June 12, 2024 by John Fonville
Carl Trueman clarifies a common misconception that is popular among Evangelicals concerning the Protestant Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura....
July 26, 2023 by John Fonville
J.C. Ryle answers the common arguments in favor of “Baptismal Regeneration,” which are based on the Baptismal Service of the Prayer-book. ...
July 14, 2023 by John Fonville
J.V. Fesko on the sacraments as visible words- a visible proclamation of the gospel....
July 13, 2023 by John Fonville
J.V. Fesko on the Word of God as the chief means of grace. ...
July 7, 2023 by John Fonville
Martin Davie explains from the homily, ‘Of Prayer’ in the Second Book of Homilies, how the English Reformers taught that the only true purgatory is the death of Christ and no other purgation is either necessary or possible....
May 15, 2023 by John Fonville
Why Use Written Prayers?- Why does your church use prewritten prayers in your service? Isn't this a dry, rote, unthinking, way for the church to pray and worship? Don't pre-written prayers stifle the Spirit and hinder freedom and promote mechanical, vain repetition? Aren't spontaneous prayers more genuine and heartfelt than prewritten prayers? ...
May 5, 2023 by John Fonville
This writing of Martin Luther is from the introduction to his “Postils” (a group of model sermons which he wrote while at the Wartburg Castle). This brief foreword is full of comfort and good news. In it, Luther sets forth insightful instruction on how to read the Gospels (and the entirety of Scripture- the OT and NT)....
August 25, 2022 by John Fonville
My argument is this: By the year 1700, Protestant Christianity had begun developing significantly new practices and understandings of the Christian faith that focused upon Christian renewal, conversion, new birth and the coming millennial kingdom. These new practices and understandings were a dramatic departure not only from Roman Catholic Christianity, but also from the original Reformation convictions of Martin Luther and John Calvin some one hundred and fifty years earlier. Evangelical Christianity, of the free church variety especially, is the contemporary expression of this third form of Christianity. Probably most Evangelicals are unaware that their Christian experience and piety are far removed from Reformation Protestant beginnings. Evangelicals would do well to recover their lost heritage....
August 20, 2022 by John Fonville
Martin Luther's primary concern when constructing the German mass and order of the liturgy in 1526 was that the gospel be proclaimed for the people in their context....
July 28, 2022 by John Fonville
Martin Luther on the worthy reception of the Lord's Supper....
May 13, 2026 by John Fonville | Category: Law and Gospel | Tags: law and gospel, Reformation theology, gospel, law, scripture, hermeneutics, martin luther, reformed theology, Anglicanism, Reformation Anglicanism, Christ-Centered Preaching, assurance, Justification by Faith Alone, means of grace, Biblical theology, Confessional Theology, heidelberg catechism, Thirty-Nine Articles, Westminster Confession, gospel-centered, Law Gospel Distinction, theology, christian life, preaching, Bible, Protestant Reformation
Many Christians speak about “getting in the Word,” but what word? Scripture is not a flat, undifferentiated message. In the Reformation tradition, God speaks in Scripture in two fundamentally different ways: law and gospel. The law exposes sin and reveals our need for Christ; the gospel announces what Christ has done for sinners and gives forgiveness, righteousness, pe...
Keep ReadingMay 6, 2026 by John Fonville | Category: Church & Culture | Tags: repentance, holiness, heidelberg catechism, paramount church, Church Discipline, Ecclesiology, sexual immorality, forgiveness, canon law, Anglicanism, ACNA, reformed theology, Thirty-Nine Articles, church leadership, Reformation Anglicanism, pastoral ministry, church polity, ordained ministry, Westminster Confession, Confessional Theology, Sam Allberry, Anglican Church in North America, pastoral qualification, pastoral disqualification, Christian ethics, biblical sexuality, Galatians 6, 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, ACNA Canons
In response to the public statement released by the elders of Immanuel Church regarding ACNA-ordained minister Sam Allberry, Paramount Church offers a biblical, confessional, and canonical assessment grounded in Scripture, the Reformed confessions, and the Constitution and Canons of the Anglican Church in North America. This statement addresses pastoral qualification, chur...
