Bethel Community Church

Reformed Baptist Congregation Exaltation | Edification | Evangelism

A REFORMED BAPTIST CONGREGATION
EXALTATION  |  EDIFICATION  |  EVANGELISM
Sarasota, Florida
941-922-6007

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Tabernacle Types

Thomas Goodwin makes a great point in his work on Justifying Faith (Works, Vol. 8) where he speaks of Christ justifying us.
He says the Ark of the Covenant is a type of the Person of Christ and the Mercy Seat is a type of God’s grace. I prefer to think of it as a type of the Propitiation of Christ. So the Person and Work of the Son are necessary elements in our being justified. There can be no justification apart from the other. Just as the Ark and the Mercy were joined together, so too is the Person and Work of the Son.

The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 8, Book 2, Chp. 1, p. 141.

Calvin’s Fourth Rule on Prayer

Here’s a wonderful excerpt from the Institutes on prayer.

“The fourth rule is that, thus cast down and overcome by true humility, we should be nonetheless encouraged to pray by a sure hope that our prayer will be answered. These are indeed things apparently contrary: to join the firm assurance of God’s favor to a sense of his just vengeance; yet, on the ground that God’s goodness alone raises up those oppressed by their own evil deeds, they very well agree together. For, in accordance with our previous teaching that repentance and faith are companions joined together by an indissoluble bond, although one of these terrifies us while the other gladdens us, so also these two ought to be present together in prayers. And David briefly expresses this agreement when he says: “I through the abundance of thy goodness will enter thy house, I will worship toward the temple of thy holiness with fear” [Ps. 5:7]. [Read more…]

The Knowledge of Faith

Calvin says in his Institutes that “the knowledge of faith consists in assurance rather than in comprehension.” Faith, of course, must also comprehend, for it is not a blind faith that we have. What Calvin means, is that faith grasps that which cannot be seen. He says in the same section that, “faith is so far above sense that man’s mind has to go beyond and rise above itself in order to attain it. Even where the mind has attained, it does not comprehend what it feels.” He uses Paul in Ephesians 3:18, 19 to say that faith “is the power to comprehend…what is the breadth and length… and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge”. This knowledge, he says, is lofty and we are “more strengthened by the persuasion of divine truth than instructed by rational proof.” We thus, acknowledge that we walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:6, 7), and in this we are assured. (See Institutes III.2.14)

Knowledge of Self

I like what Calvin says in his discussion on free will (Inst. II.2.8-11), “whoever is utterly cast down and overwhelmed by the awareness of his calamity, poverty, nakedness, and disgrace has thus advanced farthest in knowledge of himself. For there is no danger of man’s depriving himself of too much so long as he learns that in God must be recouped what he himself lacks. Yet he cannot claim for himself ever so little beyond what is rightfully his without losing himself in vain confidence and without usurping God’s honor, and thus becoming guilty of monstrous sacrilege.”

And is is always good to remind ourselves of 1 Cor. 4:7, “…what do you have that you did not receive? If then, you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?”

Unmasking False Practices (1 Timothy 4:3) June 15, 2025

Conscience & Confession (Genesis 50:15 – 21) June 8, 2025

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