Read. Reflect. Write.

When God says he will create a new heaven and a new earth, what will this new heaven and earth be like? Is it describing an obliteration of the material world, with a new material heaven and earth to follow? Early Church Father Jerome did not see a destruction of the elements; instead, he saw newness , a change into something better. Commenting on this passage, he writes, “The Apostle Paul said, ‘for the form of this world is perishing’ [1Co 7:31]. Notice that he said ‘form,’ not ‘substance.’”[1] Thomas Aquinas sees the new heavens and earth to be “the restoration of goods, for behold I create a new heavens , with new help from heaven, and a new earth , new benefits from the earth; this refers to the day of judgment, when the world will be renewed to the glory of the saints: the former things have passed away (Re 21:4).”[2] Closer to the immediate historical context, another understanding sees this as “a hyperbolic expression of the future restoration of the people of Judah after the ...

  Theological Origins of Modernity*  Modernity was an attempt to find a new metaphysical solution to the question of the nature and relation of God and man in the natural world. It was a series of attempts to constitute a new coherent metaphysics and theology. The idea of modernity was a move away from the ancient distinction of understanding reality and universals. Via Antiqua was the older realist path, which saw universals as ultimately real. In comparison, the Via Moderna was the newer nominalist path that saw all individual things as real and universals as mere names. And these logical distinctions provided the schema for a new understanding of time and being. This metaphysical shift from how one sees the world was not due to a change in knowledge but rather a change of understanding time, seeing that time is not as circular and finite but as linear and infinite. Understanding what change meant as a continuous natural process that free human bein...

I have been working through the freshly translated, three-volume English edition of John Calvin’s sermons on Job published by Banner of Truth. It is 2200 pages long, comprised of 159 sermons. Calvin took up preaching through Job for his daily sermons on February 26, 1554. While there is no date recorded as to when he finished, it is assumed he finished in a year because it was recorded that he began preaching through Deuteronomy for his daily sermons on March 20, 1555. It is a mind-boggling feat, to say the least. I am on Sermon 35, and I have to say I find these sermons to be his most lucid and pastorally thoughtful expositions of Scripture. My wife was astounded when I shared some of his insights because she could not believe that I was reading Calvin. She had always regarded him as a theological heavyweight who was very hard to read. That is not to say my wife is theologically inept—far from it! I think most people only know Calvin as the polemicist. Calvin the...

  Zanchi : Natural Law The introduction in Part 1 of this series provided a brief historical background on Girolamo Zanchi and his contribution to the Protestant Reformed Tradition’s view of Natural Law. Part 1 introduced and structured this 2-part series, so please read it before reading Part 2. I will summarize Zanchi’s Natural Law theory from On the Law in General in this essay. As noted in Part 1, On the Law is a chapter from his extensive work, Theological Writings . All page references from On the Law are parenthetically notated in the essay. In the first chapter of On the Law , Zanchi provides seven theses setting forth the Law and its classifications. I will only summarize the theses pertinent to understanding the grounding principle of Zanchi’s Natural Law theory. On the Law through which Comes Knowledge of Sin Thesis 1 : “For all good laws, there are two chief functions: Teaching human beings what should be done or what sh...