All Articles For Ophoff George M

The foregoing article on this subject contained a list of those sins that could not be atoned by the typical sacrifice. It was found that there were only three classes of sins of which it is declared that they could be atoned. The one class was comprised of sins committed unwittingly or through carelessness or oversight. The other class for which the sacrifice could avail was comprised of sins done under the influence of passion or temptation and thus not characterized by that settled and deliberate malice that marked the presumptuous sins. There was still a third class of sins...

Having inquired into the truths involved in the sacrifice by blood, let us now have regard to the different kinds of sacrifice. These, as was said (in a previous article) were five in number, to wit, the sin, trespass, burnt, peace, and meat offering. All these different kinds of sacrifice were needed to bring out the whole truth in connection with the work of Christ. They were needful to the believer as the medium for the adequate expression of the faith that was in him, of his contrition, gratitude, and praise, thus of the response of his heart to the...

The apostle was one having been brought under the quickening influence of the Spirit of God. The new principle of life presents itself to his consciousness as a law of the mind, that is, as a hallowed intelligent urge or compulsion, capable of delighting in and craving the law of God. However, the unhallowed urge of his being, he discovers, is still very much alive. It successfully launches an attack upon the sanctified law of his mind, and brings him into captivity of the law of sin. This is his great grief: “O wretched man that I am,” says he,...

Holiness, so it was pointed out, was the property of God’s priests, of Aaron and his sons. We learn this from Moses’ reply to Korah, “Tomorrow the Lord will show who is His, and who is holy. . . .” Num. 16:5. It was made plain that the character of the holiness which this statement ascribes to Aaron was symbolical. It was thus the bodily cleanliness that resulted from his being washed with water; the beauty and the purity of the dress in which he, as priest, was clad; the anointing oil and the blood of the sacrifice as sprinkled...

No one can teach God knowledge; no one can tell Him anything at all. He is God. His intelligent will is the efficient cause of the existence and subsistence of things that be, Himself excepted. He created, preserves and governs all things according to His holy will, so that nothing happens in this world but by His appointment. He keeps all things so under His power that not a hair of our head, nor a sparrow can fall to the ground without His will. God makes history. The events of the day are but the realization of His eternal deliberations....

Within the court of the temple, in the presence of the Pharisees and their satelites, Jesus had said, I am the light of the world; he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” The saying, resented as egoistical and arrogant, led on to that altercation which ended in their taking up stones to cast at Him, and in His hiding Himself in some mysterious way and passing out of the temple, “going through the midst of them.” At one of the temple gates, or by the roadside without, “as Jesus passed by...

It is now 25 years ago that Rev. Hoeksema entered upon his career as minister of the gospel. It is this event in the life of our brother that we now commemorate. Rev. Hoeksema, as we all know, did not begin his ministry in the denomination of Protestant Reformed Churches. This cannot be, as 25 years ago the denomination of Protestant Reformed Churches did not exist. Our brother began his ministry in the denomination of Christian Reformed Churches. His first charge was the Christian Reformed Church of 14th St., Holland, Mich. It was this congregation that instrumentally vested him with...

Setting forth afresh, and now in all likelihood about to pass out of that region, there met Him one who came running- in all eagerness, as anxious not to lose the opportunity, and who kneeled to Him with great reverence as having the most profound respect for Him as a righteous man, and who said, “Good Master, what good thing shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” Jesus might at once and without any preliminary conversation have laid on him the injunction that He did at the last, and this might equally have served the final end that...

Liberty or freedom has been variously defined as follows: 1. Freedom from restraint; 2. exemption from the power and the control of another; 3. the power of acting as one thinks fit; 4. a state of exemption from positive law. Some of the above-cited definitions are not of a kind that should be endorsed. For, when analyzed, they turn out to be the gateway to a positively unchristian thought-structure. The saint of old who sang, “O how love I thy law; It is my meditation all the day. . . . I understand more than the ancient, because I keep...

Up among the hills of Galilee, in a basin surrounded by swelling eminence, which shut it in on every side, lies the little village of Nazareth. Its name does not occur in Old Testament history. Josephus never mentions it, though he speaks of places lying all around it. Its inhabitants were not worse than their neighbors, nor exposed on account of their character to any particular contempt, yet Nathaniel, himself a Galilean, could say, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? so small and insignificant was the place. It was here, as in a fit retreat, that the...