Why is it important to understand penal substitutionary atonement?



MACARTHUR: If you don’t understand the doctrine of penal substitution, you don’t know why Christ died, and you would assume that if you’re Christian you would want to know why Christ died. If you took one verse, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Paul says, “You’re ambassadors,” right? In 18 to 21.

So, you know, we go into the world, we beg people to be reconciled to God. He’s given us the Word of reconciliation, right? That’s the message we preach, “You can be reconciled to God.” We have the ministry of reconciliation. We have the message of reconciliation. But how is that possible?

How is it possible for a sinner to be reconciled to a holy God? That is the most legitimate question that a sinner could ever ask. Ok, you’re telling me God’s holy, that God is righteous. that God is perfect.

How is it possible for me to be reconciled to a holy God without Him not tarnishing His holiness? Or to put it in the language of Paul, “How can God be just and the justifier of sinners?” That is the absolute apex question of all religion.

The primary question that religion attempts to answer is, “How can I go from being God’s enemy to being His friend? How can I make peace with God?” whatever god that religion espouses. So, all religion is designed to somehow come to terms with the deity.

In Christianity, the question is built around holiness and justice and righteousness. So, how can God forgive me and still be holy? And, the only thing that answers that question is penal substitution because penal substitution says God is so holy every sin will be punished.

Every single sin in the life of every Christian believer through all of human history will be punished, was punished. All sin must be punished. Either the sinner will bear that punishment eternally or Christ took that punishment on the cross.

The only thing that protects the pure, righteous holiness of God is that sin is punished. That’s penal substitution. If you remove that part of the cross, then how does God reconcile His holiness with just wishing sin away without a punishment? There has to be a punishment for God to maintain His justice.

That punishment falls on His Son. BINGHAM: I can remember before I became a Christian but had heard the gospel a number of times, sitting down with the woman that’s actually now my wife and asking her, “Explain to me John 3:16. Why did God have to send His Son?

Why did Jesus have to die? Why didn’t God bake brownies to save the world?” Like, “What’s was this whole ‘dying on the cross’ thing?” At that time, she couldn’t answer the question, and it was actually hard. We had to go into church and try and get information.

“Explain to me penal substitution,” because all the gospel presentations I’d heard was missing that phase. MACARTHUR: You see that is “the question.” That is not some kind of optional issue, penal substitution. You’ve got a massive problem if God just says, “Hey, you’re forgiven.”

Now, the character of God is called into question as to His integrity, His holiness, His virtue, His righteousness, His perfection. And so, God is so pure and holy that He will punish every single sin ever committed by every person either in that person or in the substitute for that person.

That is the purest heart of Christianity and soteriology.

#important #understand #penal #substitutionary #atonement

Should Christians listen to secular music?



Thomas: You know, what is secular? Music is music. So if there’s secular music, there’s something called Christian music? Music is math, it’s notes, it’s sounds and silences and rhythm and beat. One isn’t secular, one is Christian, so I’m not quite sure what people mean when

They talk about secular music versus — if you mean modern contemporary, the top 15, 20 songs — I was at an event recently and somebody read out the top 20 songs of today, of this past few weeks, and I’ve never heard of any of them or the singers.

I was completely in the dark. But what do you mean by secular music? Music is music. So, if we have a — Mike, you’re the theologian here. If we have a doctrine of common grace — this is a Dutch thing. You would know all about this. Godfrey: Yeah.

I suspect there are several things hiding in this question. One would be that the question’s probably not just about music, but about words. So that that adds a significant dimension. Then you don’t just have sounds but you have meanings.

And, then I think also the whole question, “Are there styles of music that are, in one way or another, inimicable to Christian piety or practice. That’s a question for you. But, you know, some of us like opera.

I won’t, you know, get into who that might be, but those of us who might like opera would not think that we ought to have opera in the church service. So you can think of a kind of music that you enjoy that you would still say is inappropriate for the worshiping community.

Horton: Yeah, I think, when it comes to style, one of the big questions is, “Is this helping the Word of Christ dwell in us richly? And is the music what we’re thinking about or is the Word of Christ what we’re thinking about?”

And music can be very powerful, as Calvin realized over Zwingli, very powerful in a good way for instilling the Word of Christ. But when it comes to common grace, I agree with you, Derek. There is no Christian music or secular music.

Some of the Christian music out there is just as bad as some of the secular music out there, so we just have to have discretion whatever we’re listening to. Thomas: This is, you know, this is a sensitive question for me.

So, my first memory, you know, it’s one of my first memories, is as a two-year-old sitting on my grandfather’s knee — he died when I was five — sitting on my grandfather’s knee, listening to Pacini’s ‘Laboum,’ and it’s a vivid memory in my head, and

It instilled in me from that moment onwards, just a passionate love for classical music and opera. So he died and he left all of his records, and he had about 500 LPs, and he was very discerning, and he only bought the sort of best, and so he left them to me.

So the week before he died, I’m five years old, he brings me into his bedroom, he died at home, he died of cancer, he was ill for a year or so. And, he told me, “I’m leaving you” — because there were four children.

He could already discern — and my younger brother was three, my older brother was seven, no, nine, and my sister was seven — but he could already discern which of these four would take care of his records.

And, he decided it was me, and I actually didn’t inherit them until I was 15, and when I did, I loved them. I treasured them. I played them on an old gramophone record that you had to lift up the lid, you know,

And it was wider than the player, so you couldn’t put the lid down while it was still playing and there was one little, tiny mono speaker, but it was the state of the art. It was cutting edge, and this was in the ‘60s. And then — Godfrey: Did you have to crank it?

Thomas (Continued): No. We had electricity, but, just about. But I’m saved when I’m 18 and within probably a couple of months of being saved, I meet this guy. He came into my life for maybe six months and then disappeared, and I don’t know what

Happened to him, but he mentored me for six months and he told me I needed to get rid of all my records. So, the next day, I took them to the market, and sold them all for like five dollars. And, it’s probably one of the decisions I most regret in life.

Now, what he should have said to me was, “Put them away for six months to a year and then come back, and maybe they won’t occupy quite the place in your life that they did at that time.”

Because it was a question of priority, but for him, it was a question of this is secular and this is Christian, and you need to get rid of this secular part. So that — I think that’s why I respond fairly emotionally to it. Now, the words issue, I think I’m with you.

When I heard the top 15 or 20 songs that are playing right now, and I heard some of the lyrics, because it was an address to college students, and he was making a point about how every single lyric was about sex in some form or another.

I think I’m with you from what you said this morning about not going to the movies. So we don’t listen to modern music either. That’s you and me. Godfrey: And if we listen to — the first opera I went to I was an 8th grader.

I’d never been to the opera, I didn’t know anything about classical music particularly. And I went to the opera with my mother, my father didn’t want to go in San Francisco, and heard Tosca sung by Richard Tucker, who was the reigning tenor of his day, and I fell

In love with the opera that night as an 8th grader, because it was so glorious and beautiful. But — Response, Thomas: Of course, the lyrics aren’t any better, but they’re in German or Italian so — Godfrey (Continued): That’s the point I was going to make. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I saw a cartoon in the New Yorker recently that said, you know, all of these opera plots really need to be sent to a therapist, and there’s a lot to be said for that. Thomas: Like country music. Godfrey: Like country music.

