Bully's Blog

Adam’s Challenge in Eden to Become the King He Was

by Mark Horne (reposted with permission)

“What we need to ask ourselves is, why might a righteous and sinless human need to ‘die’ in order to “live”?”

In basic Evangelical Christian teaching, “sanctification” is a process in which a believer, by the working of God’s Spirit, is able more and more to put off sin and live in more complete obedience to God. That way of summarizing the teaching can be misleading since perception is not always the same as reality. After all, one part of the process might involve discovering hidden sin, which means one might, at times in one’s life, be sanctified by (apparently) becoming more sinful, not less. Furthermore (or perhaps the same issue), new stages in life can bring new and more powerful temptations which one might initially fail to resist.

But another problem with “sanctification” as understood as the basic process and calling in the Christian life, is that Evangelical teaching cannot, on this definition, allow that Jesus, from the time he was born to the time he died, went through sanctification.

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From Douglas Wilson’s Why Ministers Must Be Men:

Any discussion of women’s ordination will obviously revolve around the direct Pauline statements on the subject, and we will certainly spend the lion’s share of our space there. However, the Pauline instructions were not delivered in a vacuum and when he makes his appeals outside his immediate situation, he makes those appeals to the Old Testament, ground his appeals in both the history recorded there and the law given there.

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or Thirty Pieces of Silver

“A Christian culture is a culture of opportunity because it is a culture that flows from the Covenant.”

The Bible Matrix is found throughout the Bible. It is the shape of Creation but it is also the shape of Covenant. It is the process of promise and fulfilment. We see it in Eden. We see it in Canaan. Every Covenant is a mission, a tour of duty, resulting in a safe place to live, a home of abundance, peace and glory. It should be no surprise to Christians that it is also the process that underpins economic growth.

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Those who “freed science from Moses” rejected true science.

One of the most underrated aspects of theology is the importance to God of legal witness. Not only is it rarely spoken about in evangelical circles but it is rarely mentioned as an answer to the scientistic objections of the day.

[This post has been refined and included in Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.]
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“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…” (Isaiah 53:4)

I thought this quote from Andrew Solomon’s The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression was worth sharing.
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Here’s some wisdom for witnessing from Chris Wooldridge (reposted with permission):

I have recently been reading Cornelius Van Til’s “Christian Apologetics” and it has really got me thinking about how the Church ought to be interacting with the world on some of today’s hot topics. I think all too often we are prone to affirming certain parts of the secular worldview without properly considering the consequences. So here are five things which the good Christian apologist should never agree with the secularist about. There are probably many others, but here are just a few. Continue reading

“To have a God-given internal moral compass is to have God Himself.”

Maturation is the process of making God’s “external law” into our internal law, our operating, animating principle. This has huge implications for sanctification, but it also explains a lot of what is going on in the Bible’s symbolism and architecture.

[This post has been refined and included in Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.]
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“What we have received from Jesus is not a collection of ‘merits,’ but rather His maturity.”

James B. Jordan writes:

The problem with the “covenant of works” notion lies in the fact that it is linked up with merit theology. There is no merit theology in the Bible. Merit theology is a hangover of medieval Roman Catholicism.

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Alastair Roberts has some wise things to say about rational public debate on important issues being hampered by the new culture of “tolerance.” Of special interest to me are his observations concerning the nature of the recent spat involving Doug Wilson, Jared Wilson and Rachel Held Evans. I have had similar experiences in online discussions. I’m relying on and presenting facts and somehow the other side is irate that facts are being presented. And the fact-free, vitriolic, ad hominem comebacks would make my hair curl if I had any.

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