Putin is watching Ukraine carefully, writes Julia Ioffe, because he knows that what happens in Kiev could be replicated in Moscow:“Putin and the system he built do sweat the small things because Putin sees dissent as a slippery slope. He knows the cold has never stopped a single Russian . . . . Continue Reading »
Jesus promises to make the victors in Philadelphia pillars in His temple, and to inscribe a triple name on them.Fill in the blank: “The name of My God, and the name of the ____________ of My God, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name” (Revelation 3:12).God, BLANK, . . . . Continue Reading »
Finlan (Paul’s Cultic Atonement Metaphors) wants to distinguish sharply between sacrifice and the removal ritual of the day of atonement. He is not persuasive.He claims that “Hebrew sacrifice must be performed in the temple, and it is used to cleanse the temple, which is the center and . . . . Continue Reading »
Finlan doesn’t think there’s any idea of substitution in the sacrificial rites, though there is in the scapegoat ritual (Paul’s Cultic Atonement Metaphors, 91).To see a penal substitution in sacrifice, “assumes something that is never stated in Hebrew texts: that the animal . . . . Continue Reading »
Dorothy Sayers once said that the incarnation and atonement prove that, whatever God may be up to with His world, He is determined to play by the rules.Paul would have agreed. Stephen Finlan writes (Paul’s Cultic Atonement Metaphors, 101), apropos of Paul’s use of cultic terminology in 2 . . . . Continue Reading »
Yahweh brought Israel out of Egypt “on eagles’ wings” (Exodus 19:4). John A. Davies argues (A Royal Priesthood) that this is no trite metaphor:“Representations of [eagles and vultures] are found in close association with royalty in both Egypt and Mesopotamia. A series of . . . . Continue Reading »
Priests have been despised throughout the modern era, but in Scripture the priest is a foretaste of the destiny of the human race. He is a sign of the restoration of the imago Dei.John Davies explains how (A Royal Priesthood, 164-5): “Just as the original creation of the cosmos . . . is . . . . Continue Reading »
Hosea 6:7 has been a Reformed proof text of an Adamic covenant: They broke covenant like Adam.Recent commentary has been skeptical. “Adam” can mean “mankind,” rather than the individual first man.John Davies (A Royal Priesthood, 202) thinks the older interpretation, however . . . . Continue Reading »
When Aaron and his sons were ordained, they were washed, vested, and anointed (Leviticus 8:6-9).When Aaron approached the Most Holy Place on the Day of Atonement, he puts on linen clothes and washes (16:4). There is no anointing, he removes the garments of glory. The ordination rite goes in . . . . Continue Reading »
Faith is the discernment of things unseen. Faith looks for a city yet to come, not made with hands.To any visible arrangement of things, faith stands with Faust in his refusal of “Stay, you are so fair.” Faith says to every human construction, “Good, but not it.”Faith’s . . . . Continue Reading »
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