Category: Exposition
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Augustine and Eternal Punishment
…First of all, it behoves us to inquire and to recognize why the Church has not been able to tolerate the idea that promises cleansing or indulgence to the devil even after the most severe and protracted punishment. For so many holy men, imbued with the spirit of the Old and New Testament, did not grudge to angels of any rank or character that they should enjoy the blessedness of the heavenly kingdom after being cleansed by suffering, but rather they perceived that they could not invalidate nor evacuate the divine sentence which the Lord predicted that He would pronounce
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Annihilationism: Universalism and The Reality of Eternal Punishment: The Biblical Basis of the Doctrine of Eternal Punishment by Sinclair Ferguson
…Now you see the point that is being made: if you believe in the immortality of the soul, then it’s necessary for you to do something in your theology with that immortal soul that rejects God.
In contrast, it is claimed, the New Testament’s teaching is different. We are to fear him who is able to “destroy” body and soul in hell, and this is what he will do. And it’s vital that we have a biblical response to that.
And it seems to me that the biblical response to that is this: that the immortality of man—which of
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Does God Desire That All Be Saved?
…3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 7 But -
Conversion Stories
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
(Ephesians 2.1-3)
Conversion stories are all the rage in our “postmodern” context. Unbelievers thus pride themselves on claiming to have once been …
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God with Us: Divine Condescension and the Attributes of God
Dr. Scott Oliphint, the professor of apologetics and systematic theology at Westminster Seminary, Philadelphia, has come out with a new work on Theology Proper. I have benefited greatly from him in Reasons for Faith, and his lectures on the Doctrine of God on iTunesU (as quickly paced as they were). I am looking forward to finally sitting down, and reading through his approach to Theology Proper, primarily focusing on The Son of God “as both the quintessential revelation of God’s character and the explanation of how he relates to us.” Can’t wait for my copy of God with Us: …
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The Sixth Sense
Many, if not all, of us have heard at some point in our lives that there are five senses. The senses are sight, taste, smell, hearing, and touch. Scripture, on the other hand, teaches that all men (whether they lack any of the above senses) have a sixth sense. It’s what Calvin called the “Sensus Divinitatis” or the “Sense of Divinity”. In the third chapter of Book 1 of the Institutes, Calvin writes the following:
…That there exists in the human minds and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of Deity, we hold to be beyond dispute, since God himself,
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Miley Cyrus On LGBT
We can all feel enlightened now that Miley Cyrus has expressed her approval of “gay marriage” through her new tattoo and corresponding commentary. Alas I was troubled that I might not know what to think about homosexual marriage, but Miley came through for me and tattooed an “=” sign on her finger explaining, “ALL LOVE is equal.” This likewise is great news, as I expect a rather large check to be coming my way as a result of it. After all, if all love is equal, and Miley loves some people enough for them to reap the benefits of …
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Calvin on Creation
“It did not, however, happen from inconsideration or by accident, that the light preceded the sun and the moon. To nothing are we more prone than to tie down the power of God to those instruments the agency of which he employs. The sun an moon supply us with light: And, according to our notions we so include this power to give light in them, that if they were taken away from the world, it would seem impossible for any light to remain. Therefore the Lord, by the very order of the creation, bears witness that he holds in his …