All Articles For Glittering Vices

If the seeming good of the unregenerated is not the fruit of a gracious operation of the Holy Spirit within them, as the previous editorial argued it is not, how must this seeming good be judged? What must the Reformed church say of the works of unbelievers that glitter with the apparent glory of righteousness; mercy; love for family, neighbor, and country; and goodness? That there are such works is undeniable. Defenders of the teaching of the third point of common grace adopted by the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) in 1924 appeal to these works in defense of the teaching....

In the November 2000 issue of the Calvin Theological Journal (CTJ), journal of the seminary of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC), Professor John Bolt raises anew the issue of the CRC’s third point of common grace. He does this in an article titled, “Common Grace, Theonomy, and Civic Good: The Temptations of Calvinist Politics (Reflections on the Third Point of the CRC Kalamazoo Synod, 1924).” At the end of his reconsideration of the third point, Bolt proposes a reformulation of the third point that he thinks might be acceptable to both the CRC and the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC). The...