Category Archives: Application of Redemption

Where’s Waldo Wednesday: Can Union Comfort the Way Justification Does?

By D. G. Hart | Published: June 1, 2011

The following passage from Luther’s daily readings left me thinking: What more could God do? How could a heart restrain itself from being happy, glad, and obedient in God and Christ? What work or suffering could befall to which it would not gladly submit, singing with love and joyful praise to God? If it fails… Read More→

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Luther Answers the Question

By D. G. Hart | Published: April 20, 2011

Such justification is hidden not only from reason and the world but also from the saints. For it is not a thought, word, or work in us, but it is quite outside and above us, for it is Christ’s going to the Father, which means His suffering, Resurrection, and Ascension. And this does not take… Read More→

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Look At All the Detail (and Beware the Adverbs)

By D. G. Hart | Published: April 18, 2011

When teaching on the historical development of Reformed Protestantism I have been struck lately by the greater and greater amounts of detail into which the Reformed churches went in descriptions of the Holy Spirit’s work. If you look (see below) at the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) you don’t see much beyond affirmations of faith, regeneration, and… Read More→

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Advantages of Not Going to the Gospel Coalition Conference

By D. G. Hart | Published: April 14, 2011

Inspired by Darryl Dash’s (no relation) post on how to cope with not attending the Gospel Coalition conference (pointed out to me by one of our southern correspondents), I decided to use the theme to explore further differences between pietism and confessionalism. Dead Orthodox 1) Save money for trip to Vegas 2) See more hot… Read More→

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Where’s Waldo Wednesday: Reformed Monopoly? II

By D. G. Hart | Published: February 23, 2011

Augustus Hopkins Strong (1836-1921) was arguably the greatest Baptist theologian in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century. He presided over Rochester Theological Seminary. His theology textbook was almost as popular among evangelical seminarians before 1950 as Charles Hodge’s was among Presbyterian students. The following comes from Strong’s Systematic Theology. The Seven… Read More→

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Where’s Waldo Wednesday: Reformed Monopoly?

By D. G. Hart | Published: February 16, 2011

. . . faith does not merely mean that the soul realizes that the divine word is full of grace, free and holy; it also unites the soul with Christ, as a bride is united with her bridegroom. From such a marriage, as St. Paul says, it follows that Christ and the soul become one… Read More→

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Where’s Waldo Wednesday

By D. G. Hart | Published: September 29, 2010

One reason for questioning the influence of union with Christ on Reformed Protestants concerns the language of Reformed devotion. Hymns are one measure of devotional discourse and the more I sing out of the Trinity Hymnal, the more I am struck by the centrality of the cross and of forensic themes in the songs Presbyterians… Read More→

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Where’s Waldo Wednesday

By D. G. Hart | Published: September 22, 2010

I am still wondering about the advisability of turning union into a polemical doctrine that divides Reformed Protestants and Lutherans. Benjamin Warfield supplies support for that wonder. CALVINISM AND LUTHERANISM It is unfortunate that a great body of the scientific discussion which, since Max Goebel (“Die religiose Eigenthumlichkeit der lutherischen und der reformirten Kirchen,” Bonn,… Read More→

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Where’s Waldo Wednesday: Word Count

By D. G. Hart | Published: September 8, 2010

Assessing the historical significance of a person is not an activity that suits quantification. But when historians put together reference words such as dictionaries and encyclopedias, they need to assign word counts for subjects to control the project’s size and scope. In which case, the people with the more important biographies receive more space or… Read More→

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Where’s Waldo Wednesday: Keeping the Union Balls in the Air

By D. G. Hart | Published: September 1, 2010

So for my devotions this morning I used a prayer from Calvin and needed to pause to consider what I was requesting (I guess this an argument against forms). Calvin wrote (in French, of course): Grant, Almighty God, that since thou hast deigned in thy mercy to gather us to thy Church, and to enclose… Read More→

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