Keep ReadingApril 30, 2026 by John Fonville | Category: Reformed Confessions | Tags: sanctification, law and gospel, good works, belgic confession, heidelberg catechism, justification, sola fide, sola gratia, Salvation, confessions, faith alone, grace alone, Christ alone, Reformed, reformed theology, Canons of Dort, Thirty Nine Articles, Anglican Theology, Westminster Confession, Final Salvation, Second Helvetic Confession
No Reformed confession teaches that salvation is by or through good works. The confessions unanimously affirm that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Good works are necessary—not as the ground, cause, or instrument of salvation—but as its fruit and evidence, the Spirit-wrought outworking of those who are justified and made alive in Chris...
Keep ReadingApril 28, 2026 by John Fonville | Category: Reformation Anglicanism | Tags: heidelberg catechism, zacharias ursinus, confessions, reformed theology, Reformation Anglicanism, Church of England, Church History, catechesis, Oxford University, English Reformed, conforming clergy, nonconforming clergy, historical theology, Westminster Assembly
R. Scott Clark shows that the Heidelberg Catechism and the theology of Zacharias Ursinus were not peripheral but formative for English Reformed theology within the Church of England, especially at Oxford. Through translation, official university use, and widespread publication, the Catechism became a standard tool for doctrinal formation, helping shape a generation of theo...
Keep ReadingFebruary 17, 2026 by John Fonville | Category: Gospel | Tags: gospel, covenant theology, heidelberg catechism, jesus christ, sola fide, Union with Christ, Abraham, steadfast love, reformed theology, imputed righteousness, Friendship with God, Justification by Faith Alone, James 2:23, Proverbs 18:24, John 15:13-15, Assurance of Salvation, Hesed, Wisdom Literature
What does it mean that Jesus calls believers His friends? Rooted in Proverbs 18:24 and fulfilled in John 15, this article explores how friendship with God flows from justification by faith alone. Christ, crucified, buried, and risen, is the covenant Friend who sticks closer than a brother — our Advocate, our constant Companion, and the fullest embodiment of the Lord’s ...
Keep ReadingJanuary 13, 2026 by John Fonville | Category: Christology | Tags: grace, assurance, heidelberg catechism, Salvation, Union with Christ, Christology, Ascension, kindness, exaltation, Ephesians, Seated, Heavenly Places, Finished Work
Christ’s ascension and seating at the Father’s right hand declare the completion of His saving work. In Ephesians, Paul reveals the astonishing grace that believers are not only raised with Christ but seated with Him in the heavenly places, so that for all eternity God might display the immeasurable riches of His kindness in Christ Jesus....
Keep ReadingDecember 2, 2025 by John Fonville | Category: Reformation Anglicanism | Tags: sola scriptura, heidelberg catechism, gospel, Regeneration, Reformation, creeds, Anglicanism, hermeneutics, Thirty-Nine Articles, Carl Trueman, Anglican Theology, prima Scriptura, biblical authority, Tradition 1, Tradition 2, Tradition 0, Keith Mathison, Scripture and tradition, church tradition
Some Anglicans describe biblical authority using the phrase prima Scriptura, placing the Church’s tradition as the lens through which Scripture is interpreted. This article explains why the Reformation doctrine of sola Scriptura is fundamentally different. Drawing on Keith Mathison’s categories of Tradition 0, Tradition 1, and Tradition 2, and Carl Trueman’s insights...
Keep ReadingNovember 6, 2025 by John Fonville | Category: Reformation Theology | Tags: gospel, sanctification, law and gospel, assurance, belgic confession, heidelberg catechism, justification, lordship salvation, sola fide, Salvation, Dispensationalism, Reformation, faith alone, grace alone, Christ alone, reformed theology, Reformation Anglicanism, theology, Westminster Confession, R Scott Clark, John MacArthur, Heidelblog, michael horton
This article offers a pastoral response to a chart circulating on social media titled “Keeping Doctrine in Its Place,” which misclassifies Lordship Salvation as a secondary issue and, in doing so, risks confusing believers about the very heart of the gospel. Drawing on R. Scott Clark’s 25-part critique of John MacArthur’s The Gospel According to Jesus, it argues th...
