"We cannot know that God exists," is something you thought would never be uttered from the mouth of Dr. R.C. Sproul. In this series, this statement, along with other assertions, is made by Dr. Sproul defying the possibility of knowing God as well as the existence of God.

In Silencing the Devil, Dr. Sproul delivers the most common and forceful arguments against truth, God, and the Bible. But even Dr. Sproul as the Devil's advocate is no match for Dr. Gerstner's ability to turn false reasoning to dust. Silencing the Devil, while entertaining, is an effective and practical tool for defending the faith in this faithless world.

"We cannot know that God exists," is something you thought would never be uttered from the mouth of Dr. R.C. Sproul. In this series, this statement, along with other assertions, are made by Dr. Sproul defying the possibility of knowing God as well as the existence of God. In Silencing the Devil, Dr. Sproul delivers the most common and forceful arguments against truth, God, and the Bible. But even Dr. Sproul as the Devil's advocate is no match for Dr. Gerstner's ability to turn false reasoning to dust. Silencing the Devil, while entertaining, is an effective and practical tool for defending the faith in this faithless world.

Here is a work of absorbing interest to students of the religion of Colonial America, and especially to those desiring a knowledge of the theology of one of the greatest Puritan divines.Dr. Gerstner actually presents Jonathan Edwards’ doctrines in a form more readily grasped than Edwards himself does in his own sermons and manuscripts. For in no one of these did Edwards systematize his theology; he offered a piecemeal according to the nature of the occasion or the text on which he spoke suggested. Dr. Gerstner has done the systematizing in this book, gathering material for each of Edwards’ subject from many different sources, a number of them hitherto unpublished, identifying each as he goes along and interspersing his work with many direct quotes. The result is a well-organized and highly readable compendium of the heart of this great man’s thought.As an evangelist Edwards’ chief concern was saving souls; as a Puritan, he believed relatively few souls would be saved; and as a Calvinist, he believed God had preordained who those souls would be. In the face of this predestination, just what “step” the individual could take to seek his salvation and possibly escape an eternity in hell is the main theme of this book. But it is not the only theme.Many of Edwards’ other teachings show that he was by no means solely concerned with fire and brimstone. His doctrine of the new birth, his correlation of “faith” with “work,” his denouncement of melancholy, his belief in happiness as a by-product—these and many other teachings will appeal to most readers.

From all eternity, God devised a plan to save a people for Himself. In this classic series, Dr. John Gerstner traces what he calls the three faces of Adam: as man, as sinner, and as saint.

Jonathan Edwards is often considered to be one of the greatest theologians in American history. Yet many people today have only a cursory understanding of this leader from the First Great Awakening. In this classic series, Dr. Gerstner systematically surveys Edwards’ theological convictions and explores the enduring influence of this eighteenth-century preacher.

Christian apologetics is that which deals with answering any and all critics who oppose or question the revelation of God in Christ and the Bible. This study explores a whole host of doctrines important to the church and defends them all against common objections and misconceptions. Working through this series will challenge and equip you to defend the faith.

John H. Gerstner (1914-1996) was a Professor of Church History at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and Knox Theological Seminary and an authority on the life and theology of Jonathan Edwards. He pastored several churches before accepting a professorship where he taught church history for over 30 years. He was also a visiting professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill., and author of many books and articles.

Dr. John H. Gerstner examines the twists and turns of church history, addressing major theological developments along the way. He demonstrates how God has been at work in each stage of church history and explains that Christians today can be confident that God continues to work in the church for His glory.

Many people deny the existence of the afterlife, especially the existence of hell. In this series, Dr. John Gerstner reminds us of the biblical truth: hell and heaven are real, and how we live today has eternal consequences. Drawing from the writing and preaching of Jonathan Edwards, he considers the terrors of hell, the treasures of heaven, and the reality that all of us will one day come face to face with God.

In this classic one-hundred-message series, Dr. John Gerstner provides an in-depth overview of systematic theology. He explores what God has clearly revealed in Scripture about Himself, mankind, the fall, redemption, the church, and many other essential doctrines of the Christian faith.

