The following is my monthly contribution to Seventeen82 for February, 2023.
(WCF 3.2–4) Truth to Treasure: Predestination unto Life and Foreordination unto Death
3.2 Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet hath he not decreed anything because he foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.
Does God know all hypothetical futures? Of course.
This article first appeared at Seventeen82
As ARPs, it is by means of the Westminster Confession and Catechisms that we obey the Scriptural mandate to maintain a pattern of sound words. By the Confession’s own viewof the Holy Scriptures, such patterns of sound words must be servants of Scripture, not substitutes, or even supplements. This is what we might call the preliminary principle of Reformed Presbyterianism.
This article first appeared at Seventeen82.
The first answer is that our confession acknowledges that Scripture alone is the rule of faith and practice. The reason that the truth in chapters 2–33 is sound and profitable is found in chapter 1, “Of the Holy Scripture.” This little article will be most helpful to you if read side-by-side with that chapter.
Holy Scripture is God’s Self-revelation. WCF 1.1 teaches that God has committed His revelation
This article was first published at Seventeen82
Last month, we
considered from Psalm 78 the duty and necessity of each generation’s
remembering God’s Word both unto itself and unto the next generation. Christ
promised that the Spirit would complete the things that He had to say to His
apostles, and through them to us:
12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you. (Jn 16:12–15, NKJV)
Declaring what is Christ’s
It was the apostles to whom He had already spoken. It was the apostles to whom
the completion of that was promised. And, through the apostles, we have received
in Scripture everything that Jesus intended to say to His church.
Since Psalm 78 has shown us how important it is, both for ourselves and for our children, to remember God’s Word and works, this raises an important question. What is the apostolic method for preserving and transmitting the faith? What is the method that the Spirit taught them? What is the method that is from the Father, and from the Son, and from the Holy Spirit (cf. v14–15 above)?
