'Theological Issues' Tagged Posts (Page 4)

Mankind is dependent upon God for all things, even for the knowledge that God exists. Though God is under no obligation to reveal Himself, He chose to reveal Himself to mankind through creation. God reveals Himself as eternal, powerful, glorious, creative, orderly, loving, all-knowing, sovereign, and worthy of worship. By creating man in His own image, by giving him a soul, self-consciousness, the ability to reason, and a general knowledge of right and wrong, God reveals Himself as personal, holy,…

The issue of the presence of Christ in the elements of the Lord’s Supper has divided Christians for more than ten centuries.1 I will (1) examine the three primary views that have emerged (the Roman Catholic view, the Lutheran view, and the view of the rest of Protestantism) and (2) defend a version of the view of the rest of Protestantism from Scripture. Three Views What do the words, “This is My body” (Matt 26:26) mean? Three distinct answers to…

Thinking Biblically The love of God is beautiful and even breathtaking when considered rightly. God is infinite in His capacity to love, even loving fallen, rebellious sinners enough to send His beloved Son to die in their place (Romans 5:8). Of all the ways in which God’s perfection far surpasses human ability and effort, the most obvious and humbling is His perfect love. Have you ever truly contemplated the fact that an infinite and holy God loves human beings who…

Part 2: Speaking Biblically1 On a Christian radio station, a speaker recently declared: “God loves you so much that if He had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.” Messages like this are not hard to find these days. People are inundated with images of God’s love that picture Him in heaven, longingly looking down at the human race and wringing His hands, hoping every single person will realize just how much He loves them and how desperately He…

Part 1: Thinking Biblically “Providence” is a theological term describing God’s preserving, sustaining, ordering, ruling, and governing of His creation. Many have used the word “meticulous” to describe the extent of God’s providence. “Meticulous” providence depicts God as ordering and directing everything—every detail in the universe. According to this understanding, every event in nature and every human action and decision is according to God’s decree and purpose. There are a number of biblical texts which affirm this view. For example,…

Part 2: Speaking Biblically “God had nothing to do with September 11th.” Those words were reportedly spoken by a pastor in the days following the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers. Whether they were actually spoken as reported or not, I do not know. I certainly disagree with them. But they raise a good question: If it is biblical to understand, as I tried to affirm in Part 1 of this article, that God in His providence is the “Author”…

Part 1: Thinking Biblically "Every person has an image of himself or herself. The question is, does your image of who you are line up correctly with who God says you are?" I found those words in a best-selling religious book, in a chapter entitled "Who Do You Think You Are?" The author, who is also the pastor of a very large church, made no attempt to distinguish between Christians and unbelievers before saying, to every reader, "God sees you…

Faith and Grace in Relation to the Death of Christ As important as faith is in salvation, when a person believes and is justified, it is not faith that saves him—not even partially. Faith cannot appease God’s wrath. Only the blood of the perfect sacrifice can accomplish that. Nor does faith prompt God to save. A person is granted the ability and inclination to believe, through regeneration, precisely because God has chosen him for salvation (cf. Phil. 1:29; 2 Thess…

Part 2: Speaking Biblically In his book, So Great Salvation, Dr. Charles Ryrie, the former Professor of Systematic Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary, includes a chapter entitled, "It’s Not Easy To Believe." In the beginning of the chapter he writes, "When we ask someone to believe in the Lord Jesus, we are asking something very difficult." The difficulty Dr. Ryrie speaks of is the nature of the body of truth that must be believed. Factors such as our historical distance…

A Finished Work As we learned in the last issue of Basic Truth, Jesus did not come to merely make men savable. He came to “save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). As Jesus said of Himself, “the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10, cf. Ezek. 34:11-15). It is necessary here to distinguish between secured salvation and applied salvation. On the cross, Jesus secured the salvation that is applied…

Creation Ex Nihilo Paul described God as the One “who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist” (Romans 4:17, NASB). His words are the perfect definition of the Hebrew word for “create” (bara) used in Genesis 1:1. The word literally means “to bring something into existence that did not exist before.” God created everything that now exists ex nihilo, a Latin term meaning “out of nothing.” A sculptor will take a rough piece…