Category: Union with Christ
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ot believers… regenerate… roms 7
One of the difficult questions to answer is the status and experience of OT believers. This post does not pretend to answer this question but I hope it points to fruitful fields of inquiry. Old Testament believers were justified by faith (Roms 4: Gen 15:6). Abraham’s faith=justification serves as the template for all future justification…
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isaiah’s servant(s)
God has many in the OT whom he calls his servants. Examples include, Abraham (Gen 26:24), Moses (Ex 14:31), David (2 Sam 7:5) and Job (Jn 1:8). He refers to the prophets as ‘my servant the prophets‘ (2 Kings 17:13). In the first half of Isaiah (1-39), the title ‘servant‘ is used of Isaiah (20:3)…
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the israel of god… gal 6:16
a benediction Gal 6:15 For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. 16 And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God. Paul’s letter to the Galatian churches (modern day Turkey) contains a benediction that has been the subject…
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jesus and the spirit
There are deep mysteries to the union of deity and humanity in the person of Jesus. However, what is revealed is for us to grasp and believe. What is clear is that as a man Jesus lived by faith entirely depending on the Holy Spirit for all he did. Hebrews reminds us that he is…
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jesus… the son of man (2)
We noted that the title ‘the Son of Man’ was Jesus’ favourite self-designation. The expression ‘son of man’ was not unfamiliar it would seem in C1 Palestine. It simply meant ‘human’ with the stress being on the weakness and humility of such a position. In the words of Psalm 8, addressing God the psalmist asks,…
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romans 8:1-4 the righteous requirement of the law fulfilled in us
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own…
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i am crucified with christ (3)… dead to world
(This is the third and last in this small series. Unfortunately, it was the tail-end of a talk and I have not had time to expand/develop it. We are in the process of moving house at the moment and will be in transit for a couple of months or so. As a result there will…
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i am crucified with christ (2)… dead to law
If we are dead and our life is hid with Christ in God we will discover that this death is not simply to sin. Our death, in Christ, has even farther-reaching implications. We have died not only to sin but to every power and authority that would seek to control us in a fallen world. …
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I am crucified with christ (1),,, dead to sin
Recently, I was asked to speak on the implications of the cross in the life of the believer. The following three posts are simply my presentation on this topic. I hope they will prove useful. Please excuse the less literary and more oral nature of the post. The Living Cross We are gospel people. And…
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the glory of the cross
Est 6:6 (ESV) … the king said… , “What should be done to the man whom the king delights to honour?” The story is set in Susa, the Persian capital, during the reign of King Ahasuerus, better known by his Greek name, Xerxes I (486–464 b.c.). Some Jews had returned to Jerusalem, where they enjoyed a…
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celebrating the son-rise
(A guest blog by Jim Gamble.) It was good to celebrate and proclaim the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus on Easter Sunday. Some argue that it doesn`t really matter whether Jesus was physically resurrected or not and others deny the resurrection altogether, they see it as mere myth or legend. This sort of…
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funerals, fasting, feasting, and the first day of the week
Emergents (enchanted by the ‘Big Tradition’), some Old Life Reformed (emphasising the institutional church and sacraments), some Federal Vision folks like Peter Leithart (with a similarly high ecclesiology), the rising influence, in the States at least, of evangelical Lutheranism (which tends to stress liturgy), our ecumenical romance with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, the popular…
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grafted life
One of the profound gospel truths is that Christians participate in the death and resurrection of Christ not only in an objective or positional sense but in an experiential sense. Something very significant takes place at conversion that entirely changes our lives. We find ourselves in a life union with Christ. A helpful illustration can…
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we are not simultaneously sinners and saints (2)
In the previous post on this topic, I endeavoured to demonstrate that the NT regularly presents believers as ‘saints’ and not ‘sinners’; who we are ‘in Christ’ and not what we were ‘in Adam’ is pressed as the way believers should think of themselves. Sometimes this raises the protest, ‘but does not Paul speak of…
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what happens when someone sees the glory of god in christ?
