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54 results for “Biblical theology”
Clear searchSeth D. Postell, Eitan Bar & Erez Soref · Messianic biblical theology · 2017
A study of how the Torah reaches its goal in Yeshua, addressing how Moses points to Messiah, the purpose of the Law, the place of rabbinic tradition, and the relationship of Jewish and Gentile believers to the Torah's commandments.
View recommendation →Michael J. Vlach · Biblical theology · 2023
…ferently will meet conclusions they may wish to test carefully. Read it with the relevant biblical passages open and weigh each part of the case from Scripture. Bodily resurrection New creation Restoration Kingdom of God Eternal life Creation
View recommendation →Why the Son assumed a complete human nature, not merely a body
…was truly “made of a woman” and entered our history under the obligations of the law. The biblical portrait of Christ’s inner human life There is no single proof-text that carries the whole argument. Scripture gives us something stronger: a sustained portrait of a complete human…
Read article →Eustathius of Antioch, the human soul of Christ and the pictures created by our words
…that the early Christians simply knew less Bible or believed in an unfinished Christ. The biblical realities were already present. What remained underdeveloped was the language capable of preserving all of them together. What must be held together John does not say that the Word…
Read article →Origen, Arius and the line between Creator and creation
…Son of God. But familiar words can conceal a radically different identity. In Watchtower theology, the Son is not the eternal Creator who shares the Father’s divine nature. He is the first and highest creature, identified with Michael the archangel, through whom Jehovah made eve…
Read article →History, heresy, and the temptation of private Christianity
…icalism descend from ancient Gnostic movements? Does evangelical doctrine reproduce their theology? And can evangelical practice sometimes assume an analogous spiritual posture even while its formal doctrine remains orthodox? The answers are, respectively: no demonstrable genealo…
Read article →The LORD, Zion, and the meaning of Beulah in Isaiah 62:4–5
…among them, and the land becomes fruitful and secure. Israel’s Covenant Husband The wider biblical witness identifies the LORD, not the land, as Israel’s covenant husband. Jeremiah describes the Sinai covenant in explicitly marital terms: “Which my covenant they brake, although I…
Read article →Creation, judgement, and the coming reign of Christ
…ative Christians, the question can feel politically loaded before it has even been opened biblically. Environmental concern has become so closely associated with the political left, liberal theology, nature mysticism, animism, and neo-paganism that some Christians instinctively r…
Read article →The near was real. The far is still coming.
…s this fulfilled, or is it still future?” That is often a necessary question when reading biblical prophecy. Sometimes, however, it becomes an inadequate question because it assumes that a prophecy must belong entirely to one historical moment. Isaiah does not always speak that w…
Read article →The glory philosophy could not contain
…impassible. (See Note 3.) That is not verbal evasion. It is the necessary grammar of the biblical facts. If we say that only an independent human person suffered, we divide Christ into two acting subjects. If we say that deity itself bled or died, we confuse the natures and turn…
Read article →Born, begotten and firstborn in the eternal identity and saving work of the Son
…it does not mark the beginning of His eternal identity. Eternity and economy In Christian theology, the eternal or immanent Trinity refers to who the Father, Son and Holy Spirit eternally are in God’s own being. The economy of salvation refers to how the three divine persons act…
Read article →Why the distinction matters when we speak about Jesus
…e need for precise language arose because people offered explanations that preserved some biblical statements by sacrificing others. Some denied that Christ possessed a complete human mind or soul. Others treated His body and suffering as appearances. Some blended deity and human…
Read article →The incarnation, the limits of created perspective and the love philosophy could not imagine
Why the incarnation overturns human ideas of divine greatness, matter, emotion and suffering—and why John 3:16 answers the riddle of God’s descent.
Read article →Governmental restraint, the final ten kings, and the preparation of the temple
A working theory connecting Rome’s restraining authority with the final concentration of power, while considering when temple preparation might begin.
Read article →Four popular claims tested in context
…ammad can be made to resemble someone mentioned in Scripture. The question is whether the biblical author identifies a future figure by characteristics which Muhammad actually fulfils. Three standards will govern the examination: Immediate context: words receive their meaning fro…
Read article →The Messiah cut off before the Temple fell
…y” in Surah 4:157. Islam preserves the title but gives it little explanatory content. The biblical record supplies the history and theology from which the title comes. Jesus was cut off Jesus was publicly crucified under Pontius Pilate. This is established by the early New Testam…
Read article →Ezekiel 20, child sacrifice, and the judgement of being given over
…ains the judge, while their practices remain evil. E. W. Bullinger discusses this under a biblical idiom in which active language can describe permission. He applies the explanation to several New Testament passages, including those concerning hardening in Romans 9 and 11. This i…
Read article →Why a loaded label does not settle the question
Secret Rapture—or Biblical Distinction? Why a loaded label does not settle the question “The secret rapture is unbiblical.” The phrase is repeated so often that it can sound like an argument. It is not. Pretr…
Read article →El, the Exodus, and the God Who Came from Sinai
…Canaanite religion. Israel lived within a wider Canaanite cultural world. Several ancient biblical poems describe Yahweh as coming from Sinai, Seir, Paran or Teman. Israelite and Judahite inscriptions attest forms of worship condemned by Scripture, including the notorious referen…
Read article →Does John 6 teach the literal eating of Christ's body?
