Round the Sphere Again: Clearer Still

A few recent posts adding more light to subjects that have already been included as Theological Terms.

Trinity
How is the Father greater than Jesus while also equal? A quote from James White at Ordinary Pastor.

Typology
Dan Phillips (Pyromaniacs) says another way to look at the New Testament fulfillment of the Old Testament is “Huh?” and “Oh!”

Many mysteries are stirred and tales half-told, left unresolved and unsatisfied by the time Malachi (or 2 Chronicles, in the Hebrew Bible) is finally penned. But all those central mysteries are resolved with the complex of revelation unfolded in the coming of Christ.

Worldview
as a tree. Paige Britton at Green Baggins gives us a different scheme for examining worldviews.

The point of the Tree is that a consistent thought system can be shown to run organically from “roots” to “fruits.” Not that people generally walk around with well-articulated or particularly consistent thought systems in their heads – but as an apologetic tool, this graphic organizer can be used to visually emphasize inconsistencies in somebody’s system (e.g., the fact that certain “fruits” were stolen from the Christian Tree and duct-taped onto a non-Christian one) and also to display the beautiful consistency of the biblical worldview. As a teaching tool for Christians, the Tree can be used to present identifiable worldly thought systems over against the biblical view of reality, and it can be used to organize data gathered from a speaker or author in order to figure out what Tree he or she is sitting in.

Be sure you look at the first comment to see The Biblical Worldview Tree.

Thankful Thursday

I am thankful that God has revealed himself in his word. We don’t have to go around guessing who and what he is because he tells us. We don’t have to go around guessing (or even constantly questioning) how and where he works. We can know God and we can know his works, because he has made himself known to us. That’s a good thing and I’m thankful.

I’m thankful that we have such a variety of good food available. Right now I’m eating ham and Swiss cheese slices on a toasted bagel for lunch, and it is yummy. Last night I had a mix of roasted vegies (and I love my vegies*) that wouldn’t even have been available to me during the winter months when I was a child. I’m thankful that God provides us with such an abundance. Yep, good food is another good gift.

I’m thankful for sunny days and beautiful blue skies. This has been a bit of a difficult winter and I’m thankful for the promise of spring days to come.

*Note to my spell-check: It is perfectly permissible  to spell vegies with only one g. And preferred, if you ask me. After all, the g is soft.

Throughout this year I’m planning to post a few thoughts of thanksgiving each Thursday along with Kim at the Upward Call and others.

No More Repentance

From God Who Is There, The: Finding Your Place in God’s Story by D. A. Carson, on Rev. 22:11

Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.

and what this verse tells us about those whose final destination is hell:

Hell is full of people who do not want to be there but who still do not want to bend the knee. For all eternity they still hate God. They still despise the cross. They still nurture sin; they still hate others in this endless cycle of self-chosen sin, iniquity, thanklessness, idolatry, and their consequences. The prospect is horrendous. This ongoing sin is so much a part of their stamp and makeup that is they were suddenly transported to heaven, they would hate it. In exactly the same way as we [see] in John 3 in the passage on God’s love, when the light comes, people love darkness rather than light because their deed are evil. That is the horrible awfulness of it: ongoing punishment and still—God help us—no repentance. Not ever. That’s why the Bible tells us to “flee from the coming wrath” (Matt. 3:7).

Carson goes on to remind us that any Christian who teaches on these things without tears is betraying Jesus:

Christian faith and thought are not helped by angry preachers whose tone almost suggests that they take a kind of vicious glee from the tragic end of others For a start, we Christians will be the first to acknowledge, as Paul understands in Ephesians 2, that we are all by nature children of wrath—starting with us who have become Christians. If we have come to experience the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with the living God, it is only because of the grace of the gospel. We are never more than condemned prisoners who have found pardon and who want others to enjoy the same.

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Related Theological Term posts:

• hell
• universalism
• exclusivism
  
• inclusivism
• pluralism
• annihilationism
  

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A few recent posts elsewhere:

• The truth of hell should fill us with traumatic awe (Against Heresies)
• Rob Bell, Hell, and the wisdom of Augustine (Against Heresies)
• The Preaching of Hell Is the Best Kindness (The Gospel-Driven Church)
• What Is Universalism? (Justin Taylor)
• Seven Reasons Why We Can’t Water Down the Lake of Fire (Blog and Mablog)
• How Do God’s Love and Wrath Relate? (Effectual Grace)

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And of course, the flurry of post on hell, universalism, etc. comes because of Rob Bell’s new book, which Tim Challies reviews here.