Phil 3:1-16 (ESV) Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you. Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit…
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we are not simultaneously sinners and saints (1)
One of the things you’ll notice that I keep banging on about in the blog is the need for us to see ourselves, we Christians, as God sees us. That is, to see ourselves from the perspective of faith (faith is accepting all that God says, including what he says about us). Christians reason all…
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in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing…
I am no longer in the first flush of youth. In fact, if truth be told, I have passed the hump (or am passing, depending on your perspective) of middle age; I won’t see my fiftieth birthday again nor some following it. And you know what dismays me? I find that the flesh is just…
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… to live is christ
Christianity is Christ. The Christ life is life in Christ. Christ is the source, succour, sufficiency and shape of this life. He is its fulness – its substance. The epicentre of Christianity and its circumference and the mass between is Christ. Christ is the preeminent one – in creation and new creation (Col 1). God…
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imputed active obedience (IAO), a must or a misdirection? (12)
The intention of the last couple of posts (here and here) on this topic has been to demonstrate that the Bible does not support the reformed construct of IAO. We have seen that the OT knows nothing of a law-keeping life lived on behalf of another. In the OT, when the law is broken only…
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living as new creation… in old creation (1)
How do people who are new creation live in an old creation? Or to put it more popularly, how should Christians relate the world? What a huge question? In a sense the whole of the NT is an answer to it. In a few posts I want to tease out some of the implications of…
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imputed active obedience (IAO), a must or a misdirection? (5)
Advocates of IAO often insist that it is integral to evangelical orthodoxy. The implication being, to reject it is to forfeit the right to the label evangelical, or at least, orthodox evangelical. Of course the burden of proof lies with those who so claim to prove their case and it appears an exceptionally hard case…
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justification, forgiveness and reconciliation
On a blog site I visited recently the question was asked, what, if any, are the differences between justification, forgiveness and reconciliation. Here is a paraphrase of the suggestion I made – I wonder if you agree. While justification, forgiveness, and reconciliation seem to be very similar for they often appear in Scripture as virtual…
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imputed active obedience (IAO), a must or a misdirection? (3)
This series of blogs is considering the validity of the claim that IAO (imputed active obedience of Christ) is a necessary expression of the biblical gospel and evangelical orthodoxy. In the view of the writer it is neither. IAO could possibly be correct but it is neither an assured teaching of Scripture that it is…
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imputed active obedience (IAO), a must or a misdirection? (2)
This series of blogs is intended to question the view that probably currently prevails among conservative evangelicals (especially those influenced by reformed thought) namely that integral to justification and any orthodox confession of it is the view that without the imputed earthly life Christ to a believer there is no justification. In my view (and…
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justification simply texted
Justification simply outlined… Justification is ultimately ‘the righteousness of God’ savingly displayed. Below is each key aspect of this saving righteousness that the Bible highlights. Justified by grace: the source of God’s saving righteousness Rom 3:24 (ESV) and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus Justified…
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imputed active obedience (IAO), a must or a misdirection? (1)
(Over the next few weeks or so I intend to blog intermittently on this topic.) Justification has again become a controversial topic in recent years in protestant and scholarly circles. Traditional views have crossed sword with contemporary views, the ‘old perspective’ with ‘the new perspective’. This is no trivial discussion for Luther is surely right…
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flesh and spirit in romans, and beyond (9)
There can be no doubt that the distinctive feature of new creation life is that it is ‘life in the Spirit’. Christ’s enthronement began a new era, a new age, the age of the Spirit. For Paul in Romans, and elsewhere in the NT, the Christian life is nothing if it is not ‘spiritual’. Everything…
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the world to come – heavenly or earthly?