Nichols: You know, we’re spending a lot of time on this question but I think it’s an important one. As I think about this question, I think it’s the broader — maybe behind it is the broader question of the Christian’s relationship to culture.

We think of music as a particular way maybe to get at our entertainment or what we hear or listen to. We’re not left without a guide. Certainly, as we think about what it means to be a Christian, how we live in the world, we have certainly biblical principles to guide us.

We think about Paul speaking of whatever is excellent, whatever has virtue. We should be thinking on these things. But here’s something I think is especially true of us as Americans. We tend to think about these kind of decisions in ethical categories only without thinking in terms of aesthetic categories.

So, we think of truth and goodness and justice. We tend to do that pretty well. We don’t always think of the beautiful and how we spend our leisure time honoring God, honoring the Creator of beauty, in terms of thinking about aesthetics.

Whether it’s what we listen to or read or watch, to think of those categories, and maybe that can help us as Christians, and we think about these things that we devote our time and our energy to, and our leisure time.

#Christians #listen #secular #music

The Atonement (Mark 15:33–40) — A Sermon by R.C. Sproul



SPROUL: Let’s look this morning at Mark, chapter 15 where I’ll be reading again the later portion of the text we looked at last week. I’ll be beginning at verse 33 and reading through verse 40. And I’d like to ask the congregation to stand for the reading of the Word of God.

“Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which is translated, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’

Some of those who stood by, when they heard that, said, ‘Look, He is calling for Elijah!’ Then someone ran and filled a sponge full of sour wine, put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink, saying, ‘Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to take Him down.’

And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last. Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. So when the centurion, who stood opposite Him, saw that He cried out like this and breathed His last, he said, ‘Truly this Man was the Son of God!’

There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joses, and Salome, who also followed Him and ministered to Him when He was in Galilee, and many other women who came up with Him to Jerusalem.”

Again in your hearing this morning, you have heard that word that comes to us from God Himself. He who has ears to hear it, let them hear. Please be seated. Let us pray. Our Father and our God, there is no more important, no more unfathomable treasure for us to contemplate

Than the meaning of the cross, and so we pray that in this hour, you would lend your help to us who are Your frail creatures. Give us insight into the meaning and the significance of our Savior’s death, for we ask it in His name. Amen.

Last week we looked at the narrative of the execution of Jesus by way of my normal method of biblical exposition, but I mentioned that this week I would depart from that and focus on a theological interpretation of the meaning of the cross. Again, I mentioned last week

That anyone who was an eyewitness of that event would likely not understand what was taking place in the cosmic realm that day, and that was left for the apostles in their epistles to give to us that added revelation of the meaning and of the significance of

The death of Jesus. We remember that Paul announced that he was determined to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified, that is Paul’s focus was on the cross, and of course that statement was something of hyperbole, which is a literary form of intentional exaggeration

In order to make a point, but really it’s not too far as an exaggeration that we know Paul knew other things besides the cross; nevertheless, all that he knew and all that he taught had its convergence in that central message of what took place that day on the cross.

I remember my first year of seminary where a student in our class in preaching gave a moving and eloquent sermon on the substitutionary satisfaction view of the atonement. And in that class on preaching, it was customary when the student finished for the professor

Of homiletics to give a critique. And the idea was to be a constructive critique on the art of preaching. But that day the professor was furious, and he glared at the student, and he said, “How dare you preach the substitutionary satisfactory view of the atonement in this

Day and age.” And I heard that and I was thinking within myself, “How dare this professor question the legitimacy of preaching on the satisfaction substitutionary view of the atonement.” What is it in this day and age that makes this central understanding of the cross suddenly

No longer acceptable? And I mused on that for many years to come because when we talk about the satisfaction substitutionary view of the atonement, we’re trying to answer the question: What really happened there on the cross? And one of the questions that attends

That question is the question: Was Jesus death on the cross really necessary at all? And there have been different answers to that question throughout church history. Early on, the Pelagians taught that Jesus’ death and atonement was not necessary at all, that

God could have redeemed His people by many different ways. He simply could have waved His wand of mercy and grace and pronounced His pardon on sinners without such a grizzly method of execution. Others took an intermediate position saying that the cross was hypothetically necessary

But not absolutely necessary. It was only necessary because though God had many ways He could have done it. From all eternity He chose to do it this way and was in agreement with His Son and with the Holy Spirit to reconcile the world by way of an atoning death. And

So the atonement was not necessary “de facto.” It was not necessary “de jure,” that is legally. But it was necessary “de pacto,” that is because an agreement had been reached, a covenant had been made between the Father and the Son, and once that covenant was made, it had to be carried out.

But then the third view, which is the classic orthodox Christian view is that the atoning death of Jesus was absolutely necessary. We reach back in time to one of the greatest thinkers God ever blessed the church with, the philosopher theologian Saint Anselm of

Canterbury, whose little book, “Cur Deus Homo?,” has become a Christian classic, and that little book that is really a question is translated by the words, “Why the God Man?” And in that little book Anselm spelled out the reasons why the cross was absolutely

Necessary. And the grounds and the necessity for Christ offering payment and satisfaction for our sins was to be found in the character of God Himself. The reason why an atonement was necessary, dear friends, is because God is just, because God is righteous, and because God is holy.

But we’ve lost sight of the character of God in our age. We conceive of God some celestial grandfather, a cosmic bellhop who is on duty 24/7 to give us all of our needs. And we allow the love of God to swallow up His justice, to swallow up His righteousness, and to obscure

His holiness, and we think that not only will God forgive all of our sins without an atonement, but we believe that He must do it if He’s really going to be good and loving. And yet at the other side of that coin always stands His holy, righteous, justice that must be satisfied.

I remember the story of Abraham in the Old Testament where he got word that God was about to bring judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah, which cities clearly invited that judgment from God, and Abraham was concerned about the few innocent folks there in those cities

That might possibly be punished along with the guilty, and so he raised the question to God, “Lord, will you punish the innocent or the righteous with the guilty?” And the reply was God forbid that God would ever do such a thing. And then the statement came

Out of that narrative, “Will not the Judge of all of the earth do what is right?” To ask that question, dear friends, is to answer it because the God of heaven and earth doesn’t know how to do anything except that which is right. The God of heaven and earth has

Never done anything that is wrong. Now according to our sensibilities, there are times in the Scriptures that we object to what God does. I’ve told you before how when I was in my first year as a Christian

As a college student, and I was reading the Old Testament, that I used to pace the halls of my college dormitory long into the night, three o’clock to four o’clock in the morning because I’d never heard of this God that was being revealed to me in the Old Testament.

