Should We Teach Predestination?

Wes White answers here in the affirmative.

Perspicuity & The Word

R. Scott Clark on the perspicuity of Scripture.

Helm on NT Wright

Great stuff from Paul Helm on NT Wright’s new book.

Sweet Harmony in The Sinaitic Covenant

By convincing man of his sin and weakness, it forced him to seek a remedy in Christ by faith (as we have already said). Again, these two conditions are proposed because they are necessary to the salvation for the sinner: perfect obedience in Christ to fulfill the righteousness of the law, without which the justice of God did not permit life to be given to us; faith however in us that the perfect obedience and satisfaction of Christ might be applied to us and become ours by imputation. Thus what was demanded of us in the covenant of works is fulfilled by Christ in the covenant of grace. Nor is it absurd that in this way justification takes place by works and by faith – by works of Christ and by our faith. And thus in sweet harmony the law and the gospel meet together in this covenant. The law is not administered without the gospel, nor the gospel without the law. So that it is as it were a legal-gospel and an evangelical-law; a gospel full of obedience and a law full of faith. So the gospel does not destroy the law, but establishes it (Rom 3:31) by giving us Christ, who perfectly fulfilled it. And the law is not against the gospel, since it refers and leads us to it as its end.

Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Topic 12, Q. 12, XXII

Turretin on The Use of Law

It not only antecedently prepares the elect man for Christ, but consequently also directs him already renewed through Christ in ways of the Lord; serving him as a standard rule of the most perfect life, to which he knows he is called by Christ and which he ought diligently to pursue (I Tim 1:5). Before, it was an instrument of the spirit of bondage to throw down and bruise man, but afterwards it becomes the instrument of the Spirt of adoption to promote sanctification. Thus the law leads to Christ and Christ leads us back to the law; it leads to Christ as the redeemer and Christ leads to the law, as the leader and director of life. In this way, man in his integrity and as just was under the blessing of the law; corrupt, he comes under its curse; regenerated, he comes under its direction.

Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 11th Topic, 22nd Question, XI.

Turretin on the Immutability of the Moral Law

…the moral law (which is the pattern of God’s image in man) ought to correspond with the eternal and archetypal law in God, since it is its copy and shadow, in which he has manifested his justice and holiness. Hence we cannot conform ourselves to the image of God (to the imitation of which Scripture so often exhorts us) expect by regulating our lives in accordance with the precepts of this law. So when its observation is enjoined, the voice is frequently heard, “Be holy, for I am holy.” Now this law is immutable and perpetual. Therefore the moral law (its ectype) must necessarily also immutable.

Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 11.2.16

Zizek on Love

Interesting stuff. His conclusion seems a bit off.

HT: Jason Goroncy

The Foundation of Our Gratitude

Turretin on Publicly Teaching and Preaching Predestination

It is one of the primary gospel doctrines and foundations of faith. It cannot be ignored without great injury to the church and to believers. For it is the fountain of our gratitude to God, the root of humility, the foundation and most firm anchor of confidence in all temptations, the fulcrum of the sweetest consolation and the most powerful spur to piety and holiness.

Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Fourth Topic/Sixth Question/V.

Turretin on God’s Will

No other cause can be assigned to why the Lord has done this or that than this – because he so willed. If you ask further, why he so willed, you seek something greater and more sublime than the will of God (which cannot be found). Therefore human temerity ought to restrain itself and not to seek what is not, lest perchance it fail to find that which is.

Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Third Topic/17thQ/VI.

Calvin on Justification

But we define justification as follows: the sinner, received into communion with Christ, is reconciled to God by his grace, while, cleansed by Christ’s blood, he obtains forgiveness of sins, and clothed with Christ’s righteousness as if were his own, he stands confident before the heavenly judgement seat.

Calvin, Institutes, 3.17.8