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Part 2: Speaking Biblically In his book, So Great Salvation, Dr. Charles Ryrie, the former Professor of Systematic Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary, includes a chapter entitled, "It’s Not Easy To Believe." In the beginning of the chapter he writes, "When we ask someone to believe in the Lord Jesus, we are asking something very difficult." The difficulty Dr. Ryrie speaks of is the nature of the body of truth that must be believed. Factors such as our historical distance…

A Finished Work As we learned in the last issue of Basic Truth, Jesus did not come to merely make men savable. He came to “save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). As Jesus said of Himself, “the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10, cf. Ezek. 34:11-15). It is necessary here to distinguish between secured salvation and applied salvation. On the cross, Jesus secured the salvation that is applied…

Faith and Grace in Relation to the Death of Christ As important as faith is in salvation, when a person believes and is justified, it is not faith that saves him—not even partially. Faith cannot appease God’s wrath. Only the blood of the perfect sacrifice can accomplish that. Nor does faith prompt God to save. A person is granted the ability and inclination to believe, through regeneration, precisely because God has chosen him for salvation (cf. Phil. 1:29; 2 Thess…

Part 2: Speaking Biblically “God had nothing to do with September 11th.” Those words were reportedly spoken by a pastor in the days following the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers. Whether they were actually spoken as reported or not, I do not know. I certainly disagree with them. But they raise a good question: If it is biblical to understand, as I tried to affirm in Part 1 of this article, that God in His providence is the “Author”…

Part 1: Thinking Biblically “Providence” is a theological term describing God’s preserving, sustaining, ordering, ruling, and governing of His creation. Many have used the word “meticulous” to describe the extent of God’s providence. “Meticulous” providence depicts God as ordering and directing everything—every detail in the universe. According to this understanding, every event in nature and every human action and decision is according to God’s decree and purpose. There are a number of biblical texts which affirm this view. For example,…

Part 2: Speaking Biblically1 On a Christian radio station, a speaker recently declared: “God loves you so much that if He had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.” Messages like this are not hard to find these days. People are inundated with images of God’s love that picture Him in heaven, longingly looking down at the human race and wringing His hands, hoping every single person will realize just how much He loves them and how desperately He…

Thinking Biblically The love of God is beautiful and even breathtaking when considered rightly. God is infinite in His capacity to love, even loving fallen, rebellious sinners enough to send His beloved Son to die in their place (Romans 5:8). Of all the ways in which God’s perfection far surpasses human ability and effort, the most obvious and humbling is His perfect love. Have you ever truly contemplated the fact that an infinite and holy God loves human beings who…

Appendix 2: Passages that Seem to Say Christ Died for Everyone (1 Timothy 4:10; Hebrews 2:9; 2 Peter 2:1; 1 John 2:2; 2 Corinthians 5:18-19) Since the Bible is the Word of God it is self-consistent. Consequently if we find a passage which in itself is capable of two interpretations, one of which harmonizes with the rest of the Scriptures while the other does not, we are duty bound to accept the former. (Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination) …

   Appendix 3: The Redemptive Love of God and the Meaning of “the World” in John 3:16    All that are within the circle of Christ’s love must be within the circle of our love, and to contend for doctrine in a manner which ignores this truth is a rending of the unity of the true church, which is His body. Nevertheless it is equally evident that no man’s beliefs or preaching are above the need of testing, and it is the duty of…

Creation Ex Nihilo Paul described God as the One “who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist” (Romans 4:17, NASB). His words are the perfect definition of the Hebrew word for “create” (bara) used in Genesis 1:1. The word literally means “to bring something into existence that did not exist before.” God created everything that now exists ex nihilo, a Latin term meaning “out of nothing.” A sculptor will take a rough piece…

How does the Bible describe God? God is Perfect We might describe our mother as “a good person.” We might say that an honest judge is “a just man.” But only God is perfectly good and perfectly just. All human beings, even those we admire and trust, are, by nature, imperfect, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). But “As for God,” David writes in Psalm 18:30, “His way is perfect.” God is…

  . . . and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. (Matthew 1:21)   God the Father sent His Son into the world with a definite purpose. It was a purpose that can even be seen in His name. When the angel spoke to Joseph, he told him to name the baby “Jesus” because He would save His people from their sins. The name Jesus is the Latin form of the…

The Bible speaks of two kinds of people: those who have been “born again” (John 3:3, cf. James 1:18), and those who remain in their sinful corruption—the “natural man” (1 Cor. 2:14). Only the person who understands the gospel and believes in Jesus Christ will be saved. But which kind of person truly believes? A better question might be this: Which kind of person is able to believe? God: Life-Preserver or Life-Giver? The analogy of a drowning person has often…