And all I can remember from that is thinking that wow, if I’m going to be a Christian, I’m going to have to be a Christian because God plays for keeps. If you don’t believe that, let me just direct your attention to one passage in the Old Testament, the passage

That you’ve already heard this morning. When God delivered His law to Moses, after He had rescued His people from slavery and the focus of that law was a prohibition against idolatry. And while Moses was speaking with God on the mountain, Aaron and the people

Made for themselves a golden calf and worshipped it. And the Scriptures tell us that when God saw that, He was outraged, and He demanded satisfaction for that sacrilege, for that work of idolatry. I remind you, dear friends, that that episode in the Old Testament chronicles for us the

Most successful worship service in human history. The attendance that day at the worship of the golden calf surpassed all statistics before or after in Israel. The singing was so lusty, that miles away Joshua hears the music, and he thinks he’s hearing the sound of warfare.

The church was filled to the brim, and the people loved the music as they danced around an idol that distorted the very character of God. Do you think that was the last time that happened in church history? That’s our propensity.

It’s to exchange the God of heaven and earth for an idol and fashion for ourselves a God who requires no satisfaction, who requires no payment for sin. And in a day and age when we preach that God loves all people unconditionally, who in the world needs an atonement? You do.

And I do. Because the righteousness and the justice of God must be satisfied. Now when we look at the concept of the atonement in the New Testament, it’s not monochromatic. I like to use the metaphor of a gorgeous tapestry that is woven by several strands. And I don’t

Even have time this morning to even touch on some of the strands that the New Testament uses to describe what took place on the cross. But one of the major themes in the New Testament is the theme of reconciliation, that Christ is the reconciliation for us. And one of the

Things of course that is absolutely necessary for reconciliation to take place anywhere is a previous estrangement because parties that are not estranged have no need of reconciliation. I gave a message many years ago in a university to the atheists’ club that invited me to

Speak there. And they wanted to hear my case for the existence of God, and I gave it to them. And after I was finished with that part of the message, I said, “I’m happy to deal with these intellectual issues that come up.” I said, “But you have to know where

I’m coming from. I believe that for you the issue of the existence of God is not an intellectual issue at all. It’s a moral issue. Your problem is not that you don’t know that God exists. Your problem is you hate the God whom you know does exist.”

That’s the closest I ever came to being tarred and feathered. I was lucky to get out of there with my life. They were vehement in their denials and protests, “We don’t hate God.” Well, if the Word of God is the truth of God then by nature, dear friends, we are His enemies.

We are at war with Him. We despise Him. But we don’t get angry at the golden calf. If we create a new God, then we can live in comfort with that God. But the biblical God is the

Object of our wrath to such a degree that the Scripture says, “We will not have Him in our thinking.” That’s where the estrangement is. That’s where we are at war with God. That’s where we are at enmity with God. And that enmity was mediated for us on the

Cross, so that Christ became an enemy of the Father to satisfy your hostility and your enmity toward Him. Another dimension about which the New Testament describes the cross, the atonement is the dimension of ransom. Earlier in our study of Mark’s gospel, we read where Jesus said

That He did not come into the world to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. And because of that statement and others, the church has developed what’s called the ransom theory of the atonement. In fact, there is more than one ransom theory

Of the atonement. There’s a good one and there’s a bad one. The bad one that is popular in some circles is the idea that Jesus paid a ransom to Satan, after all Satan is the prince of the power of the air. He’s the prince of this world.

He holds us captive and hostage. In a sense he has kidnapped the people of God and now demands payment or ransom for our release, and so Jesus makes a deal with the devil. He pays him what he wants to purchase our freedom from him. No, no, no, no. In that

Case the cross would not represent “Christus Victor” but “Satanas Victor,” Satan would be the winner. He would get the payment and enjoy it forever. No, there is a ransom paid, dear friends, but it’s not paid to Satan. It’s paid

To the Father. A debt has been incurred to Him that has to be paid. Now quickly, we think of the New Testament speaking that we are debtors to God, and not only are we mildly in debt but that we are hopelessly in debt, and the way in which the New Testament sets

It forth is that we are debtors who can’t possibly their debt. We have an IOU that can never be redeemed. But there’s different ways to understand that concept of debt. I’ve told you on another occasion in another concept my favorite illustration of that. I tell the story of the little boy

Who goes to the ice cream store, and he asks for an ice cream cone with two scoops of ice cream, and when the lady behind the counter hands the little boy the cone, she says, “That will be two dollars,” and the boy’s face sinks. He’s crestfallen. His lip begins

To tremble, and he said, “But my Mommy only gave me one dollar.” So what do you do if you’re watching that transaction? You know what you do. You reach your hand in your pocket, and you get out a dollar bill, and you hand it to the lady, and you say, “Here, this

Is legal tender. I’ll pay the little boy’s debt, and we all can go home happy.” And she has to accept that payment because it’s a pecuniary payment, a monetary payment of commercial debt. But that’s not the kind of debt that we’re in here. The debt that we have before God

Is not that we owe Him money that we can’t pay. It’s a moral debt. It is a moral obligation that He has imposed upon us, which we have not paid. Now we turn the story around with the little boy. Now he comes to the ice cream store and

He said, “I’d like to have an ice cream cone with two scoops, and the lady comes and hands him the ice cream cone, and she says, “That will be two dollars.” He sticks his tongue out at her, runs out the door, doesn’t pay her anything, and she’s chasing

Him, yelling, “Stop, thief.” And the little boy runs right into the arms of the patrolman who’s walking down the block. He grabs the boy by the scruff of the neck, brings him back into the shop, said, “What’s going on here?” And the lady said, “That boy

Just stole two dollars worth of ice cream.” And I’m watching that. I reach in my pocket and I take out two dollars instead of one, and I say, “Look, everybody settle down here. Here’s the two dollars. No harm. No fowl. Let the boy go.” Now does the owner

Have to accept it? Absolutely not. Because now a crime has been committed. Now a moral debt has been incurred. And a policeman can look at me and my two dollars and look at the woman in the store and say, “Do you want to press charges?” And the storekeeper

Has that option on this occasion. Now with God we have a moral debt. And even when His Son pays the debt as our Substitute, when He pays the debt vicariously, the Father does not have to accept it. The fact that

The debt is paid means that justice is satisfied. The fact that the Father accepts the payment expresses His mercy and His grace, that as the Apostle says, “He may be both just and justifier of His people.” The justice is there insofar as Christ paid what was required, and that God wasn’t playing.

As the text I read indicated, the Son of God was forsaken, completely forsaken. And as Paul uses the other metaphor later in Galatians, “He was cursed by God.” He became a curse to fulfill the law of the Old Testament because all who break the law of God, all who sin

Are exposed to the curse of God’s wrath. And you say, “But that’s not fair.” But as I mentioned last week, once Christ willingly took upon Himself your sin and my sin, God didn’t play games. He punished Him to the fullest extent of the law. Christ

Didn’t just go to the cross. When He was on the cross, He went to Hell, not after He died but while He was on the cross. He experienced the full measure of God’s wrath when the Father turned His back on the Son and cursed Him for you and for me.

