As we come to the end of the year and stand ready to mark the beginning of another, it is good to remember that we mark time because time is intrinsically measurable, intrinsically finite. Not only is time itself finite, having a definite beginning in and with the creation of all things. Our times are also finite, […]
Ends of the incarnation
Christmas (along with Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost) is one of five “evangelical feast days” that celebrate key moments in the Son of God’s saving mission. On these days, the church turns its attention in a special way to the redemptive historical events that mark “the fullness of time” (Gal 4.4; Eph 1.10): the time […]
For the Lord is good
“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Ps 34.8) The goodness of God is a topic that repays careful contemplation. Vast tracts of biblical teaching are devoted to this theme (Exod 33.19; Pss 34.8; 100.5; etc.), and the singular desire of the saints is to look upon the goodness of God (Ps 27.13). The goodness […]
Jesus saves, faith does not.
Jesus is the “agent” of salvation. Faith is the “instrument” of salvation. We must not confuse the two. Jesus is the agent who accomplishes all saving graces for us and in us. Jesus “saves,” “justifies,” “sanctifies,” and “glorifies” his people in fulfillment of his Father’s sovereign purpose and by means of the Spirit’s power. His […]
“Theism raises the ceiling on our hopes for happiness”
Today Justin Taylor posted one of my favorite sections from C. S. Lewis’s sermon, “The Weight of Glory.” In that sermon, Lewis speaks eloquently about the “desire for our own far-off country”–the desire for heaven. I worry that much contemporary teaching and preaching fails to speak with Lewis’s eloquence about this far-off country because it fails to […]
Some thoughts on the Mosaic Covenant
I have read with profit Mark Jones’s recent posts on the covenant of works (see here and here), having benefited from his other writings on this topic as well. Such theological clarity and historical awareness are much to be appreciated when it comes to the relationship between the covenant of works, made with Adam in the Garden, and the […]
