Apologetics to the Glory of God

Tag: Covenantal Apologetics

  • Gill on Sheol

    Another name or word by which it is expressed, is Sheol, which is often rendered the “grave”; as in Genesis 42:38 and 44:31 and should be where it is sometimes translated “hell,” as in Psalm 16:10 yet in some places it seems as if it could not be understood of that, but of the state or place of punishment of the wicked; as in Psalm 9:17. “The wicked shall be turned into hell”: now to be turned into the earth, or to be laid in the grave, is not peculiar to wicked men; it is the common lot of all,

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  • Gill – of the Final State of the Wicked

    It is called destruction, or Abaddon, which is the name of the king of the bottomless pit, (Rev. 9:11 which signifies a destroyer, and is rendered destruction in Job 26:6, Proverbs 27:20 and 15:11 where “hell and destruction” are mentioned together, as signifying the same thing, the one being explanative of the other. Indeed the grave, which the word used for hell sometimes signifies, is called the pit of destruction and corruption, because bodies laid in it corrupt and waste away; but here it seems to signify the place of the punishment of the wicked, where body and soul are

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  • Gill on Matthew 25:46

    And these shall go away into everlasting punishment
    Their excuses will not be regarded, their pleas will be of no avail, their pretensions to interest in Christ, and love to him, will be set aside; the sentence will remain irrevocable, and there will be no appeal from it, for there is no higher tribunal to bring the cause before; judgment having passed, the execution of it immediately follows: these goats, or formal professors, shall be obliged, whether they will or not, to depart from the presence of Christ; the angels will be ordered to take and cast them into everlasting

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  • Augustine and Eternal Punishment

    First of all, it behoves us to inquire and to recognize why the Church has not been able to tolerate the idea that promises cleansing or indulgence to the devil even after the most severe and protracted punishment. For so many holy men, imbued with the spirit of the Old and New Testament, did not grudge to angels of any rank or character that they should enjoy the blessedness of the heavenly kingdom after being cleansed by suffering, but rather they perceived that they could not invalidate nor evacuate the divine sentence which the Lord predicted that He would pronounce

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  • What exactly is it that we presuppose?

    Covenantal apologists frequently encounter an objection in their own mind if it is not raised by someone else in the form of the question, “What exactly is it that we presuppose?”

    Perhaps it is God who is presupposed, but then God as divorced from His Word is a concept without Christian content.

    Perhaps it is Scripture which is presupposed, but then Scripture as divorced from its Author is a document without authority.

    So both of the above must be presupposed, but is that enough? Not if we are to avoid an implicit disconnect between the two. Not if we are …

  • Annihilationism: Universalism and The Reality of Eternal Punishment: The Biblical Basis of the Doctrine of Eternal Punishment by Sinclair Ferguson

    http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/conference-messages/universalism-and-the-reality-of-eternal-punishment-the-biblical-basis-of-the-doctrine-of-eternal-punishment

    Now you see the point that is being made: if you believe in the immortality of the soul, then it’s necessary for you to do something in your theology with that immortal soul that rejects God.

    In contrast, it is claimed, the New Testament’s teaching is different. We are to fear him who is able to “destroy” body and soul in hell, and this is what he will do. And it’s vital that we have a biblical response to that.

    And it seems to me that the biblical response to that is this: that the immortality of man—which of

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  • Does God Desire That All Be Saved?

    3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4  They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 7 But
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  • Annihilationism: ἀπόλλυμι word study by Anthony A. Hoekema

    (1)    Sometimes apollumi  simply means to be lost. It is so used in the three “lost” parables in Luke 15, to designate the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. In the case of the sin, his being lost meant that he was lost to the fellowship of his father since he went against his father’s purpose.

    (2)    The word apollumi may be applied in a somewhat related way to mean become useless. So in Matthew 9:17 it is used to show what happens to old wineskins when you pour new wine into them: the skins

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  • The central verses for the doctrine of Hell.

    Under the systematic heading of eschatology, there are topics more controversial, but none more hated than the doctrine of Hell. The doctrine of Hell is more repulsive to the natural man than any other doctrine save that of the holiness and sovereignty of God. In fact, the two are tied together with unbreakable bonds. All of Theology proper is bound up with the doctrines of Eschatology, as are all of the doctrines of Christology, Soteriology, Anthropology, and even Ecclesiology similarly bound. What affects one, affects the others unalterably. Christianity is a cohesive, coherent unit, therefore the modification of one doctrine …

  • Initial Thoughts on the Upcoming Debate

    I’m finding lots of commentary by folks who want to somehow separate the doctrine of the soul’s immortality from the doctrine of eternal punishment. Since, after all, we believe in Sola Scriptura, that necessarily includes “Tota Scriptura”, and the necessary relation of every doctrine to the others. This is a fundamental point of Reformed theology. No doctrine exists in isolation. The denial, or modification of one doctrine will quite necessarily have an effect on a host of others, due to the nature of Scripture, and the theology we affirm from it. In the introduction to Van Til’s Christian Theistic Evidences…