Confusing justification with sanctification produces performance-based faith and destroys assurance. Understanding the Reformed distinction between these two gifts restores gospel peace.
Category: Theology
Explore foundational Christian doctrines, biblical teachings, and theological insights. Dive into topics like the nature of God, salvation, eschatology, and the parables of Christ.
Context Is King: Why Interpretation Demands Context
From the War of the Worlds broadcast to the Charge of the Light Brigade to Philippians 2:12, missing context inverts meaning. Why the historical-grammatical method matters.
Sheol Evolved: The Dead Divided
How did the biblical understanding of the afterlife develop from Sheol to the divided realm Jesus described? Trace the progressive revelation from Old Testament through the New.
Sola Scriptura: The Final Court of Appeal
Every Christian operates from a final authority: church tradition, personal feelings, or Scripture. Only one is the ultimate court of appeal. A strongly Reformed defense of Sola Scriptura.
Why Religious Disagreements Become Hostile
Why do theological disagreements so often turn personal and hostile? The answer lies in confusing our interpretations with God's truth. We are not the sun -- we are planets reflecting its light.
Three Christian Views of Hell
Eternal conscious torment, annihilationism, and universalism: three Christian views of hell examined fairly with a Reformed assessment of the biblical evidence.
What Is Dispensationalism?
Dispensationalism organizes redemptive history into distinct dispensations and peoples. Compare it with covenant theology and the unity of God's saving work.
The Office of Christ and the Office of the Spirit: A Necessary Distinction
A familiar diagnosis circulates whenever Christians speak of assurance. Believers grow anxious, the reasoning goes, because they confuse justification with sanctification, mistaking the ongoing process of becoming holy for the finished verdict of being declared righteous. That diagnosis is sound as far as it reaches, and Theology in Focus has treated it at length elsewhere....