Pastor of Knox Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia,
Melbourne, Australia

Dr. Rowland S. Ward is the pastor of the Knox Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia, Melbourne, Australia. Dr. Ward is a graduate of the University of South Africa (BA, 1973; Hons B.Th., 1981), and the Free Church of Scotland College, Edinburgh (Diploma, 1975) and from the Australian College of Theology, Sydney (Ph.D., 1994). He has ministered in his hometown of Melbourne since 1981 and currently has an expanding ministry to Sudanese refugees.

Dr Ward has written extensively on Australian Presbyterianism including the major history, The Bush Still Burns: The Presbyterian & Reformed Faith in Australia 1788-1988. His books include works on baptism, spiritual gifts, psalmody, Genesis 1-11, a modern English Psalter and, most recently, an introduction to covenant theology called God and Adam: Reformed Theology and the Creation Covenant. He is co-author of the standard text Religious Bodies in Australia, a fourth edition being in course of preparation.

His special interest in the Westminster Assembly is reflected in his production of modern English texts of the Confession and both Catechisms, and a commentary on the Confession. He lectured on the Confession at the International Conference of Reformed Churches in the Netherlands in 1993, and on the Directory for Public Worship at the 75th anniversary of Westminster Theological Seminary in 2004, and has contributed an extensive article on subscription to Volume 3 of The Westminster Confession into the 21st Century.

Lecture Title: The Lord’s Day and the Westminster Confession

The lecture considers the progressive development of the doctrine of the Lord’s Day in the creedal history of the Reformed Church and provides a vindication of the Westminster doctrine. The legitimacy of the distinction between moral, ceremonial and civil laws in the Mosaic code
is maintained whilst affirming that we receive the moral law from the hands of Christ under the new covenant and not from Moses. That includes the Lord's Day as the renewal of God's creation Sabbath which points to the goal of history. The unattainable goal for humanity since Adam's
disobedience is a goal attained already in principle for God's people by Jesus Christ, the last Adam, and is to be bestowed on them in the climax of history and the new creation. Some historical notes conclude the lecture.