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Supposedly, Christianity will go away. We will evolve and move on. Infuriatingly for some, it's not going away that easily. Today, we remember a day when Jesus was supposed to go away. But, things did not go as planned.  Crucifixions were supposed to be smooth and orderly. Everyone played their part to make sure the punishment was carried out with maximum efficiency and elegance. But this was no ordinary crucifixion. Things had already been going off the rails. Pilate couldn't find a crime but gave in to the crowd's call for Jesus to be crucified. Jesus himself was not displaying the normal characteristics of the guilty. But surely the day itself would go without a hitch and everyone could put this sorry episode behind them. The first sign that things were not going to be normal appeared when Jesus had his cross taken away and placed upon the shoulders of Simon of Cyrene. Now the criminal marched without his cross. No one knows why this happened, but we know...

Perhaps the best defense of the utility of philosophy for Christian ministry is found in Moreland and Craig's  Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview  (16-19). The following is my summary of six benefits: Apologetics  – when an objection is made against Christianity it is almost always a philosophical objection or involves a philosophical assumption. Just consider the following objections: (i) there is no evidence for the existence of God (ii) miracles are impossible (iii) the presence of evil in the world entails that God does not exist (iv) How do we know that the bible is true? (v) How can Christianity be the only way to God? (vi) That might be true for you but not for me (vii) How do you know that Jesus was raised from the dead? All of these objections require philosophical replies. Polemics  – the church is called upon to criticize and refute false views. One important way to refute erroneous views is by philosophical argument. Refuting people ...

A couple of weeks ago, Pastor  John MacArthur told Ben Shapiro that he intends to offend everyone  with the gospel. That's because the good news about Jesus is offensive. It tells us that we are sinners in need of a savior. The gospel makes us sad, but there are two kinds of sadness, a godly sadness and a worldly sadness, one leading to salvation, the other to death. In his second (or, more probably, his third) letter to the church in Corinth, Paul rejoices over the sadness his previous letter had produced in its reader. In his previous letter, Paul lambasted the members of the church for their arrogance and sin. His harsh words evidently had some effect producing sorrow and grief: For even if I made you sad by my letter, I do not regret having written it (even though I did regret it, for I see that my letter made you sad, though only for a short time). Now I rejoice, not because you were made sad, but because you were made sad to the point of repentance. For you were made...

Since the fall, human beings are said to be born with original  or inherited  sin. By whatever means we inherit this problem, we have it innately . We do not acquire it sometime in our lives. Paul tells us that Adam's sin affects the whole human species (Rom 5:12). Luther wrote, "all men are full of evil lust and inclinations from their mothers' wombs ." Calvin wrote that original sin is "a hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused into all parts of the soul, which first makes us liable to God's wrath, then also brings forth in us those works which Scripture calls 'works of the flesh' (Gal 5:19)." The doctrine of original sin (OS) is rightly regarded as a species of nativism. Nativism is the view that features of human beings are 'within us' and are not acquired. Those features might include capacities, dispositions, concepts, or beliefs.  According to a weak version, OS is the lack of a capacity--the inabili...

"Aphasia, the loss of language following a brain injury, is devastating, and in severe cases family members may feel that the whole person is lost forever." (Stephen Pinker, The Language Instinct, 2). Is fellowship possible without language? I don't mean without the constant presence of language. Two people might not talk for a while but feel close to one another, but what if they never spoke to one another. What if, in the very nature of things, no one spoke? I suppose we could not know what our fellowship would be like. Would we be able to communicate in some way - by looking at each other? Perhaps we really can see each other's souls in each other's eyes. Intuitively, however, such a situation presupposes the possibility of speech. Special looks across a table are special precisely because they are unusual. What is normal about fellowship is some form of communication between people. Consider the ultimate fellowship - the fellowship between the three ...

James Krugel is Professor of Hebrew Literature at Harvard University. Krugel suggests that neuroscience can lend some understanding to biblical scholarship on how human beings might hear the voice of God. In a recent interview, Krugel suggests that the ancient worldview of the prophets included the idea that the mind could be penetrated by spiritual entities: The human mind could be penetrated by outside forces. Not only by God—who is sometimes depicted as going inside people, “probing their kidneys and heart” to find out what they’re really thinking—but by various sorts of “spirits.” Some of them were benign, but others were wicked spirits dispatched by Satan to take over. They were like bacteria; you couldn’t see them, but once they got inside of you they would take charge, making you think and do things against your will. So the Bible and other texts from the same period contain prayers specifically designed to ward off these evil spirits. That’s part of what I meant by sem...

