Jesus, Example or Savior?
Here are two fine quotes from andrew purves' "reconstructing pastoral theology"
"To be clear: union with Christ does not lead to an imitation of Christ, a life spent following Jesus’ example in the hope that we will become better people. The Christian life is not to be understood as obedience to either an ethical imperative or a spiritual ideal. Rather, the Christian life is the radical and converting participation in Jesus Christ’s own being and life, and thus a sharing in his righteousness, holiness, and mission through the bond of the Holy Spirit."
"Note, too, the emphasis I place on the work of the Holy Spirit. Union with Christ is entirely a work of God. Our human acts, beliefs, and decisions are powerless to effect a relationship with God. John Calvin understood that our deepest self had to become reconfigured and reconstituted or, to use his words, “regenerated” or “vivified,” through related to Jesus Christ. … God must reorder us be turning us in a new direction be uniting us to Jesus. So our being and becoming Christian is a divine initiative and not something that can be worked out through heightened religiosity, morality, activity, will, or spirituality. We are conjoined to Christ by the unilateral work of God though the Holy Spirit – to effect what Calvin called a “mystical union.”"
For further reading on this, you might be interested in a new essay Nathan and I co-wrote called Deconstructing Uncertainty which critiques the Emergent claims that faithfulness is to be pursued over against certainty
I would value your prayers...
I would value your prayers for today (Wednesday) and Friday as I have the opportunity of hosting a live 2 hour Christian radio call in show at KPXQ 1360AM in the Greater Phoenix area. The normal host of the program (Andrew Tallman) is away on vacation and has asked me to fill in for him for these two evenings.
The show consists of a 10-12 minute teaching segment that I will do (at the start of each hour) and then people can call in with comments and questions. I am told that up to 20,000 people are listening in at any given moment. Please pray that the word of God will go forth clearly and boldly and that I would have the grace and wisdom to handle any questions from the callers.
Though the radio station can only be heard in Arizona, should you be interested, you can also hear both shows live as they air from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. (Arizona time) on the internet here. - John Samson
May Giveaway - Win a $200 Shopping Spree
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Jesus - the Powerful and Perfect Savior
Dr. James White's 10 minute closing statement in a debate with George Bryson on Calvinism.
A Call to Revolution
It is the year 2008. The gospel has been spreading and the Kingdom of Christ has been growing for nearly two thousand years. But not without setbacks. For almost a thousand years, in the middle ages, the gospel was slowly obscured by the corruptions of a satanically-influenced medieval church. The light was almost entirely extinguished. But then God raised up a man, shaken to the core by a sudden insight into the inexpressably glorious truth proclaimed in Romans 1:17, “The just shall live by faith,” and the whole world was again turned upside down with the divine power of the gospel. Two hundred years later, when hypocrisy and self-motivated will-religion had nearly swallowed up the good effects of the Reformation, a diverse and unlikely group of men, including John Bunyan, John Owen, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and even John and Charles Wesley trumpeted the joyful news that once again shook up the sleeping world, and fueled a missions movement that has reached across the globe for the sake of the Name. And now, more than two hundred years later, the gospel that has once more been attacked and suppressed, and has given way on many fronts to the false gospels of prosperity, self-esteem, inclusivism, and tolerance, is on the rise again. The heavenly insights of Edwards, Owen, and others on the sovereignty of God, his unconquerable grace, and the joy which his glory produces in those who are his has fueled another generation of outnumbered but unfailingly victorious men and women ready to give up their lives for the King. A last, great missions-minded movement is preparing for a final thrust into the heart of unconquered territories, and the trumpet sound which announces that the kingdoms of this world are the kingdoms of our Savior can almost be heard.
John 3:16 - Exposing our Traditions
I wrote a short article on this verse some time back. In one section I wrote: It may come as a big surprise to learn that in the original Greek of John 3:16, there is no word "whoever." The word "whoever" is expressing a phrase in Greek which is difficult to express smoothly in English.
Literally, the text reads "in order that every the one believing in Him, not to perish, but have everlasting life." It says "every" or "all the one believing..." That's hard to express in English, but in essence, it is saying "all the believing ones." That's what is being communicated. It is saying that there is no such thing as a believing one who does not receive eternal life, but who perishes. Though our English translation says "whoever believes" the literal rendering is accurately translated as "every believing one" and the emphasis is NOT AT ALL on the "whosoever" but on the belief. The ones BELIEVING will not have one consequence but will have another. They will not perish but will have everlasting life.
Why? Because of the main verb - because God GAVE His Son. God gave His Son for the purpose (Greek: hina) that every believing one should not perish, but that every believing one should have everlasting life.
