Round the Sphere Again: Ten

Household Items
you can clean in one minute (Apartment Therapy).

I’m a little surprised that cleaning the dryer lint filter made the list. I thought everyone but my sister-in-law cleaned the filter after every single load of laundry. (She famously told the appliance repairman, “Don’t take that off! That’s insulation!” She’s more than happy to tell this story on herself, so I’m not tattling.)

Baptists
Steve Weaver continues his series Ten Baptist You Should Know with a biographical sketch of William Carey (Credo Magazine), plus a reading list for those who want to know more about Carey.

Misconceptions
Michael Kruger takes on #7 on the list of ten misconceptions about the New Testament canon: “Christians had no basis to distinguish heresy from orthodoxy until the fourth century”.

Thankful Thursday

I’m thankful that God is omnipotent. God’s power created the universe and his power sustains it. Today I walked the dog down by the pond and we watched ducks swim. The dog, the ducks, and I, were all energised by God’s sustaining power. 

Everything I have comes by way of God’s power: His power causes the sun to shine and the rain to fall; his power causes the tomatoes to ripen and the flowers to bloom; his power supplies the food I eat and the clothes I wear; his power keeps me safe as I travel and healthy as I work.

That God is omnipotent means he can always do what he wills to do. Nothing can stop him from carrying out his plans. That’s another reason I can count on him to keep his promises, isn’t it?

God’s “power toward us who believe” means I have security despite my weaknesses. The God who spoke the universe into existence, who sustains it by his word, who raised Christ from the dead, and who is always, ever working all things according to the counsel of his will keeps me by his power (1 Peter 1:3-5). I cannot, will not, keep myself by my own power, but the God of all ability is on my side, keeping me by his power. 

It is through the power of God that 

…neither death nor life,
nor angels nor principalities nor powers,
nor things present nor things to come,
nor height nor depth,
nor any other created thing,
shall be able to separate us from the love of God
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 8:38,39)

The limitlessness of God’s power is one more reason I can trust him. It’s on more reason I have hope. Praise God for his omnipotence!

Penal Substitution = Universal Salvation?

One  objection to penal substitution is that implies universal salvation, and we know that’s not right. According to Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey and Andrew Sach in Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution, the argument can be laid out something like this: 

(a) According to penal substitution, Jesus’ death fully pays the debt of those for whom he died.

(b) Jesus died for all people.

(c) From (a) and (b) it follows that Jesus’ death fully pays the debt of all people. 

(d) But the Bible teaches that some people will pay their own debt in hell.

(e) From (c) and (d) it follows that God is unjust, for in hell he demands payment for a debt already paid in full by Christ. In other words, he punishes the same sin twice.

(f) This conclusion (e) is unthinkable, and so we must reject penal substitution (a) on which the whole argument rests.

But rejecting penal substitution (a) is not the only way out of this “unthinkable” conclusion (f). We could reject universal redemption (b) instead, and that’s what some—me, for instance—do.

Of course, those who reject universal redemption don’t do it simply to “prop up penal substitution.” 

Rather, particular redemption was part of the fabric of Reformed theology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and only when this was denied did some become uncertain about penal substitution.

There are, however, many people who hold to both penal substitution and universal redemption without holding to universal salvation. I’m guessing they just affirm it all without thinking too much about how it fits together. But traditional Arminians usually do reject penal substitution, holding to a governmental theory of the atonement, and the argument above is one of the reasons.