Many of the blogs and books I read these days, when reflecting upon God’s future new heavens and new earth seem to promote two ideas, firstly, that the new heavens and new earth are mainly a return to Eden and secondly, that as believers we will inhabit the new earth. Both these ideas I think…
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flesh and spirit in romans,and beyond (7)
Rom 7:1-6 (ESV) Or do you not know, brothers-for I am speaking to those who know the law-that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the…
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flesh and spirit in romans, and beyond (6) ‘dead to the world’
In previous blogs on this thread we have seen that key to understanding the Christian life is grasping that God, through the death of Christ, has translated us from this world of ‘flesh’ into the world of ‘the Spirit’. This translation lies at the heart of the gospel. Christians are not ‘in Adam’ but ‘in…
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flesh and spirit in romans, and beyond (5)
If you look at the preceeding blogs on this topic you will be better placed to grapple with the issues in this one. The fundamental point made is that Christians ought to view themselves not as ‘in the flesh’ but as ‘in the Spirit’. This is a biblical distinction between two realms or two worlds. …
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there is no ‘third use of the law’
Tullian Tchividjian was recently interviewed by Justin Taylor on the relationship between law and gospel. Much of what TT says I heartily endorse and recommend the blog interview for reading. He advocates clearly a law gospel distinction and spells out well what this means. My only gripe is that TT doesn’t go quite as far…
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flesh and spirit in romans, and beyond (4)
A previous blog explored the anatomy of humanity in ‘the flesh’. Flesh, we noted is weak, wayward and ultimately at war with God. If we are to have any hope, our sins in the flesh must be atoned and we must be delivered from flesh itself; we must die to it. This we noted, is…
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adam and christ
Adam and Christ stand in Scripture as the heads of two humanities (indeed two creations). However we should note that our participation in both is after their testing or probation. Our union with Adam is after he failed (he had no children before he sinned). Consequently we read ‘in Adam all die’ (1 Cor 15). …
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christianity is not judaism, though few would know it
Judaism is religion in the proper sense. It is the only God-given religion. In saying it is religion in the proper sense, I mean it represents the only God-ordained means of earning salvation. Its basic promise was, ‘Do this and live’ (Lev 18:5; Roms 10:5; Gals 3:12). It addresses humanity ‘in the flesh’ and offers…
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flesh and spirit in romans, and beyond (3)
We have been considering two alternative realities in Paul’s theology – the flesh and the Spirit. For clarity’s sake we should emphasize again that these two realities – flesh and Spirit – although involving principles and peoples are for Paul perhaps primarily , provinces or principalities. They represent two realms, spheres, kingdoms, – two distinct…
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flesh and spirit in Romans, and beyond (2)
This is the second in a short series of blogs reflecting on the ‘flesh/Spirit’ contrast that controls Romans and beyond. In a previous blog we observed that this contrast is not metaphysical, a God/Man divide nor anthropological, a Body/Soul divide but chronological and eschatological, a divide of two Realms and Eras. The gospel is about…
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flesh and spirit in romans, and beyond (1)
We cannot properly understand Romans until we learn it describes two realms of existence. In fact, the Christian gospel, which is of course the theme of Romans, has not been truly grasped until it is seen as the story of two distinct and deeply different worlds. Different images are used in the Bible to describe…
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the law of Christ
Gal 6:2 (ESV) Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. For Paul to speak of the Christian life in terms of a ‘law’ is unusual. Paul doesn’t normally speak of the Christian life as ‘law’ (nor do most other NT writers) largely because ‘law’ conveys wrong idea about who a Christian…
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seeing the church as god sees it
Do you ever look at the local church and feel discouraged? If you’ve been in any local church long enough to get beyond the romantic stage (about two years or so) you will know the flaws. You will know about the little cliques. You will be aware of the power struggles. The nepotism will be…
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the blood of Jesus Christ god’s son…
At funerals we often catch up with folks we have not seen for some time. I met up with such a friend a month or so ago. Friendships with real friends tend to quickly get past pleasantries. Soon we were discussing our shared faith in Christ. One topic that arose was coping with past sins. …
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mary’s love (two)
John 20:11-18 (ESV) But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She…
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Mary’s love
John 20:11-17 (ESV) But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She…
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IAO less wrong than inadequate
(I wrote this piece a week or so ago and intended to upload it some time in the future but since Nicky Mackison is blogging on this topic and expressing views fairly close to my own I thought I would post it now.) Very close to the heart of many reformed folks (big or small…
Cave Adullam 