Mid-Term Short Answers

Question 1

Natural revelation

Answer 1

Natural revelation is the knowledge of man’s duty to God that comes from the conscience of man (mental, moral, and religious), creation, and providence. Though it is adequate to condemn man as being inexcusable before God, it is not sufficient in itself to guide man to salvation in Christ.

Question 2

Special revelation

Answer 2

Special revelation is the Word of God that gives that knowledge of God and His will set down upon the pages of Scripture. God’s special ways of verbal revelation are now complete, and the divine canon is fixed in the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments.

Question 3

Inspiration of Scripture

Answer 3

God, as the divine author, chose men, under the free power of their own faculties, to write the Scriptures by the agency of the Holy Spirit. All of Scripture is supernatural, dynamical (organic), plenary, and verbal.

Question 4

Infallibility of Scripture

Answer 4

Infallibility of Scripture is the belief that all of Scripture is without the possibility of error in its contents, form, and authority in all that it teaches. These qualities are absolute in the original autographs, but the subsequent copies passed down through the ages by God’s providence have been kept pure and so still authentic.

Question 5

Perspicuity of Scripture

Answer 5

Perspicuity is an archaic word for clarity. Not all of Scripture is clearly understood in themselves or by all who read it, but those things necessary for salvation in Christ are so clearly taught that any man may attain sufficient understanding through the use of ordinary means and the inward illumination of the Spirit.

Question 6

Define incommunicable attributes and list four

Answer 6

The incommunicable attributes of God are those essential qualities of God that are true to Him alone. These attributes include God’s immutability, immensity (basis for His omnipresence), incomprehensibility, omniscience, omnipotence, and eternality.

Question 7

Define communicable attributes and list four

Answer 7

The communicable attributes of God are those qualities in which man shares with God. These attributes include holiness, love, grace, mercy, long-suffering, goodness, truth, justice, wisdom, and power.

Question 8

Define election

Answer 8

According to God’s own pleasure, for the purpose of His glory, and by the means of Christ’s atoning work, God, in eternity, graciously, unchangeably, and efficaciously set the number of those whom He has chosen for salvation.

Question 9

Define reprobation

Answer 9

According to God’s own counsel and pleasure, for the glory of His sovereign power, and to the praise of His glorious justice, God passed by (preterition) and withheld mercy from those whom He ordained to be the objects of His divine wrath as a punishment for sin (condemnation).

Question 10

What is meant by the phrase “In the space of six days”?

Answer 10

“In the space of six days” is a term coined by John Calvin to denote the six lunar days of creation.

Question 11

What does it mean that God permitted the fall?

Answer 11

According to God’s infinite goodness, God ordained the Fall for His own holy ends. This is not by a bare permission by simply allowing sin to enter into the world, but an eternal decree, whereby sin arose from the will of man, which keeps God from being charged as the author of sin, while showing God’s sovereign power to hinder and restrain sin for His own purposes.

Question 12

Define the Covenant of works

Answer 12

The covenant of works is a legal covenant (thought still gracious in nature) that God made with Adam, as the federal head of all mankind, with the positive command to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Question 13

Define the Covenant of grace

Answer 13

The covenant of grace is a gracious covenant that God made with Christ in eternity that has both unconditional and conditional aspects. Unconditionally, Christ’s perfect obedience and full satisfaction fulfilled all conditions for His elect only; conditionally, man’s justification is by grace through faith in Christ.

Question 14

Active obedience

Answer 14

Christ’s active obedience is His perfectly fulfilling the entirety of the law in our place.

Question 15

Passive obedience

Answer 15

Christ’s passive obedience refers to Christ’s suffering: being born under the law, experiencing the miseries of this life, all leading to His atoning sacrifice on the cross.

Question 16

How is Christ a priest?

Answer 16

Christ offered up Himself as the sinless sacrifice to atone for the sins of the elect in order to satisfy divine justice and reconcile us to God, and is continually interceding on behalf of His people at the right hand of God.

Question 17

How is Christ a king?

Answer 17

Christ, as Head and King of His church, advances His kingdom by conquering the hearts of His elect, rules over them with love and wisdom as their Lawgiver, defends His own with His chastening love for disobedience and rewarding graces for obedience, and bounds and conquers His enemies that assault His church, and all this for His own glory.

Question 18

What was Christ’s humiliation?

Answer 18

Christ’s humiliation is that low condition in which Christ was born of a Virgin, voluntarily placing Himself under the law, experiencing the miseries of this life, the infinite wrath of God, was crucified, and remaining in the ground till the resurrection.

Question 19

What is Christ’s exaltation?

Answer 19

Christ’s exaltation is His rising from the grave on the third day by His own power as a sign of His victory over death and sin, appearing and conversing with His disciples for forty days, and ascending into heaven to the sit at the right hand of God where He rules over His church in full glory and power.

Question 20

What is effectual calling?

Answer 20

Effectual calling is the first step in the order of salvation which is the work of God’s Spirit to enlighten our minds, regenerate our hearts, and renew our wills. Once these three works are accomplished, we then willingly and affectionately come to Christ in faith.

Question 21

What is justification?

Answer 21

Those who are effectually called are then justified by the free grace of God. In this judicial act, the believer is pardoned of all guilt, reconciled to God, and declared righteous by Christ’s imputed righteousness, which is received through faith.

Question 22

What is adoption?

Answer 22

Adoption is grounded in justification and Christ’s work. It is an act of God when a person is brought into the family of God, has Christ’s name put upon them at baptism, they gain access to all the privileges of the sons of God, and are made co-heirs with Christ in glory.

Question 23

Who is the agent of sanctification?

Answer 23

The agent of sanctification is the Holy Spirit. This is a monergistic act of God whereby the Spirit uses the ordinary means of grace for the progressive work of mortification and vivification in the life of the believer.