Truths We Confess, Volume 2

This the second book in a series of three on the Westemister Confession of Faith. This deal with chapters 9 to 22 of the confession, which is about salvation and the Christian life (mostly about our works and our response to the Old Testament laws and oaths).

R.C. Sproul gives his commentary on each point of the confession clearly but sometimes repeats his points over and over again. The confession itself is pretty nuances with a overlap of issues and so that explains some of the repetition. Sproul points out the historical issues surrounding the drafting of the confession and so Calvinism is held strongly while Roman Catholicism and Arminianism are argued against. When it comes to the law and works, antinomianism and legalism are argued against and instead there is an encouragement to obey God because of his grace shown to you and because your hearts inclination to Him.

Overall this was a Calvinist writing about a Reformed confession so the salvation parts came as no surprise and were argued clearly. The latter part of the book on the law sections helped me. I have always struggled dealing with the issues of some of the Old Testament laws that seems silly today. Pretty much one of the points was that the law given to Israel (including the 10 commandments) were for a certain point in history and only for the nation of Israel. It was not and should not be in effect for us today. The context of the Pentateuch is different to our context today. However the law did come from God so we do learn something about God from the law, so we should not just throw it out altogether. Pretty much our actions shouldn't be bound by the law, but from the grace of God. It may well look the same as what the law asks, but the real issue is the heart and character of the person, not their actions per se.

I have the third book in the series, but I think I might leave it for next year. I did find this book a bit dry, and so I put it down for a few months.

You can read Chapter 1 (the 9th Chapter in the confession) on Free Will here.

My review of the first book is here.