…at this article does not claim Fairness requires an important distinction. Roman Catholic theology does not teach that the communicant tears pieces from Christ’s visible body as a cannibal tears flesh from a victim. It teaches that, following consecration, the substance of bread…
Read article →The covenant son and the sacrifice that points to Christ
…t calls him a prophet and places him among the righteous. Nor need a Muslim deny that the biblical covenant passed through Isaac in some historical sense. The broader Islamic claim is that Abraham's legacy was never confined to Israel. Ishmael was also a prophet, helped Abraham r…
Read article →Matthew, the Hebrew word almah, and a sign whose meaning reaches beyond Ahaz
…realisation of a pattern rooted in Isaiah's own day. A critic may still reject Matthew's theology or deny the virgin birth. But the simple charge—“Isaiah said young woman, Matthew dishonestly changed it to virgin”—does not do justice to the evidence. Good interpretation must all…
Read article →Dave Hunt · Devotional theology and biblical exhortation · 2000
…wonder, and urgency of ordinary Christian faithfulness. This is a collection of forceful biblical exhortations rather than a systematic treatment of one doctrine. Hunt writes urgently and sometimes moves quickly across large and disputed subjects, including prophecy, the Church,…
View recommendation →Responding to five common criticisms without defending what Scripture does not require
…swers do not prove the whole system. They clear away five common criticisms so the actual biblical questions can be heard. Criticism 1: “Dispensationalism was invented by Darby” John Nelson Darby played a major role in systematising and spreading nineteenth-century dispensational…
Read article →The question reaches beyond prophecy to the faithfulness of God
…e Gentiles, and the Church. That question matters because it touches three foundations of biblical faith: how we read Scripture, how we understand the character of God, and how we relate to the Jewish people. The words of a promise matter God called Abram from his country and pro…
Read article →Defining the position before testing it
…rsessionism, and Why Does It Matter? Defining the position before testing it "Replacement theology" is a useful popular label, but it can also conceal important differences. Many Christians accused of teaching that the Church replaced Israel would reject that wording. They believ…
Read article →A history of interpretation, polemic, and forgotten tension
…as not invented merely to remove Israel, and spiritual interpretation can uncover genuine biblical patterns. The danger appears when a spiritual application is made exhaustive. A prophecy may edify the Church and still mean what it says about Israel. Once the spiritual sense canc…
Read article →Sir Robert Anderson · Biblical and apologetic argument · 1897
…ed by defective faith. He places the apparent silence of heaven within his reading of the biblical programme and argues that God's patience is not absence, weakness, or indifference. Even where readers question his framework, the book forces serious thought about providence, pray…
View recommendation →Dave Hunt · Biblical polemic · 2002
…acter of God, and especially of His love. Hunt repeatedly brings the argument back to the biblical text. Follow the references, open the passages, read their contexts, and the book becomes a Scripture study rather than merely one side of a theological dispute. This is an unapolog…
View recommendation →Conditional blessing, irrevocable promise, and fulfilment in Christ
The Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, and new covenants examined to distinguish Israel's judgement from the irrevocable purpose of God's promises.
Read article →Why the Trinity is not polytheism—and why Christians confess one God
…suggests three beings. None describes the Christian confession. It is better to state the biblical boundaries clearly than to force God into an illustration that quietly changes the doctrine. What about “My Father is greater than I”? Jesus says, “my Father is greater than I” in J…
Read article →Labour, purpose, and faithfulness in a fallen world
…sed by employers who expect endless availability while offering little loyalty in return. Biblical faithfulness is not unquestioning devotion to an institution. The same Bible which commends labour also commands rest. God established a rhythm in which work stops, limits are ackno…
Read article →A response to Michael Horton on the land promise, Amos 9, and the people of God
…9, and the people of God Michael Horton's essay, “No Holy Land: Does Israel Still Have a Biblical Claim on the Middle East?”, presents a concise Reformed case against dispensational land theology. Horton argues that Israel's possession of Canaan was conditional, that the promise…
Read article →What the Father's love for the Son reveals about God
…Trinity by defining love in a way which makes every alternative logically impossible. The biblical case is stronger than that. Jesus does not leave us to speculate about whether love might have existed before creation. He speaks of love which was actually given and received: "For…
Read article →Testing Islam's evidence for divine revelation
…irmation. Some of these claims are stronger than others. Some belong to classical Islamic theology; others are products of modern popular apologetics. They should not be bundled together carelessly or dismissed with mockery. Each must be allowed to establish whatever it genuinely…
Read article →Sources behind Qur’anic narratives
…ratives The Qur’an did not emerge in a cultural vacuum. It appeared in a world alive with biblical names, Jewish interpretation, Christian preaching, sectarian disagreement, devotional legend and stories carried across languages by travellers, merchants, clergy and ordinary belie…
Read article →Christianity, Islam and the verdict of the evidence
…al fiction, not the Jesus presented across the Gospels. If he leaves because thousands of biblical manuscripts have been presented as thousands of corruptions, while every form of Qur’anic textual plurality is classified as perfect preservation, he has been taught two standards r…
Read article →What mercy, holiness and the cross reveal about God
…declaration that Allah does not love. This is not a trivial observation. Repetition forms theology. The reader is taught to understand divine love through the distinction between those whose character and allegiance receive approval and those whose rebellion does not. What the re…
Read article →Which Gospel does the Qur'an affirm?