Again, I’m terrified when people come to me and say, “I don’t need Jesus.” I want to grab them by the throat and say, “O foolish one, don’t you understand that there’s nothing in the universe that you need more than Jesus. Don’t you realize that at the

End of your life, you will stand before God and you will be held accountable by God. And the God before whom you stand will be holy and just and righteous. And you either stand in front of Him on your own merit—and the only thing you have to bring is demerit, friends—or

You stand covered in the righteousness of Christ. If you deny Christ, you face the curse on your own, a debtor who can’t possibly pay your debt.” Karl Barth, the late Swiss theologian with whom I disagree more often than I agree, made

A comment once many years ago that I agree with completely. He said the single most important word in the New Testament Greek is the word “huper,” which is the Greek word that is translated by three English words, “in behalf of.” And that’s how the New Testament

Describes the death of Jesus, “in behalf of” His sheep, “in behalf of” the godless, “in behalf of” God’s enemies, He paid this price and He purchased you, so that the apostle says, “You are not your own.” You see the thing that we tend to think even

As Christians is we may not own the biggest house in the community, we may not own the biggest car in the community, but one thing we own, there’s no mortgage on, is ourselves. I own me. No, you don’t. No I don’t. Paul said, “You are not your own. You don’t

Own yourself. You’ve been bought. You’ve been purchased.” Paul said, “You’ve been bought with a price.” And the price tag is the blood of Christ. Finally, my friend John Guest once preached a sermon on the blood of Jesus. He said, “If

Jesus would have come to Jerusalem and scratched His finger on a nail, would that have done it?” There’s blood. It wouldn’t have done it. It took more than a scratch. The figurative significance to the Jew of blood means life. Jesus didn’t just give His blood.

He had to give His life. He had to pour out His blood unto death, and that was the price tag. That was the ransom. That was the purchase price. And the New Testament tells us that in God’s eyes at the top of the cross was not simply

The accusation written by Pilate, but the words, “It is paid,” appear on that cross. God is satisfied, propitiation. Our sins are removed, expiation. As I told you before, every time you come down that aisle, look at that cross. You come down the center aisle

Of the church. You remember that the architectural form of this building is a cruciform. It’s built in the shape of the cross. If you look from an airplane, and you cross over Saint Andrews, you’ll see the form of a cross. The center aisle if the vertical beam of the

Cross. The transepts in which you are sitting are the crossbeams. And I said the vertical beam points to heaven in the sense that propitiation was made. The Son satisfied the Father. And in doing that on the horizontal level was expiation, our sins were removed as far as

The east is from the west. Therefore, dear friends, come let us reason together, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they be as crimson, they shall be as wool, for He bought you with His life. Let’s pray.

O Lord, if we had a thousand tongues to sing the praise of our great Redeemer, that would not be enough to express our gratitude, which gratitude carries on for us into eternity. Thank you for the cross. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

#Atonement #Mark #Sermon #R.C #Sproul

Is Jesus Divine? 30% of “Evangelicals” Say No.



NICHOLS: You know, you’ve heard people say—I’ve heard people say all sorts of things about who Christ is. And in our State of Theology survey, one of the statements that we put on the survey directly gets at who Jesus Christ is.

And the statement is this: “Jesus was a great teacher, but he is not God”. Now, when we put that survey to the general U.S. population, 52%—that’s the majority—agree with that statement. That’s to say that the majority of Americans espouse a heretical view of the person of Christ.

And this is a truly crucial, essential doctrine, because the person of Christ is behind the work of Christ. When we’re talking about the work of Christ, we’re talking about the gospel. And without the true gospel, people are lost, and they are without hope in this world, and they are facing eternal damnation.

There could be nothing more important than getting the doctrine of the work and person of Christ right. And as this survey shows, there’s a lot of false understanding and confusion out there about who Christ is. But what’s even more tragic about this survey is that we put that same question to evangelicals.

Now, when you hear us use that term of “evangelicals” in this survey, let me explain to you what that means. It’s not someone just simply checking a box. We actually attached at the end of the survey four questions which have historically served as sort of a grid to identify evangelicals.

There’s a question regarding biblical authority; a question regarding the necessity of evangelism; there’s a statement regarding who Christ is and His atoning death on the cross; and then, fourthly, the exclusivity of Christ, that only faith in Christ can lead to salvation.

So, people who strongly affirm all four of those, they get considered “evangelicals.” We can pull that data out separately and analyze that. And here’s the tragedy. When it comes to that statement, “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God,”

Thirty percent, three out of 10, almost a third of evangelicals agree with that statement. So here are folks who want to say, “Yes, we must have the death of Christ in order to be saved. It is absolutely necessary for this work of Christ.”

But then they turn around, and they’re just so confused that they affirm a heretical view of who Christ is. What are we to do with this? What’s the takeaway? All of this underscores the importance of our studying the doctrine of Christology and teaching the doctrine of Christology.

We just can’t assume that folks sitting in our churches and the Christians we know and our family will just “get it” by osmosis. We have to be intentional and programmatic about teaching this cardinal doctrine. Because if this survey tells us anything, it tells us that we’ve got a lot of work

To be doing.

#Jesus #Divine #Evangelicals

How is limited atonement true when Scripture teaches that Christ died for the whole world?



Well, we know He’s the Savior of the world because there’s only one Savior for the world. The world has only one Savior but we also know the atonement is limited. We all know that, right? The atonement is limited because people go to hell.

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and I will say to them, ‘Depart from Me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you.'” Jesus talked more about hell then He did about heaven.

We know that hell is a reality, and we know people go there and perish forever. So we all believe in a limited atonement, right? Not everybody’s going to be saved. You either believe in a limited atonement, or you believe in a universal atonement, and

If you believe in a universal atonement, to be logically consistent, then there’s no hell and no one will be in hell. Everyone will be in heaven. If you’re going to affirm an unlimited atonement, then you really are going to end up as a universalist,

Because if He actually died for the whole world then the whole world is saved. So, we don’t, we can’t go there because there is a hell and it’s full of people, in fact, most people. So the atonement is limited. Then the question is, who limits it?

Do we limit it or does God limit it? And the answer to that question biblically is crystal clear. God limited it. He limited it to the elect. Either God determined whom He would save and take the glory or God just threw atonement

Out there as some nebulous option and hoped some people would grab hold of it and become a part of His redeeming purpose. The Bible does not allow for that. So, you just need to remind yourself you believe in a limited atonement. Now, you ask the question, are men sovereign or is God sovereign?

If God’s sovereign, then He limited it.

#limited #atonement #true #Scripture #teaches #Christ #died #world

R.C. Sproul: The Resurrection of Christ



That will be glory when we see him in the power of the resurrection. Let’s pray. Our Father and our God, as we consider now the mighty work that you performed by the power of the Spirit to raise Him from the tomb.

That certain sign that you have given by which the whole world is judged. We pray that we may see the full import of that moment in history when you raised Him from the grave. For we ask it in Jesus’ name – Amen.