The text (John 3:16) actually speaks of a limitation of a particular rather than a universal redemption, for clearly, not everyone will be saved, but only those who believe in Christ. The Father gave His Son for the purpose of those who believe. The Son is given so that the believing ones will not perish, but opposite to that, have eternal life. That is the purpose of the giving.
So, what John 3:16 teaches is:
ALL who do A (believe in Him)
will not B (perish)
but will have C (everlasting life)
What does this text tell us about who WILL believe or who CAN believe? The answer is: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! The text does not address the issue of who WILL believe or who CAN believe.
However, if you do want to know John's view on who CAN exercise faith, he does deal with that question - just not in this text. If you go back a few verses in the chapter to John 3:3, John quotes Jesus as saying "unless a man is born again he CANNOT enter the kingdom of God." That's clear isn't it?
full article here...
"WHOSOEVER"
Visitor: You still must someday deal with the achilles heal of your theology. How do you reconcile "For God so loved the world that He gave his only Begotten Son the WHOSOEVER believes in Him will have eternal life" with a theology that believes God creates the vast majority of creation for the singular purpose of eternally damning them and their doom is sealed by the nature they were born with?
Response:
"For God so loved the world that He gave his only Begotten Son the WHOSOEVER believes in Him will have eternal life."
Friend, this is a passage from Scripture itself and I believe it just as it is written. WHOSOEVER believes the gospel will be saved. Anyone who's faith is in Jesus Christ, their sins are forgiven and they have eternal life. The misunderstanding here, I believe, is that you have failed to read the passage in its context. The passage (John 3) goes on to say, but men loved darkness and hate the light and will not come into the light ... those who do show what has been done is wrought by God. And prior to this same text is reads "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." (John 3:6) Which means that they "were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:13). "so then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy." (Rom 9:16)
Images of the Savior (6 -- The Promise Made to Abraham)
Of all the promises and foreshadows of the coming of Christ and his accomplishing his mighty work of redemption, there is none in all the Old Testament that is more foundational than the promise made to Abraham, when God called him out from the land of his people and brought him into the land of Canaan, and there entered into a solemn covenant with him, promising to be his God and his exceeding great reward. This calling and promise was so monumental as thoroughly to govern the course of redemptive history from that point on, and to shape forever afterward the nature and substance of the blessings which the promised Christ's redemption should provide. Thus it is that, at the conclusion of the history of God's redeeming his people, the final proclamation, sealing up every blessing and fulfilling every promise, will come in these words: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and he shall be God with them, their God” (Revelation 21:3). This is a conclusion that was most explicitly marked out in the calling of Abraham, and serves only as the actual accomplishment of all that was promised at that time; and at the heart of that promise, we see Christ himself, who should become “Immanuel,” that is, “God with us,” and so provide in himself the substance of every good thing which God had covenanted to give to Abraham and his offspring. It would certainly behove us, therefore, to look in more detail at this monumental occasion, in which the promise of a conquering Seed takes on a history-shaping clarity and significance.
Continue reading "Images of the Savior (6 -- The Promise Made to Abraham)" »
What was in C. S. Lewis' mind as he was writing the Chronicles of Narnia?
As the movie "Prince Caspian" starts to play in movie theaters in America today, it is very interesting to discover exactly what was in the mind of C. S. Lewis as he penned the book (of the same title) and the seven book series of which it is a part, known as "the Chronicles of Narnia." Dr. Leland Ryken has written a short but insightful article on this subject here that is well worth reading.
Thou Shall Not Steal
Where does you tax money go?
Economist M. Stanton Evans writes: "The principle beneficiaries of the money absorbed and dispensed by government are not poor blacks in ghettos or Appalachian whites or elderly pensioners receiving Social Security checks...The major beneficiaries, instead, are the employess of government itself--people engaged in administering some real or imagined service to the underprivileged or, as the case may be, the overprivileged ...the gross effect of increased government spending is to transfer money away from relatively low income people -- average taxpayers who must pay the bills--to relatively high income people--Federal functionaries who are being paid out of the taxpayer's pocket...the two richest counties in the United States are...Montgomery County Maryland, and Fairfax County, Virginia--principal bedroom communities for Federal Workers in Washington D.C." Ronald Nash, referring to the statement of the prominent black economist Walter E. Williams, that in 1979 the U.S. was spending $250 billion annually "just to fight poverty," responds: "Had this amount of money been distributed equally to all families below the poverty level, each of them would have received an annual payment of $34,000."
- M Stanton Evans and Walter E. Williams quoted by Ron Nash in Economic Justice and the State