Round the Sphere Again

A few of the week’s links I liked.

Pointed
Rejoicing over new NIV translation. (TBNN)

Substantiation
What would constitute direct evidence of global warming? (William M. Briggs)

Historical
What the divers found. (CBC News)

Explanatory
How the pop-up timer in your turkey worked. (mental_floss Blog)

Refreshing
Cocoa like mother used to make. (Mennonite Girls Can Cook)

Thanksgiving 26

Today’s the day all you Americans are celebrating Thanksgiving, but there’s no turkey and stuffing or pumpkin pie at my house. Nope, we celebrated Thanksgiving back in October.

Instead of feasting, I went to the dentist. I’m thankful for two new fillings replacing two very old ones, and pretty whitish fillings instead of the ugly amalgam ones, to boot. I’m thankful for my dentist, who is gentle and not at all scary, unlike some dentists I’ve visited. Still, I’m thankful that unless something unforseen happens, I don’t have to see her again until next November.

To those for whom today is a holiday: Enjoy the meal and then tell me what you’re thankful for, okay?

• Elle is thankful for abundance.
• Connie wishes us all a happy Thanksgiving.
• Kim is thankful for a mild November.
• Ann is thankful that she’s able to attend Bible study and prayer meeting.
• Lisa is thankful for reminders to give thanks.
• Dorothy is thankful for the blessing of togetherness.
• Kim is thankful for the first snow.
• Rosemary is thankful to the Lord.
• Jodi is thankful for her readers.
• Jenn is thankful for time with family.

Here are three ways you can join in the thanksgiving. 

• Mention something you’re thankful for in the comments here and I’ll included it in one of my thanksgiving posts, or
• Email me to tell me what you’re thankful for and I’ll include it in a post, or
• Post your thankful thought(s) on your own blog, send me the link(s), and I’ll link to your post(s). If you plan to make your thanksgiving posts daily during the month, let me know that and you won’t need to send me daily links.

More details here.

If you’ve got a thanksgiving post and I missed it, please let me know so I can add your link.

Redemption Accomplished and Applied, Chapter 3

I’ve decided to participate with Tim Challies’ Reading the Classics Together program again. This time the book is Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray, and this week’s reading is chapter 3, The Perfection of the Atonement.

This chapter sets forth the perfection the atonement of Christ over against teachings that do harm to this doctrine. It all would have been easier to understand had I been more familiar with the specific erroneous teachings John Murray was referring to. I could have used a teacher to do some ‘splainin’, so take into account that I was flying blind for some of this bit o’ Murray.

First up we run into the Roman Catholic teaching that human beings must make some sort of satisfaction for sins. Christ’s satisfaction for sin, says Murray, “is so perfect and final that it leaves no penal liability for any sin of the believer.” While believers are indeed chastised, the purpose of their chastisement is sanctification, not satisfaction for their sins. 

Second, Murray sets the truth of the historic objectivity of the atonement against what I’m guessing is the teaching that the atonement in some way transcends history or is contemporary to us in that it is only actually completed when we participate with it. The truth is that the atonement was accomplished once-for-all-time in history independent of us.

Next Murray tackles the false doctrine of the sacrifice of the mass. There is finality to Christ sacrifice, he says. It is not repeatable or eternal. It is true that Christ continues his high priestly work in heaven, but that is intercession only—intercession that flows from (and is grounded in) his once-for-all-time sacrifice.

Then there is the mistaken idea that “vicarious sacrifice is a ‘law of being’.” What that means, I think (but here, too, I’m guessing), is that suffering in the place of someone else is natural to love itself. This means that human beings—along with heavenly beings, too, if I read right—can show the same sort of vicarious love that Christ did. We can, supposedly, “bear his cross, and be with him in his passion.” But not so, says Murray:

From whatever angle we upon his sacrifice we find its uniqueness to be as inviolable as the uniqueness of his person, of his mission, and of his office. 

And last, Murray takes on the Remonstrants who taught that Christ did not actually pay the debt of sin, but rather did something that God graciously chose to accept instead of full payment. Nope, he says, “Christ discharged the debt of sin…. Our debts are not cancelled; they are liquidated.”

That last statement was my favourite of the whole chapter. It’s a glorious thought: Our debts are not cancelled; they are liquidated. Yep. I like that.

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Glossary for Chapter 3

• suprahistorical: [could find no definition for this, so I assumed it meant “above history” or “transcending history” or something like that]
• liquidated: paid in full