Round the Sphere Again

Strength in Suffering
Tim Challies has posted an interview with Terry Stauffer. Terry Stauffer is the pastor of Edson Baptist Church in Edson, Alberta, whose 14-year-old daughter was murdered last fall.

Church History
More on Calvin from The Crusty Curmudgeon.

• The Servetus Incident
• Calvin’s Theology
• Calvin’s Legacy

Catching Up
With Sherry’s Top 100 Hymn Project.

• What Wondrous Love Is This (65)
• To God Be the Glory (64)
• I’ll Fly Away (63). This is the first of the hymns to make the list for which I can’t see the reasoning behind it’s popularity. I would never in a million years vote for it. If you’re an “I’ll Fly Away” fan, forgive me for insulting your song.
• Take My Life and Let It Be (62)
• Jesus, I Am Resting, Resting (61) Yet another one of my favorites makes the list. So I’m up to 3/10.
• Love Divine, All Loves Excelling (60). Sherry gives some interesting background to this Charles Wesley hymn.

Book Giveaway
Enter the draw at Here I Blog for Godology: Because Knowing God Changes Everything by Christian George.

How do they that worthily communicate in the Lord's supper feed upon the body and blood of Christ therein?

As the body and blood of Christ are not corporally or carnally present in, with, or under the bread and wine in the Lord’s supper,[1] and yet are spiritually present to the faith of the receiver, no less truly and really than the elements themselves are to their outward senses;[2] so they that worthily communicate in the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, do therein feed upon the body and blood of Christ, not after a corporal and carnal, but in a spiritual manner; yet truly and really,[3] while by faith they receive and apply unto themselves Christ crucified, and all the benefits of his death.[4]

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Theological Term of the Week

eternality
That perfection of God whereby he transcends “all temporal limits and all successions of moments”;1 the infinity of God in relation to time; also called God’s eternity.

• From scripture:
  

  Lord, you have been our dwelling place
  in all generations.
  Before the mountains were brought forth,
  or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
  from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:1-2 ESV)
  

  But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (2 Timothy 3:8 ESV)

  “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:8 ESV)

• From The London Baptist Confession 1689, Chapter 2:

  The Lord our God is but one only living and true God; whose subsistence is in and of himself, infinite in being and perfection; whose essence cannot be comprehended by any but himself; … who is immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, every way infinite….

• From Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof:

  We generally think of God’s eternity … as duration infinitely prolonged both backwards and forwards. But this is only a popular and symbolical way of representing that which in reality transcends time and differs from it essentially. Eternity in the strict sense of the word is ascribed to that which transcends all temporal limitations. That it applies to God in that sense is at least intimated in II Peter 3:8. … Our existence is marked off by days and weeks and months and years; not so the existence of God. Our life is divided into a past, present and future, but there is no such division in the life of God. He is the eternal “I am.”

Learn more:

1. Rev. D. H. Kuiper: The Eternity of God
2. Notes on the Attributes of God: Eternal
3. R. L. Dabney: God’s Eternity
4. A. W. Tozer: The Eternity of God
5. S. Lewis Johnson: Attributes of God: How Old Is God?, or the Eternity of God (mp3)
6. From my attributes of God posts: God’s Eternality

Related terms:

• aseity
• immutability
• infinity

Filed Under God’s Nature and His Work.

1 Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof

Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it.

I’m also interested in any suggestions you have for tweaking my definitions or for additional (or better) articles or sermons/lectures for linking.I’ll give you credit and a link back to your blog if I use your suggestion.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms organized in alphabetical order or by topic.