Substitution is at the heart of the story of God’s people. Rather than staying removed far from his cursed creation, the Creator became one of us. God the Son became a son of Adam: living the life we could not live and dying the death we all deserved. This “Great Exchange” ”all of my sin […]
We live in a web of words. They are inside us and around us, making our world comprehensible and bridging us to one another. In all times and places, we use words to foster relations ”to convey ideas, mitigate conflict, console the grieving, and give shape to feelings. Words do so great a work in […]
When Christians see the moral foundations of American culture crumble before our eyes, we have a tendency to panic or worry. As we watch the gradual deterioration, it’s good to get a historical reminder that Christians have dealt with these situations before. During the second and third centuries in the Roman Empire, Christians were a […]
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor. 5:21) There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus […]
Modern Reformation editors wanted to take a look at how hip-hop artists are exploring the life and ministry of Christ in their work. We were privileged to chat with Shai Linne on justification, racial reconciliation, and Kanye West. Shai Linne has appeared on numerous independent and national Christian hip-hop releases, including his 2005 full-length debut, […]
Let’s set the context, I promise you ”it’s not complex So far, Paul has been explaining why God’s vexed Mad at us, His wrath is Just, we lack trust Blasphemous, even though we know it’s hazardous Chapter one, verses eighteen to thirty-two He talked about our great schemes and the dirt we do He said […]
On October 15, 1555, bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley were burned as Protestant heretics under the reign of Queen Mary. Shortly before they were murdered, Latimer said, “Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.” Although […]
I went to a high school founded in 1600 by Archbishop of Canterbury John Whitgift, forty years after Thomas Cranmer had been executed at the stake for his Protestant beliefs by Queen Mary. It is perhaps not surprising that Whitgift chose as the motto for his new school Vincit Qui Patitur, “He Who Suffers, Conquers.” […]
Eerdmans, 2014; 160 pages (paperback), $16.00 In graduate school, one of my professors made a connection between two mythological figures who encounter the sirens on separate occasions. When passing the sirens on his voyage home, Odysseus has his crew plug their ears and tie him to the mast, thereby avoiding the enchanting song. Orpheus, however, […]
Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2015 224 pages (hardcover), $27.95 Americans living at the beginning of the twenty-first century enjoy unprecedented human freedom, or so we are told. We have myriad sources of entertainment and information available to us at the touch of a button, along with the means to pay for and the leisure time to […]
Fortress Press, 2015 264 pages (hardcover), $16.99 Protestant non-Lutherans tend to know Martin Luther the way they know their own great-grandfather: they can give the highlights about him, but that’s about it. But when it comes to knowing the most important Christian Reformer of the past five hundred years, for lots of reasons, highlight knowledge […]
For a series of philosophical, theological, and practical reasons, the medieval church came gradually to think that our justification (that is, our acceptance by a righteous God) is progressive. What the confessional Reformed and Lutheran churches call sanctification (that is, our gradual conformity to Christ), the medieval church came to think of as justification. This […]
In recent years, some evangelical scholars have been drawn to the traditional Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox charge that the doctrine of justification taught by the Protestant Reformers is a novelty. Not quite. First, the Greek verb for “to justify” means to declare righteous, not to make righteous. It is often contrasted in its immediate […]
