Showing posts with label theology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theology. Show all posts

Monday, September 14, 2009

Law and Gospel In a Nutshell


To run and work the law commands,
Yet gives me neither feet nor hands;
But better news the gospel brings:
It bids me fly and gives me wings.


You see, the law has no power to give what it demands.

The gospel does.

That is why the gospel is "the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." Romans 1:16


--HT: Between Two Worlds (poem attributed to John Berridge)

The Big Picture: Very, Very Good News


“The purpose of creation, redemption, and consummation are seen holistically as God’s purpose to glorify Christ by fulfilling the Adamic creation mandate, the universal Noahic promise, the patriarchal covenants, and the Israelite monarchy in Him, thus exalting Jesus as preeminent over the entire cosmos as the agent of creation, the true imago Dei, the Davidic subjugator of all rival powers, the firstborn of the eschatological resurrection from the dead, and the atonement through whom final cosmic peace is found at last (Col. 1:15-23).”

- Russell D. Moore, The Kingdom of Christ (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2004), 108.


“The resurrection and exaltation of Christ accomplish a new unity between heaven and earth, for Christ now has a heavenly body (1 Cor. 15:42ff), a body of glory (Phil. 3:21) and His humanity is now in heaven (Phil. 3:20f; Col. 3:1; Eph. 1:20ff; 6:9), and both serve as a pledge of the ultimate unity of the cosmos in Christ (Eph. 1:10).”

- Andrew T. Lincoln, Paradise Now and Not Yet (Cambridge, UK; Cambridge University Press, 1981), 192.




HT: Of First Importance

Friday, September 11, 2009

A Prayer for God's Mercy



“The Lord reveal himself more and more to us in the face of his Son Jesus Christ and magnify the power of his grace in cherishing those beginnings of grace in the midst of our corruptions, and sanctify the consideration of our own infirmities to humble us, and of his tender mercy to encourage us.

And may he persuade us that, since he has taken us into the covenant of grace, he will not cast us off for those corruptions which, as they grieve his Spirit, so they make us vile in our own eyes.

And because Satan labors to obscure the glory of his mercy and hinder our comfort by discouragements, the Lord add this to the rest of his mercies, that we may not lose any portion of comfort that is laid up for us in Christ.

And, may he grant that the prevailing power of his Spirit in us should be an evidence of the truth of grace begun, and a pledge of final victory, at that time when he will be all in all, in all his, for all eternity. Amen.”

—Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1998), 127-28


HT: Of First Importance

Monday, March 23, 2009

Every Believer Should Study Theology

“No Christian can avoid theology. Every Christian has a theology. The issue, then, is not, do we want to have a theology? That’s a given. The real issue is, do we have a sound theology? Do we embrace true or false doctrine?”


R.C. Sproul