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Tag: Jesus Christ
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God is Incomprehensible
Defining Incomprehensibility
Incomprehensibility is that theological concept that, negatively, means what cannot be known of God, and, positively, means that only particulars can be known of God without fully circumscribing the entirety of Him.
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Definitions in Philosophy and Theology
I started this post just reviewing patristic quotes of immutability, but as I’ve thought through the idea, I think that I need to review definitions of some basic words used in theology and philosophy, and really think through some implications. I’ve decided this post should be split into multiple posts. I should probably also re-write a lot of this and try to publish it somewhere, and actually make some income off of my thoughts [which, if you do think this deserves some level of monetary support, please do donate!!]. Regardless–
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God is Inscrutable
I’ve not written any personal reflections in quite a while. For one reason, it is because I went through a brutal divorce. For another, it is because I’ve been pondering a lot, and I hate to release anything that isn’t based in well-researched writing. But, now I’ve decided that I should just write about what I’m thinking through for my own benefit, and see if anyone has interesting or fruitful comments to have a discussion about this.
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Atonement Thoughts
How did Christ atone for His People?Protestant Theologians debate whether it was in an Equivalent or Exact Sense:Equivalent:“Not indefinite as to the duration, still…equivalent as to the value on account of the Person suffering.” -TurretinExact:“Christ “made satisfaction by undergoing the same punishment…they themselves were bound to undergo…essentially the same in weight and pressure, though not in all accident of duration and the like.” -Owen, quoted in “He Died for Me” p. 114.Unsure:“He was to suffer what we were to suffer, if not the exact, every way the same, yet the equivalent, that which was sufficient to Christ’s ends” -Thomas Manton, quoted in “He Died for Me” p. 118. -
The Historical Jesus Goes To University
The Historical Jesus Goes To University
Though I agree with J. Gresham Machen that McGrath’s form of liberal/progressive Christianity is “another religion”, I still applaud McGrath’s recent post for showing that scholars across the board recognize Jesus as an historical person.
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The Necessity And Limits Of The Imitation Of Christ (2)
The Necessity And Limits Of The Imitation Of Christ (2)
Big debate in the Reformed world. Good summary of what it means to imitate Christ.
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Let Them Come Home (John and Abraham Piper)
Let Them Come Home (John and Abraham Piper)
In a recent Christianity Today interview, John Piper recounts the painful events surrounding the excommunication of his 19 year old son, Abraham. The night after that excommunication, I called him … -
The Book of Revelation: How Difficult Was Its Journey into the Canon?
The Book of Revelation: How Difficult Was Its Journey into the Canon?
The story of the New Testament canon is a fascinating one, with many twists and turns. There are books that were accepted very quickly, almost from the start (e.g., the four gospels), and there ar… -
The Cosmic Navel, The Silver Cord: The Body of Christ
I am reading an article concerning Jewish (rabbinic) thought on the possibility of incarnation. The author suggests that a rabbinic form of prayer, kawwanah, implies that if God is capable of being ‘imaged’ in prayer in His shekhinah glory, then He is capable of incarnation. But in the midst of all of this he spends a good bit of time discussing the direction of prayer, and how the Holy of Holies is to be prayed towards because it houses the glory-cloud of God, enthroned between the cherubim. He says,
Prayers are to be directed to…the cosmic navel, the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem.
But when you consider what Christ tells us about prayer it blows all of this rabbinic nuancing out of the water. The true believers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth–not towards Jerusalem, not towards Samaria–but in Spirit. Similarly, we are taught that the Church in Christ is the ‘naos’–the inner-chamber of the temple–to the Holy Spirit. We do not pray to a location because we are the location of God’s glorious presence through the Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:21). In this sense, those joined to Jesus by faith are the ‘cosmic navel’, the belly-button of the universe. Since Jesus has sent us the Spirit, and intercedes with the Father in the heavenly ‘temple’, we have access to God that those outside of Christ cannot begin to fathom.