The Tulip Driven Life

Here it is. The final part. Now is the beginning of the end.  Before I begin this section proper, I would just like to quote Bavinck in a bit of context regarding his view of the Holy Spirit being the organ by which we receive external revelation (Scripture):  The Holy Spirit is the great and powerful witness to Christ, objectively in Scripture, subjectively in the very hearts of human beings. By that Spirit we receive a fitting organ for the reception of external revelation. God can be known only by God; the light can be seen only in his light. No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him [Matt. 11:27], and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit [1 Cor. 12:3]  Bavinck, H., Bolt, J., & Vriend, J. (2003). Reformed dogmatics: Prolegomena (Vol. 1, p. 506). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. I think for Bavinck the reason he ultimately appeals to a subjective source for the validity of Scripture de...

By: Thomas F. Booher 2 Corinthians 13:5 is an exhortation for Christians to examine themselves to see if they are in the faith. It says that Jesus Christ is in you, unless you fail the test. This is not because failing the test takes Christ from you, nor does the passage mean that passing this test is how you came into union with Christ in the first place. No, the reality is that passing this test is evidence that Christ is in you, because Christ works in believers both to will and to do His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13). This test is a working out of your salvation with fear and trembling (2:12). It is a check on how well you are putting to death the deeds of the flesh by the power of the Spirit. In my experience, and taking the temperature as best I can of American reformed preaching and teaching today, it seems right to say that we are no longer preaching the necessity of sanctification in order to obtain final salvation. Put another way, it seems to me we do not really teach, ...