Search results for: “baptism of christ”
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The Life of Jesus in Paintings at the Getty
The Getty Center in Los Angeles is not really the best place to go if you want to see Christian art. Except for the remarkable collection of illuminated manuscripts, the Getty’s collection just isn’t built around the themes and images of the Christian visual tradition –it started as a collection of French furniture and antiquities,…
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Enamel Trinitarianism
The church of St. Servatius in Siegburg, Germany has a treasure room full of medieval art and relics. Among the artifacts is a portable altar crafted around the year 1160 by the workshop of Eilbertus of Cologne. Eilbertus was a master craftsman of Romanesque metalwork and enamel decoration, a sturdy artistic medium which withstands the…
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The Trinity: Yes, A Doctrine About God
Today was Trinity Sunday, as observed by churches who follow the western liturgical calendar. There wasn’t always a Trinity Sunday, and even when (well into the middle ages) it was proposed, some popes argued against it on the grounds that (a) feast days are supposed to commemorate events, not doctrines, and (b) every Sunday…
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Deep Things Roundup
It’s been a couple of months since I posted anything about my book The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything, but the book continues to make the rounds and find new readers. Here are some of the most interesting tidbits from recent times. Check out Crossway’s nifty 90-second trailer for the book:…
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William Burkitt: Observe and Learn Hence
William Burkitt was born this day (July 25) in 1650. Burkitt was a graduate of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and an Anglican minister. He was the author of the celebrated Expository Notes on the New Testament, published in two volumes about 1700. Later luminaries such as Matthew Henry and Charles Spurgeon recommended this work highly. Burkitt…
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Trinitarian Salvation according to Francis Schaeffer
In 1951, Francis Schaeffer had an encounter with the Trinity that revolutionized his life. I wrote about that discovery in a previous post. It sparked the phase of his ministry that we all remember him for, and put him in touch with a sense of spiritual reality he had lacked before: “a moment-by-moment, increasing, experiential…
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The Architecture of George Herbert’s Poetry
Introduction George Herbert was born on April 3, 1593, one of ten children. Though his father died when he was only three years old, Herbert’s mother, Magdalen, took responsibility for the education of her children. Moreover, she was decently well-connected, in that she ran a kind of literary and academic salon; that is, she managed…
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Jesus Was Also Baptized
Luke 3:21: “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying…” Picture the scene: There was a big crowd at the river, and people were getting dunked in the water by John, who was so good at it that everybody called him the Baptizer, the Baptist (note:…
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The Prepared Throne
There is a powerful and fascinating piece of iconography in St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, inside one of the domed cupolas. It’s a ceiling mosaic featuring this image: It’s a dove on a book on ornate drapery on a pillow on a throne. This throne simply hovers in midair, inside of concentric circles. From behind…
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T&T Clark Companion to the Atonement
This week, I submitted the manuscript for the T&T Clark Companion to the Atonement, an edited work with 18 major chapters and 85 shorter essays from scholars around the world, exploring the doctrine of the atonement from a variety of angles. The various essays explore the atonement in its relationship to different doctrines (e.g. atonement…
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The Whole Trinity Worked the Incarnation of the Son
“The external works of the Trinity are undivided,” says a classic principle of trinitarian theology. Whatever God does outside of the divine essence, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit do as the one divine causal agent. This is great news for monotheism, because if three distinct divine agents were bringing about created effects by distinguishable…
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“The Trinity and Our Moral Life”
I don’ think I’m giving away any surprise endings if I share a couple of key paragraphs from a 1963 book, Ceslaus Spicq’s The Trinity and our Moral Life According to St. Paul. After an introductory chapter on “the necessity of a revealed morality,” Spicq organizes the key chapters thus: Ch. 2 From the…