Keep ReadingNovember 4, 2025 by John Fonville | Category: Reformation Theology | Tags: grace, law and gospel, faith, belgic confession, heidelberg catechism, justification, lordship salvation, sola fide, solus christus, sola gratia, Trinity, Holy Spirit, Christology, Reformation, Nicene Creed, Anglican, Thirty-Nine Articles, pneumatology, R. Scott Clark, Confessional Theology, Reformation Anglicanism, The Center for Reformation Anglicanism
The Nicene Creed confesses both the Son and the Holy Spirit as Lord. This article shows how Reformation Christianity upholds the one saving Lordship of the triune God, contrasting it with “Lordship Salvation,” which turns the confession “Jesus is Lord” from a declaration of Christ’s deity into a moral condition for salvation. True lordship is confessed in the gos...
Keep ReadingNovember 4, 2025 by John Fonville | Category: Reformation Theology | Tags: sanctification, assurance, belgic confession, heidelberg catechism, justification, sola fide, Union with Christ, Reformation, duplex beneficium, George Hunsinger, Jonathan Edwards, dispositional soteriology, faith alone, grace alone, Christ alone, Protestant Reformation, reformed theology, imputed righteousness, Anglican, Thirty Nine Articles, Reformation Day, Reformation theology, Calvin, Justification by Faith, fides caritate formata, Westminster Confession, forensic justification, Reformation Anglicanism, The Center for Reformation Anglicanism
This article contrasts John Calvin’s Reformation doctrine of justification by faith alone with Jonathan Edwards’s later “dispositional soteriology.” Drawing from Calvin’s Institutes (3.11) and the Reformed confessions, it shows that saving faith is receptive—accepting, receiving, and resting on Christ’s righteousness alone—while Edwards’s model redefines ...
Keep ReadingMay 6, 2021 by John Fonville | Tags: law and gospel, heidelberg catechism, zacharias ursinus, Reformed confession, Holy Spirit
In his commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, Zacharias Ursinus discusses four differences between the law and gospel....
Keep ReadingMay 5, 2021 by John Fonville | Tags: gospel, heidelberg catechism, zacharias ursinus
Zacharias Ursinus answering the question, What is the Gospel?...
Keep ReadingJanuary 21, 2020 by John Fonville | Tags: heidelberg catechism, means of grace, Prayer, Means of Gratitude, Word and Sacrament, Westminster Standards, Westminster Larger Catechism, Westminster Shorter Catechism, J.V. Fesko, Louis Berkhof, Charles Hodge, Wayne Grudem
J.V. Fesko, in his book, Word, Water and Spirit: A Reformed Perspective on Baptism, explains why the means of grace are restricted to Word and sacrament....
Keep ReadingOctober 13, 2017 by John Fonville | Tags: moralism, merit, treasury of merit, roman catholic, infused righteousness, inherent righteousness, rc sproul, faith, belgic confession, heidelberg catechism, covenant theology, covenant of grace, covenant of works, covenant of redemption, law and gospel, mosaic covenant, abrahamic covenant, adamic covenant, davidic covenant, new covenant, moses, jesus christ, john murray, michael horton, andrew mcgowan, norman shepherd, robert traill, scott clark, benjamin franklin, glenn beck, legalism, antinomianism, creed, immortal, grace, law, righteousness, justification, redemption, propitiation, lordship salvation, imputation, active obedience of christ, passive obedience of christ, atonement, assurance, eternal security, evangelicalism, evangelical, thomas boston, scottish covenant theology, wwjd, zacharias ursinus, graeme goldsworthy, ebenezer erskine, ralph erskine, self justification, theodore beza, john calvin, martin luther, galatians, judaizers, john colquhoun, adamic administration, federal theology, messianic administration, headship theology, royal grant, suzerainty treaty, self-maledictory oath, cut a covenant, typology, hittite treaty, preamble, historical prologue, stipulations, sanctions, invocation, deposit of the treaty, monocovenantal, anathema, geerhardus vos, delbert hillers, covenant of promise, covenant of law, unconditional covenant, conditional covenant, meredith kline, obedience, blessing, curse, israel, mount hagar, mount sinai, mount calvary, mount zion, jesus, son of god, son of man, ten commandments, 10 commandments, resurrection, incarnation, nt wright, john piper, new perspective on paul, ep sanders, covenantal nomism, ge mendenhall, timothy george, t david gordon, bryan estelle, david van drunen, modern reformation, white horse inn, the gospel coalition, sola fide, solus christus, sola gratia, sola scriptura, soli deo gloria
Collapsing the covenants into one overarching theme of grace confuses law and gospel and effectively eliminates an explicit law-gospel distinction in Scripture....
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