Just a couple of days ago I was reading an article in the newspaper about the recently discovered bones of Jesus, which I refer to as the journalistic phase and sensational phase of theology. To get the press’ attention in religion the more bizarre the proposition is, the more attention they give it.

I was somewhat surprised at the beginning of the article than the writer indicated that this recent assertion had be responded to by scholarly archeologists with a certain amount of scorn, revealing it for the absurdity that it was.

So I was beginning to warm up to this journalist, thinking “wow, finally we find one that fights for the angels.” Then he went on to give the results of the most recent poll in which he said 78 % of Americans (and that is how we determine truth you know – by counting noses.)

Believe in the resurrection of Jesus. The author inserted a little extra phrase there. He said “78% of Americans believe in the myth of the resurrection of Jesus.” He just couldn’t hold it back. He had to get it in there. The myth of resurrection.

One of the oldest questions if not the oldest question of theology was the one asked by Job “if a man dies shall he live again?” And before we get to the New Testament answer to that question as set forth by the greatest

Apologist of the Christian church, the apostle Paul, I want to spend a little bit of time in background to refer your attention to two watershed events that radically changed the world in the decade of the 70’s. But I am not thinking of the 1970’s. I am not even thinking of the 1870’s.

But I am thinking of the 1770’s where most Americans believe the most important watershed event took place in that decade when some disgruntled colonists on this side of the ocean rose in protest against certain illegal procedures by parliament by declaring their independence, and inaugurating this country’s birth as an independent nation.

But I believe that something else happened in that same decade in Europe that had even far greater ramifications then the American Declaration of Independence. It was the work of a single man in Prussia who was a professor whose chief at the University of Cornisburg was the field of Astrophysics.

And he had contributed significantly by way of essays in the 18th century to the discipline of astro-physics. But his real claim to fame that catapulted him into international significance, this name who never traveled more than a hundred miles from his birth place and who was know

To take a walk every afternoon at exactly the same time, and was so punctual, indeed punctilious, was he that the villagers would check their timepieces by the afternoon stroll of this gentleman whose name ironically was Emmanuel, which hardly meant God with us, but came to mean “God unknown to us.”

This man was Emmanuel Kant who in the decade of the 70’s of the 18th century wrote the most definitive and comprehensive critique of the classical arguments for the existence of God in his book that was titled The Critique of Pure Reason, in which Emanuel Kant set

The bar for the centuries to follow for religious agnosticism. As a scientist he argued that we can not move from the visible world to the invisible world as the apostle Paul declares that not only can, but do in the first chapter of Romans.

He said we can’t move from the physical to the metaphysical, from the phenomenal world, as he called it, to the pneumenal world, which was the residence of God, the self, and the thing in itself. And so this critique of the classical arguments for the existence of God, given by Kant in

An effort not to save theology but to save science from the skepticism of David Hume, was as I say a watershed moment in western history because thereafter there was a seemingly un-breechable rift between science and theology.

But though Kant is known for ushering God out of the front door of the house, he ran around to the kitchen and opened the back door and tried to let God in through that entrance by the route not of metaphysical pursuit, but by reason of practical thinking.

Kant was very much concerned about morality and ethics. By the way when he considered his skeptical stance on the knowing of God, the one argument that he felt was most impressive was the argument to design. It was that which he could not explain.

But he was concerned with the study of man, that it would seem that in the heart of every human being there was this universally present sense of duty, or sense of “oughtness.” For which, he is famous for identifying as the categorical imperative.

It was Kant’s Germanic version of the golden rule if you will. But then he asks this question from a practical view point. Thinking transcendentally, what would the necessary conditions be to make this sense of oughtness, this sense of duty which provokes the pangs of conscience in human beings; what

Would be transcendentally necessary for this sense of duty to be meaningful? That is, he asked the question: What would have to be for ethics to be meaningful? And his concern, as I say, was practical. Because what he was concerned about was the survival of civilization.

And he understood that without some sense of ethics civilization can not survive for very long, as some of the other speakers have already addressed. And so, as he pondered that question: What would be necessary for ethics to be meaningful? He said the first thing is that there would have to be justice.

Because if there is no justice, then in the final analysis the person who acts according to this sense of ethic, this sense of duty would be involved in a fool’s errand in an exercise of meaninglessness. So, for ethics to be meaningful there must be justice.

And so then he looked around and he says that in the phenomenal world in which I live I notice that justice does not always prevail. And people were asking then as the Old Testament sages were asking “Why do the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer?”

And Kant said for justice to be true we must survive the grave. And not only must we survive the grave, in order for justice to prevail, but there must be beyond the grave to ensure justice a judge who would meet out and dispense pure justice.

And he went on to say: Well, what would the necessary conditions be for such a judge to ensure the distribution of justice? And he said, well first of all that judge would have to perfectly righteous and above reproach.

Because if the judge on the other side were an unjust judge then we would have no guarantee of the victory of justice and therefore no foundation for a meaningful ethic. Then he went on to say that judge would not only have to be righteous but we would also have to be omniscient.

Because for a judge to execute perfect justice, he would not only have to be just himself, but he would have to be free from being misinformed. A just judge could be responsible for a miscarriage of justice if he erred in his understanding of the case.

Then he went on the say that even if you say that you had a perfectly righteous omniscient judge, those two conditions would not guarantee the triumph of justice, because it would be possible that that perfect, just, and omniscient judge could give the correct sentence, but be powerless to carry it out.

So that judge in the next world would also have to have all power and authority within himself to guarantee justice. You see where Kant is going? He’s saying though on the basis of theoretical thought we can’t affirm the existence of God,

Metaphysically, never the less on the basis of practical considerations for a meaningful ethic we must assume the existence of God. Otherwise life is meaningless. And so we must live as if there were a God. Now that as it were, was the dyke that held back the full torrents of skepticism for a

Few years at the end of the enlightenment. But there were cracks in that dyke that soon gave way. And a metaphysical and ethical Katrina happened in western theoretical thought. Now, that is by way of introduction. Now, I’d like to show some parallel thinking that goes on between Kant and the apostle

Paul by looking at the fifteenth chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Hear the word of God, in chapter fifteen, verse twelve. And I don’t know which is going to come to an end first, my message or my voice. So far the voice is losing. But we read in the text.

“Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?” That’s the question. If Christ has proclaimed that God has raised Him from the dead, how is it that some of

You (and he is writing to people in the church who were trying to have a Christianity without resurrection.) say that there is no resurrection from the dead. Now, what follows is a particular kind of argument. It is a particular form of debate common to ancient philosophers and one that was used

Regularly by the apostle Paul as an apologist. It is called the “ad hominum” form of argumentation. Now, be careful. Some of you studied logic in college or in high school perhaps. And you learned to identify certain fallacies of reasoning, both formal and informal.

And one of the most frequent informal fallacies is the fallacy of reasoning called “ad hominum abusive.” That is where if you can’t attack the cogency of a man’s argument, you attack the man. You say how can you believe what this speaker says when he is an adulterer.