Abbot Tryphon argues that the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement is heresy . Tryphon calls the view "pagan" view in which "we are forced to view our God as some sort of angry deity needing to be appeased by a blood sacrifice." Tryphon's main argument is that if we accept the penal substitutionary view, then we are forced to accept two consequences, both of which are false: The major problem with this teaching can be seen in the fact that had Christ died for our sins against God the Father, thus causing a division of God, with the doctrine of the Holy Trinity laid waste, with God pitted against God. This heretical doctrine divides God by implying that Christ isn’t fully God. It also suggests that there is a higher force than God, thus making God Himself ruled by a “higher force”. In other words, God has no choice but to punish. By this notion, justice forces God to respond to our sin with His wrath, with love becoming secondary. First, Tryphon...

The theory of penal substitutionary atonement states that Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, took the punishment that we deserve. Some suggest that if Christ takes the punishment we deserve, then he must take the same  (or identical) punishment we deserve. This thought generates an objection to the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. The argument is something like: If we deserve eternity in hell, then, in order to take our punishment, Christ must spend eternity in Hell.  Christ does not spend eternity in Hell.  Therefore, the penal substitutionary atonement theory is false.  There is good reason to reject this argument. The first thing to notice is that this argument rests upon interpreting "Christ takes the punishment we deserve" as "Christ takes the punishment identical to the punishment given to sinful human beings who reject Christ." But why accept (i) that the punishment must be identical and (ii) that the punishment must be ide...

On the cross, the Messiah cries, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46b). His words are a quotation of David's prophetic psalm, psalm 22. But what can Jesus possibly mean? How could the Son be forsaken by the Father? How do we explain the Messiah's question? Surely he of all people knows why he is on the cross. The answer lies in an understanding of Psalm 22. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, in the first verse, David gives the Messiah his script. His cry is a forlorn cry of dereliction: My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning. My God, I cry by day, but You do not answer and by night, but I have no rest. In the psalm's context, the opening words comprise a complaint: God has forsaken the Messiah and abandoned him in his hour of terrible need. This raises all sorts of difficult questions: Can the Son be forsaken by the Father without damage...

The tragedy of a lifeless body is only matched by the tragedy of a worshipless life. A worshipless life is a life lived without worshiping the King, the Messiah, Jesus. In the gospels, this tragedy brings the Lord to tears and anguish over his people. In every other encounter with human misery, the Lord stoops in compassion and heals, delivers, and forgives. But his anguish is reserved for those whose lips cannot sing a song of praise to their King. Matthew 21 – 23 records Jesus’ encounter with those who cannot worship their king. Jesus enters his city as the rightful heir to the throne of David. He is praised by his people, but rejected by the religious leaders. The very people whose praise ought to have been the loudest are the ones who are silent in the Messiah’s presence. Their refusal to worship provokes Jesus to condemn them and, as he does so, he reveals his sorrow over those who will die in a worshipless state. In chapter 21, Jesus enters the city of Jerusalem on a colt ...

Read the following excerpt from theologian, Arthur Pink. It is about the wrath of God. The wrath of God is his eternal detestation of all unrighteousness. It is the displeasure and indignation of divine equity against evil. It is the holiness of God stirred into activity against sin. It is the moving cause of that just sentence which he passes upon evildoers. God is angry against sin because it is a rebelling against his authority, a wrong done to his inviolable sovereignty. Insurrectionists against God’s government shall be made to know that God  is  the Lord. They shall be made to feel how great that Majesty is which they despise, and how dreadful is that threatened wrath which they so little regarded (Arthur Pink,  The Attributes of God,  p. 96). I couldn't help noticing that the author delights in the God's wrath. Some will find this repugnant. How could God's wrath elicit delight? There is good reason for such a reaction -  we  are the object ...

When most people get close to people of power and influence, they feel something. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but the best answer I can come up with is that powerful people are compelling because their power promotes our status. The closer we are to them, the higher our status is. This morning we are going to look at Jesus’ teaching on status in the kingdom in Matthew 20:17-34. In this text, Jesus receives two very different requests--one for status and the other for mercy. He teaches his disciples that he has come not to be the powerful status-elevator, but the humiliated servant who lays down his life to free people from their sin. Let's start with the status seekers. The status seekers: (20-24) Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons (James and John), and kneeling before him she asked him for something. And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand ...

Here is a common argument against the penal substitutionary view of the atonement: The penal substitutionary view of the atonement entails a retributive view of punishment, but retribution is insufficient moral justification for punishment. Therefore, the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement is false. In response, I shall argue that the retributive justification of punishment is well supported by the Bible and by commonly held intuitions about meritorious actions. The penal substitution view of the atonement holds that sinful human beings deserve divine punishment and that Jesus Christ was punished in their place. According to this view, punishment is deserved by a sinner but can be absorbed by someone other than the person who has committed the sin: The Father, because of his love for human beings, sent his Son (who offered himself willingly and gladly) to satisfy God’s justice, so that Christ took the place of sinners. The punishment and penalty we deserve was laid o...