The Westminster Confession of Faith has, for hundreds of years, served as the doctrinal foundation of the Reformed churches. In this series, Dr. John Gerstner focuses his lifetime of scholarship on a comprehensive treatment of the meaning and application of this important confession for the life of the church. This is an exceptional series for pastors and church leaders.

Today, many people believe that their good works will get them into heaven, but they are gravely mistaken. When the early church in Galatia began to embrace this same error, the Apostle Paul wrote them an urgent letter in defense of the true gospel of grace. In this classic teaching series, Dr. John Gerstner closely examines Paul’s letter to the Galatians, outlining seven arguments that the Apostle makes to prove that we can only be made right in the sight of God through faith alone in Christ alone.

When Christ returns to claim His bride, it will be revealed that some of those who claim to know Him are in actuality false believers. He will find both wise virgins who have possessed faith and foolish virgins who have only professed faith.

In this study of Matthew 25:1–13, John Gerstner reminds us that there are many in the church who are not really saved. He examines the outward works that both Christians and non-Christians may produce and encourages people in the church to search their hearts for the obedience that demonstrates the reality of the faith professed.

Like the apostle Peter, we all run the risk of overestimating our loyalty to Christ in a way that makes us especially vulnerable to the attacks of the enemy. For Christian leaders especially, it is easy to think that the evil one will never be able to shake our faith.

In this lecture based on portions of Luke 22, Dr. John H. Gerstner looks to Peter as a model of Christian leadership whom the Devil attacked. Dr. Gerstner reminds us that we must never underestimate the opposition or overestimate our own strength, and calls us to always remember Jesus Christ who alone sustains those whom He has made leaders in the church.

"We cannot know that God exists," is something you thought would never be uttered from the mouth of Dr. R.C. Sproul. In this series, this statement, along with other assertions, are made by Dr. Sproul defying the possibility of knowing God as well as the existence of God.In Silencing the Devil, Dr. Sproul delivers the most common and forceful arguments against truth, God, and the Bible. But even Dr. Sproul as the Devil's advocate is no match for Dr. Gerstner's ability to turn false reasoning to dust. Silencing the Devil, while entertaining, is an effective and practical tool for defending the faith in this faithless world.

sword, while the peacemakers shall be called, even in this world, “the children of God.”

The second form of positive providence is internal. If there is no rest for the wicked even in this world, there is rest for the righteous even in this world. They have peace with God, access to grace, and hope of glory. For them to live is Christ and for them to die is gain, only because they will then have even more of Christ. For the Christian it is all this and heaven too.

Note how this internal joy transforms even the temporal bodily pain to which Christians are subject in this life. A former president of Colgate University was stricken and suffered almost incessantly. His son could not refrain from saying, “Father, I wish I could bear some of your pain for you.” To which this man replied, “Son, I do not have a pain to spare.”

A woman in a congregation where this story was told said, “That man must never have had gall bladder trouble!” But, seriously, a Christian has no pain to spare.

What shall it be for you? A positive or negative providence? Do you wish divine destiny to shape things rough or smooth? In this world and that which is to come?

Remember that providence is not fatalism. Your hewing is related to God’s shaping, and God’s shaping is related to your hewing.

them into all truth and not permit them to be misled fatally.

Now, where does the Church get the idea that it is the “pillar and ground of the truth”; that it is to “bind and loose” on earth? From the Bible! So it is the Bible which is the basis of the Church’s authority, not the Church which is the basis of the Bible’s authority. The Bible is the pillar on which the Church rests, not the Church the pillar on which the Bible rests. Incidentally, the expression in 1 Timothy 3:15 that the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth does not point to a pillar on which truth rests, but to a pillar on which truth was posted for public announcement in antiquity. In other words, it refers to the Church as witness to the truth, and not the basis of it.

