“The covenant of grace, with respect to us, consists of the absolute promises of God, in which the mediator, the life to be obtained by him, the faith by which we may be made partakers of him, the benefits purchased by him, and the perseverance in that faith, in a word, the whole of salvation, and all the requisites to it, are absolutely promised.”
Herman Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man
Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted. – Isaiah 52:13
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors. – Isaiah 53:12
In His lovingkindness toward us, before the foundation of the world, Christ purposed to redeem us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. In time, He descended to our level, put on this body of flesh, living and fulfilling all righteousness before the Father from our side, in our place, and suffering a sinner’s death, the very death we deserved for our wickedness against the rights of our Creator.
Based upon a recipe from: https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/stuffed-peppers/63e29e18-903e-467c-aec5-fba4ce3a138f
This was too good not to post. Courtney is an amazing cook.
“[Calvin] was more pastor than theologian, that, to be exact, he was a theologian in order to be a better pastor.” – John T. McNeill
Of all the things I’ve learned in the past couple of years, it hasn’t simply been more aspects of systematic theology, or a deeper, broader understanding of covenant theology, or getting a deeper sense of the larger, redemptive view of scripture given in biblical theology, or seeing the truth of and studying deeper on the sacraments as means of grace that has done my heart the most good, though it all certainly has in abundant ways. The deepest impact that has been made on me personally, in my own relationship with Christ, has been practical theology or what could even be called affectional theology. How does all of that theology meet real life? And how can it all be made accessible?
Biblical Theology approaches the Bible as an organic drama of God’s unfolding revelation through history. In distinction from doctrinal or systematic theology, biblical theology follows the progressively unfolding revelation of God’s words and deeds through history. This linear aspect of revelation unites each revelatory event and proclamation both retrospectively and prospectively. Geerhardus Vos described the organic continuation of revelation in history as a flower expanding from bud to blossom. The blossom is retrospectively united to the bud; the bud is prospectively united to the blossom. One of the tasks/privileges of the interpreter of Scripture is to draw out these organic prospective and retrospective relationships. At the center of this organic unity is the person and work of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Even as our Risen Lord related all of Scripture retrospectively and prospectively to himself (Luke 24:27), so Reformed biblical theology is preeminently Christocentric.
From The Christ of the Covenants, O. Palmer Robertson, pg. 41.
The New Covenant, promised by Israel’s prophets, does not appear as a distinctive covenantal unit unrelated to God’s previous administrations. Instead, the New Covenant as promised to Israel represents the consummate fulfillment of the earlier covenants. This organic relation of the New Covenant to the covenants of Abraham, Moses, and David finds explicit development both in the Old Testament prophecies concerning the covenant and in the New Testament realizations of this consummating covenant. From either perspective, the New Covenant may be understood in no other way than as a realization of the prophetic projections found in the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants.
Humans weren’t designed to know everything that’s happening in the world all the time: the despair, the suffering, the trials, the overwhelming injustices and the immensity of the problems in our modern industrialized, global society, can easily topple us emotionally and even spiritually. The Internet and its various information-pushing innovations over time, have all made it possible to know the massive tragedies in other countries, in real-time, in such a way that it can almost feel like the world is ending. All the time. Man can’t bear the weight of such knowledge.
Living between the first and second advents of Christ, caught between the already and the not yet, as His people, ours is an assured hope, wrapped up and summarized in the words of Christ: “It is finished.” And yet it’s a hope that contains an honest recognition of the present realities of the corrosion and decay ushered into the world by a single act of defiance against the rights of our Creator, transmitted and carried down through successive generations, even us, even me. It recognizes that the “not yet” aspect of our daily lives is all too real.
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