Biblical Studies

Those familiar with C. S. Lewis's conversion and his finding of Joy are familiar with his lifelong interest in myth and imagination. That there could be (or might be) a real, wider, magical world out there, a true Myth, was something he longed for, but as a materialist, could not personally accept. At least, at first.  Lewis was not looking for personal salvation; he was looking for a reality that the myths and his imagination were hinting at: "It is more important that Heaven should exist than that any of us should reach it." (C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy , p. 211) (Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1955) Thus, Christianity, he discovered, is the True Myth which inspires -- or properly, should inspire -- all true wonder and joy in its adherents. His close friend, J. R. R. Tolkien, had a very similar approach to the Gospel account. He called it "a eucatastrophic tale" -- a term he coins -- meaning a good catastrophe , much like a fairy-tale or ancient legend which ha...

"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life -- the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us..." (1:1-2)  THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN. In this first epistle from the Apostle John there are many themes carried over from the gospel which he wrote, the Gospel of John. He is writing late in the first century to a number of churches in Asia Minor (now Turkey), including Ephesus, where he lived his last years and was buried.  It seems that his readers were being tempted to move toward a hybridized philosophy of Christ, which was more acceptable to Greek thinking at that time.  This included a de-emphasis on the humanity of Jesus (some of the later Gnostics would say that Jesus was a kind of hologram from heaven), and an over-emphasis on knowl...

1. The Old Testament foreshadowed the resurrection of Christ. (Ps 16:10; Isa 53:11-12) 2. Jesus himself predicted it. (Matt 16:21; 17:9)   3. The Apostles witnessed it. (John 21:24; Acts 1:22) 4. The resurrection authenticates Christ’s identity. (John 11:25; Rom 1:4)  5. Christ’s resurrection is the first stage of his exaltation and return to glory with the Father. (Eph 1:20; 1 Pet 1:21) 6. It confirms the validity of our justification, by which we now can have a good conscience before God. (Rom 4:25; 1 Cor 15:17; 1 Pet 3:21) 7. Christ’s resurrection is an inseparable part of the gospel. (Acts 4:10; Rom 10:9; 1 Cor 15:3-4)  8. Because of our union with Christ, his resurrection has become the shaping power of our new life. (Rom 6:5; Phil 3:10)   9. The resurrection is proof that Christ is our living Hope. (Heb 10:20; 1 Pet 1:3) 10. It affirms the value of the human body & becomes the guarantee of our future physical resurrection....

"Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field." (Genesis 2:19, 20 ESV) Again and again, I marvel at the miracle of language and the power of words. Human language is not the result of evolutionary development from grunts and sounds to vocal articulation, it is the gift from a communicating Creator to his creatures made in the image of God .  German theologian Erich Sauer comments on Genesis chapter two...   "What is a word? A sound, a note, a tone which goes out of the mouth! Yet much more! A conveyor of a motion of the spirit, an instrument for manifesting the intelligence, a sign, a sound-symbol of an activity of the soul. Only through the gift of the spirit and speech man becomes really ...

"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2:5-8)  God's Son, our Lord Jesus, "took the form of a bondservant..." and came into our world. This passage, along with John 1 and others, clearly teaches the pre-existence and deity of Jesus Christ. The point here is not that the second Person of the Trinity ceased to be God, but rather that he took a human nature and dwelt among us as a man. Jesus was not two people, nor was he one person who was half-God and half-human. He is one Person with two natures. World religions may say that Jesus was a man, a great man, or even a prophet. Or they may say he was a spiritual emanation of God, ...

“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning."  (John 15:26-27) We are called to be witnesses for Christ (Acts 1:8). Yet sometimes we may feel outnumbered and alone in giving our witness. Our witness is our testimony of how and why we have come to trust the Lord Jesus. It's telling about what we know to be true and our experience of it.  We may feel opposition from our hostile culture and be intimidated. Yet we need to remember our testimony, our witness, is one among many that confronts and weighs upon unbelievers .   Who are these fellow witnesses? There are seven "testimonies" to the reality of God, his power, and his grace given to us in Jesus Christ. 1)   The witness of creation (Psalm 19:1-2; Acts 14:7; Romans 1:20). People may suppress this knowledge, but there is...

Christian apologetics is the study of the philosophy and method of defending the Christian faith.  Since taking apologetics courses in seminary, and over 35 years of pastoral ministry, I have found these books to be the most helpful to me.  Admittedly, they range from presuppositional to evidential in their approach -- but I have discovered that God freely uses a variety of means in bringing people to himself.  Blomberg, Craig L. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (IVP Academic, 2007).  This is a very good, scholarly overview on that topic.    Geisler, Norman L., and Turek, Frank. I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Crossway, 2004). An excellent walk-through of the evidences for, and reasons why, we believe.    Groothuis, Douglas. Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith (IVP Academic, 2011). This is a larger reference work, and very worthwhile to have; it covers many of the issues and topics related to a...

 "...who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father..." (Galatians 1:4) In commenting on this verse, Martin Luther wrote the following... "Human reason wants sin to have no greater power than we imagine it has. That is why hypocrites, being ignorant of Christ, feel the remorse of sin but think they can easily get rid of it by their good works and merits. Secretly, in their hearts, they wish that these words, who gave himself for our sins, were words of overstatement; they want their sins not to be true and real sins but light and small matters. In short, human reason wants to present to God not a real sinner but a pretend one, unafraid of anything, without any feeling of sin. It wants to bring to God one who is well, not one who needs a physician; and when it feels no sin, then it wants to believe that Christ was given for our sins… "True Christian wisdom regards these words of Paul as most true, ef...

