The nations roar and murmur like the sea (Isaiah 17:12), like the formless waters of the first creation (Genesis 1:2). Then God speaks, and the nations scatter like chaff and become as helpless as dust in a tornado (v. 13). The Lord sends out His Rebuke and His Wind, and the nations are calmed. God . . . . Continue Reading »
A student’s (Tyler Abens) paper on the theme of imitation in Paul begins with a description of experiments comparing how children learn to how monkey’s learn. The experiment indicates that, contrary to the monkey-see, monkey-do mythology, humans learn by imitation and monkeys do not. . . . . Continue Reading »
So says Calvin, doctor of divine sovereignty. Commenting on John 14:18, he writes, “We . . . imagine to ourselves but a half-Christ, and a mutilated Christ, if he does not lead us to God.” In John 17, when Jesus speaks of Himself as One with the Father, we must remember that Jesus is . . . . Continue Reading »
The late Colin Gunton argued that Augustine’s refusal to follow the earlier tradition of interpreting Old Testament theophanies as a revelation of the Son was a move away from a fully Trinitarian theology toward a semi-modalist Unitarianism. In her article in Augustine and History (Augustine in . . . . Continue Reading »
Further reflections on Revelation 1:4. First, Eugene Boring emphasizes that the three participles in the name of the Father are not all from the same verb. Some Jewish texts expound on the “I am” in a similar triadic fashion, and some Hellenistic texts apply a similar temporal triad to . . . . Continue Reading »
If my argument in an earlier post about the angel of Jesus in Revelation 1:1 works, then we have a fully Trinitarian structure to the revelation given to John. The Father gives apocalypse to the Son; the Son shows/displays this unveiling to the slaves; the Son signifies this through His . . . . Continue Reading »
Creation science advocate Henry Morris has some interesting Trinitarian speculations at the beginning of his The Biblical Basis for Modern Science . Reflecting on Romans 1, he insists that what is revealed in creation is not just “deity” but specifically the “godhead,” which . . . . Continue Reading »
BB Warfield points out that the church’s confession of the Trinity is embedded in the church’s conviction that God Himself had appeared as Jesus: “It was in the coming of the Son of God in the likeness of sinful flesh to offer Himself a sacrifice for sin; and in the coming of the . . . . Continue Reading »
Bavinck, pre-channeling Jenson: “What the Christian goes on to confess about that God is not summarized by him in a number of abstract terms, but is described, rather, as a series of deeds done by God in the past, in the present, and to be done in the future. It is the deeds, the miracles, of . . . . Continue Reading »
Postmodern sensibility has been described as the priority of image over reality, surface over depth, style over content, signifier over signified. The immediate Christian instinct is to turn those upside down - we are for reality and depth and content. That’s a superficial response. The more . . . . Continue Reading »
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