Category Archives: Salvation

Can I know God? (2)

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It has been said that this is the ‘one thing in the world really worth pursuing’ (Robert H. Benson).

A.W. Tozer called it ‘the easiest and the most difficult thing in the world.’

What am I talking about?  Knowing God.  The Bible itself teaches us that:-

(a) it is what God himself desires,

Hos 6:6.  For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

(b) it is the gift that Jesus brings,

Jn 17:3  And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

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Heirs of God

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A summary of ch. 16 of Practical Religion, by J. C. Ryle

Rom 8: 14-17

The Apostle is speaking to the richest people on earth. The inheritance of which he speaks:-

  • is the only inheritance really worth having. All others are unsatisfying and ‘They bring with them many cares. They cannot cure an aching heart or lighten a heavy conscience. They cannot keep off family troubles. They cannot prevent sicknesses, bereavements, separation, and deaths.’
  • is the only inheritance which is within everybody’s reach.
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John 3:5 – ‘Born of water and spirit’

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John 3:5 Jesus answered, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

1. Some think that the expression refers to water baptism and spiritual regeneration by the Spirit

Such interpreters might represent baptism (either John’s baptism or Christian baptism) as a means of regeneration, and the Spirit as the primary cause of regeneration.  Note that John’s baptism with water and Jesus’ baptism with the Spirit are connected in Jn 1:33, and Christian baptism with water is connected with the reception of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2:38.…

Christ has dealt with the guilt, power, and presence of sin

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1. The guilt of sin. This is justification, ‘the very hinge and pillar of Christianity’, (Thomas Watson).

John Stott has said, ‘Nobody understands Christianity who does not understand…the word “justified”.’

Spurgeon tells the story of a man who was so constantly in debt and continually being arrested by the police, that once, when going by a fence, having caught his sleeve on one of the rails, he turned around and said, “I don’t owe you anything sir.”…

Substitution: objections answered

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To the doctrine of substitution, it might be objected that:-

1. It is unnecessary, since God could forgive sinners without any additional condition or requirement. But God is not only perfect love, desiring the salvation of the sinner, but also perfect justice. The Puritans used to say that there are three things that even God cannot do: he cannot die, lie, or deny himself. And for God to simply turn a blind eye to sin would be for him to deny his own nature.…

10 flavours of works-based salvation

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What are some of the different ways in which we imagine that we can commend ourselves to God and merit our salvation?

1. The Work of Philanthropy

“I’m going to give money.  I’m going to help the needy.”

2. The Work of Service

“I’m going to volunteer.  I’m going to give my time, my skill, my expertise.  I’m going to get my hands dirty.”

3. The Work of Ritual

“I’m going to be committed to confession, communion, prayers, church attendance.”…

Morality without redemption is frightening

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Or, to put it otherwise: ‘cancel culture makes liars of us all’.

The current fad for toppling statues of the great and the good when their ‘goodness’ is found to have been mixed with ‘badness’ is chilling in its implications.  Yesterday, it was Edward Colston.  Tomorrow, it may be John Newton, Winston Churchill, or even Mother Theresa herself.  And are you quite sure that there is not something lurking in your Twitter account that will not, one day, be held up to your eternal shame?…

Romans 5:18 – ‘Life for all?’

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Some have taken Paul to be teaching universalism here. For Kasemann, ‘all-powerful grace is unthinkable without eschatological universalism.’

In The Lost Message of Paul (ch 19), Steve Chalke insists that, for Paul, ‘all people’ must mean ‘all people without exception’.  The gift of life is co-extensive for ‘all men’ with the sentence of condemnation ‘for all men’.  To interpret otherwise, he says, is not only ‘disingenuous’, but also renders Paul’s language incoherent.  I think that Chalke’s summary rejection of alternative views, together with his dismissal of those who hold them as ‘disingenuous’ is irresponsible.…

Conditional election

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Down the centuries, various attempts have been made to avoid viewing divine election as God’s unconditional selection of individuals for eternal life.

In their concern to avoid pagan ideas of fatalism, many early church Fathers taught a synergistic view, in which the human will co-operates with the divine will in achieving salvation.  Origen (d. 254) wrote:

‘Foreknowledge precedes foreordination.… God observed beforehand the sequence of future events, and noticed the inclination of some men towards piety which followed on this inclination; and he foreknew them, knowing the present and foreknowing the future.…

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PS Central?

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As the pages of this blog testify, I gladly affirm the doctrine of penal substitution (PS).

The line I have tended to take is that this doctrine is one of a number of equally-valid and equally-important facets of atonement as taught in Scripture.  It takes its place alongside images such as ransom, reconciliation, ‘Christus Victor’, and so on.

I have been aware that a significant body of evangelicals regard PS as the pre-eminent account of the atonement. …