Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Friday, December 4, 2009
Starting point expanded
Here's the whole section containing our germ sentence;
Warnings and Curses
God's relation to people includes not only blessings but also warnings, threatenings, and cursings. These are appropriate because of God's righteous reaction to sin. They anticipate and point forward to Christ in two distinct ways. First, Christ is the Lamb of God, the sin-bearer (John 1:29; 1 Pet. 2:24). He was innocent of sin, but became sin for us and bore the curse of God on the cross (2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13). Every instance of the wrath of God against sin, and his punishments of sin, looks forward to the wrath that was poured out on Christ on the cross.
Second, Christ at his second coming wars against sin and exterminates it. The second coming and the consummation are the time when the final judgment against sin is executed. All earlier judgments against sin anticipate the final judgment. Christ during his earthly life anticipated this final judgment when he cast out demons and when he denounced the sins of the religious leaders.
Perhaps this needs an explanation how the two ways relate. The first way describes "every instance of the wrath of God" and therefore must include the second way. This is at least partly explained by remembering that Christ is God and therefore graciously absorbs his own wrath against sin on himself.
As Tim Keller has pointed out, forgiveness always involves suffering by the forgiver.
Is it possible to even conceive of a higher, more glorious love than this? Could we have ever know the depth and freedom of God's love without the cross? Could there have been the Cross without the fall?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Warnings and Curses
God's relation to people includes not only blessings but also warnings, threatenings, and cursings. These are appropriate because of God's righteous reaction to sin. They anticipate and point forward to Christ in two distinct ways. First, Christ is the Lamb of God, the sin-bearer (John 1:29; 1 Pet. 2:24). He was innocent of sin, but became sin for us and bore the curse of God on the cross (2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13). Every instance of the wrath of God against sin, and his punishments of sin, looks forward to the wrath that was poured out on Christ on the cross.
Second, Christ at his second coming wars against sin and exterminates it. The second coming and the consummation are the time when the final judgment against sin is executed. All earlier judgments against sin anticipate the final judgment. Christ during his earthly life anticipated this final judgment when he cast out demons and when he denounced the sins of the religious leaders.
Perhaps this needs an explanation how the two ways relate. The first way describes "every instance of the wrath of God" and therefore must include the second way. This is at least partly explained by remembering that Christ is God and therefore graciously absorbs his own wrath against sin on himself.
As Tim Keller has pointed out, forgiveness always involves suffering by the forgiver.
Is it possible to even conceive of a higher, more glorious love than this? Could we have ever know the depth and freedom of God's love without the cross? Could there have been the Cross without the fall?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Genesis 3:15 Protoevangelion
Jesus = heal and head
We know that the bruised heal represents Jesus and that the bruised head is the serpent. So how can the one inflicting the bruise be the one receiving the bruise?
The bruising of the serpent's head is not the same instance of God's wrath as the Cross, but it is the same wrath. In both instances it is God's wrath against sin which is in view. Whenever we see God's wrath against sin and on whomever it falls, we are to learn something more of its omnipotent fury, the better to love the one who took it all that we, beholding the glory of his grace, might worship Him forever.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
We know that the bruised heal represents Jesus and that the bruised head is the serpent. So how can the one inflicting the bruise be the one receiving the bruise?
The bruising of the serpent's head is not the same instance of God's wrath as the Cross, but it is the same wrath. In both instances it is God's wrath against sin which is in view. Whenever we see God's wrath against sin and on whomever it falls, we are to learn something more of its omnipotent fury, the better to love the one who took it all that we, beholding the glory of his grace, might worship Him forever.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Invitation
Recently I came across this sentence in my ESV study Bible:
"Every instance of the wrath of God against sin,
and his punishments of sin,
looks forward to the wrath
that was poured out on Christ on the cross."
Coming as it did after several years of exposure to Christ-centered preaching and the narrative/historical approach to preaching, this one sweeping sentence stated in a few words a key that promises to open up the Bible in passage after passage. Finding it there at the beginning of my new study Bible has given me the idea to just start reading the Bible and examine "every instance of wrath of God against sin, and his punishments of sin" and see if it is so.and his punishments of sin,
looks forward to the wrath
that was poured out on Christ on the cross."
The Demoniac of the Garasenes
Mark 5:1-20 Matt 8:28-9:1 Luke 8:26-40
Jesus = the pigs
This one is so shockingly offensive that it would be good to restate our purpose and method. Being born again is having your eyes miraculously opened to the beauty of Christ. None of the other glorious qualities of God can appear lovely or even approachable until we know that he loves us. (What was the demoniac's first reaction as he saw Jesus approaching? He seems to have been more familiar and believing of God's reality, holiness and sovereignty than anyone else on the scene!) The way God shows and measures his love towards us is in the cost he willingly paid for our redemption. The ultimate purpose of all Scripture, and indeed, of the entire universe is to create and enable creatures who have the mental and physical faculties and the conceptual and psychological categories with which to behold the glory of that love, his infinite grace. Yes, we behold and experience that costly grace most vividly at the cross. But the goal and purpose of this blog is to test the idea that, "every instance of the wrath of God against sin, and his punishments of sin, looks forward to the wrath was poured out on Christ on the cross."
Test yourself. Put aside for the moment all the cognitive and emotional objections we would all have to identifying Jesus with the pigs and ask your heart how it responds when shown that Jesus became a innocent substitute herd of unclean animals, absorbed all of your depravity and wickedness and then plunged himself into a lake of destruction so that you could stand there in your right mind face-to-face with the one who would do that for you. Are your eyes filled with tears and your mouth begging to go with him? Or are your eyes squinting with fear and your mouth begging him to leave?
Jesus = the pigs
This one is so shockingly offensive that it would be good to restate our purpose and method. Being born again is having your eyes miraculously opened to the beauty of Christ. None of the other glorious qualities of God can appear lovely or even approachable until we know that he loves us. (What was the demoniac's first reaction as he saw Jesus approaching? He seems to have been more familiar and believing of God's reality, holiness and sovereignty than anyone else on the scene!) The way God shows and measures his love towards us is in the cost he willingly paid for our redemption. The ultimate purpose of all Scripture, and indeed, of the entire universe is to create and enable creatures who have the mental and physical faculties and the conceptual and psychological categories with which to behold the glory of that love, his infinite grace. Yes, we behold and experience that costly grace most vividly at the cross. But the goal and purpose of this blog is to test the idea that, "every instance of the wrath of God against sin, and his punishments of sin, looks forward to the wrath was poured out on Christ on the cross."
Test yourself. Put aside for the moment all the cognitive and emotional objections we would all have to identifying Jesus with the pigs and ask your heart how it responds when shown that Jesus became a innocent substitute herd of unclean animals, absorbed all of your depravity and wickedness and then plunged himself into a lake of destruction so that you could stand there in your right mind face-to-face with the one who would do that for you. Are your eyes filled with tears and your mouth begging to go with him? Or are your eyes squinting with fear and your mouth begging him to leave?
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
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