But some will say that the Church came into existence before the Bible, and then called everyone’s attention to the Bible as the Word of God. This is true in an irrelevant sense and false in a relevant sense. When we say that it is true in an irrelevant sense that the Church existed before the Bible, we mean that granting the Church existed before the written and canonical form of the Bible is no proof of inerrancy. If, for example, the Church is thought of as beginning when the first sinners trusted in the mercy of God, and if sinful Adam and Eve were the first sinners to trust in the mercy of God, then the Church existed centuries before the Bible was probably written, and certainly many centuries before it was gathered into a canon of books recognized as the Bible. If the church is thought of as coming into existence at Pentecost,, then the Bible (the Old Testament) preceded it by centuries. Still, the New Testament Church would have preceded the New Testament Bible because there were New Testament Christians before a word of the New Testament was written.

All of this is obviously true, and just as obviously irrelevant to the matter in hand. First, granted that the Church, in a sense, existed before the Bible in its written form, what does this prove? According to the advocates of the view in question it is supposed to prove that the Church’s testimony is the argument for inerrancy. But does the Church’s testimony, which preceded the Bible, prove the inerrancy of the Bible? How does the fact that the Church may have preceded the Bible in existence prove that the Bible is inspired and inerrant? How does the fact that the previously existing Church testifies to the subsequently existing Bible prove the Bible to be what the Church says that it is? It is no doubt true that if the Church had not testified, and did not continue to testify, to the Bible as the Word of God, the world might soon forget about the Bible and thus never come to realize its

we do not consider it a form of Christianity. In my own book on the cults [Theology of the Major Sects, Baker Book House, 1960], I class it with the non-Christian sects. When discussing the sects, I mention that it is far more of a threat to the Christian church than are the Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christian Scientists put together. Anybody who is at all knowledgeable about those and other cults is immediately aware that they are not orthodox Christian bodies. But liberalism, flying at a “low level of visibility,” is often not seen as a cult or sect, which in fact it is. Consequently, it probably leads more Christian people astray than all the recognized cults combined, precisely because it is not recognized as a cult. On the contrary, it falsely represents itself as, and frequently is thought by its victims to be, a bona fide expression of the Christian religion.

We can see, however, that it is categorically opposed to Christianity at its heart. The way of salvation taught by the Christian religion (the liberal Mr. Cahill very correctly observed) is by faith in Jesus Christ; whereas, according to liberalism, a person is justified by his own efforts. He thinks he is justified by faith in himself.

(This series will continue with Gerstner's look at the neoorthodox view of justification)

Excerpted from Primitive Theology by John H. Gerstner.

Click here to read the first part of this series.

same proposition of Jesus that He was indeed God incarnate.

C: Correct. John’s Gospel concentrates on this theme, but we could also find evidence for Christ’s deity elsewhere. Before we go to a direct statement of Christ’s that clearly indicates His deity, let’s notice a feature of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and Luke that, while not mentioning deity directly, unmistakably implies it.

I: You’re referring to the famous sermon-lecture of Jesus on morals, where we have the Lord’s Prayer and the Golden Rule and so on?

C: Yes.

I: Are you saying that the Sermon on the Mount teaches the divinity of Jesus?

C: Indirectly, yes.

I: That’s the first time I have ever heard that. In fact, it is to the Sermon on the Mount that my friends, who do not believe in the deity of Christ, appeal.

C: I hope so. It may make believers out of them.

I: Show me.

C: The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew is found in chapters 5 through 7. Here Christ says the type of thing that leaves no doubt He assumes His own deity. For example, consider the Beatitudes in general. We’re all familiar with these. Many of us have memorized them: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” And so on. I’ll not cite them all, but just note that Jesus utters them with absolute finality and on His own authority alone. You know how the prophets would constantly say, “Thus saith the Lord.” They would always ground the authority of their message not on themselves but on its source in God, who had revealed His message to them. They make it very clear that they are the servants and He is the Lord.

I: Doesn’t Jesus call Himself the servant of the Lord?

C: True, He does say, “I came to do the Father’s will.” He was a man and He was subordinate to the divine will. He says so on a number of occasions. Nevertheless, on other occasions He appeals to nothing and relies on nothing. The authority of His message does not depend upon a source outside Himself.

I: How so?

