What Is a Reformed Church? by Stephen Smallman

Author:Stephen Smallman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Tags: Protestant, Presbyterian, Christianity, Religion, Reformed Church, General, Calvinist, Christian Theology
ISBN: 9780875525945
Publisher: P & R Pub.
Published: 2003-05-30T00:00:00+00:00

T h e C o v e n a n t

and have been proclaiming these doctrines for all the years

of my ministry.

T H E C O V E N A N T

A third distinctive of Reformed churches is their view of

the Bible as a whole. The Old and New Testaments reveal

God's unified plan, usually spoken of as the Covenant, or the

Covenant of Grace. The essence of the Covenant, as expressed

throughout the Bible, is God's statement to his people: I will be

your God and you will be my people. This is found, literally, from

Genesis to Revelation (Gen. 17:7—8; Jer. 3 1 : 3 3 ; 2, Cor. 6:16;

Rev. 2,1:3). This is not a request ("Would you like me to be your

God?") or a wish ("I would like to become your God."), but an

affirmation of what God will do because of his nature as the

God of mercy and grace. The development of the Covenant

moves systematically from Creation, to the Fall of mankind, to

Redemption (another word for salvation) when God acts to

restore what the first man and woman gave up when they

sinned. From the early chapters of Genesis the great redemp-

tive plan of God is unfolded in stages—first through a family

(Abraham), then through a nation (Moses and David), and fi-

nally completed in Jesus himself (through his death and res-

urrection) and offered to the world.

With this viewpoint, the Reformed church has always

stressed that the Old Testament is not simply a Jewish book,

full of interesting stories and prophecies of a future Jewish

kingdom. Rather, it is an earlier formulation of the same truth

found in the New Testament. Jesus did not start over. He sim-

ply brought to fulfillment what had already been established

under Abraham and Moses. Such key themes as salvation by

grace alone, the necessity of blood atonement, and the church

as a gathering of redeemed people (including their children)

17

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.