Jesus replied, "Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad." "You are not yet fifty years old," the Jews said to him, "and you have seen Abraham!" "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I AM!" At this, they picked up stones to stone him. (John 8:55-59 NIV) [This is a repost from 2009, giving the outline and quotes shared by Dr. David Kingston from his October 4 sermon that year. He stated that much of the outline came from John Stott's excellent little book, Basic Christianity (Eerdmans, 1999).] 1. The Importance of the Doctrine A. It is central to Christian faith. B. The fact that Jesus Christ is God distinguishes Christianity from other major religions C. If Jesus was not God, then His death had no special significance, and we are still the objects of God’s wrath. D. If Jesus was not God, then He is not coming back again to establish His kingdom. The Nicene Cree...

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." (Matthew 5:6 ESV) Geerhardus Vos served as Professor of Biblical Theology at Princeton Seminary from 1892 to 1932. A collection of the sermons he gave in chapel between 1896 and 1913 is available as Grace and Glory , now being published by Banner of Truth (2020).  Below are some excerpts from his sermon, "Hungering and Thirsting for Righteousness", taken from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five... "It is God's inalienable right as God to impress his character upon us, to make and keep us reflectors of his infinite glory. But in a state of sin this can only intensify a thousand times the consciousness of man's utter inability even to begin to realize what nevertheless is the very core of his end in life, the sole ultimate reason for his existence." "[T]he purpose of this demand of God-likeness is not to be primarily sought in the desirability for ma...

"I was glad when they said to me, 'Let us go to the house of the LORD!'" (Psalm 122:1) THE SONGS OF ASCENTS  are Psalms 120--134. These fifteen psalms are called the psalms of ascents, because traditionally they were recited on the way to the temple on Mount Zion, in Jerusalem. Each psalm has a particular theme related to being a pilgrim on the way to God's house.  Why are these psalms in the Bible? I believe that it is because we need to know that we, like the ancient Israelites, are citizens of the kingdom of God, sojourning in this world as resident aliens. We're on our way to God's glorious eternal kingdom in the new heaven and new earth (Matt 6:33; Heb 11:16; 1 Pet 2:9-12; 2 Pet 3:13). Here are the fifteen themes.  DEPARTURE (120). The psalmist does not literally dwell in Meshech (to the far north of Israel) or Kedar (far to the east) but feels as if he lives among barbarian people who do not care about the God of Israel. Their lives are characteriz...

In the preface to his book To Be Near Unto God , Abraham Kuyper has these comments about having a proper mystical sense in our relationship with God...  As in everything that risks itself in the depth of mysticism, so in the preparation of these Meditations, lurked undeniable danger. The soul that seeks God involuntarily inclines to step across the boundary appointed of God, defined by the word "near," and to force an entrance into His Being. From the first I was on guard against this danger, and I believe I have escaped it. On the other hand, fear of this danger could not be allowed to repress that fervor and that spiritual warmth, which refreshes the soul only when the feelings are aroused and the imagination awakened. Mere thinking is not meditation, this is something quite different, and, in view of the wide-awake preparedness necessary to withstand the constant onslaught waged from the gates of hell against the Church of the living God, with a fierceness that neither res...

" Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you." (Psalm 73:25 ESV) Over many months I have been reading Abraham Kuyper's book, To Be Near Unto God (1908), which is a series of devotionals (110 of them), written while he served as prime minister of The Netherlands from 1901 to 1905. Eerdmans published an English edition in 1918, which I have just finished.  Kuyper was a remarkable Dutch Reformed theologian, and his devotional writings have a refreshing balance of doctrine and mysticism. He is doctrinally Protestant and Reformed, but often he writes like Thomas a Kempis.  Here's an excerpt from one of his chapters, where he is commenting on Psalm 73:25...  "By itself this means to know nothing in heaven but God, which is quite the same as to love God with all the mind and soul and heart. But Asaph's question puts the matter still more clearly before us. The struggle of our heart on earth is, that it goes out after all ...

In one of our Bible studies, we're going through Paul's epistle to the Romans. We're in chapter seven, discussing what he means by no longer being under the Law. Here's a good quote from F. F. Bruce... "The tension which finds expression in Romans 7:14-25 is the tension necessarily set up when one lives 'between the times' – in two eons simultaneously. How can one who exists temporally in 'the present evil age' nevertheless enjoy deliverance from it and live here and now the life of the age to come? By the aid of the indwelling Spirit, who not only makes effective in the believer the saving benefits of Christ's passion but also secures to him in advance the blessings of the age to come."  "Paul goes on farther to show that the law in its stricter sense, as the embodiment of God's will, is upheld and fulfilled more adequately in the age of faith than was possible 'before faith came', when law kept the people of God 'unde...

"...I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me..." (Isaiah 46:9)  "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen." Romans 11:36) In a recent newsletter I wrote briefly about the aseity of God , that is, his self-existence and independence. This is the attribute we should begin with when we are thinking about what God is like. Theologian Herman Bavinck writes the following in his Reformed Dogmatics: When the church fathers, in their attempt to determine the nature of God's being, started with the name YHWH and described him as "Being," they had in mind not God's being apart from his attributes, but the total fullness of God's being as it exists and is revealed in his attributes. Hence, the being ascribed to God was not an abstraction but a living, infinitely rich, and concrete Being, a Supreme Being at once identical with supreme life, supreme truth, supreme wisdom, supreme love (...