Well, even adulterers who do not live the truth can from time to time argue cogently. And so the man’s character does not vitiate the man’s argument. But we do that all the time, particularly in the criminalization of politics as we witness everyday in Washington D.C.

So there is a fallacious form of argument that is called “ad hominum abusive.” And frequently to save breath and time, there is a kind of short hand that refers to that fallacy by simply calling it the “ad hominum” fallacy without qualifying it by the term “abusive.”

Now, I mention all this for this reason. There is another form of “ad hominum” reasoning that is a sound form and that is a form that has been in use by philosophers from time immemorial. And that is simply arguing to the man.

And that means that I step into the shoes of my opponent. We stipulate at the beginning agreement on certain premises, and now I take my opponent’s premise and I say “I grant you, your premise. But let’s see where this premise goes out of logical necessity.”

And so I take my opponents argument to its logical conclusion showing that if his premise is sound and true his conclusion will be absurd. Again going back to Zeno the ancient philosopher; this form of argument was called “reduxio ad absurdum” – arguing from the opponents premise, taking it to its logical conclusion

And showing by a resistless logic that the conclusion would be absurd. That is exactly what the apostle Paul is doing here with these folks in Corinth who are denying the resurrection. And they say there is no resurrection of the dead. That is a universal negative. That means it admits to no exceptions.

It is universal in the sense that it encompasses everybody because no on escapes it. It is called a universal negative because it is articulated in the negative form. If, let’s go now, there is no resurrection of the dead. That is premise A – no resurrection of the dead.

If that is true, then what else would be true? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised, obviously. We get that from the laws of necessary inference. If there is a universal negative, there can not be one positive.

So if there is no resurrection, than that means Christ can not have been raised. So, let’s see where that leads us. If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain. So let’s face facts the apostle is saying.

Let’s not live like Alice in Wonderland in some kind of religious dream world. If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is an exercise in futility. I’m wasting my breath. I’m wasting my time. We’re all here wasting our time at a conference like this, if Christ has not been raised.

And not only is my preaching an exercise in meaninglessness, my faith is useless and worthless as is yours. Your faith is in vain, because you’ve invested your trust and your hope and your faith in a man whose man have just been dug up along with Mary Magdalene’s so recently.

Not only that but we are found, he says, to be misrepresenting God. Because we’ve said and testified that it is God who has raised Him from the dead. And if He has not been raised from the dead, then we ought to change the name of our church

To Jehovah’s False Witnesses because we have been attributing the power of this resurrection of Jesus to God. And that attribution is a false one. ”We have testified about God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.”

He has to keep rubbing our noses in the consequences there. “For if the dead are not raised,” if you missed it the first time and the second time, not even Christ has been raised. “And if Christ has not been raised your faith is futile. And you are still in your sins.”

You are still in it. You are contained in sin. You are still enmeshed in sin. You are still in jail to sin without bail; because our justification does not end with the cross, but Jesus was raised for our justification. The resurrection is God’s apologia, certifying to the world that He accepted atonement that

Jesus made on the cross. But if He is not raised from the dead you’re still in your sins. You see, you look at the world religions today, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism; the thing that they don’t have is an atonement and because they don’t have an atonement.

You can’t expect them to have a resurrection either. It wouldn’t cause any crisis of faith for any Muslim to dig up the bones of Muhammad. Muhammad is dead. Buddha is dead. Confucius is dead. But Christianity stands or falls with a resurrected Jesus. And that is what Paul is saying here.

If he is not raised, your faith is nonsense and you are still in your sins. Not only that, those also who have fallen asleep in Christ, (let’s face it) our beloved ones, our husbands, our wives, our children, our parents, our friends who have died in the faith have perished.

That’s the grim reality if there is no resurrection from the dead. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ we of all people, are the most to be pitied. I say to the enemies of the Christian faith; if you don’t like what we preach; if you don’t

Like what we teach, don’t be mad at us. Pity us. Because if we are preaching a false doctrine of resurrection, if we are conjuring up a hope with no real foundation for it, then we forfeit much of the fun, supposedly, of this world, where you only go around once.

And you might as well go around and get all the gusto you can because you are on a fast pace to oblivion, to perishing without hope. It is a pitiable condition to be in. That is why the Bible says without Christ you are without hope.

So, I am just going to stop for a second and consider what Paul has just done here. Paul has drawn for us a ghastly picture of the consequences of no resurrection, no life after death. He is saying that if there is no resurrection then life itself under the sun is meaningless.

As Kant understood, your ethic, your sense of duty, your conscience is meaningless and without ethics of our society, civilization can not last. You are doomed ultimately to barbarianism, which our nation right now is rushing toward with such a velocity one wonders if anything other than the direct intervention of God

Will ever restrain it and stop it. Dostoevsky understood what Kant was arguing for in his practical reasoning that if there is no God, all things are permitted. The post-modernist understands that if there is not God and since there is no God and since

There is no resurrection from the dead, then what is left are personal preferences. Which can only be maintained if enough of you can exercise power for your complete liberty, you will make is right by your might. For you know of know other recourse.

What Kant was saying was this, since the alternative to life after death is so grim, since the alternative to life after death would make ethics impossible except for the fool. And since life without ethics is meaningless, we must live as if there is a God.

Talk about a justification for using religion as a bromide or as a crutch against facing meaninglessness. Here it is with a vengeance. Didn’t I say this put up a dyke that only lasted a little bit of time in western civilization?

A guy like Nietzsche comes along, and says: hey, let’s quit playing Alice in Wonderland. I’m not going to affirm the existence of God or the existence of life after death simply because the alternatives are grim and unbearable. Why don’t we just face it? There is not God. There is no afterlife.

There is no meaning. We are left with the nothingness, the nihil, the abyss of absurdity. This motion was seconded by Jean Paul Sartre, particularly in his little monograph, which title gave to the world his final evaluation of human existence: Nausea. That’s the end of human existence: Nausea.

Albert Camus said the only serious question left for philosophers left to examine is the question of suicide, because we are overwhelmed with the pressing and oppressing reality of the absence of God and the absence of hope. So you see Kant’s arguments didn’t stand up for the next generation.

They said “Kant gird up your loins like a man, face the inevitable. Quit trying to argue for the practical necessity of believing in God. And some can look at what Paul is doing here as the same thing.

Where he is saying if there is no resurrection your faith is in vain, your false witnesses, you preaching is an exercise in futility. But Paul does not argue for the resurrection on the basis of the hopelessness of life without it.

Yes, in the section I just read he agrees with Kant that without it life is hopeless, but that is not the foundation for his assertion that Christ is risen. He goes on to talk about the analogy that exists in nature with animals and plants and grass and human beings.

That you put a seed in the ground and before the life can come out of the ground there is a sense in which, at least metaphorically, that seed must die. It must rot to such a point that it releases and germinates the essence of life within it.

