Fatherly Foreshadowing: Salvation History Typologically Prefigured in Genesis 12-50

The central thrust of this paper is that the biographies of the patriarchs in Genesis 12-50 establish a typological template for Israel’s national history from the exodus to the eschaton. Already in Talmudic times, rabbinical commentators coined the phrase, “Whatever happened to the ancestors is a sign to the descendants.” Several modern scholars have also … Read more

Retrieving Catholicity: Engaging and Extending the Evangelical Baptist Project

While Baptists are unambiguously part of the catholic tradition, their understanding of catholicity has not always been clear. What exactly does catholicity mean? And what are its implications for those who confess it? This paper will argue that catholicity is both a doctrine and posture—a doctrine of wholeness and universality which leads to a posture … Read more

Jonathan Edwards’s Trinity in the Era of John Locke’s Reasonable Christianity

There are two conversations in the studies of Jonathan Edwards that have not yet intersected. First is the conversation considering John Locke’s influence on Edwards. Few today maintain that Locke’s impact on Edwards was as thoroughgoing as Perry Miller’s portrayal: Edwards’s reading of Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding was the “central and decisive event … Read more

God Is Spirit: The Body and the Image of God

The Protestant Reformed tradition lacks consensus on whether the body is part the imago Dei. Traditionally, the body has been rejected from the image based on the biblical understanding that God is Spirit. Its inclusion would necessarily imply that God has a body. This leaves the image of God to consist either solely in the … Read more

The Impact of the Council of Nicaea: “Already/Not Yet”

THE IMPACT OF THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA: “ALREADY/NOT YET” James R. Payton, Jr. From the vantage point of 1700 years, we can recognize the impact the 325 Council of Nicaea had on the development of the Christian church: it became the first ecumenical council and propounded what would become the first “fixed formula” creed of … Read more

Richard Baxter’s “Middle Way” Soteriology: Innovations to Counter Confusion

What led Richard Baxter (1615–1691) to formulate his unique soteriology, which the famous Kidderminster pastor promoted as a moderate “middle way” between Calvinism and Arminianism? While Timothy Cooper has rightly pointed toward Baxter’s disillusionment arising from the English Civil War as an inciting incident for this formulation, the uniqueness of Baxter’s education is just as … Read more

The Serampore Persian Pamphlet: Controversy, Creeds, and the Cross

In 1807, William Ward (1769–1823) and the Serampore Press published a Persian pamphlet to share the gospel with Muslims. This short pamphlet almost derailed the developing Baptist mission. In the aftermath of the revolt of Muslim and Hindu soldiers in the Vellore Mutiny (1806), the East India Company (EIC) sought to maintain religious peace. When … Read more