Another new resource added on the navigation bar to the left under "Our Beliefs," or, you can click here.

The Belgic Confession is not a systematic theology but the historic and systematic confession of faith by the Reformed churches. With this commentary Danny Hyde has done the Reformed churches a great service by placing our confession in its historical, theological, and ecclesiastical contexts again. By reading it in the light of those contexts, he brings it to life for us in our time. Anyone wishing to understand better the Belgic Confession on its own terms and as it has been received by the Reformed churches must consult this intelligent work.
R. Scott Clark, Associate Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology, Westminster Seminary California

It has been a long time since a Belgic Confession commentary of this caliber was last published in English. Biblical, historical, and erudite, Reverend Hyde helps the Confession speak freshly to our day. With Heart and Mouth will be warmly welcomed by pastors called to teach and preach the Belgic Confession.
Wes Bredenhof, Pastor, Langley Canadian Reformed Church, Langley, British Columbia

Now available from Reformed Fellowship. Hardcover. 543 pages. List Price: $30.00. Sale Price: $24.00.

Last night was a great Men's Fellowship! The topic and vital topic of God's covenant's with man brought out many wonderful opportunities to converse about the wonderful working of God amongst us. I passed out a few handouts, and here is one of them:

Basic Resources on Covenant Theology

Online Essays

Steve Baugh
➢ Covenant Theology Illustrated: Romans 5 on the Federal Headship of Adam and Christ

Michael G. Brown
➢ Current Series on Covenant Theology

R. Scott Clark
➢ A Brief History of Covenant Theology
➢ Classical Covenant Theology
➢ Theses on Covenant Theology

Michael Horton
➢ What’s Really at Stake?

Shane Lems
➢ The Covenant of Works in Dutch Reformed Orthodoxy

Wes White
➢ The Dutch Reformed Doctrine of the Covenant of Works

Books

R. Scott Clark
➢ Caspar Olevian on the Substance of the Covenant: The Double Benefit of Christ

Michael Horton
➢ God of Promise: Introducing Covenant Theology

Herman Witsius
➢ The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man (Google Books)

Tuesday I had lunch with Dr. Kolb again. As I mentioned, he is "the Godfrey of the Lutherans" as he is not only so knowledgeable, but witty. When asked in class what he thought were the weaknesses of Lutheranism, he told a story of when he asked Stanley Grenz what his affiliation was. Grenz said, "By denomination, Baptist, by movement, Pietist, by tradition, Evangelical." Grenz then asked Dr. Kolb, who said, "By denomination, Lutheran, by movement, Lutheran, by tradition, Lutheran."

Well . . . seeing that I just deleted my post for day 2 and I am not going to do that all over, it will have to suffice that Tuesday we discussed the predestination controversy between Marbach and Jerome Zanchi, the Crypto-Calvinist controversy, including the tract war between Joachim Westphal and John Calvin (as an aside, Dr. Kolb mentioned that the next issue of Lutheran Quarterly was an article by Wim Janse on Westphal's treatises against Calvin where he argues Westphal wasn't arguing against Calvin's doctrine of the Supper, but Calvin's compromise position with Bullinger in the Consensus Tigurinus.), and the work of Martin Chemnitz in leading the Lutherans to the Formulae of Concord (I'll post on Chemnitz more later as Wednesday's class will deal with his treatise against us on the Lord's Supper).

What I found interesting, as well, was Dr. Kolb's answer to my question of the Lutherhan response to the Heidelberg Catechism. Besides Tilemann Heshusius' (read Dr. Clark's essay in which he is mentioned here) vitriolic responses (as Dr. Kolb said, you can't really look to Heshusius as a source for good Lutheran theology since he has 7 pastorates and was exiled 6 times because he couldn't get along with anyone!), in 1564 the County of Mansfeld wrote the Mansfeld Confession, in which it responded to the errors of the Catechism . . . I wish it was translated!

Brrr . . . it's cold here in Grand Rapids. Snow, snow, and more snow.

I had lunch with Dr. Kolb and Jay Collier of Reformation Heritage Books. It was a great ecumenical exchange. Dr. Kolb floated his thesis, which I think I embrace, that if Luther and Calvin would have ever met in person, they would have come to agreement on the Eucharist . . . if only that could have been!

Monday's class with Dr. Kolb was excellent. I have dubbed him "the Godfrey of the Lutherans." He's brilliant, he has an encyclopedic knowledge, he's witty, and I think he actually lived in the days of Melanchthon, Amsdorf, Chemnitz, Agricola, and Major!

Day 1 was all about the historical foundations of Lutheran Orthodoxy, which Dr. Kolb's periodizes is roughly from 1550 to 1750.

One interesting thing was Dr. Kolb's classification of the Lutherans: Luther was the fountain and Amsdorf and Melanchthon were his cohorts, yet Amsdorf was not very influential but Melanchthon was Because all the great Lutherans were educated by Melanchthon. In the aftermath of the Smalcaldic War (1547), the Augsburg Interim (1548), and the Leipzig Proposal, the Lutherans (also known as the Melanchthonians) were divided into two groups:

1) Philippists, called the Adiaphorists by their opponents (further divided into two groups):
—Crypto-Calvinists
—Moderates

2) Gnesio-Lutherans, called the Flacians by their opponents (further divided into three groups):
—Moderates
—Antinomians (so-called as they denied the third use, not the first use)
—Radical Flacians

The Cryptos became Calvinists (and many became Unitarians, which Dr. Kolb said was one of the few delights of the Germans!) and the Flacians moved east to Austria and died out in two generations.

The Moderate Philippists, Moderate Gnesios, and Antinomians came together in the Formula of Concord to form Lutheran Orthodoxy in 1577.

Most enlightening was Dr. Kolb's latest thesis. He is preliminarily proposing that the debates between the Philippists and Gnesios (all Lutherans were committed to being Lutheran and advancing Luther's ideas) was all about the tension between Law and Gospel. This means the debate was between Law, that is, man's responsibility in "salvation," and Gospel, that is, God's responsibility in "salvation." Dr. Kolb does not believe Melanchthon was a "synergist," although some of his followers became that, but that Melanchthon, who taught humanities and arts of rhetoric and logic, was seeking to test ways to express homiletically and pastorally the doctrines of Law and Gospel. In the aftermath of Augsburg he was seen as a traitor by his own students, who read him suspiciously and angrily. As well, Melanchthon was the Duke's representative before the Emperor's Roman representatives, and this led Melanchthon to do all he could to ease tensions and thereby save Lutheran pulpits from the Spanish armies of Charles.

Dr. Kolb's summary was that political and personal issues created the tensions and the divide.

As an aside, I think I have my paper topic already. Amidst the lecture Dr. Kolb mentioned that the Gnesio-Lutherans had a vestment controversy with the Philippists. While the Philippists were willing to practice much that was adiaphora, the Gnesios rejected all vestments for two reasons: 1) they had been laid aside 20 years earlier as a symbol of breaking from Rome and 2) in times of confession (when the true church was persecuted), there are no adiaphora. Sounds like there was a time of Lutheran Puritanism in mid-sixteenth century Germany!

Back to my reading for today's class on Martin Chemnitz's works on the Lord's Supper against the "Sacramentarians" (us) and the Council of Trent.