C: In the Beatitudes, for example, on His own authority, He tells us who will inherit the kingdom of God, who will be the children of God, who will inherit the earth, and so on. No mere human being can say that on His own authority. He can give educated guesses. Or, if he is commissioned by God, he can say it in God’s name, but not of himself. Yet this man Jesus spoke these things very calmly with a supreme and serene authority appropriate only to deity itself. Is that not so?

I: I suppose you’re right. I had never thought of it that way before. As you say, I’ve known those Beatitudes for a long, long time. I’ve even memorized a good many of them. But since Jesus doesn’t say so in so many

to in the covenant of redemption, and applied to man in the covenant of grace.

Yet many of Edwards’ interpreters cannot seem to grasp this point. Some, as we have seen, even represent Edwards as virtually eliminating the doctrine, returning to the imagined purer Calvinism of Calvin. More recent studies of this subject, however, have begun to correct this persistent mistake. For example, Harry Stout, the present general editor of the Yale University Press edition of The Works of Jonathan Edwards, maintains that, “[Edwards] was every bit the federal theologian that his Puritan predecessors were.” This is a conclusion for which my Steps to Salvation gave extensive textual evidence as well as theological foundation as early as 1960, and for which Carl Bogue offered support on almost every one of the 312 pages of his 1975 book on the subject. Perhaps the reign of Miller’s mistake concerning Calvinism, Edwards and the covenant is finally drawing to a close.

testimony at any moment.

The Arminian, therefore, cannot, on his principles, have assurance of even momentary salvation, not to mention eternal salvation.

The Arminian interpretation thus destroys the testimony of Romans 8:16. If an Arminian evangelical claims even momentary assurance of salvation, he is a living contradiction. If he is true to his evangelicalism, he cannot have assurance. If he has assurance, he is not an Arminian.

Let us now consider the Reformed understanding of Romans 8:16 and assurance. It claims the text teaches that the Christian has a testimony of the divine and human spirits to the Christian’s eternal salvation. I have shown that this is an impossibility on Arminian principles. However, it is not only compatible with Reformed principles, but grows out of them. If there were no Romans 8:16, one could deduce it from hundreds of texts.

First, “children of God” (8:16) are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ forever (8:17) and cannot fall because they never cease to be the children of God. Arminians deny that this is possible. There are only two historic theologies that make any serious claim to being biblical, namely the Reformed and the Arminian evangelical. I am taking these two theologies as they understand themselves regarding this one text. The Reformed view affirms perseverance of the saints and the Arminian view denies it. Arminianism has been tried and fails because its own principles make even a momentary testimony of the Holy Spirit impossible. Reformed principles, in contrast, are perfectly harmonious with a testimony of the Holy Spirit because they teach that once a person is born again, that seed never dies and so remains in essential harmony with the Holy Spirit, who begot it, and with His testimony.

To, this concurrent testimony does occur and it will never change—except for the better. Furthermore, it must be a joint testimony to eternal life, giving the regenerate soul assurance of persevering in eternal life.

How many times have you heard atheists say that they do not believe in God because they believe in the Big Bang theory? Somewhere in that reasoning are unchallenged assumptions about the matter, or material, that makes up the universe. Is matter eternal like some suppose? Can it produce intelligence? In this mock debate between Dr. Sproul and Dr. John Gerstner, they look at the question, "Is There a God?"

How do we know the Bible is the inspired word of God? Is it because the Bible claims to be the Word of God? The Koran and the book of Mormon also make the same claim. What other source can we rely upon to prove the inspiration of the Bible? In this message, Dr. Sproul and Dr. John Gerstner have a mock debate over the question, "Is the Bible Inspired by God?"

How do we reconcile God's sovereignty with man's free will? Unfortunately, many in the church have offered answers that do not stand up to logic. While many others have charged that either God's sovereignty negates human freedom, or that human freedom overrides divine sovereignty. So which is it, Is God or man sovereign? Dr. Sproul and Dr. John Gerstner have a mock debate over this, in this message entitled "Is God or Man Sovereign?"