Jesus Christ

I n this penultimate installment of the series on a puritan doctrine of union and communion with Christ, I want to consider the comfort “this glorious union with Christ” brings to dying saints and to “their surviving mourners” (Case). Thomas Jacomb says that we have no reason to be afraid of death...
My Sunday school teacher posed this question during class a few years ago. The question surprised me because the answer seemed obvious. If God is so far beyond my comprehension, how could he be simple? Therefore, he must be complex, right? Wrong. The teacher was not referring to whether God was...
In this quincentennial year, marking Martin Luther’s memorable act of defiance in Wittenberg, much has been said regarding his famous dictum about ‘the Word doing its work’. Far from attributing the impact and success of the Reformation on his own natural abilities or dogged persistence, he humbly...
Few doctrines are as central to Christianity as the doctrine of the Trinity. That God is Triune is not just a confession of faith but it is also at the core of our worship. We worship the true and living God and it is vital that we know who He is. To this end God has revealed who He is so that we...
This week on Theology on the Go, our host, Dr. Jonathan Master is joined by Dr. James Dolezal. Dr. Dolezal is Assistant Professor in the School of Divinity at Cairn University. He is a California native and is a graduate of The Master’s College, The Master’s Seminary, and Westminster Theological...
The purpose of “Bite-Size Bunyan” is to share John Bunyan’s writings in summary form. O ur second “bite” (see #1 ) concerns Bunyan’s work, A Vindication of the Book Called, Some Gospel- Truths Opened (1657), itself a response to Quaker Edward Burrough (1634-1663) who wrote The True Faith of the...
T he doctrine of union and communion with Christ provides a number of comforts or encouragements to Christians. I want to look at two in particular that some puritans highlighted: f irst, the dignity and honor that union with Christ bestows upon believers and second, the assurance that union with...
It was 1543. North of the Alps, Protestant reformers were busy publishing books. In Rome, the papacy was busy banning them. Still, the publishers in Venice, a proudly independent republic with a reputation of opposition to the pope, were persistent. That year’s best-seller was an Italian essay by a...
I was speaking with some ministerial colleagues recently about a conference one had just attended. The conference had been great, but to his surprise, after one of the sessions, a friend next to him put his head in his hands and said, ‘I’m a failure!’ Having just listened to an inspiring account of...
In 1 Peter 2:9, the Bible teaches that the church is a “royal priesthood”. The background from this passage is a quote from Exodus 19:6 where God gave the nation of Israel the same call: Exodus 19:6 “and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall...