Our question from our last post was: How does the death of Christ show, or commend, God’s love? It will not do to say it shows it because it shows it. That would be about equal to saying, God hates sin because he hates it, which is no reason at all. God hates sin because he loves his creatures; sin being their destroyer. If the death of Christ shows God’s love to us, there must be something accomplished by that death…
“But God commended his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Rom 5:8 That “God is love” and unchangeable we believe to be prime facts of the gospel; and that man alone is alienated and needs reconciliation. The death of Christ was not for the purpose of purchasing God’s love: it is above price; nor for the purpose of appeasing – quieting, pacifying, or cooling down – God’s wrath, as though he were excited…
Continued from our previous post. V. He has ALL power, physical and spiritual. As often expressed, Power over the body as well as the soul. Many believing the latter are too apt to exclude the former. As a Healer he confirms his word and establishes his authority. “Lo I am with you always even unto the end of the age.” Matt 28:20. “So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven…and they went forth and…
A BIBLE READING. Lord, signifies master, ruler, governor. Lordship, signifies Dominion, power, authority. These definitions are related to each other and to the subject. Husband, is also a definition of Lord. The Anglo-Saxon word, Hlaford, from which our English word Lord is derived signifies Bread-keeper, and is applied to one who has the general care over, and control of a family. The title of Lord thus applied to Jesus Christ is expressive of a glorious fullness of power and love….
It has been asserted that the life which Christ laid down for the world was not the natural, but that which he had with the Father; which – spiritual life – he laid down at his incarnation and took up at his resurrection; Wresting with John 6:63. “The flesh profits nothing,” from its true position, the sacrificial death of Christ has been degraded, and the blood of the covenant counted an unholy [Greek koinon, common] thing. The original Greek settles the question of…
The Bible student is often puzzled with the question, How many kinds of life are there; and what is the difference between them? Our authorized version answers the question vaguely, if at all. The word life, as found in the New Testament, is, in most places, a translation from one of the two Greek words, Zoee and Psuchee. The rendering of both by the one English word Life covers up a clean-cut difference of meaning between the two. The word Psuchee has several significations. When it refers to life,…
The same writer who says Christ died because He was mortal, also says He died to get rid of His flesh, and show us the way into the holiest and that He went through as the First and our Forerunner, the last of which is true; but if as the same writer assumes Christ and the Saints are all raised in the flesh and changed afterward, then how much does dying help them to get rid of the flesh? Are such inconsistencies the marks of…
Those who oppose the vicarious offering of Christ, admit, of course, that he died, and to give an explanation of the cause of His death falls upon them, and it is attempted. They deny that in any sense He died in our stead, and one statement made in explanation is: Christ became one of us, to share with us the ills of life, and die like us for the same reason that we die, because being flesh, and the flesh life being forfeited, he must die. The same teacher says: “A little Scripture is worth…
Paul declares that there is one mediator between God and men – the man Christ Jesus, “who gave himself a ransom for ALL, to be testified in due time.” 1 Tim 2:5,6. How few of the Gospel Church are prepared to receive such teaching with any degree of complacency; yet it is a glorious truth, and when rightly understood, is the cause of rejoicing, because of the goodness and love of our Heavenly Father. Opposition to the thought, as it is now understood…
I firmly believe that a profound, divinely ordained correspondence exists between things spiritual and things natural. Observe the order of my words: Between things spiritual and things natural, putting things spiritual first. This is a vital point. For we are wont to think that it is by a species of happy accident that certain resemblances exist between the kingdom of matter and the kingdom of spirit. Thus, we are wont to cite certain metaphors of Holy Scripture as instances of…