Category: Theology

In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; ~Ephesians 1:7 In this Beloved One “we have our redemption,” i.e., deliverance, first from the guilt of sin, and afterwards from its power and its penal consequences. The primary thought of the word “redemption” is deliverance…

Here is one big idea about the resurrection for you: The Father gives life to the Son. We know it happened when Christ left the tomb behind. He emerged from darkness and death into everlasting life because the Father had given him life. Christ is risen because the Father gave life to him so fully, so…

In medieval England there was a unique part of the Good Friday service called “creeping to the cross.” It was a ritual procession that involved approaching the cross barefoot and on your knees. Being on your knees like that, “creeping,” is a physical expression of reverence, of humility, and of slowness. Reverence, because you’re on…

The Reformation (rumors to the contrary notwithstanding) wasn’t a total break from the Christian past; not a clean start; not a do-over from scratch. For the early Protestants, the whole point of reforming the church was to find a way of standing in continuity with the great ancient church by being biblical, apostolic, and universal.…

Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,     ~Ephesians 1:5 God chose us out of the world “that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love,” because He had in His eternal purpose of grace “foreordained us (i.e.…

On April 16, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote out by hand the document we know as the Letter from a Birmingham Jail, and now recognize as a classic text of American history, of civil rights history, of religious history. King was in jail for leading nonviolent protests against racial injustice in Birmingham, but what…

Christians have long claimed that they got the doctrine of the Trinity from the Bible itself. While admitting that they had rendered the doctrine more explicit, and also admitting that they had crafted a set of non-biblical terms (like person, nature, triune, etc.) to help them articulate it with more clarity and brevity, they insisted…

The inch-tall fragment of Coptic papyrus that includes the words “Jesus said unto them… my wife” has had quite a career so far. It’s got its own webpage at Harvard Divinity School; it grabs headlines and sparks imaginations; it got radiocarbon dated as “probably really, really ancient (probably);” and generally gets vastly more attention than…

According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:    ~Ephesians 1:4 The reason why God has blessed believers in Christ with every spiritual blessing in Christ is His own sovereign gracious choice. “He chose us (i.e., chose…