A Theology of Lordship (4 vols.)

This first volume in John Frame’s Theology of Lordship series explores our relationship with God as a knowing relationship. He writes, “We tend to forget how often in Scripture God performs his mighty acts so that men will ‘know’ that he is Lord.” Frame thus examines our knowledge of God as it relates to our knowledge of ourselves and of the world in which we live.

Reflecting his conviction that theology is the application of Scripture to life in all situations, Frame combines trenchant analysis of theological, apologetic, and epistemological issues with refreshingly practical insights for living in the knowledge of God.

Like other books in the series, this volume analzses God’s lordship by means of threefold distinctions that derive ultimately from the doctrine of the Trinity. Lordship is God’s control, authority, and presence, and that triad provides three “perspectives” essential to human knowledge.

John Frame’s a Theology of Lordship series has been greeted with acclaim—and this second volume in the series received an ECPA Gold Medallion Award. The Doctrine of God provides Frame’s fullest exegetical defense of the centrality of God’s lordship in Scripture. He shows in detail the three aspects of that lordship—God’s control, authority, and presence—and then shows that all the Bible’s teaching about God’s nature and actions can be understood as applications of his lordship. God acts and speaks to us so that we may know that he is Lord. In this way, we can better understand the importance of Jesus’ lordship as creator and savior and the lordship of the Holy Spirit as he brings Christ to us and us into Jesus’ presence.

Frame also discusses the traditional controversies: divine sovereignty and human responsibility, the goodness of God and the evil in the world, whether we should ever speak of God as “mother,” the possibility that God “changes” in some way, the nature of miracles, divine election, and whether God is “in time.” On many of these issues, Frame explores new ground, remaining all the while within the bounds of Reformed orthodoxy.

The third volume in John Frame’s a Theology of Lordship series treats biblical ethics in its manifold relations to current issues and personal decisions.

In an age of ethical relativism and suspicion of authority, how can we know what is good, virtuous, or just? Frame surveys non-Christian ethical traditions before setting forth a solidly Christian ethical method. By clarifying biblical norms, life situations, and personal dimensions, he presents a model for decision making that honors God in all aspects of life.

Discussions range from analyzing natural law and conflict of duties, to exploring the Ten Commandments in connection with questions surrounding worship, the sabbath, church and state, respect for life and truth, sexuality, and the relation of Christ to culture.

This fourth and final volume in John Frame’s a Theology of Lordship series discusses God’s Word in modern theology and how God’s Word comes to us as his controlling power, meaningful authority, and personal presence.

Dr. Frame says that God’s speech to man is real—like one person speaking to another. “God speaks so that we can understand him and respond appropriately. Appropriate responses are of many kinds: belief, obedience, affection, repentance, laughter, pain, sadness, and so on. God’s speech is often propositional: God’s conveying information to us. But it is far more than that. It includes all the features, functions, beauty, and richness of language that we see in human communication, and more. So the concept I wish to defend is broader than the ‘propositional revelation’ that we argued so ardently forty years ago, though propositional revelation is part of it. My thesis is that God’s Word, in all its qualities and aspects, is a personal communication from him to us.”