everything was geared towards this work of merit, whether it’s in the participation of the sacraments, going to church, not talking in church to your friends, kneeling properly, being an altar boy—you got some extra points for that. Now, they didn’t put it in those terms. But that’s sort of the message that was communicated.

As I was growing up and into college, I was under the impression that if you did enough good works, or if you did more good works than bad works, then you would go to either purgatory or heaven. But if you were a particularly nasty sort that did more bad deeds than good deeds, you would go to hell. Now, nobody I knew, despite the depravity that we exercised in our lives, thought that they were so bad as to be going to hell. And when they did something that was particularly bad, and they knew it, they would joke around and laugh and say, “Ha, I’m going to hell!” But it was not really taken seriously. I had this impression going into college.

It was there in college that I met a Baptist believer who was ministering to me and praying for me. His church’s youth group back home was also praying for me. And he was witnessing to me telling me about the gospel. When I told him my understanding of Christianity as I just explained it, he said, “No, that’s not how you get to heaven. You get into heaven by having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” And now, we know, and I know from hindsight, that that’s not itself the gospel: “Having a personal relationship with Jesus.” That’s more of an evangelical way of saying that it’s not on the basis of your works or your goodness that you get into heaven but by faith in Jesus Christ. And so I remember going to bed that evening and saying to Jesus that I wanted to have a relationship with him. I woke up the next day, and I began to read my Bible and basically haven’t looked back since.

Now at that time, I didn’t fully comprehend the gospel. I knew nothing of the Reformation. So my intent was to be a Catholic—a good Catholic—and to stay in the Catholic Church. My intent was to go around telling everybody that they need to have a “personal relationship with Jesus” because that’s what I was taught. At that point, a Reformed person who was part of a Protestant Bible study took me aside. He began to explain to me the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, and he told me a little bit about the Reformation and “faith alone” and “grace alone” and all of that stuff. And when I went home over Christmas break during my sophomore year, I began to read Galatians. It blew my mind because Paul was articulating everything that I did not believe or that I was not taught growing up. In fact, it was the exact opposite of what I was being taught as I was growing up. It absolutely transformed and renovated my way of thinking about sin and salvation, the gospel—the whole nine yards. I quickly became very angry at the Catholic Church when I thought about the way that they were misleading me. My soul, and the souls of millions, was dependent upon the church proclaiming the truth and the true gospel, and Rome wasn’t doing that. It upset me very much.

I’ve gotten over my anger, but speaking to the issue of Machen’s Warrior Children, perhaps the reason that I am so dogmatically committed to Reformed theology is because I believe that it is as Warfield put it: “Christianity come to its own.” And if Reformed Christianity is “Christianity come to its own,” then we absolutely must stand for it; we must fight for it. Souls are at stake. I would never want our church to lose that message. I think Machen felt that way, too, even though he wasn’t raised Catholic. He was raised within the Presbyterian Church, but he was militant about the truth because he knew that it was a life-or-death situation. And I know it’s a life-or-death situation. So I believe in the Reformed faith and in zealously maintaining it, promoting it, preaching it, and teaching it because I believe truly that lives are at stake.

Amen, brother. I never tire of hearing how the Lord has brought a person to the understanding of that life-giving gospel: the gospel of Jesus Christ crucified, risen, ascended, and coming again. It’s only through union with him that we have any hope of salvation. It’s really that simple. We aren’t Reformed because we’re pugilistic, but because the Reformed faith is the only faith worth contending for. It’s radically consistent with Scripture, and that’s why we love it. That’s why we agree with Machen when he said on his deathbed, “Isn’t the Reformed faith grand?”

Yes. I think everybody has it within them to give their lives for something. We all know the brevity of our lives, and I think I think everybody wants to give their life to something that that counts, that makes a difference. Most of the time people identify the wrong thing to give their lives for. When I found and discovered the truth of the gospel as it was recaptured and re-articulated by the Reformers, I found something where I could say, I’m willing to die on that hill. I’m willing to surrender my life for the sake of that message because it has eternal consequences, even as the message itself is eternal as it says in the Book of Revelation, the “eternal gospel.” Without that understanding, we don’t have the gospel. We only have a man-made imitation of it as Paul says in Galatians, which is “no gospel at all.”

It’s really important for us to understand that we don’t want to be Machen’s Warrior Children, as it were, for the sake of making other people’s lives difficult. Or if we’re being just obnoxious, having a reputation for being that pugilistic guy who’s always looking to fight—we don’t want that. We don’t fight for the sake of the fight; we fight for the sake of the faith. We fight the good fight of faith. It’s important for us to keep our eyes on that because it’s that faith which will bring Christ’s children to maturity. And that’s part of what our goal is at Reformed Forum: to declare the whole counsel of God unto the people of God so that everyone in the church can be brought to the point of maturity in Christ, all to the glory of Christ, for the good of his church, and the evangelization of the lost. That’s something that we have to bear in mind.

We’re supporting the Great Commission of the church. We’re not the church; we’re not doing the Great Commission. Rather, we’re seeking to come alongside the church to support its mission to preach the gospel. And without understanding exactly what it is that the Scriptures teach about the gospel, we have nothing to offer the world. We have no evangel, no gospel to preach, unless we are clear, concise, and accurate in our proper reading of the Scriptures, aided by the Holy Spirit through the testimony of the church in the past and all the greats upon whose shoulders we stand. Without that, we don’t have a message that is worth living for. It’s not worth dying for. It doesn’t aid in the work of evangelism.

That’s right. Without that message, it’s not even evangelism at all. Now, on that note of discipleship, I’d love to hear how this all works out in your family life. Would you give us portrait of your family and then share a bit about how you seek to lead in such a way that the Lord would draw your wife and children into these glorious truths that we hold so dear?

My wife, Eve, is a great helpmeet to me. She has been there by my side in ministry for the last 20 years. I’m so very grateful. We’ve known each other longer than that, but we’ve been married in ministry for 20 years. We have three wonderful children, Caitlyn, Ian, and Anna, and they’re all great kids. I love them dearly. In terms of your question about discipleship, it’s a little bit different now because the kids are older. Eve has a job outside the home, and I have a job, of course. So we’re all going every which way, and our time together for regular, regimented family worship is not in the same pattern as it was when the kids were younger. We were very regimented. After our evening meal, we would have Bible reading, catechesis, and prayer. Now, my pastoral instinct to try to mitigate the awkward schedule of having older kids, one of whom is in college, is to take every opportunity to talk to them about the things of the Lord and to pray with them. I drive my daughter to school every day and we pray on the way to school; we talk about the things of the Lord and about the church. My kids are inquisitive, so they like to ask questions. I try to maximize those questions to illuminate the faith.

It’s much more dynamic, living as it is now in terms of ministry to the family, but I have to emphasize the importance of catechesis. My kids have a bedrock, a foundation, in the Catechism that they learned when they were younger. If I were to be honest and sober, I would say that they probably wouldn’t be able to recite word for word the vast majority of the Q and A’s that they learned as they were growing up, but the substance is there. And there are a few very key questions and answers that the kids still very much have burned or etched within their memories, such that it would go rote if I were to ask the question at random. Sometimes I’ll say, “What does every sin deserve?” in the course of conversation, and the kids instantly say, “the wrath and curse of God,” which is from the Children’s Catechism. There are some of those questions that are really familiar: Who made you? What’s your chief end? And however you might rephrase that question, they’ve got it; they know it. So it gives us something to build on as they as they grow older and as they mature in the faith.

Catechesis was the kind of thing that I did not grow up with. Catholicism would say, we do catechesis; the Catholic Church has a Catechism. But really, catechesis is a Protestant Reformational practice. When I was growing up, we read very little Bible. Even in Catholic parochial school, which I went to from first grade right through college, we studied very little in the Scriptures. And we certainly didn’t get regular, regimented catechesis, learning questions and answers in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. We were not well instructed at all. Despite the fact that we had religious training all throughout, we didn’t learn the faith systematically.

