Tried With Fire: Like Jesus, Part One
Because Jesus Christ is one and only one person, He can be named with either divine or human epithets.
Here is the point at which we encounter one of the strangest phenomena in Scripture. Sometimes the biblical writers speak of the person of Jesus under an epithet that applies to one nature but they focus upon properties that He possesses according to the other nature. Many examples of this phenomenon occur in the Bible.... Continue Reading
Preparing for Your Future
Preparing for our eventual death has benefits that we would do well to consider.
Question 37 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?” The answer is, “The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection.” In... Continue Reading
The Gag-Reflex and the Doctrine of Hell
Realigning Our Emotional Response to God's Justice
Hart’s rejection of the traditional doctrine of hell at least has the virtue of being clear. He does not mince words or hedge in the least. He rejects what the church has overwhelmingly taught and believed throughout its two-thousand year history. He knows he’s in the minority on this, but he nevertheless soldiers on in... Continue Reading
Pragmatism and Mustard Seed Faith
“What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
There are many parallels between what is going on the visible church at this time with what Charles Spurgeon called “the Down-Grade Controversy” in his time. In the latter part of the 19th Century, he began addressing the growing apostasy in the Baptist Union in Great Britain. This apostasy was fueled by those leaders who... Continue Reading
‘He is Not Here’
There was a time when some met Jesus, the eternal Word made flesh, as we meet each other.
Where is he? We have several answers. He has gone to his God and our God. He is in heaven. He is at the right hand of God Almighty. What does this mean? Someone once suggested that, like an author who is creating a play, as far as the creation of our space and time is... Continue Reading
How to Read Philippians Theologically
Perhaps, though the gospel is a primary feature of the letter, Paul intends to spend his time addressing issues of gospel fruit rather than the gospel itself.
Though the gospel is not defined here as it is in other books, we would be foolish to ignore its importance to the letter. Indeed, gospel concepts weave throughout the pages of Philippians, providing theological source for everything that follows. Namely, God has saved his people and united them to himself in Christ. In light... Continue Reading
Discovered: Nehemiah’s Wall
Archaeology proves the famous biblical account of a desperate attempt to fortify the Holy City.
Situated in the City of David, at the upper northern end of the Stepped Stone Structure, the Northern Tower was a poorly constructed fortified structure. It had the remains of a mikveh (ritual purification bath) on top. The Northern Tower was largely unearthed in the 1920s. Until 2007, archaeologists, including Dr. Mazar, generally assumed the tower dated... Continue Reading
A Creedal Christmas – Conceived by the Holy Spirit And Born Of The Virgin Mary
Jesus’ conception was unlike any other.
In respect to procreation, God had performed the miracle of miracles. The Holy Spirit Himself had caused Mary to be with child. Not that we want to parse the conception of Jesus in biological terms, but we do want to see the uniqueness of Jesus as God the Son, taking on developing humanity like any... Continue Reading
Your Greatest Dread or Greatest Delight
There is hope! The Lord has given sinners a sure salvation.
In the future, hearts far from God will experience the terror of God in his inescapable holiness. Revelation 6 says that one day, there will be nowhere to hide. All people, from the greatest to the least, will be exposed in their sin. God calls all Christians to personal holiness. To be holy means... Continue Reading
Experiencing the Love of God
The fact that God’s love has been ‘poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us’ is the key to understanding what it means to experience this love.
There are several places in the New Testament where we are given an insight into what it means to experience God’s love genuinely. One of the most helpful is found in Romans where Paul, rounding off his exposition of God’s justifying grace and how it leads to ‘hope’ says, ‘and hope does not put us... Continue Reading