Lavender Star

While we’re on the subject of crocuses—and if you’d been paying attention, you’d know we’ve been discussing them—here’s a photo my son Andrew emailed me last night. It was uploaded yesterday, but he snapped it a couple of weeks ago.

 

The blue berry-like things on the evergreen in the background are juniper berries, which are really cones.

Theological Term of the Week

 

Moving on to another of the five solas. The previous sola was sola scriptura.

 

solus Christus
Literally, “Christ alone.” The reformation slogan meaning that salvation is based exclusively in the mediatorial work of Christ; that his sinless life and substitutionary death are the sufficient and sole grounds on which those who are being saved receive every benefit included in the process of salvation. 

• From 1 Timothy 1:5-6:

  For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.
  

• From The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 8:
  

  Of Christ the Mediator
  
  I. It pleased God, in His eternal purpose, to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, His only begotten Son, to be the Mediator between God and man, the Prophet, Priest, and King, the Head and Savior of His Church, the Heir of all things, and Judge of the world: unto whom He did from all eternity give a people, to be His seed,and to be by Him in time redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified.
  
  V. The Lord Jesus, by His perfect obedience, and sacrifice of Himself, which He through the eternal Spirit, once offered up unto God, has fully satisfied the justice of His Father; and purchased, not only reconciliation, but an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, for those whom the Father has given unto Him.
  
  VIII. To all those for whom Christ has purchased redemption, He does certainly and effectually apply and communicate the same; making intercession for them, and revealing unto them, in and by the word, the mysteries of salvation; effectually persuading them by His Spirit to believe and obey, and governing their hearts by His word and Spirit; overcoming all their enemies by His almighty power and wisdom, in such manner, and ways, as are most consonant to His wonderful and unsearchable dispensation.
  

• From J. I. Packer in What Did the Cross Achieve, from In My Place Condemned He Stood, listing the achievements of Christ in his work on the cross.
  

  3) The penalty due to me for my sins, whatever it was, was paid for me by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in his death on the cross.
  4) Because this is so, I through faith in him am made “the righteousness of God in him,” i.e., I am justified; pardon, acceptance and sonship become mine.
  5) Christ’s death for me is my sole ground of hope before God. “If he fulfilled not justice, I must; if he underwent not wrath, I must to eternity.”¹
  6) My faith in Christ is God’s own gift to me, given in virtue of Christ’s death for me; i.e., the cross procured it.
  7) Christ’s death for me guarantees my preservation to glory.
  8) Christ’s death for me is the measure and pledge of the love of the Father and the Son to me.
  9) Christ’s death for me calls and constrains me to trust, to worship, to love, and to serve.

Learn more:

1. R. C. Sproul: Christ Alone
2. Rod Rosenbladt: Solus Christus in the Scriptures
3. Philip Ryken: Christ Alone
4. Sam Hughey: Solus Christus
5. John Piper: Is Jesus Christ Man’s Only Hope for Salvation?
6. All of the audio sermons from the 2008 Sola Conference: In Christ Alone, including speakers John MacArthur, Al Mohler, Phil Johnson, Tom Pennington, Rocky Wyatt, and Mike Gendron.

Related terms:

• substitutionary atonement
  
• definite atonement

Filed under Reformed Theology

Have you come across a theological term that you don’t understand and that you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

 

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.

Into the Wild Blue

 
The lavender of the crocuses is gone and we’re into the blue period of the seasonal wildflower show.

These flowers are wild lupines. At least that’s what we call them here in the Yukon. Texans call their particular variety of lupines bluebonnets, which makes them sound a whole lot more intriguing, doesn’t it?

Lupines are legumes, which means they’re related to peas and beans and peanuts. Each one of those little blooms grows into a peapod-like seed packet. You don’t want to eat the seeds of these legume pods, though, because they contain a bitter poison. Thankfully, lupines make up for their toxicity with their loveliness, and before long I expect to see a solid sweep of lupine blue on each side of one of my favorite woodland walking trails down by the river.

I’ve also seen another blue wildflower recently (below). This one is called Jacob’s ladder because of their ladder-like leaves. This is a plant that can do unbroken stretches of colour, too. There are places on my regular dog-walking trail around my subdivision where entire hillsides become blue with a low carpet of blooming Jacob’s ladder.

Soon there’ll be one more blue wildflower blooming in my perennial garden; I’ll show it to you when it’s here. And after these initial blue blossoms, the summer wildflower revue moves on to the pretty pinks.

Previous wildflower post: 

• Lavender Charm 

Photos by Andrew Stark.

Update on Monday, June 2, 2008 at 8:30AM by rebecca

At Kim’s suggestion, I submitted this post to Project Blue at Anna Carson Photography.