Nonetheless, that’s a beautiful thing that you can look back on God’s faithfulness today and see how he has worked through the “foolishness” of catechesis in your own family, in the next generation. You can share in the great joy that the Apostle John spoke about when he heard that his children, his flock, were “walking in the truth.” Tell us about your own church, your own flock. Where do you serve and how is the Lord using the means of grace to gather and perfect his people there?

Thank you for that. I love my church very much. And it’s a joy to be able to talk about the congregation and the work here in South Austin. I came here in 2014. The congregation in Pflugerville, Texas, which is just to the northeast of Austin, not very far outside city limits—that was the original South Austin Presbyterian Church actually. They were originally meeting in locations on the south side of the city. Then they were able to get a piece of land and build a building, but it was to the northeast in Pflugerville. They ended up moving up there, leaving the south side somewhat untended in terms of Reformed witness. Glen Clary was the pastor there before I arrived at Providence in Pflugerville. And they had a group at that church that was meeting for Bible study down on the south side. There were about 20 to 25 people that were traveling north from South Austin up to Pflugerville for worship on Sunday, and they were desirous of starting a work on the south side.

That Bible study had been going on for five years when they finally called me to come as a church planter. We started worship services in July of 2014, and we became a particular congregation in 2015. From there we began to grow and to develop as the Lord continued to add to our numbers. A couple of years ago, we were able to purchase the building where we now carry out our ministry. Not long after we started worshiping, after we particularized, we had a couple of families come to our church from the New Braunfels area, which is about 45 minutes south of here towards San Antonio. We ministered to those families, and they were desirous of starting a work in New Braunfels. This was funny, because we were praying from the very beginning that the Lord would allow us to become a church-planting church plant. We didn’t want to wait very long to start praying and thinking about the next church plant. And so that’s what ended up happening. Within five years, we ended up starting the work down in New Braunfels. And now in a couple of weeks’ time, Lord willing, the New Braunfels church is going to particularize as a new and regular congregation. We’re really excited about that.

South Austin OPC itself is a very mature congregation. The folks are very serious about the word. They’re absolutely committed to Reformed worship, to the inclusion of Psalms in worship—not exclusively, but inclusive psalmody—and to Reformed orthodoxy. Our elders are very good shepherds. They take good care of the people and are very attentive, patient, kind, and loving. Our deacons are the same. They’re attentive to the needs of the congregation and have done a great job tending to the flock. Anyway, that’s a little bit about us. It’s a congregation that I’m so very much in love with.

What are you preaching and teaching through these days in terms of sermon series or Sunday school, and what fruit is your ministry bearing in the congregation?

In the morning, we are going through the book of James. That has been very useful for all of us, myself, especially. James’ exhortation with regard to the use of our words has been transforming for me, and I think for others, as well. As Reformed Christians, we are a very principled people, and rightly so. We believe that we are to live on the basis of God’s Word, and so we live in a very principled way. And we believe that we can know God and how he wants us to live. But sometimes, when a principled mindset combines with the old nature, we can very quickly allow our zeal to overtake our holiness, our self-discipline, and our restraint. Then sometimes we speak out of a desire to be principled, to stand for the truth, but we do so perhaps in a way that’s not loving and kind and proper and biblical.

James’ exhortations on what it means to suffer have also been a tremendous help to me personally. He’s one of the few places outside of the Book of Job that you can find reference to Job. James is very concerned to instruct the congregation who is obviously suffering. They are suffering persecution and opposition from the world, and James is concerned to teach them what it means to suffer righteously. Sometimes, suffering righteously means guarding your words in such a way that when you’re attacked, you don’t return attack for attack and so forth and so on. That’s been very helpful, I think, to the congregation.

In the evening, I’ve been preaching on 1 Chronicles. We’re going to get to 1 Chronicles 5 this Sunday, Lord willing. The congregation has been remarkably receptive to that series. I thought it would be a flop, quite frankly, because, as you know, the first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles is just a list of names except in chapter four where you have the prayer of Jabez. Of course, much has been made of that by some. I did a two-part series on chapter four, focusing exclusively on the prayer of Jabez. There were some little polemics in those sermons, which is appropriate in this instance.

