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 1, 2026 by John Fonville | Category: Good Works & Rewards | Tags: grace, gospel, sanctification, law and gospel, good works, election, assurance, merit, justification, john calvin, Salvation, Union with Christ, Final Judgment, reformed theology, imputed righteousness, rewards, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Augustine of Hippo, crowns
John Calvin, drawing on Augustine of Hippo, explains that good works are gifts of God’s grace, not the basis of our salvation or assurance. Even our best works are mixed with sin and cannot stand on their own before God. Yet God graciously “crowns” these works—not as earned merit, but as His own work in us—so that all confidence rests in Christ alone while the fr...
Keep ReadingApril 27, 2026 by John Fonville | Category: Union with Christ | Tags: gospel, law and gospel, obedience, assurance, jesus christ, justification, ten commandments, Union with Christ, active obedience, passive obedience, imputed righteousness, righteousness of Christ, Ephesians 1, Psalm 1, Blessed Man, Law of the Lord, Hebrews 10, In Christ
**Summary:** Psalm 1’s “blessed man” is not us but Christ—the only One who delighted perfectly in God’s law and obeyed it fully. Through His life and once-for-all sacrifice, all His righteousness and blessing become ours “in Him,” so our standing before God rests not on our obedience, but on His....
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 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 ReadingJune 22, 2021 by John Fonville | Tags: good works, imputed righteousness, Union with Christ, justification
Since our best works in this life are all imperfect and defiled with sin how can they be accepted by God?...
Keep ReadingOctober 13, 2017 by John Fonville | Tags: sanctification, good works, assurance, moralism, inherent righteousness, covenant of grace, antinomianism, justification, Holy Spirit, Union with Christ, antecedent conditions, consequent conditions, duplex beneficium, substance of the covenant, imputed righteousness
Does placing primary emphasis upon justification for assurance understate the importance and necessity of good works (i.e., sanctification)? Does this emphasis dishonor the Holy Spirit’s indwelling work?...
Keep ReadingJuly 26, 2017 by John Fonville | Tags: gospel, sanctification, faith, good works, preaching, assurance, law, Holy Spirit, Total Depravity, Prayer, Union with Christ, Regeneration, new nature, curse of the Law, disposition
Theodore Beza on how the Gospel changes the effect of the preaching of the Law in believers....
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