Since we do not belong to ourselves, we should cease to live for ourselves, but should rather deny ourselves. We are not our own: in so far as we can, let us therefore forget ourselves and all that is ours. Since we belong to God, we should live and die for God alone, and order all parts of our lives by his will alone. Thus, we are God’s: let us therefore live for him and die for him.
Martin Luther thought that the heart of religion lies in the pronouns: “The Son of God gave himself for me.” By way of contrast, modern evangelical theololgians often give pride of place to the preposition: “in, into, with, and through Christ.”
For Paul, the work of Christ does not establish a union with humanity in general but rather for a distinct group: “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25)
Believers have even now been incorporated into the consummation of their union with Christ in the eschaton: “future glory . . . will be nothing other than the continued unfolding of the riches of our union with Christ.”
Nor can the Uncaused Cause of theism be identical with the material universe, as many atheists believe. As ordinarily conceived, the cosmos or material universe is a limited and spatio-temporal system. It is, for example, subject to the Second Law of Thermodynamics and thus is running down. But an Uncaused Cause is unlimited and not running down.
The Uncaused Cause of Theism is not the God of pantheism. Pantheism affirms that an unlimited and necessary being exists but denies the reality of limited and finite beings.
The Uncaused Cause of theism is distinct from the many polytheistic gods, for there cannot be more than one unlimited existence as such. More than the Most is not possible. Such a Cause is Pure Actuality, and Actuality is unlimited and unique.
God must be infinite (in contrast with finite godism), since per the cosmological argument every finite thing needs a cause. Hence, the Cause of all finite things must not be finite.
One of the most common questions we both receive is, “How can you say Jesus is the only way to God?”. Many criticise Christianity for its exclusivity, but Christians are not the only group claiming to have the truth.
Many Evangelicals today think of the good news, or gospel, as an explanation of the steps an individual must take to find salvation in Christ. But this wasn’t the idea that
Jesus had in mind.
In the beginning, God visibly displayed his kingship in the Garden of Eden. He put the first human beings in that sacred garden and commissioned them to extend his visible kingdom throughout the world. They were to fill and subdue the earth as royal and priestly images of God. But Satan led Adam and Eve into a major setback for the kingdom.
Scripture refers to the kingdom of God in two primary ways. On the one side, it often speaks of God’s kingdom in terms of God’s unwavering sovereignty or his unchanging rule over all of creation. It also refers to his unfolding kingdom and the way God has revealed his kingship throughout human history.
Love is an aspect of every law God requires us to obey, so that if we do not act in love, no work we do can conform to his standard.
Many times Christians find themselves frustrated by their attempts to live ethical lives. They feel helpless and impotent to do what is right and good. In such situations it is a great encouragement to know that learning the Scriptures, reminding ourselves of them, even meditating on the Scriptures, is not an exercise in futility.
Most basically, to say that Scripture is “sufficient” is to say that it is able to fulfill the purposes for which it was written. But not surprisingly, this simple idea becomes complicated because it is hard for Christians to agree on what the purpose of Scripture actually is.
Christ fulfills the moral aspects of the law. We depend on Christ’s morality alone as the basis for our acceptance before God. Yet, we must also conform ourselves to Christ’s image and example, seeking to live as morally as he did during his earthly ministry, and as he continues to do in heaven.
In this lesson on Jesus the Christ, we will survey the facts and significance of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry by looking at the periods of his birth and preparation, his public ministry, his passion and death, and finally his exaltation. Each of these portions of Jesus’ life gives us significant insight into Jesus’ role as God’s Christ.
Much of Christian education is enveloped in costs which place heavy burdens. Our mission is to prepare Christian leaders to lead a transformation of the world into God’s Kingdom by providing biblical education, for the world, for free.
Coming to “know” God is like meeting a stranger who has come to rescue us from the danger we did not even realise existed.
Let’s suppose that at some point in the future the Big Bang Theory is deemed wrong. Would that mean that the universe is eternal? No, for a number of reasons.
A love of believers in other religions and an appreciation for whatever true and good things there may be in these other religions should not blind us to their errors and defects. If Christ is the only Savior and all the other religions of the world deny this, then logically and necessarily all the other religions are dead wrong about this crucial point. It does not fol- low from this that non-Christians must be condemned, but that they must be told the truth, out of love for them and for the truth
One of the hottest controversies today about God concerns the traditional exclusive use of the pronoun he. Nearly all Christians admit that (1) God is not literally male, since he has no biological body, and (2) women are not essentially inferior to men. Those are red herrings.
Jesus exhorted His followers not to “labour for that which perishes” but to “labour for that which is eternal” (John 6:27). The prosperity gospel, by contrast, encourages Christians to focus on what they can receive from Christ in the here and now. Much so-called Christian television and radio programming today panders to what people’s “itching ears” want to hear: the promise of earthly gain.
The devil uses this access to plant temptations in our minds. Sometimes Christians are terribly upset by the ghastly, horrible thoughts that come into their minds. They wonder, ‘How can I be a child of God when I think such terrible things?’
Christians do not sufficiently cultivate a critical attitude towards what they see and hear. The technique of the media is often so subtle and attractive that we can be taken in by it and never realise the content of what is being presented to us. Our minds can be bent without our being aware of what is happening.
Proverbs 23:7 says, ‘For as he thinks within himself, so he is.’ What we think determines what we do; what we do determines what we become.
We can fall into an equally dangerous error of thinking that all we need in order to walk with the Lord is a spirit – ‘forget about the intellect’, they say, ‘it only creates prob- lems’. ‘Big mind, big problems; little mind, little problems; no mind, no problems!’ seems to be the attitude. Anti- intellectualism of this kind can be truly disastrous.
The Word-Faith teachings are corrupt. Their undeniable derivation is cultish, not Christian. The sad truth is that the gospel proclaimed by the Word-Faith movement is not the Gospel of the New Testament. Word-Faith doctrine is a mongrel system, a blend of mysticism, dualism and Gnosticism, that borrows generously from the teachings of the metaphysical cults. The Word-Faith movement may be the most dangerous false system that has grown out of the Charismatic movement so far, because so many Charismatics are unsure of the finality of Scripture.
I believe, gone are the days when we used to play cows-boys and Indians, for the Christian and the devil is much more exciting. Hence, making Harry Potter and the Lord of the rings a reality that a supernatural world exists, and Christians need to use their authority in possessing this land for the extension of God’s Kingdom.
The Holy Spirit will take us in hand, time and again, over our breaches of the law of unselfish love; if we respond He will write part of that law in our hearts. We, in fact, are ourselves changed, from one degree of glory to another, but always in the direction of liberty –‘where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom’ (2 Corinthians 3:17).
Theology School 