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19 results for “Blessed hope”
Clear searchSigns, expectancy, and the event the Church is told to await
…The New Testament repeatedly directs believers towards Christ Himself: "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." —Titus 2:13 "For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Je…
Read article →Seeing God, bodily resurrection, and life in the renewed creation
Is the Beatific Vision the Whole Christian Hope? Seeing God, bodily resurrection, and life in the renewed creation The beatific vision is the Christian teaching that the redeemed will see God and find their perfect happiness in Him.…
Read article →The event is explicit; the real dispute is its timing
…hrist's return, resurrection, transformation, and catching up as parts of the same future hope. Nor is pretribulationism a condition of salvation. Christians who confess the bodily resurrection and return of Christ may disagree over the sequence while belonging to the same Lord.…
Read article →Near-death experiences, neuroscience, and the authority of Christ
…eady given. What Scripture allows us to affirm We do not need NDEs to establish Christian hope, but neither need we retreat into a materialism which Scripture denies. Death does not end personal existence. The believer who departs is with Christ, which Paul calls "far better" (Ph…
Read article →Two accounts of judgement, mercy, and the sinner's hope before God
The Scales and the Cross Two accounts of judgement, mercy, and the sinner's hope before God How will I stand before God? The question reaches deeper than religious labels. We know that our actions matter, that evil deserves judgement, and that our own record is not…
Read article →Christ the promised Seed, Gentile inheritance, and Paul's final blessing
…oreseen the justification of the nations when God promised, "In thee shall all nations be blessed" (Galatians 3:7-8). The issue is access to Abrahamic blessing, especially justification and the promised Spirit. Must Gentiles become Jewish proselytes and submit to the Mosaic coven…
Read article →What 'yea and Amen' in Christ means for Israel and the covenants
…reach of Messiah's salvation fulfils the promise that all families of the earth would be blessed. It does not require the family through whom that blessing came to lose the promises particularly addressed to it. Romans 15 is therefore an important control upon 2 Corinthians 1:20…
Read article →Fulfilment in Christ, the inclusion of the Gentiles, and Israel's future mercy
…her than cancel their stated recipients. Gentile inclusion may enlarge the company of the blessed without requiring Israel's exclusion. Spiritual unity may coexist with distinctions which the New Testament itself continues to make. The question is therefore not whether the promis…
Read article →History, heresy, and the temptation of private Christianity
…ressing personal conversion, assurance of salvation, the authority of Scripture, heavenly hope, doctrinal precision, non-sacramental worship, premillennialism, or distrust of corrupt institutions. If all these things are Gnostic, then parts of the New Testament begin to look susp…
Read article →The LORD, Zion, and the meaning of Beulah in Isaiah 62:4–5
…te context therefore does not encourage us to treat Zion merely as a symbol for spiritual blessedness. Nor does it permit us to turn “thy land” into a general reference to nature or humanity’s relationship with the earth. The passage concerns a particular people, their historic c…
Read article →What God's faithfulness to Israel means for everyone who trusts His promises
…ableness, neither shadow of turning" (James 1:17). Balaam, unable to reverse what God had blessed, declared: "God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it goo…
Read article →Creation, judgement, and the coming reign of Christ
…e Earth's Great Sabbath Creation, judgement, and the coming reign of Christ The Christian hope for creation rests neither in human effort nor in escape from the material world. The creation groans for the return of its rightful King, the revelation of the sons of God, and the rig…
Read article →Christianity, Islam and the verdict of the evidence
…Christ’s finished sacrifice. Islam calls people to submission, repentance, good works and hope in divine mercy without that atoning ground. These are not different accents within one faith. They are contradictory claims. Respect for Muslims cannot require us to pretend otherwise.…
Read article →One Messiah, one gospel, and God's continuing purpose for Israel
…ve Abrahamic blessing, the promised Spirit, adoption, forgiveness, resurrection life, and hope in the renewed creation. We are not distant observers of Israel's story but participants in the salvation which came through Israel's Messiah. Israel also experienced genuine covenant j…
Read article →The wicked husbandmen, the fruit-bearing nation, and what Jesus said afterwards
…t the apostles and believing remnant of Israel, not a Gentile body detached from Israel's hope. Gentiles are subsequently incorporated through Israel's Messiah and apostolic witness. The fruit-bearing people may therefore be understood as Messiah's faithful community, beginning w…
Read article →Defining the position before testing it
…hians 1:20). The Church also shares blessings once associated with Israel's covenants and hope. Gentile believers who were "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise" have been "made nigh by the blood of Christ" (Ephesians 2:12-13). In on…
Read article →Michael Brown, 2 Thessalonians 1, and the public vindication of the saints
…to the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Christ pronounced those persecuted for righteousness blessed, not abandoned (Matthew 5:10–12). Christians may be hated, dispossessed, imprisoned and killed while remaining entirely within the faithfulness of God. Pretribulationism does not tea…
Read article →A sign of Israel's renewal, not Israel's disappearance
…ngdom divided and the northern tribes were scattered, Scripture continued to preserve the hope of all Israel. The prophets anticipated Judah and Israel being gathered under one King: "And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be…
Read article →The positive argument of the whole series, brought together
…t temple, the abomination, or a numbered sequence of judgements. Believers look for "that blessed hope" (Titus 2:13). Their citizenship is in heaven, "from whence also we look for the Saviour" (Philippians 3:20). James says the coming of the Lord draws near and the Judge stands b…
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