Sunday's Hymn: I Will Sing of My Redeemer

I will sing of my Redeemer
And his wondrous love to me;
On the cruel cross he suffered,
From the curse to set me free.

Refrain

Sing, O sing of my Redeemer!
With his blood he purchased me;
On the cross he sealed my pardon,
Paid the debt and made me free.

I will tell the wondrous story,
How my lost estate to save,
In his boundless love and mercy,
He the ransom freely gave.

I will praise my dear Redeemer,
His triumphant power I’ll tell,
How the victory he giveth
Over sin and death and hell.

I will sing of my Redeemer
And his heav’nly love to me;
He from death to life has brought me,
Son of God, with him to be.

—Phi­lip P. Bliss

 Other hymns, worship songs, or quotes for this Sunday:

• Not All the Blood of Beasts at The Happy Wonderer
• Totally Dependent on Christ, and Happy to Be So at The Outspoken Tulip 
• My Chains Fell Off at Tried With Fire
• Lord’s Day 2, 2020 at The Thirsty Theologian

Selected Reading, January 11, 2020

A bit of recommended listening and reading.

God

The Revealed and Hidden Will of God
Another good listen (or read) from the SimplyPut podcast. 

Is the Trinity in Genesis 1?
The answer is yes. But it’s a hidden presence.

Biography 

B. B. Warfield — Not a Solitary Theologian
Many people think B. B. Warfield was “a solitary man leading an uneventful life,” but that’s not exactly accurate.

Theology 

Luther’s Doctrine of the Priesthood of All Believers: The Importance for Today
“The doctrine of the priesthood of all believers meant that all who have faith in Christ and are baptised are designated priests and share in Christ’s royal priesthood. This meant that every believer has equal access to the Father through Jesus. The corollary is that every believer has the responsibility to act as a priest to other believers, to minister to them, particularly through proclaiming Scripture to them. nothing more exciting than a good punctuation story.”

Theological Term of the Week: Communicatio Idiomatum

communicatio idiomatum
“The concept that, in the hypostatic union, wherein Christ took a human nature into personal union, attributes of both natures are predicable of the person of Christ. From this, reference can be made to Christ acting in one nature in terms relating to the other (e.g., ‘they crucified the Lord of glory’).”1 Also called communion of properties or communication of attributes.

• From the Second Helvetic Confession, Chapter 11: 

  IMPARTATION OF PROPERTIES. We piously and reverently accept and use the impartation of properties which is derived from Scripture and which has been used by all antiquity in explaining and reconciling apparently contradictory passages.

• From the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 8, Section 7:

  Christ, in the work of mediation, acts according to both natures, by each nature doing that which is proper to itself; yet, by reason of the unity of the person, that which is proper to one nature is sometimes in Scripture attributed to the person denominated by the other nature.

• From Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology: 

  A communicatio idiomatum, or communication of properties. This means that the properties of both, the human and the divine natures, are now the properties of the person, and are therefore ascribed to the person. The person can be said to be almighty, omniscient, omnipresent, and so on, but can also be called a man of sorrows, of limited knowledge and power, and subject to human want and miseries. We must be careful not to understand the term to mean that anything peculiar to the divine nature was communicated to the human nature, or vice versa; or that there is an interpenetration of the two natures, as a result of which the divine is humanized, and the human is deified (Rome). The deity cannot share in human weaknesses; neither can man participate in any of the essential perfections of the Godhead.

Learn more:

1. Ligonier Ministries: A Communication of Attributes
2. Sam Storms: Classical View of the Two Natures of Christ
3. Green Baggins: The Communication of Attributes

Related terms:

• christology
• deity of Christ
• humanity of Christ
• hypostatic union

Filed under Person, Work, and Teaching of Christ

1From Systematic Theology by Robert Letham.

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