For the Faith Community

Here’s Romans 3:24-25:

 … and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (ESV).

And now, from Jonathan Gibson’s essay on definite atonement in the Pauline epistles in From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective, commentary on this passage, which Gibson says, “usually goes under the radar … ” when it comes to lists of passages that support definite atonement:

In this passage, Paul spotlights God’s justice in presenting Christ as a propitiation. The propitiatory atonement of Christ vindicates God’s justice, retrospectively and prospectively (vv. 25-26). With respect to the past, Paul states that God’s punishment of sin at the cross justifies his passing over sins previously committed (v. 25). But whose sins? … The faith community of the old covenant is surely in view, since Paul goes on to speak of God’s justice at the present time in justifying those who have faith in Jesus — the faith community of the new covenant. Indeed, in Romans 4, to bolster his argument for justification by faith alone, Paul speaks of the forgiveness of Abraham and David on the basis of their faith, both of whose sins were definitely passed over until they were punished in Christ. If the “former sins” to have a universal reference, then one has to ask what Christ’s propitiatory death accomplished for the sins of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, for example. It makes more sense to understand the “former sins” to be those of the OT faith community, and thus, in this regard, the atonement that Christ offered already had a particular focus. It seems reasonable, then that it would also have a definite reference in the “present time.”

Previously posted quotes from this book.

• Someone for Some People
• Death Is the Penalty
• Election Is the Spring
• Election Circumscribes the Atonement

Theological Term of the Week

high priestly prayer of Jesus
Jesus’ final prayer, found in John 17, in which he “prays, first for himself (vv. 1–5), then for his disciples (vv. 6–19), and finally for later believers (vv. 20–26)”;1 also called the Farewell Prayer.

• From scripture, an excerpt from the high priestly prayer:

I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, butthey are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. (John 17:9-19 ESV)

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Linked Together: Teaching Your Children

Justification by Faith
Fred Zaspel has a helpful article on teaching the doctrine of justification by faith to our children in January’s Credo Magazine.

For many Christian parents it is not that they don’t want to teach doctrine — it’s just that they feel they don’t know how. So let’s think for a bit on that level: how can we teach our children this most important doctrine. What are the essentials that we need to get across?

Click below to read it. 

The Trinity
I’ve mentioned previously that I don’t recommend using analogies for the Trinity because the ones I know do a better job illustrating a trinitarian heresy than illustrating the Trinity. This one is better than most, but I’m still not sure about it.

What do you think? Does it help?