And in like manner, when our bones go into the ground, they await their final metamorphosis where God takes that which was mortal, sewn in mortality, is raised in immortality, sewn in corruption, raised in incorruption. And this analogy that the apostle uses in this same chapter closely resembles the argument

That Plato had used centuries before in arguing for life after death based upon analogies drawn from nature. When you think of the almost infinite varieties of life forms on this planet, it is hard to imagine that our life form, as high as it is, is the zenith of all life in the universe.

It could be, but what are the odds. But again Paul does not rest his case on analogies drawn from the butterfly or the seed. But why does assert the reality of the resurrection? At the beginning of the chapter, he reminds his readers of something.

He says “I would remind you brothers of the gospel. I want to remind you of the gospel that I preached to you which you received in which you stand and by which you are being saved.

If you hold fast to the word I preach to you unless you believed in vain, for I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.” Now that was a compelling this to the Jew of the first century.

And it ought to be compelling to us. I said yesterday, or the day before that the two major tasks of apologetics is the defense of the existence of God, and secondly the defense of the scriptures as the word of God. And Paul now appeals to the scriptures.

“Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures.” So, Paul’s first line of apologetics is an appeal to sacred scripture. He is saying I believe in the first instance, in the resurrection of Christ because the

Word of God proclaims it. That is why I said it is so vital that we address this question of the veracity and authenticity and trustworthiness of the scriptures, because if you have that, the rest is easy. “That He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.”

And then listen to this, “and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve, then He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive. Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all as to one untimely

Born, He appeared also to me.” When Peter wrote to the church he says “My brethren we declare to you not cleverly conceived myths and fables. What we declare to you is what we have seen with our eyes, and heard with our ears.”

We are not declaring to you, an unsubstantiated theory or even a religious proposition that we learned in Sunday School. We are declaring something of which we had an empirical experience. We saw it. We heard it. We beheld His glory on the plain of history. And this is what Paul is recounting here.

He is saying that He appeared to Cephas – that is to Peter, then to the twelve. He appeared. Again it is not like the disciples in the story of the resurrection, and the disciples ran to the tomb on Sunday morning and the stone was rolled away and they ran inside

The tomb and they found the grave cloths still in such beautiful arrangement. But there was no Jesus. There was no body – nobody. NO BODY there. There was nobody home. And then they came back and they scratched their heads. And they said “what happened to the body? We found an empty tomb.

What could that possibly mean?” And they figured it out. “Oh it must mean that He is risen so let’s go tell everybody that He is risen and let’s start celebrating Easter Sunday based on an inference drawn from an empty tomb.” No.

It is not the empty tomb that created the faith of the early church. It was the appearance of the risen Christ. He appeared to Peter, then to the twelve. Well, these two could have cooked this up among themselves. But Paul says “wait a minute.

He appeared to more than five hundred at one time, most of whom are still alive. Go and ask them.” That’s their story and they are sticking to it. Eye witnesses, five hundred of them. We have more witnesses from history to the resurrection of Christ than we had to the life of Plato.

Then He appeared to James and to all the apostles, but what I am writing to you my dear friends in Corinth is not something that I believe on the basis of hearsay. It is good hearsay. These are good witnesses who told me this. I trust James. I trust Peter.

I trust the twelve, and you understand my credentials that I was the number one enemy of this new Christian sect that was running around proclaiming that Christ was raised from the dead. I was dragging them from prison, breathing out fire.

But last as all, “as one born out of due time, He appeared unto me.” See, the text that I just read to you was written by an eye witness to the resurrection. You are going to have to decide whether this is a credible witness or not.

Now, the one reason why the newspaper reporter says that this is a myth is not because he thinks that Paul was an idiot and fell out of the stupid tree and hit head on every branch along the way, or that he was just an uneducated fanatic from the first century.

They understand that Paul was the most educated man in Palestine when he wrote this apologia for the resurrection of Christ. His scholarly credentials were impeccable. The reason why the newspaper reporter would say it is a myth is because judging from our

Twenty first century understanding of biology, if there is anything we know now that primitive pre-scientific people in the first century didn’t know is that when people die they stay dead. And that it is impossible for the dead to rise.

Given that it is impossible for the dead to rise, then obviously the New Testament story of the resurrection of Jesus has to be a myth. What else could it possibly be? And calling it a myth is being kind, it could be an outright lie; if it’s impossible for the dead to rise.

What a different view of reality and of life we find in the New Testament, where there the impossibility according to the New Testament writers was for Him not to rise. The impossibility the premise in the New Testament is that it was impossible for death to hold Him.

And it is true that if there is any universal finding of experimental empiricism it is that when people die, they stay dead. But if there is anything more universally in our experience it is that when those people who died and stay dead, are people who are sinful people.

Now what happens if you get a people who is not sinful? Now what happens to the premise? Biblically, morality, “thanatos” death itself is inseparably tied to sin. It is the soul who sins that dies. So that if the New Testament testimony is true, that there was in Christ no sin, why

Would anyone expect Him to die. I can’t even believe – the real thing that is hard to believe is that He would die at all on the cross. And He couldn’t even die on the cross if it weren’t first that He took upon Himself the imputation of our sin.

Having taken our sin, then He met the necessary condition for human mortality. Apart from that the second Adam would never have died. But having paid that price, and finished that work, the Father raised Him from the tomb for our justification.

I can’t remember which speaker said what in this conference there were so many wonderful things said. But, this was God’s proof of the person of Jesus. Paul debated with the philosophers in Athens at the Areopagus, and I mentioned that when

He debated with the stoics and the epicureans he called attention to their monument to an unknown god. The philosophers were hedging their bets just in case they missed one. Paul said “What you worship in ignorance I proclaim to you in power.

For the God who made the world and everything in it being Lord of heaven and earth does not live in temples made by man, nor is He served by human hands as if He needed anything since He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”

If you stumble at the resurrection, the recovery of life from the death let me take you back earlier. How about the beginning of Jesus’ life? How about the beginning of your life? How about the beginning of anybody’s life? How about life itself? Why is there life at all in this universe?

When we understand as Ravi so eloquently pointed out the necessary conditions for life can not be found in us. You did not create your own life. There was a time when you were not. There was a time when all of us were not.

But the only one who has the power of life in and of Himself eternally, the power of being in and of Himself eternally, the power of motion in and of Himself eternally, is the eternal self-existent living God who is the author of life, and the author of death.

He has the keys of life and death in His hands. And if the one who creates life in the first place in His Son can call a rotting corpse like Lazarus out of the tomb, so the same author of life can call His Son who touching

His humanity is now dead and bring Him back to life. What is so hard about that to believe? It is the opposite that is impossible. If there is such a thing as life in this universe, how can you attribute to the source of life

The fountain of life, the essence of life, the impossibility of bringing Jesus back to life and bringing you back to life? Paul goes on to say in Athens. “We ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.

The times of ignorance God overlooked, the former days.” Let me just stop here and insert something. A few minutes ago I said that the assumption of the newspaper writer is that the story of the resurrection must be a myth because resurrection is impossible.

