Theological Term of the Week

Prophetic Books
Seventeen books of the Old Testament containing written collections of oracles of sixteen prophets. These can be divided into two groups: Major Prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentation, Ezekiel, and Daniel—and Minor Prophets—Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

• The introduction to the book of Isaiah:

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. (Isaiah 1:1 ESV)

• The introduction to the book of Jeremiah:

The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month. (Jeremiah 1:1-3 ESV)

Click to read more ...

Heidelberg Catechism

Question 37. What do you confess when you say the words, “He suffered”?

Answer: That Christ, during all the time that he lived on earth, but especially at the end of his life, bore in body and soul, the wrath of God against the sin of the human race (a), so that by his suffering, as the only propitiatory sacrifice, (b) he has redeemed our body and soul from everlasting damnation, (c) and obtain for us the favour of God, righteousness, and eternal life. (d)

(Click through to see scriptural proofs.)

Click to read more ...

Providing Confidence for Mission

Quoting from Daniel Strange’s chapter, Slain for the World, in From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective, on definite atonement as grounds for missions:

Far from dampening the motivation to missions, definite atonement provides great confidence for Christian mission. The message we proclaim is not that of a gospel offer which construes the atonement as providing merely the possibility of salvation or the opportunity of salvation, for “it is not the opportunity of salvation that is offered; it is salvation. And it is salvation because Christ is offered and Christ does not invite us to mere opportunity but to himself.”1 Moreover, in the spirit of the Lord’s words to Paul—“I have many in this city who are my people” (Acts 18:10)—we are confident in the unity of the triune God’s sovereign economy of salvation, for we know that wherever we proclaim the gospel, God’s Spirit has gone before, relating to all personally through the ever-present revelation of himself both externally in creation and history and internally in the imago Dei. While this revelation is both sinfully suppressed and substituted, it is never totally erased, so that all know God and are “without excuse.” But more, in God’s amazing graciousness and mercy, and in a myriad of ways, we are confident that he has been preparing his own people, those for whom Christ died, to receive the gospel message we proclaim, in saving repentance and faith.

Previously posted quotes from this book:

• Someone for Some People
• Death Is the Penalty
• Election Is the Spring
• Election Circumscribes the Atonement
• The Circle of Salvation
• Still Bearing Wounds
• Three Features of Typology

1 Original footnote: “John Murray, ‘The Atonement and the Free Offer of the Gospel,’ in Collected Writings of John Murray. Volume 1: The Claims of Truth (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976), 83.”