August 2003 New Horizons

A Bird's Eye View of the 70th General Assembly

by Stephen L. Phillips and Larry Wilson

The sun broke through the cool, overcast Wednesday, June 25, 2003, at Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa. Its rays lit up the high, vertical stained-glass west-facing window of B. J. Haan Auditorium. The words stood out, running the full length of the glass: "In Thy Light Shall We See Light." Commissioners to the 70th General Assembly were gathering when Dr. Joan Ringerwole, on a majestic pipe organ, began the prelude for the 8:00 p.m. worship service. The gilded lettering on the main organ casework proclaimed: "P RAISE YE THE LORD IN HIS SANCTUARY WITH THE SOUND OF TRUMPET, PSALTERY, HARP, STRINGED INSTRUMENTS AND ORGANS . P SALM 150." The Assembly began with a worship service which included the Lord's Supper. Throughout the Assembly, many prayers and psalms and hymns were offered up to the Lord. In addition, each weekday morning commissioners broke from business for a devotional service in order to hear God's Word proclaimed and to offer prayer and praise to the Lord. The Assembly enjoyed a blessed ... Read more

A Bird's-Eye View of the Bible

by John Chapman

The basic message of the Bible can be summed up in a passage from 2 Corinthians 5:19: "In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them." The story of the Bible is how God achieves this. It has many important themes and subthemes, the most important of which we will now trace, first by looking at the "shadow" of this reconciling work in the Old Testament, and then at its glorious fulfillment and reality in Jesus. The Shadow Creation and Fall The Bible opens with God creating the world by his word. He speaks it into being. He says, "Let there be light," and so it is. Humanity is the pinnacle of the creation. This is clear from the way the man names the animals and tends the Garden of Eden in which God has placed him. It is not because he is more intelligent than the animals, but because he is qualitatively different, being made in the image of God and having been given dominion by God to rule over the creation under God (Gen. 1:26-27). God ... Read more

A Bird’s-Eye View of the Reformed Faith

by Larry Wilson

The Orthodox Presbyterian Church is committed to “the Reformed faith,” but what is that? The word reformed is actually an abbreviation of “reformed according to the Word of God.” This expression assumes that the Lord formed his church and her faith and life, but that she becomes deformed through sin and unfaithfulness. Thankfully, the Lord is gracious and faithful in building his church, and through his Spirit’s powerful working, he continues to re-form her by and with his Word. This pattern repeats itself on varying levels of magnitude, but the greatest example was the rediscovery of the biblical gospel and its implications during the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. The term Reformed is especially attached to the Calvinistic branch of the Protestant Reformation. We believe that the Reformed faith is the most consistent and comprehensive understanding of biblical truth. It’s really nothing more or less than the gospel and its implications—the teachings of the Bible. As ... Read more