The Trinity Is Greater

This morning I posted at Out of the Ordinary on the doctrine of the Trinity.

Because the Christian God is triune, he is greater the so-called gods of other religions. He is, for instance, loving by nature, something a single-person god cannot be. Before creation, the persons of the Trinity loved each other, while a single-person god cannot love unless he creates something to love. To love, a single-person god needs his creation. The Trinity, on the other hand, is eternally loving and needs nothing in order to love.  

Click over to read the whole piece. 

Linked Together: Atonement

Christ As High Priest
Turretinfan:

Sometimes it is hard to explain to people why the sacrificial nature of Christ’s death is relevant to the question of the scope of the atonement: i.e. whether the atonement was made for all, hypothetically all, or particularly the elect.  One way to explain this is by reference to the fact that Christ is not just the lamb of God, whose death takes away the sins of the world, but that Christ is also the High Priest who makes the offering

Read his entire explanation of the Christ as High Priest argument for definite atonement.

Christ As Ransom
Jared Wilson:

In C.S. Lewis’s classic work of “supposal,” The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, we see where Aslan makes the payment of his life for Edmund’s liberation in response to the White Witch’s demands. It’s a powerful scene and not without biblical resonance, but if we draw the lines to directly, we may make a theological mistake of some importance. Aslan is clearly Christ in the story, and the Witch is clearly the stand-in for our accuser Satan. But while Satan is often called the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4), he is still subservient to the sovereign Lord of all the cosmos. So we have to be careful in how we speak of ransom, lest we lend too much power to the enemy and deflect too much glory away from God.

Read the rest for the answer to the question of to whom Christ’s ransom was paid. (Hint: It wasn’t Satan.)

Christ Made Sin
Kendall Easely: “Jesus is the only human who ‘did not know sin,’” yet “God made him ‘to be sin’” for us. What should our reponse be?

Theological Term of the Week

ordinary means of grace
The elements of corporate worship which God uses to build his church, namely, the reading and preaching of the Word, prayer, baptism and the Lord’s supper; “the things God, in the Bible, says are central to the spiritual health and growth of His people”;1 also called the outward means of grace.

• From scripture:

And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receivethe gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. (Acts 2:38-42, ESV)

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts,praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:46-47, ESV)

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