All Articles For Connors, Chris

Rev. Connors is pastor of the Launceston congregation of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Australia. Adam … “who is the figure of him that was to come” (Rom. 5:14). “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (I Cor. 15:22). Federal headship! It is a glorious reality. In its light we have true knowledge of ourselves and our fellow men. First, we know ourselves to be dead in Adam, for “the [first, cjc] covenant being made with Adam as a public person, not for himself only, but for his posterity, all mankind descending...

Previous article in this series: May 1, 2011, p. 355. Bearing the Burdened to Christ We are to bear one another’s burdens by restoring the burdened soul to Jesus Christ. He alone can relieve burdened souls of their burden, for it is only His righteousness that answers to their need. Nothing less will satisfy their conscience! The burden-bearer must therefore restore them to Jesus Christ. Not as if our brother has sinned himself out of justification, and Jesus needs us to help him make a choice that will put him back into God’s favor again. No indeed, Jesus declares: “I...

Love for God’s law as the rule of obedience and gratitude does not produce legalists. Nor does it produce a self-righteous spirit toward our fellow Christians who fall into sin. We know that all our attempts at law-keeping—our righteousnesses—are as filthy rags. We know that we are either justified by faith alone without the works of the law, or we stand utterly condemned! The whole book of Galatians drives that home to us. Being justified by faith alone, we have a new way of living! In Galatians 6:1-5, the apostle Paul is applying justification by faith alone into the life of...

But be not thou far from me, O Lord: O my strength, haste thee to help me.  Save me from the lion’s mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns. Psalm 22:19, 21 Psalm 22 speaks directly and exclusively of Jesus Christ. It is His words as He hung upon the cross. Matthew Henry aptly writes: “In singing this Psalm we must keep our thoughts fixed upon Christ, and be so affected with his sufferings as to experience the fellowship of them, and so affected with his grace as to experience the power and influence of it.”...

Rev. Connors is pastor in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Australia. Previous article in this series: November 1, 2009, p. 68. In the first part of this presentation at the Calvin Conference sponsored by the Protestant Reformed Seminary (cf. November 1, 2009 SB, p. 68), Rev. Connors outlined Calvin’s doctrine of Predestination. Now he turns to: Calvin’s Challenge to the Church 1. Calvin challenges us to be committed to predestination as a truth we receive from God through His word. Calvin did not just teach a doctrinal system—he experienced the reforming power of sola scriptura. Consequently, he models what happens...

Rev. Connors is a pastor in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Australia. Introduction Adore with astonishment the secret counsel of God, through which, those which seemed good to Him are elected, and the other rejected!¹ That was our believer/theologian’s approach to predestination. He prostrated his mind and heart before the God of the Word; and because he heard God speaking so clearly of His eternal predestination, Calvin believed it, taught it, and preached it! Calvin practiced Sola Scriptura! That reforming principle demanded predestination; and it delivered us from bondage to Rome’s semi-Pelagianism! Predestination, you see, is both the fountain of...