The emphasis that I’ve been trying to underscore, however, is that we are the people of God. Our identity in Jesus Christ is found with the people of God under the old covenant. So when we read these genealogies, we have to understand that they are our genealogies. We’re living in a day and age where there seems to be a renewed interest in family lineage and genealogy. You can take a prick of blood or saliva, send it to some company, and they’ll tell you who your people are. But that’s DNA. We’re talking about something that’s deeper than DNA, which is the covenant of grace. We’re emphasizing our unity in the covenant of grace with the people of old and now showing the way in which the people of God are a people of every tribe, nation, and tongue.

During Sunday school, we’ve been working through R. B. Kuiper’s book on the doctrine of the church, The Glorious Body of Christ. And I talked about that a little bit recently on a Christ the Center episode. That’s been really helpful, especially in the area of church authority and power. I think there’s a lot of confusion out there about what church power and authority is or is not. Kuiper gives us a tonic to avoid an evangelical sort of no-churchism on the one hand, and then a kind of Roman Catholic-authoritarian-dominating kind of approach to authority and power on the other. He gives us the Reformed position. That’s been very helpful and sparked a good deal of interesting conversation in our congregation.

Another area where Kuiper is so good is on the indestructibility of the church. Persecution not only does not destroy the church, but persecution is actually the seed bed of the church. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. The church grows from persecution. The world can’t destroy the church; rather persecution will only advance the cause of Christ in this world. When we suffer righteously, we are identifying most intimately with our savior in his sufferings. The pinnacle point at which we are to imitate Christ is precisely here, in our willing suffering. That doesn’t mean that we go out and ask for it or look for it. Some of the early church fathers were somewhat guilty in this regard, but normally nobody wants to suffer. At the same time, we are willing, like Jesus, and as he calls his disciples to do, to lay our lives down for our friends, the glory of Christ, and the building of the church.

That foolishness of the cross will never become less foolish to the world, but to those who are God’s elect, it is the power of God unto salvation. So keep preaching it, brother! Now we could continue discussing and rejoicing in the Lord’s good work through your ministry in the local church, but I’d love to hear how you are also striving to serve the church in her Colossians 1:28 work through your labors here at Reformed Forum.

My role at Reformed Forum is somewhat supportive, which is great because that’s what I think I’m good at that. I’m not the sort of person that excels at leadership and taking charge and making things happen. Our dear brother Camden, our Executive Director, is excellent at organization, administration, execution of tasks and what not. He’s got the big vision; he knows what he’s doing. I’m here simply as a board member, and as the president of the board, to support him and our faculty—to cheer everybody on and to assist in anything that needs to be done to accomplish our mission.

As a faculty member, I’ve been working on a number of things, including a class on the Gospel of John that I hope to be able to roll out sometime later this year. I also do blog posts and Christ the Center episodes. I try to encourage our Van Til cohort students on Discord (our chat platform). I just see myself as playing a supporting role, throwing myself in anywhere that the Lord opens up for me to encourage, help, and assist. Everybody over there at the new office is doing a great job in terms of getting my material for the Westminster Shorter Catechism classes [Qs. 1–38 and Qs. 39–107] into published, book form. I’ve been working on that manuscript, and hopefully that will come out later on this year.

With the busyness of the pastorate and family, finding time to be able to execute on those projects that I have on my desk is something that is moving along way too slowly. I wish that I was able to produce more as a faculty member, but I remain blessed. The Lord has been gracious and kind. I love what Reformed Forum is doing. To be involved at all is a privilege and an honor. I’m sort of like the free safety in football—just kind of standing by waiting to make an interception or to maybe a tackle. I’m looking to be there when I’m needed and then to fill in that gap as those needs arise. But really, if I aspire to anything, it’s to become the water boy.

