By Sinclair Ferguson
Reformed theology owes a special debt to the principles of biblical exposition recovered for the church at the time of the Reformation. It is particularly associated with the work of John Calvin, but was later developed by such seventeenth-century Puritans as John Owen and Thomas Goodwin (in England), and Thomas Hooker and John Cotton (in New England). Many later Christians have owed a special debt to the Reformed theological tradition. They include preachers like George Whitefield, C. H. Spurgeon and D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones; and theologians such as Jonathan Edwards, Charles Hodge, Abraham Kuyper and B. B. Warfield; as well as such influential twentieth-century Christian leaders as J Gresham Machen and Francis Schaeffer. From one point of view, most evangelical theology in the English-speaking world can be see as an exposition of, deviation from or reaction to Reformed theology.[1]
A cursory glance at the biographies or writings of these men under lines the fact that Reformed theology has always placed special emphasis on the subject of sanctification. Few axioms are more central to Reformed teaching than that theology and practice, doctrine and lifestyle are partners joined together by God. They ought never to be separated. Nor is this relationship merely a “marriage of convenience.”
It is one which Reformed theology sees as being “made in heaven,” or more exactly, made in Scripture. A necessary connection between biblical doctrine and holy living is fundamental to the biblical and apostolic way of thinking. That is why Scripture is so full of moral imperatives logically derived from doctrinal indicatives: since these things are true, this is how you should live (compare Mt 6:32-34; Rom 12:1-2; Eph 4:20-25). The title of one of Francis A. Schaeffer’s best-known books grows directly out of this Reformed appreciation of the shape of basic biblical teaching: How Should We Then Live? The “then” is pregnant with significance. It means “in light of the biblical teaching we know to be true…?” Indeed, in Schaeffer’s case, it meant specifically “in the light of Reformed theology.” Continue reading