Journal of the GES – Autumn 2009
Above All Earthly Powers: Christ in a Postmodern World
Above All Earthly Powers: Christ in a Postmodern World. By David F. Wells. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005. 339 pp. Paper, $18.00. Wells powerfully captures the influence of postmodernity on the church in America today. Lots of books on postmodernity are written for scholars and are hard to follow. Not so with
Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision
Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision.By N.T. Wright. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009. 279 pp. Hardcover, $25.00. Whether you have been following the theological battle between those that refer to themselves as New Perspective on Paul and those that are referred to as Old Perspective, Wright’s newest work will give you a good taste
Dispensationalism Tomorrow & Beyond: A Theological Collection in Honor of Charles C. Ryrie
Dispensationalism Tomorrow & Beyond: A Theological Collection in Honor of Charles C. Ryrie. Edited by Christopher Cone. Fort Worth, TX: Tyndale Seminary Press, 2008. 490 pp. Paper, $29.00. As a classic Dispensationalist I am always pleased to see works from a truly Dispensational perspective. This is one such book. The authors in this work are
Does God Lie? Faith then Elect or Elect then Faith
Does God Lie? Faith then Elect or Elect then Faith. By Melvin R. Nelson. Xulon Press, 2007. 257 pp. Paper, $16.99. One of the central questions in the Calvinism debate is whether God has a group of people called his “elect” that have not yet exercised faith in Christ. Does faith come before election or
Benefits of Christ’s Blood: Restricted and Unrestricted?
Read Article
Benefits of Christ’s Blood: Restricted and Unrestricted?
It has been called to my attention that I wrote something 22 years ago, in the March 1988 GES newsletter (“Matthew 25:31-46—Works Salvation?”), which seems to contradict unlimited atonement. In that article I say, “Since those cast into eternal fire did not believe in Christ, their sins were not covered by His blood and hence
Acting on Our Union with Christ: Romans 6:12-23
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey it with its lusts, neither turn over your body’s members as instruments for unrighteousness, but turn yourselves over to God as people who are alive from the dead, and turn over your body’s members to God as instruments for righteousness. For
Perseverance: It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over
Stephen R. Lewis* Introduction To quote Charles Dickens: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of
The Return to Ritual: Should Free Grace Churches Adopt Ash Wednesday, Lent, and Other Emergent Church Practices?
Philippe R. Sterling I. Introduction: What Is Happening Today? U.S. News and World Report1 and Christianity Today (CT)2 not long ago ran cover stories about Evangelicals adopting historic church rituals. Christianity Today introduced its feature article with the cover-page declaration, “Lost Secrets of the Ancient Church: How Evangelicals started looking back to move forward.” CT
The Evangelistic Message of the Emerging Church
Robert Vacendak* I. Introduction Describing the Emerging Church (designated as EC hereafter) is difficult.1 This is due to the fact that the EC movement is a somewhat recent phenomenon (most say it began in the 1990s) and is fairly diverse in most theological categories. In 2007, the Myers Professor of Ministry at Northern Seminary, Robert
A Critical Perspective: Orthodoxy, the Right Jesus, and Eternal Life
Lon Gregg* I. Introduction: Error and Christian Faith Many years ago, before YouTube, before even “Candid Camera,” television host Art Linkletter made a big hit with the “Kids Say the Darndest Things” segment on his weekly show. Children would say cute things that struck his studio audience (and millions of homemakers tuning in for the
The Prologue of the Fourth Gospel
A review of Peter M. Phillips’s The Prologue of the Fourth Gospel1 by Bob Swift2 This is a book that Free Grace readers should take a look at for more than one reason. First, and just as the title states, it contains an interpretation of crucial subject matter – the first eighteen verses of John’s
Crazy Love
Dangerous Words: A Review of Crazy Love by Francis Chan1 Bruce Bauer Lancaster, CA I. Introduction A. Drenched in Hype “Waking up the sleeping church!” “Potent paradigm shift.” “A clarion call to ‘on-fire’ living for Christ!” These are a sampling of glowing tributes found on online book sites about Francis Chan’s Crazy Love. A minority
Hyper-Calvinism & the Call of the Gospel
Hyper-Calvinism & the Call of the Gospel.Revised Edition. By David J. Engelsma. Grand Rapids: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 1994. 216 pp. Paper, $13.95. The author, a committed Calvinist, on the one hand rejects that hyper-Calvinist view that God is not calling everyone to believe in Christ and be born again. However, on the other hand