Ligonier Ministries

What does it mean that Christ “emptied Himself” in Phil. 2:6–7?

Philippians 2:6–7 does not mean that Christ became anything less than He was. It does not mean that He ceased to be God because then He would have ceased to be who He was. It does mean that He submitted …Read More

Why did God promise to give a new heart of flesh to His Old Testament people?

Our natural condition is to have a heart of stone, which means we’re dead to the things of God. When we’re reborn by the Holy Spirit, that which was stony now is flesh—it’s alive. That’s problematic because in the New …Read More

What is the gospel?

The gospel is that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scripture, that He was buried, and that He was raised from the dead (1 Cor. 15:3–4). The heart of the gospel is Jesus Christ Himself—the person and work …Read More

Does the creation account prior to the fall support complementarianism?

Complementarianism is the view that males and females have different roles to play but complement each other. They each have a distinctive purpose. Within the creation narrative, there is a very clear account of male headship—Adam was created first, and …Read More

Does repentance require confession?

Repentance certainly requires confession. It is not simply a resolve to change and behave differently in the future from what I do today. I don’t believe that I need to confess every sin I’ve ever committed to everybody in the …Read More

How many wills does God have?

When we talk about the will of God, it gets complicated because the New Testament uses two different Greek words that are translated by the English word “will.” It would be nice if you could know which will of God …Read More

How important is God’s covenant with Adam when it comes to our salvation?

God’s covenant with Adam is crucial because it reminds us of the importance of covenants in the Bible. The Bible, in many ways, can be described as a series of covenants. Another way of thinking about covenants is as a …Read More

How will we become sinless in heaven?

SPROUL: This is why we talk about the order of salvation and the way the term salvation is used in every tense of the Greek verb—“we were saved,” “we were being saved,” “we have been saved,” “we are saved,” “we …Read More

Should we pray to the Father, to the Son, or to the Holy Spirit?

Our worship, prayers, and all of the attending things are Trinitarian from beginning to end. When we look at the function of the different members of the Godhead with respect to prayer, we see that the second person of the …Read More

How can Christians grieve over their sin without denying God’s grace?

It’s very important to preach the gospel to yourself every day, to remind yourself every morning: “‘Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling.’ There is absolutely nothing I can do to improve my status of …Read More

How does being made in the image of God motivate us to live a holy life?

That is the motivation. The motivation for us to live a holy life is that Christ is in us and we are in Christ. There’s no higher motivation than that. If we’re motivated by anything other than the honor of …Read More

Does God love the wicked the same way He loves the elect?

When the Bible says, “God so loved the world” (John 3:16), it doesn’t say that He loved everybody in the world equally. This text is pointing to the world, the generic cosmos. God loved this fallen world enough to send …Read More

What does it mean to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12)?

The Reformed stress on the sovereignty of God, the action of God, and the initiation by God in salvation might lead someone to conclude that we are utterly passive in the Christian life. It might lead someone to conclude that …Read More

Since we’re justified by faith alone, how should we understand Jesus’ words in Luke 9:23–24?

Luke 9:23–24 is an important part of our understanding of what true saving faith is. There is self-denial in true saving faith. You are submitting to the lordship of Christ at the point of conversion. That is, you are no …Read More

What does it mean for God to “give people up” to their sin (Rom. 1:24)?

A good way of thinking about this is that when people rebel against God, especially in the way Romans 1 describes it, they view themselves as being freed from the judgment of God: “We are able to do these things …Read More