Ian Hamilton Resources

What would you say is the fundamental doctrine of the Christian Faith? For many of us, the instinctive answer would be, ‘justification by faith alone, in Christ alone’. There is no doubt, or should be no doubt, that this is a biblical and evangelical fundamental. Didn’t Martin Luther describe justification by faith alone, in Christ […]

The Christian believer is always living in an inescapable tension! Much as we would love to be free of this tension, until we leave this earthly scene and enter the nearer presence of our great and gracious God, we will be engaged every moment of every day in this tension. I hardly need to spell […]

The Christian life is full of extraordinary ‘highs’ and unsettling ‘lows’. This is something young Christians are often unprepared for. And yet God’s Word could not be clearer that our spiritual good requires that the Lord lead us through dark valleys as well as lifting us up to expansive mountain tops. This is why reading […]

Surely some of the most staggering words in the New Testament are found in 2 Corinthians 2:14: ‘But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.’ If you are a Christian, however bad or poor or despondent you […]

On All Hallows’ Eve 1517, Martin Luther nailed 95 Theses or Statements to the door of the parish church in Wittenberg. Luther had little idea at the time of how incendiary these Theses were to become. But in God’s sovereign providence the Theses ignited a movement of protest that became the Protestant Reformation, and the […]

Paul must have been an unsettling companion. For Paul, the Christian life could never be lived with half measures. He was an all or nothing man. The gospel of God’s grace in Christ had not only captured him, it had captivated him. He counted everything (yes, everything) as loss ‘because of the surpassing worth of […]

Some verses in the Bible are deeply disturbing, and unexpected. As Paul commends Timothy to the church in Philippi, he tells them, ‘I have no one like him (of like soul), who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare (Phil. 2:20). So far, so good. But then Paul continues, ‘For they all seek their own […]

The work of the Christian ministry can be lonely and discouraging. When Paul arrived in Corinth (Acts 18), the ‘Lord said to (him) one night in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you”‘ […]

Our Lord Jesus’ teaching is always deeply searching, sometimes almost unbearably so. Few statements of our Lord are more calculated to search out our hearts than what he says about ‘specks’ and ‘planks’ (Matt. 7:1-5). The picture conveyed by our Lord is almost comical. A man with a huge plank of wood sticking out of […]

John Brown was one of the most illustrious Bible commentators of the nineteenth century. The Banner of Truth publishes his commentaries on Galatians and Hebrews in the ‘Geneva’ series, and his 3-volume work on The Discourses and Sayings of our Lord. Also published by Banner of Truth, but currently out of print, is his 2-volume […]

One of the recurring struggles every Christian without exception has is the struggle to realise how astonishingly blessed it is to be a Christian. I would like to remind you (and myself) of the vast, inconceivable privilege it is to be a Christian. A Christian is someone who has been called by ‘the God of […]

We live in a mad, as well as a bad, world. The pace of life is simply frenetic, and shows few if any signs of slowing down. One danger facing the Christian in this mad, bad world is that we become swept along in the rush and never really take, and make, the time to […]

One of the most sobering verses in the Bible is Hebrews 2:3 – ‘How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?’ The Letter to the Hebrews was written to Christians who were being tempted to turn back to some form of Judaism. Perhaps the pressure and cost of ‘being different’ was beginning […]

The Word of God has much to say to us about ‘the deceitfulness of sin’ (Heb. 3:13). The evil that is sin will do all it can to persuade you to taste its wares, to embrace its offers, to sit at its table and eat its food. I would like in this pastoral letter to […]

The Christian life is simultaneously a great joy and a great struggle. The joy and the struggle are synchronous, not sequential. It is not that we somehow graduate beyond the struggle to a life of ‘joy and peace in believing.’ To think this is to fail to understand just what the Christian life is. Let […]

Ian Hamilton was a minister for many years in the Church of Scotland. Since 1999 he has been the pastor of Cambridge Presbyterian Church. His book, The Erosion of Calvinist Orthodoxy: Drifting from the Truth in Confessional Scottish Churches1 has just been reissued in a revised edition with a new introduction, a chapter that details […]

If anyone in the ancient world wanted to know how to write, he read Marcus Fabius Quintilianus’ Institutio Oratorio. Among other things, Marcus pleaded that if you wanted to win the assent of your readers you must begin with a ‘courteou’a courteous and natural opening’; rather, he begins by calling down God’s curse of eternal […]

I read some time ago in James Denney’s commentary on 2 Corinthians these words: as Paul moved through the world, all who had eyes to see saw in him not only the power but the sweetness of God’s redeeming love. The mighty Victor made manifest through him, not only His might, but His charm, not […]

In September of 1840, Robert Murray M’Cheyne, wrote a letter to William Chalmers Burns: I am deepened in my conviction, that if we are to be instruments in [a true revival] we must be purified from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. Oh, cry for personal holiness, constant nearness to God by the blood […]

The longing for happiness is etched indelibly in every human heart. We seek for happiness, we ache for happiness and we will do almost anything to secure happiness. Our problem is, however, that most people neither know what happiness is, nor where they can find it. Sin has blinded our minds, corrupted our hearts and […]

The day before John Owen departed to be with Christ (23 August 1683), he dictated his last letter to a friend: ‘I am going to him whom my soul has loved, or rather who has loved me with an everlasting love, – which is the whole ground of my consolation.’ The following day, William Payne […]

We live in what is often called the age of post-modernism. Truth is relative, we are told. Cultures change, people change, and the old ways of thinking need to keep pace with the changes. If churches want to survive in this post-modern age, then they must adapt or die (that is ‘religious speak’ for, ‘Re-interpret […]

Every true minister of the gospel is committed to preaching the Word, the whole Word, and nothing but the Word. We are committed to doing this in season and out of season, when times are good and when times are bad. We do so because we believe that the Scriptures make us wise for salvation […]

Of all the dangers that can overtake a Reformed church, pride is surely the worst and most serious. There is, of course, a right kind of pride, a thankfulness to God for our history and heritage. But the pride I am thinking of, is that ugly, self-righteous, self-preening brute that says with the Pharisees, ‘God, […]

A Tale of Two Cities The Christian believer is always living in an inescapable tension! Much as we would love to be free of this tension, until we leave this earthly scene and enter the nearer presence of our great and gracious God, we will be engaged every moment of every day in this tension. […]