That’s one thing that I love about working with you. And the same is true for the other brothers at RF. You have a servant heart. You’re just seeking to live coram Deo and to serve the church. I love that that’s in our mission statement. It’s in our blood, our spiritual DNA. We don’t want to be big shots or to replace the church; we want to be servants to her and to labor unto the glory of our Head, even Jesus Christ, who by his Spirit and word perfects his bride. It’s such a joy to labor with you as a like-minded brother in Christ, to know the bond of peace that we have by the Spirit.  

Psalm 133. It’s better than the oil going down Aaron’s beard and robe. Amen, and amen. And the feeling is mutual brother. Thank you for the great work here that you’re doing for Reformed Forum. We are exceedingly grateful and regard you as a gift from the Lord.

All that I’ve received is from him, and I praise him for that. As we look together unto the Lord to provide the increase for all of our labors, are there any particular things that our listeners and supporters can lift up in prayer on your behalf?

We always covet prayers, the prayers of the saints wherever they may find themselves, for our church and ministry in South Austin. We covet the prayers of God’s people everywhere for the ministry of Reformed Forum for everything that we’re doing, from recording classes to rolling out books and blog posts. Pray that the work of Christ by His Spirit would continue. And I would ask even that it would increase in my heart, so that as I become more like Christ, I will be more effective at showing others how to walk with Christ.

Carlton Wynne, Lane Tipton, and Camden Bucey open Cornelius Van Til’s book, The Defense of the Faith to pages 43–47. Van Til addresses the unity and diversity within creation before covering the fall into sin and the curse.

Throughout this chapter, Van Til reminds his readers of the categorical difference between God and creation while maintaining creation’s dependence upon God for its very existence. The answers to these fundamental questions distinguish orthodox Christianity from all other philosophies and religions.

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Introduction
• 00:03:52 Thoughts on Learning Van Til
• 00:12:32 Temporal Unity and Plurality
• 00:24:30 Non-Being
• 00:36:56 Reformed vs. Roman Catholic Conceptions of Nature and Sin
• 00:49:58 The Mystery of the Fall into Sin
• 00:56:49 Created Laws and Facts
• 01:03:42 Van Til the Evangelist and Van Til the Theologian
• 01:06:33 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Carlton Wynne, Lane G. Tipton

Dr. Dominic Aquila joins Camden Bucey to speak about the history of Presbyterian publications. While they focus primarily on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Dr. Aquila connects this storied history to the recent past and the dramatic shifts in communication that have come about with the introduction of the Internet and technologies such as social media.

Dominic Aquila is the President of New Geneva Seminary, and editor of The Aquila Report. He has pastored churches in Virginia, California, Colorado, and Florida. Dr. Aquila has served on a number of Committees in the Presbyterian Church in America, including Mission to the World (MTW) and the Standing Judicial Commission.

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:06 New Geneva Seminary in Egypt
• 09:01 The Aquila Report
• 14:27 Presbyterian Publications Past and Present
• 20:06 Christianity Today and The Presbyterian Guardian
• 25:03 The Christian Century et al
• 31:36 Princeton Seminary’s Publications
• 33:52 Technological and Industrial Changes
• 39:29 Other Publications of the 19th and 20th Centuries
• 52:35 Considering What Has Been Gained and Lost
• 55:42 Conclusion

Links

• Lewis G. Vander Velde, The Presbyterian Churches and the Federal Union, 1861-1869.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Dominic Aquila

Lane Tipton speaks about his new course on Van Til’s doctrine of revelation, which is the third course in our Fellowship in Reformed Apologetics. In this course, Dr. Tipton covers:

1. The implications of the self-contained and immutable Trinity for a doctrine of revelation in the work of creation and in the special act of providence in covenantal condescension
2. The distinctive character of natural revelation and the natural knowledge of God in Reformed theology, set in comparison and contrast to the views of Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth
3. The relation between natural and supernatural, or general and special revelation, giving special attention to Van Til’s key essay, “Nature and Scripture”
4. The Vosian doctrine of eschatology as it bears upon the distinction and the relation of God’s revelation in nature and God’s revelation in covenant (and in Scripture).

