I saw them tearing a building down,
A gang of men in a dusty town.
With ‘yo heave ho’ and a lusty yell,
They swung a beam and the side wall fell.
I asked the foreman if these men were skilled
As the men he’d hire, if he were to build.
He laughed and said, ‘Oh, no indeed.
Common labour is all I need.’
For those men can wreck in a day or two,
What builders had taken years to do.…
John the Baptist introduces Jesus as ‘the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’ (Jn 1:29). Later, a link is made between Jesus and the lamb sacrificed at Passover. This amounts to John’s endorsement of the penal substitution categories found in Ex 12.
In Num 21:4-9, the Lord rescues his people from a punishment he himself had imposed. John 3:14-18 has a clear echo of this. …
Noel Ford’s cartoon accompanies a story about the atheist bus advert in the Church Times.
It doesn’t need any comment from me.
…
‘The atonement is the work Christ did in his life and death to earn our salvation.’
1. The love of God, Jn 3:16.
2. The justice of God, Rom 3:25.
This does not seek to answer the question ‘Why did God purpose to save any people at all?’ But rather, ‘Having purposed to save some, why was the death of Christ the only way this could be achieved?’…
As you know, we have in the Bible four Gospels, four accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus the Messiah. The first three take a broadly similar approach, and we call them the Synoptic Gospels. The Fourth Gospel, John’s Gospel, however, is rather different. It was written after many years of prayerful reflection by the disciple who had been closest to Jesus’ heart. We believe that it was the last of the Gospels to be penned, and that John took for granted, and avoided repeating, what the others had recorded.…
Penal substitution is implied in the word lytron (‘ransom’), and suggested by an allusion to Isa 53 and the substitionary work of the Suffering Servant. ‘The cup I drink’ (Mk 10:38) is, of course, the cup of God’s wrath (Mk 14:36; Psa 75:8; Isa 51:17; Jer 25:15f; Ezek 23:32-34; Hab 2:16). This cup of wrath, according to the text just cited, is destined for the wicked, but is drunk by Jesus in their place, as ‘a ransom for many’. …
Isaiah 53 (more properly 52:13-53:12) constitutes the fourth ‘Servant Song’. It has traditionally been regarded as teaching penal substitution, with this teaching fulfilled in the suffering of Jesus. This interpretation has not gone unchallenged. R.N. Whybraw, for example, argues that the Servant does not suffer instead of others, as their substitute, but alongside them, as their representative.
But the traditional interpretation is confirmed by the following considerations:-
1. The Servant suffers ‘for’ others. There is a repeated contrast between ‘he’, ‘his’, and ‘him’, on the one hand, and ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘we all’ and ‘us all’ on the other. …
The Book of Exodus raises the question, ‘How can a holy God dwell in the midst of a sinful people?’ The Book of Leviticus answers this by saying that the divine/human relationship can been maintained only by sacrifice.
The rituals of the Day of Atonement, Lev 16, are central, and foreshadow Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice (Heb 9-10). These rituals involved two goats, one of which was sacrificed to the Lord, while the other was driven into the wilderness. …
Each month, for several years, Don Stephens of Belvedere Baptist Church, Liverpool, would give a short (10 minute) talk about some notable Christian.
These included Christian Fathers, Reformers, Puritans, hymn writers, preachers, and missionaries. Most of the famous names are here (Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon), but also a number of lesser-known Christians who are equally fascinating in their way.
No less than 75 of these have been collected together on a single MP3 CD, and this is available from Know Your Bible Recordings for the giveaway price of £3.00 (including postage). …
I once described myself in print as ‘a cautious, studious Calvinist’. This led to an invitation to give a talk about Calvin at another church. What follows is the first part of the text of that talk. I can’t recall, at this distance of time, what sources I used, so any plagiarism is unintentional.
John Calvin was born 500 years ago, in 1509.
Here is a man who, it seems, people either hate or love. …
