Reformed Vocab
This list was compiled from catechism material written by Dr. Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Associate professor of systematic Theology at Calvin Theological Seminary. Used with permission.
Terms
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- Covenant Promises
- God's promises in the covenant of Grace is that he will love his people, help them and protect them
- justification
- God's acceptance of unacceptable people
- Attributes of God
- God's characteristics or qualities such as goodness and greatness.
- God's Speaking
- God's communication to us
- Guilt
- What we have when we break God's law and deserve the laws penalty
- Original Sin
- The corruption and guilt that the human race has inherited from Adam and Eve
- Sovereignty of God
- The attribute of God which means the he is supreme and in control
- incarnation
- the event in which the eternal son of god took on human flesh, which we celebrate as Christmas
- Triune
- being a triple and a unit at the same time
- atonement
- the process by which Jesus Christ put right hat sin put wrong
- The Fall
- The event in which our first parents disobeyed God and thus brought evil into the world
- Creation
- The sovereign act of God by which he brought into being the whole universe from nothing
- Image of God
- The likeness of God in human beings
- Bible
- The book that contains the writings and scriptures that Christians recognize as the written word of God
- Evil
- The combinations of sin and misery that we see in the world around us
- Misery
- The pain and suffering that come from sin; the fallout that comes from the fall
- Doctrine
- The Church's teachings about God and our salvation, based on the Bible
- Providence
- The care that God shows for all his creations
- Greatness of God
- An attribute of God meaning that God is awesome
- Inspiration of Scripture
- The Process by which God "breathed" into biblical writers what he wanted them to write.
- freedom
- the removal of the things that drag us down and the opening up to joyful life in God
- reconciliation
- restoring peace and harmony to estranged parties
- Tragedy of the Fall
- the fact that the fall happens not to unimportant creatures, but to people made in God's image
- Confessions
- Carefully organized written statements of Doctrine
- Disorder
- The loss of harmony and a right relation in the universe
- God's Word
- What God says in his speaking
- satisfaction
- giving someone what he has coming, so has to "fill up an empty space" in him
- Covenant Obligations
- the duties God's people owe to God
- faith
- the bond to Christ from our side
- reformed
- to be reformed is ton confess to the common Christian faith with a special accent.
- Common Grace
- God's way of partly stopping corruption so that human life can continue
- Shame
- A sense of humiliation or sin
- Authority of Scripture
- The power of the bible to influence our believing and acting
- forgiveness of sins
- the subtracting, or putting away, of sins so that they are no longer held against us
- repentance
- the complete turning around of our lives
- Law of God
- the statement of what God wants from us.
- Corruption
- the seeping or flooding power of sin
- Estrangement
- A disorder in which persons or things that ought to be friends become strangers instead
- The kingdom of God
- God's reign over his universal realm
- redemption
- to rescue someone by paying a ransom
- Covenant
- A solemn agreement or pact
- Circumcision
- The old testament sign and seal of the covenant of grace
- Grace
- Loving kindness to a person of misery
- sanctification
- the lifelong conversation by which Christians become gradually holier-- that is, more like Jesus Christ
- Infallibility of Scripture
- the quality of the bible that means it will not fail
- Goodness of God
- Attribute of God meaning that he satisfies the needs of all his creatures