The course gives sustained attention to a close reading of central primary sources in Van Til’s corpus that bear on his doctrine of the revelation of the self-contained Trinity in nature and in covenant.

Before sharing one of the lectures from the course, Lane and Camden compare and contrast Cornelius Van Til’s theology with that of Thomas Aquinas on the natural knowledge of God as well as man’s religious fellowship with God.

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Introduction
• 00:01:23 The Fellowship in Reformed Apologetics
• 00:17:51 Van Til and Thomas Aquinas on the Natural Knowledge of God
• 00:23:33 Differences between Roman Catholic and Reformed Natural Theology
• 00:31:15 Thomas Aquinas on the Natural Knowledge of God
• 00:38:10 Aquinas on Ontological Re-Proportioning to Participate in the Essence of God
• 00:44:35 Preview Lecture on Thomas Aquinas and the Natural Knowledge of God
• 01:11:24 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

At the invitation of B. B. Warfield (and the suggestion of Geerhardus Vos), Abraham Kuyper delivered the Stone Lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1898. In these lectures, he presented his vision for an international Calvinism. And while many people may be familiar with Kuyper’s famous work, few may know the complicated history of these lectures being written, translated into English, delivered in Princeton, and eventually published.

In this episode, Dr. George Harinck shares with us his thorough research as he speaks about the history of the text of Kuyper’s lectures. Dr. Harinck is the author of numerous books and articles, including the focus of this conversation, “Lost in Translation: The First Text of the Stone Lectures” in Calvinism for a Secular Age: A Twenty-First-Century Reading of Abraham Kuyper’s Stone Lectures edited by Jessica R. Joustra and Robert J. Joustra and published by IVP Academic.

Dr. Harinck is the Director of The Neo-Calvinism Research Institute and Professor of History at the Free University in Amsterdam.

Links

• Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism: Six Lectures from the Stone Foundation Lectures Delivered at Princeton University
• Peter Heslam, Creating a Christian Worldview: Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 04:28 Being Introduced to Kuyper and His Stone Lectures
• 07:17 Kuyper’s Legacy in the Netherlands
• 09:19 The Stone Lectures
• 14:42 Kuyper and Geerhardus Vos
• 17:48 Kuyper and the English Language
• 29:51 The Modern Text of the Stone Lectures
• 39:44 Calvinism for a Secular Age
• 47:26 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Dan Ragusa, George Harinck

In 1992, Charles G. Dennison published three articles in the Mid-America Journal of Theology. These were based upon a series he delivered at Mid-America Reformed Seminary. Dennison identifies three eras between 1936 and 1962—tragedy, hope, and ambivalence. The era of tragedy is focused on the figure of J. Gresham Machen. Cornelius Van Til and Ned B. Stonehouse represent the eras of hope and ambivalence, respectively.

In this episode, Danny Olinger and Camden Bucey discuss this first article in the series while considering broader questions about the identity of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and its relation to other Reformed and Presbyterian churches and evangelicalism. Rev. Olinger serves as General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education for the OPC.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 5:40 Ned Stonehouse
• 11:37 Machen and the Church’s Identity
• 30:16 The OPC and the CRC
• 37:51 Divisions among Fundamentalists
• 45:01 Ecumenical Relations with the CRC
• 56:25 The Church as a Pilgrim People
• 1:00:40 Machen, Culture, and the Church
• 1:15:52 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger

Jeff Waddington and Camden Bucey discuss the value of reading and studying the works of B. B. Warfield. Jeff has written an article in our forthcoming newsletter wherein he identifies Warfield as a theological “renaissance man.” With significant works covering topics from New Testament textual criticism to apologetics and the doctrine of salvation, the “lion of Princeton” remains a towering figure in the Reformed and Presbyterian tradition.