And we know that by our sophisticated postmodern understanding of biology. And those poor people in the first century, pre-scientific, unsophisticated, people living in Palestine had no problem with the resurrection of Jesus because they saw resurrections all the time.

Every week they could go out to the cemetery and see somebody or other getting up out of a tomb. Let me tell you what folks. It was as foreign to the experience of first century man that a dead man would come out of the tomb, as it is today.

That’s why Thomas said “I’m not going to believe it just because you guys think you saw something. I’m not going to believe it unless I see the wounds, and unless I can put my finger in His hands.” And when that man showed up before Thomas and said “Here Thomas, put your fingers

In my hand. Touch me.” You know the Bible doesn’t say whether Thomas ever did. I don’t think he did. He didn’t have time to. He was on his knees. And he was saying “my Lord and my God.” No apologist was ever more sophisticated than the one who wrote “Sometimes it causes me

To tremble, were you there? Were you there when He rose up from the grave?” Sometimes it makes me shout “Glory, Glory.” You better believe glory. That’s why we’re here today folks. I hate to tell Al that it is Saturday and not Friday.

Would you believe an apologist that doesn’t even know what day it is? Somebody said it was impossible for us to make mistakes. But, here is the final point that I want you to get, the former times of ignorance God has overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent.

Because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed and of this He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead. There is no other sign that will be given to you except the sign of Jonah.

And if you don’t believe that sign you are in trouble because God has already set the day to judge the world. And His patience is not infinite. God as an evangelist never ever issues an invitation. That is something we do. God never invites people to receive Jesus. He commands them.

He commands all men everywhere to repent and to come to Jesus because He has proven that Jesus is the one through whom He will judge the world. How has God proven that? By raising Him from the dead. Well you say “I wasn’t there, so I can’t holler glory.

Other people God, but unless I see I’m not going to believe it. You’re going to have to send Jesus back again into my neighborhood, put Him to death again, and then raise Him for me to see. ” Too late. Too bad, He does it once for all.

And if that is not enough for you, you are in trouble. God is going to judge you by that historical act of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We believe in the resurrection, not because the alternative is grim. We believe the resurrection because of the Biblical testimony of it’s reality in time and space.

Paul ends this section by saying “Therefore” Here is the conclusion. “Be steadfast. Be steadfast. Immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for now you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” Your preaching is not in vain. Your faith is not in vain.

Your labor is not in vain because God has raised Him from the dead. And George Frederick Handel knew the only appropriate response to that was to say what? Hallelujah. Let’s pray. Father how we thank you for the testimony of scripture to the reality of resurrection

That transcends all levels of mythology and in which we find our hope and our justification. Amen

#R.C #Sproul #Resurrection #Christ

Since Jesus is God, who is a Spirit, how can Christ also be human?



Well when we say that Jesus is God, we have to be very careful to qualify what we mean by that. We mean, when we say that Jesus is God, that Jesus has a divine nature, but He also has a human nature. Obviously, His human nature is not a part of His deity.

It’s a manifestation of His humanity. Now you have two problems when we deal with the whole question of the Trinity and the incarnation. The classic explanation or formulation for the Trinity is this, that God is one in essence, but three in person.

That is, the three persons of the Godhead — the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. And they are all, as one essence, fully God, co-eternal and co-substantial in terms of their power and dignity and their being. But in the incarnation, you have just the opposite.

Instead of one essence and three persons, you have one person with two essences or two natures, and those two natures are the divine and the human. And we have to be very careful not to confuse the divine and the human natures of Jesus

Because if we do that, what we end up with is a deified human or a humanized deity, which in and of Himself is neither really human or divine. And the church has had to wrestle with that in past ages, and that’s why they’re very

Careful to distinguish between the two natures of the human and the divine. And so, when we say that Jesus was God, we don’t mean that the whole of Jesus was divine, because the human nature was not divine.

But He had a divine nature, and that’s what we’re saying when we say Jesus is God we’re saying that He is God incarnate, God united with a human nature. I hope that helps you.

#Jesus #God #Spirit #Christ #human

The Virgin Birth: Ultimately with R.C. Sproul



SPROUL: The New Testament is not  suggesting that a virgin walks down   the street and on her own strength and  her own power suddenly conceives a child Of all of the miracles in the New Testament—the  miracles of Jesus walking on the water, turning  

Water into wine, feeding five thousand  people, raising people from the dead,   and so on—there’s one miracle story that seems to  have been singled out for particular controversy,   and that being His virgin birth. I mean, there  have been furious debates, particularly in our  

Day, over the credibility of the New Testament  documents at the very beginning of Jesus’ life,   because the New Testament presumes to  teach that Jesus was born of a virgin. Now, some have tried to argue that  the text doesn’t really teach it,  

But that seems to be an act of despair to  support it. But others just say, “Well,   this is part of the mythical surroundings of  the New Testament documents that no scientific,   educated, sophisticated person in the twentieth  century could ever believe.” Because if there’s  

Anything that we know through our research and  our understanding of the biological process,   the system of reproduction, it’s this: that  virgins don’t have babies. That it takes two   people, male and a female. It takes the egg to  be fertilized by the sperm in order for a baby  

To be conceived—in vitro or ex vitro, doesn’t  matter. It still takes both sides. A virgin, in   and of herself, cannot conceive and have a baby.  That is an inflexible, unbreakable natural law.   And so anyone who would argue to the contrary  must be involved in fantasy, legend, or myth.

But dear friends, let me say in the first  instance that the New Testament is not suggesting   that Jesus is born “”de”” like  Athena out of the head of Zeus—that   a virgin walks down the street and  on her own strength and her own  

Power suddenly conceives a child, and this  child then is born and becomes the Messiah.   No, it’s not as if we have a biological wonder  that seeks to produce something out of nothing,   that we can have the process of birth  and the advent of life from no cause,  

No power. But rather, the New Testament is  saying, “Yes, indeed. There is a normal power,   a normal facility, by which the race is  propagated and the species replenished that   we call the reproductive system. And there is a  power unleashed through the reproductive process.”  

The New Testament’s saying is that that power  that we have in normal categories of nature   has been set in motion and injected into  this planet by a superpower that we call God,   whose power stands behind  all of creation, all of life.

Without the power of God, there can  be no egg, there can be no sperm,   there can be no life at all. The great miracle  comes from the naturalist today who tells us   that the world popped into existence on its  own power. That’s the virgin birth of the  

Whole universe. They deny the virgin birth  that God Himself brings about by this power,   this virgin birth, a very small thing for  the Lord of heaven and earth to accomplish,   indeed. And those who deny it put in its place  the virgin birth of the universe. It’s incredible  

That we have this kind of thinking going on, but  it’s there and we have to confront it every day. But the point I want to make is this,  that the New Testament says power   stood behind the birth of Christ,  but it was not the potency  

Of Joseph that generated this child,  but the potency of God the Father.”

#Virgin #Birth #Ultimately #R.C #Sproul