Category Archives: People

The logic of the Virgin Birth

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‘The Virgin Birth meshes harmoniously with the rest of the New Testament message about Jesus. He himself worked miracles and rose miraculously from the dead, so no new problem is involved in affirming that he entered the world miraculously. He left the world supernaturally, by resurrection and ascension, so a supernatural way of arriving was entirely fitting. The stress laid on Jesus’ preincarnate dignity and glory (Jn 1:1-9; 17:5; 2 Cor 8:9; Php 2:5-11; Col 1:15-17; Heb 1:1-3; 1 Jn 1:1) made a mode of entry into incarnate life that involved proclamation of the glorious role he was coming to fulfill (Mt 1:21-23; Lk 1:31-35) more natural than any alternative.…

The justice of final judgement

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‘The justice of God’s final judgment, which Jesus will administer, according to the Gospel, lies in two things: first, the fact that what people receive is not only what they deserve but that they have in effect already chosen — namely, to be forever without God and therefore without any of the good that He gives; second, the fact that the sentence is proportioned to the knowledge of God’s Word, work and will that was actually disregarded (cf. …

Grudem on annihilationalism

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Wayne Grudem (Systematic Theology, p1150) notes the following arguments that are advanced in favour of annihilationalism:-

  1. the biblical references to the destruction of the wicked, which, some say, implies that they will no longer exist after they are destroyed (Phil. 3:19; 1 Thess. 5:3; 2 Thess. 1:9; 2 Peter 3:7; et al.);
  2. the apparent inconsistency of eternal conscious punishment with the love of God;
  3. the apparent injustice involved in the disproportion between sins committed in time and punishment that is eternal;
  4. the fact that the continuing presence of evil creatures in God’s universe will eternally mar the perfection of a universe that God created to reflect his glory.
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Did Jesus know Greek?

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‘The New Testament itself is written in a language Jesus never spoke.’

So claims Richard Rohr (The Divine Dance: The Trinity and your transformation) in a throwaway comment.  It is one of a large number of careless and inaccurate statements by this writer.

The two main languages spoken by Jews at the time were Aramaic (in everyday communication) and Hebrew (in more formal religious matters).  But what about Greek?  This language had been spoken in Palestine for several centuries. …

Moral application of the final judgment

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The biblical doctrine of final judgement has several important consequence for our lives here and now.

  1. It satisfies our sense of a need for justice in the world.  There is so much in the present world which is not fair.  Good people suffer, while evil people get off scot free.  Even the judicial system itself is susceptible to bias and bribery.  The Bible tells us that there will be a final reckoning, when the ‘books’ (Rev 20:12 – symbolising God’s record of what everyone has done in this life) will be opened. 
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How does Christ rule his church?

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After his resurrection, Jesus declared that ‘all authority is heaven and on earth’ had been given to him (Mt 28:18).  As Christians, then, we confess that ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ (Phil 2:9-11).

How does Christ exercise his authority in the church today?  Four possible answers have been given:-

  1. The Roman Catholic answer is that Christ rules his church through the magisterium, the teaching of the Pope and his bishops both in the past and in the present.
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Talk like a Babylonian

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We read that Daniel and his three friends were educated in, among other things, ‘the language of the Babylonians’ (Daniel 1:4).

There is great pressure on us today to avoid the language of the kingdom of God and to adopt instead the language of our culture.  John Lennox observes that ‘the wave of relativism now swamping Western thinking has increased the pressure to drop certain words from our languages and replace them with others that drive forward the secularist agenda of deconstructing the very nature of human beings and the society we live in.’…

‘The Sin of Certainty’ – 9

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So, finally, to the ninth and last chapter of Peter Enns’ book.

The need for certainty (according to Enns) fosters a number of unholy and unhealthy traits, such as: the ‘vigilant monitoring of who’s in and who’s out’, preoccupation with debating and defending the faith, over-valuing of logical arguments, and unquestioning conformity to intellectual authorities.

Such a faith does not promote trust either in God or others.  It provokes, rather, by fear and anxiety.  Trust does not grow in an atmosphere of dogmatic certainty.  …

Jesus: a ‘new and improved’ Moses?

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Should we regard the Old Testament and the New Testament as continuous, or discontinuous, with one another?  The standard evangelical approach is to regard the relationship between the two as that between bud and flower, source and stream, promise and fulfilment.

But many are troubled by the moral teaching and actions recorded in the Old Testament, and ask how this can be reconciled with the teaching and actions of Jesus.

Taking the difficult matter of the destruction of the Canaanites as his starting point, Peter Enns looks at Matthew’s Gospel, asking, ‘What would Jesus do?’…

‘The Sin of Certainty’ – 8

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In chapter 8 (‘Cultivating a habit of trust’), Peter Enns bares his heart.  We learn that in his forties, he went through a bad time.  His daughter had developed an anxiety disorder so severe that she had to be sent away to a boarding school far from home.  A seemingly co-incidental and almost trivial incident struck him as a ‘God-moment’ that helped him to see that we do not have to know and understand before we commit to God in faith.…