Vol 81 Issue 02

Mr. Wigger is an elder in the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan.   Mission Activities   In early September, the Council of the Hull, Iowa PRC informed our churches that Rev. Wayne Bekkering, missionary with Rev. Rodney Miersma to Ghana, was requesting early emeritation. It had become evident to Rev. Bekkering, his wife, Phyllis, and his coworkers on the field that he no longer was able to carry out the duties of missionary because of the infirmity God had laid upon him. His dementia, caused by slight strokes that he has suffered, had become a serious and notable concern....

Quotations from various writings and sources. The Creation of Man   Here Moses returns to the work of the sixth day and shows whence man, the owner and cultivator of the earth, came, namely, that God formed him out of the ground, as the potter with his hand forms the vessel out of clay. Here He did not say, as of the other creatures: “Let Us make man,” in order to set forth the excellency of the human race and to make manifest the peculiar counsel of God according to which He created man, although afterwards man grew and multiplied...

Rev. Bruinsma is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Unbelief just cannot understand! It posits its own wisdom, tries to come up with its own assessments, and then in books and treatises presents its own propositions. But one can wade through the myriads of books on the subject and still be left scratching his head. Unbelief just has no clue! We refer, of course, to the proper relationship that must exist between a husband and his wife. More particularly, we refer to how a husband must view his wife within the bond of marriage. There are those...

Prof. Gritters is professor of Practical Theology in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. The beginning of faith is humility…  (Calvin, on Isaiah) The whole humility of man consists in the knowledge of himself.  (Calvin, on the Psalms) The grimmest evil in this sad world is the evil of pride. In the maelstrom of that root sin that thrashes families and marriages, divides churches, and separates very friends, God’s power is most evident when He graces His people with humility. If you believe that, you have reason to give serious consideration to what the Reformer said, “The beginning of faith is humility,”...

Rev. VanOverloop is pastor of Byron Center Protestant Reformed Church in Byron Center, Michigan. The King of the church used His church at the time of the Reformation to develop especially the doctrines of man’s salvation—soteriology. The Reformers proclaimed a salvation of man that was gracious—arising completely out of the unmerited favor of the merciful God from the beginning to the end. For the Reformers, nothing showed the need for the grace of God more than the depravity of those saved—their total depravity. Therefore, when the Reformers developed the doctrine of salvation, there was also a development in their understanding...

Rev. Stewart is a missionary in the Protestant Reformed Churches, currently working in Northern Ireland. Reformed churches teach a covenant relationship between pre-fall Adam and the triune God. In this article, we shall analyze the views of various theologians, especially John Calvin, culminating in the work of Herman Hoeksema, who identified the covenant as fellowship between the living God and His Son, whom He created in His own image. 1.Is there a covenant with Adam? The Christian church has spoken of the relationship between God and Adam before the fall in terms of the covenant from at least as far...

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...

Rev. Koole is pastor of Grandville Protestant Reformed Church in Grandville, Michigan. Many were the areas in which the Reformers cleared away the stifling undergrowth of Romish, scholastic error and opened up and clarified the church’s understanding of biblical truths. One of these vital areas was the truth of the image of God in man. What Berkof says in his Reformed Dogmatics is certainly true: “The doctrine of the image of God is of greatest importance in theology, for that image is the expression of that which is most distinctive in man and in his relation to God” (Vol. I,...

Rev. Terpstra is pastor of First Protestant Reformed Church in Holland, Michigan. “For our salvation was a matter of concern to God in such a way that, not forgetful of himself, he kept his glory primarily in view, and therefore created the whole world for this end, that it may be a theater of his glory”—Consensus Genevensis, as quoted in The Theater of His Glory: Nature and Natural Order in the Thought of John Calvin, Susan E. Schreiner, Labyrinth Press, 1991 (cf. Institutes of the Christian Religion, J.T. McNeill, Ed.; F.L. Battles, Transl., Westminster, 1960, 2 vols., I. v. 8,...

Excerpts from Calvin’s Institutes, Book II, Chapter 1, Beveridge Translation (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1957). The reader who makes it through this unusual choice for our “meditation” this month will be richly rewarded. As long as “meditation” doesn’t imply “light,” in your mind, you will see why we made this choice. The reader will recognize Calvin’s influence on the Reformed confessions, not only in content and argument (if the sin of Adam was passed on only by imitation, is the righteousness of Christ available in the same way?), but even in wording. As you read this (perhaps) on a...