…century polemicist Ibn Hazm becoming an especially forceful defender of corruption in the biblical text itself. Earlier Muslim views were not uniform. We should neither pretend that textual corruption was wholly invented by Ibn Hazm nor read the most developed later theory automa…
Read article →The divine identity of Jesus across the Gospels
The cumulative Gospel evidence that Jesus cannot be contained within the category of a merely human prophet.
Read article →One Messiah, one gospel, and God's continuing purpose for Israel
…ning to Messiah, outpouring of the Spirit, and righteous reign have not yet occurred. The biblical expectation is therefore not simply that Israel exists again as a nation. It is that the nation will be spiritually restored. God will bring Israel to repentance, remove ungodliness…
Read article →The olive tree, the natural branches, and the limits of the metaphor
…does not carry the root: "thou bearest not the root, but the root thee" (Romans 11:18). A theology in which the Gentile Church absorbs Israel, takes ownership of its Scriptures and promises, and then boasts that Israel has been permanently displaced moves in precisely the directi…
Read article →Fulfilment in Christ, the inclusion of the Gentiles, and Israel's future mercy
…ry does not make it a divine improvisation. One way of salvation does not mean that every biblical distinction disappears. Men and women are one in Christ without ceasing to be men and women. Jewish and Gentile believers possess equal standing without losing their histories. The…
Read article →Why Israel's failure cannot make the word of God fail
…ael's failure cannot make the word of God fail Israel's history presents a severe test of theology. God chose the nation, gave it His law, sent it prophets, and brought the Messiah through its line. Israel repeatedly rebelled and, when Messiah came, the nation did not receive Him…
Read article →Constantine, Arius, the Trinity, the biblical canon—and the myths that refuse to die
What Really Happened at Nicaea? Constantine, Arius, the Trinity, the biblical canon—and the myths that refuse to die The Council of Nicaea has become a screen upon which almost every conspiracy about early Christianity is projected. Constantine invented the T…
Read article →Isaiah, John, and the Divine Identity of Jesus Christ
…erwise. Firstborn status also carries the associations of inheritance and precedence. The biblical use is not confined to birth order. God calls Israel His firstborn (Exodus 4:22), and in Psalm 89:27 says of the Davidic king: “Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the ki…
Read article →Near-death experiences, neuroscience, and the authority of Christ
…ow powerfully an event affected someone, but it cannot by itself authenticate the event's theology. The careful conclusion lies between dismissal and surrender. A sincere report is good evidence that the person remembers an extraordinary experience. Further questions—what produce…
Read article →Spiritual ecstasy, altered states, and discerning what is from God
…riune nature of God. The felt reality of the experience therefore cannot authenticate the theology attached to it. Sincerity tells us that the worshipper means what he says. Intensity tells us that the experience has affected him profoundly. Neither tells us that what he believes…
Read article →The Gospel, Human Perception, and the Illuminating Work of the Holy Spirit
…s Christ died for your sins and rose again. Repent and believe on Him. The statements are biblical. But none enters an empty mind. Every hearer already has some understanding of God, morality, human identity, justice, death, and religion. Even the conviction that there is no God…
Read article →The crucifixion in history, Scripture and the Qur'an
The historical and biblical evidence for Jesus' crucifixion tested against the Qur'an's denial and later substitution theories.
Read article →An unrequited love for the historic Church
…tion, the inclusion of the Gentiles, the resurrection of the body and the things to come. Theology may unfold the riches of revelation. Intelligence, eloquence and careful exposition are gifts to the Church. But exposition is not enlargement of the apostolic deposit. The theologi…
Read article →A forensic reading of Christ's Olivet Discourse
…scourse is rooted in the land and institutions of Israel. Clue two: "elect" already has a biblical history The word "elect" does not arrive in Matthew without a history. In the Greek Old Testament and the KJV's rendering of Israel's Scriptures, election language can refer to the…
Read article →What Jesus promised the apostles about Israel's future
…statements Jesus made about the apostles' future role. It is also an awkward text for any theology in which national Israel has permanently disappeared into the Church. The promise names the rulers, their thrones, the time of their rule, and those over whom they exercise authorit…
Read article →Augustine of Hippo · Spiritual autobiography and prayer · c. 397–400
…er books move from autobiography into difficult reflection on memory, time, creation, and biblical interpretation, and readers will not agree with every conclusion. Read the work prayerfully but discerningly, receiving its insight while testing its theology and exegesis by the Wo…
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