Article archive
07/23/2018 08:28
Before moving on to step 3 in our building blocks of the atonement, I want to make a couple more points about our human existence before sin. The multiple-in-one construct we talked about for God (and thus extended to his created image bearers) is a necessity of being. We have talked about his...
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07/16/2018 07:21
Paul had concluded Romans 13 with a call to wake up. In our slumbering movement through life, we easily become prey to those sinful influences he describes. He urges instead to walk in realization of new life, and he does so by telling us to put on Christ. How do we put on Christ? And . . . didn’t...
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06/11/2018 07:36
Beginning in verse 17 of Romans 12, Paul begins a subtle change to the attitude and action of the Christian to others. The first part of the chapter so far concentrated on the Christian family—people sharing the redemptive transformation of Christ’s atonement. In verse 17, Paul’s “anyone” and...
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06/04/2018 08:39
We had begun last time to talk about God’s infinite compassion but became somewhat stuck on the point of the seeming absence of (or rather defeat of) compassion when it came head to head against his justice. God is truth, goodness, and beauty, we argue. And absolute justice is involved in TGB. So,...
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05/21/2018 07:51
We are going to return briefly to the opening of chapter 12 to ensure we have a comprehensive hold on Paul’s direction. As mentioned earlier, when Paul says in verse 1 of chapter 12 to present our bodies as living sacrifices, his emphasis is not on the performance of dutiful obedience to God. In...
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04/30/2018 07:15
Paul has ended the major discussion of redemption’s plan, but he’s still writing. And that means that although a topic change of sorts is coming up, it is a flow from what he has said—not simply opening a new door. Romans isn’t built as a topical series (although some of his other letters are)....
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04/23/2018 07:48
Our redemption discussion started with understanding the nature of our infinite, creator God. He created for relationship because he is a relational God, existing in Trinitarian multiple-in-oneness to base relationship on his one essence of truth, goodness, and beauty while expressing it in love....
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04/16/2018 08:51
Chapter 11 will conclude the main thrust of Romans that Paul began back in chapter 1. He is discussing the Gospel, or as a whole, the redemption plan of God. However, he has been doing so particularly concerned with setting it against the Jews’ faulty idea of what God’s rescue and relationship with...
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04/09/2018 05:50
As we have discussed, the first part of chapter 10 relates to Israel the Nation’s failure to prevail because of their ignorance of the faith condition as what made true relationship possible with God—and the faith is not merely that God exists, but since God is source of truth, goodness, and beauty...
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03/26/2018 07:50
So far through chapter 10, we have discussed how the Jews misunderstood salvation’s righteousness and the right relationship of good works to righteousness. The Jews’ misunderstanding placed works (obedience to command—following the Law) as a means to show righteousness. It was a works-based...
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