Essay / Theology

Trinitarian Theophany Desiderata

On page 224 of The Triune God (Zondervan, 2016), I said “No to Christophanies.” That is, as part of my chapter discussing the Old Testament’s adumbrations of trinitarian revelation, I cautioned against identifying even the anthropomorphic theophanies in the Old Testament as distinct manifestations of

Essay / Theology

The Undepictable Resurrection

There is a new and very large work of sacred art at Biola University. It is a wall-sized relief sculpture inside the newly-renovated Calvary Chapel, and it depicts the resurrection. Or perhaps it doesn’t quite “depict” the resurrection. It depicts the empty tomb, but it

Essay / Theology

Well-Spring of Salvation (Maclaren on Isaiah)

Chief among the many gifts of Alexander Maclaren (1826-1910) was his ability to explain, expound, expand, embiggen, and so on, any passage of Scripture he turned his attention to. It is really remarkable how much this nineteenth-century Baptist preacher could find in a single, short

Essay / Theology

Development Assumption

In Ratzinger’s 1997 book Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977, he shares an interesting vignette about his theological training in Munich. First, he characterizes the atmosphere of Roman Catholic theology in Germany at that time thus: When I look back on the exciting years of my theological studies, I

Essay / Theology

A Protestant Preaching Tradition (Claude, Robinson, Simeon)

In the seventeenth century, Huguenot Jean Claude wrote a long essay in French on how to compose a sermon. In the eighteenth century, English Baptist Robert Robinson of Cambridge translated it and annotated it. In the nineteenth century, Charles Simeon, also of Cambridge, republished Robinson’s

Essay / Theology

Progress in Theology

There’s an important sense in which theology doesn’t ever change at all. There’s a logos of theos, a knowledge of God, that is truly immutable. To speak of this unchanging character of the knowledge of God, though, we have to raise our eyes higher than

Essay / Theology

Good without Quality, Great without Quantity

In the fifth book of Augustine’s On the Trinity (Prologue), having declared for the umpteenth time his inadequacy in writing about such subjects, he lays down some rules for how we should think about God: Thus we should understand God, if we can and as

Essay / Theology

Irenaeus on the One God

Irenaeus of Lyons (ca. 130-202) began to theologize at a crucial period in the history of the church. It was a bit of a mess. From the earlier apologists he inherited a vocabulary of Greek philosophical terms with Christian significance. At the same time, Gnostics

Essay / Theology

Englishing Doctrine

I recently read with great admiration a portion of A Briefe Institution of the Common Places of Sacred Divinitie by Lucas Trelcatius the Younger (1573 – 1607), which was translated from Latin to English by John Gawen, a contemporary of Trelcatius. Of course he translated it

Essay / Theology

The Soul of God

Does God have a soul? That’s a weird question. But here’s a tidy answer, from Amandus Polanus’ (1561-1610) Substance of Christian Religion. See the screencap for quaint spellings & suchelike. Yes, God has a soul. “By the soul is meant the life of God, that is

Essay / Theology

Two Rules for Theological Work

To keep the work of theology at its proper task, and to keep the theologian from getting distracted, and to keep the main thing the main thing (which is, after all, itself the main thing), there are a couple of helpful rules to observe. They

Essay / Theology

Standard Old-School Toolkit

This Easter season, my reading on the resurrection has included the relevant section from Isaac Ambrose (1604-1664)’s book Looking Unto Jesus. The resurrection portion of the 700-page book is about 80 pages long, and Ambrose takes his sweet time examining how Christ was “carrying on the