• 00:00:00 Introduction
• 00:03:06 Warfield the Renaissance Man
• 00:07:58 Warfield’s Biography
• 00:28:19 Measuring Theological Influence
• 00:35:03 Researching Warfield
• 00:39:01 The Influence of Old Princeton
• 00:48:25 Charles Briggs and the Presbyterian Milieu
• 00:56:23 Warfield’s Interests
• 01:03:31 Where to Begin in Studying Warfield
• 01:06:29 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jeff Waddington

Dr. R. Carlton Wynne leads us in a study of Jeremiah 31 and the relationship between the Old and New Covenants. In discussing typology and symbolism, Wynne describes the views of John Owen with a view toward understanding better several contemporary views.

Dr. Wynne is Associate Pastor of Westminster PCA in Atlanta and Adjunct Professor of Systematic Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Atlanta).

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Introduction
• 00:06:35 Jeremiah 31 and the New Covenant
• 00:11:09 What Is Not New in the New Covenant
• 00:18:28 Old Testament Types and Symbols
• 00:26:32 The Prospective Typological Aspect of OT Forms
• 00:34:03 The Connection between Type and Antitype
• 00:37:44 A Subservient View of the Mosaic Covenant
• 00:45:18 Types are More than Pedagogical Tools
• 00:51:52 OT Types Are Meaningless without Christ
• 00:54:07 Views on Obedience to the Law
• 01:00:33 John Owen on the Old and New Covenants
• 01:13:31 Christ’s Presence in Both the Old and the New
• 01:18:39 The Old Covenant Not Only Illustrates but Communicates Christ
• 01:24:11 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Carlton Wynne, Will Wood

Dr. Christiane Tietz speaks about her tremendous biography, Karl Barth: A Life in Conflict (Oxford University Press, 2021).

Dr. Tietz is Professor for Systematic Theology at the Institute of Hermeneutics and Philosophy of Religion at the University of Zurich. From 2008 until 2013 she was Professor for Systematic Theology and Social Ethics at the University of Mainz. She was visiting lecturer or research scholar in Cambridge, Chicago, Heidelberg, Jerusalem, New York, and Princeton. Dr. Tietz is a judge for the Karl Barth-Prize and a member of the Advisory Board of the Karl Barth-Foundation, Basel.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Christiane Tietz, Jim Cassidy

Sandy Finlayson speaks about the life and ministry of Thomas Chalmers. Finlayson is the author of Chief Scottish Man: The Life and Ministry of Thomas Chalmers (Evangelical Press). Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847) was a significant figure in nineteenth-century Scotland. Without his vision, organizational skills, and his ability to mobilize opinion, it is unlikely that the Free Church would have come into existence. This new and updated biography—expanded significantly from Finlayson’s Bitesize Biography—tells the story of visionary thinker, minister, and preacher Thomas Chalmers and the many years of struggle for the spiritual independence of the Church of Scotland.

Purchase the book at 10 of Those and receive discounts on bulk orders.

Mr. Finlayson is director of library services and professor of theological bibliography at Westminster Theological Seminary in Glenside, Pennsylvania.

Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction
00:05:43 Developing an Interest in Chalmers
00:12:09 The Chief Scottish Man of His Time
00:18:49 The Establishmentarian Principle
00:23:10 Scotland in Turmoil
00:26:53 Chalmers’ Early Life and Education
00:36:45 Parish Ministries
00:37:36 The Kilmany Bible Society
00:41:07 Chalmers’ Growth and Transition
00:48:40 Time at St. Andrews University
00:51:59 The Disruption of 1843
00:56:04 Lessons for Today
01:07:48 Conclusion

Jim Cassidy delivers a plenary address from the annual Reformed Forum Theology Conference, which was hosted October 8–9 at Providence OPC in Pflugerville, Texas.

Cassidy investigates the ontological assumptions which led Karl Barth to reject the doctrine of the covenant of works. He considers how Barth’s doctrine of God, with its actualistic ontology, is the ground for his rejection of the historic doctrine of classical federal theology. In the process of showing how his novel construction of the doctrine of God leads to his critique, Barth sets up—albeit unwittingly—how own kind of covenant of works whereby man today can ascend into “God’s time for us” to gain the knowledge of God.

Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:28 “This Is a Myth”: Barth’s Rejection of the Covenant of Works
01:00:41 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jim Cassidy