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78 results for “Faith”
Clear searchWhy Israel's failure cannot make the word of God fail
God's Unfailing Faithfulness Why Israel'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 t…
Read article →Trusting God when voices seek to weaken our confidence
When Faith Does Not Answer Back Trusting God when voices seek to weaken our confidence One of the most instructive details in the account of Hezekiah and Rabshakeh is easily overlooked: the peopl…
Read article →Dave Hunt · Devotional theology and biblical exhortation · 2000
I recommend An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith because it refuses to separate Christian belief from Christian living. Hunt ranges across the gospel, faith, love for God, discipleship, doctrine, the Church, and the believer's heaven…
View recommendation →Faith, assurance, and the unseen reality of God
I Know Whom I Have Believed Faith, assurance, and the unseen reality of God When you have been touched by God, it is different. What you believe has become personal. You may struggle to explain the certainty you have,…
Read article →Labour, purpose, and faithfulness in a fallen world
Work Is Not a Curse Labour, purpose, and faithfulness in a fallen world Modern culture often swings between two errors. Some people live for their work. Their job becomes their identity, their status becomes their worth, and achiev…
Read article →What God's faithfulness to Israel means for everyone who trusts His promises
No Shadow of Turning What God's faithfulness to Israel means for everyone who trusts His promises This series has examined covenants, prophecies, apostles, thrones, tribes, branches, seeds, kingdoms, and the difficult word…
Read article →An unrequited love for the historic Church
…tand at her door, confessing my love for Jesus Christ and affirming the ancient apostolic faith, yet still not be received into full fellowship. I would be asked to confess not only the faith once delivered to the saints, but later dogmatic claims that I cannot find within that d…
Read article →The question reaches beyond prophecy to the faithfulness of God
…srael and the Church: Why This Series Matters The question reaches beyond prophecy to the faithfulness of God Has the Church replaced Israel in the purpose of God? Some Christians answer yes, although they may prefer words such as fulfilled, transformed, or expanded. They believe…
Read article →How the Lord knows His own—and how their lives bear His name
…al How the Lord knows His own—and how their lives bear His name Can a person possess true faith while showing no movement towards godliness? Can someone belong to Christ while remaining settled in the very iniquity from which He came to deliver us? These questions are often answe…
Read article →One Messiah, one gospel, and God's continuing purpose for Israel
…ether Before stating where the positions divide, we should remember the truths upon which faithful Christians ought to stand together. There is one God, one Messiah, one gospel, and one way of salvation. Jewish ancestry does not justify anyone before God. Gentile ancestry exclude…
Read article →A sign of Israel's renewal, not Israel's disappearance
…through Israel as heralds of Israel's King, calling the covenant people to repentance and faith. Their appointment was therefore both hopeful and judicial. It announced renewal to those who received Messiah and exposed the unbelief of those who rejected Him. The existence of judg…
Read article →How the Law reaches its goal and appointed end in Christ
…ut the Law: it is holy, just, and good; it bears witness to the righteousness of God; and faith does not make it void. Yet he also speaks of a decisive change: believers have died to the Law, are delivered from it, and are no longer under its guardianship. Romans 10:4 holds those…
Read article →Conditional blessing, irrevocable promise, and fulfilment in Christ
…le was destroyed, and the Jewish people were scattered among the nations. Does covenant unfaithfulness permit us to conclude that God has permanently abandoned the nation? The answer depends partly upon a distinction Scripture itself makes. Not every covenant contains the same pr…
Read article →Does John 6 teach the literal eating of Christ's body?
…nds upon Him and derives life from Him. But the instrument of that reception in John 6 is faith—not the physical mechanism of a sacrament. Early Christian witnesses including Tertullian and Augustine reached the same conclusion from the text. Their testimony is not offered as an…
Read article →Jesus and the fountain of living water
…, or to approve selected sayings, but to rely upon Him as the Christ who gives life. This faith is not a magic form of words. A prayer can express faith, but the wording of a prayer is not the Saviour. Nor is faith a work by which a person earns the gift. The thirsty sinner bring…
Read article →The Gospel, Human Perception, and the Illuminating Work of the Holy Spirit
…g imputed. The sinner’s acceptance rests upon God’s provision in Christ, received through faith. Romans 4:3–8. God does not pretend that our conduct has always been righteous. He justifies the ungodly through Christ. Romans 5 develops the representative relationship: as Adam’s di…
Read article →Defining the position before testing it
…ed from the text rather than assumed from a theological system. Second, it concerns God's faithfulness. The strongest supersessionist does not intend to accuse God of falsehood. Even so, a framework must explain why irrevocable gifts, a guaranteed seed, specified covenant partner…
Read article →How an openly transmitted text survived copying, criticism, and centuries of examination
…depend on pretending that the evidence does not exist or that examination is an enemy of faith. The manuscript record belongs in the light. Across the principal textual traditions, the same Jesus is presented: crucified, buried, risen, and Lord. The same gospel is proclaimed. Th…
Read article →The crucifixion in history, Scripture and the Qur'an
…Jesus was the Messiah and risen Lord. They were not detached modern reporters. Does their faith make their testimony historically worthless? No ancient source is free from purpose, loyalty or interpretation. Tacitus is hostile; Josephus has political and apologetic interests; Mus…
Read article →What the Father's love for the Son reveals about God
…ess be used in its proper place. It displays the coherence and fittingness of Trinitarian faith, but it should not be asked to identify the Father, Son and Holy Ghost independently of revelation. Scripture supplies the controlling evidence: Jesus says that the Father loved Him be…
Read article →Testing Islam's evidence for divine revelation
…answers, and the preceding articles have supplied them. But Christianity is not the only faith carrying a burden of proof. Islam does not merely criticise Christian revelation. It presents another book, another prophet and another account of Jesus, then demands that the earlier…
Read article →The covenant son and the sacrifice that points to Christ
…e when Abraham and Sarah could not naturally produce the heir. The choice magnifies God's faithfulness, not human boasting. Ishmael was blessed. But God immediately distinguished that blessing from the covenant line. God named Isaac as the covenant heir When Abraham asks concerni…
Read article →The divine identity of Jesus across the Gospels
…her: "That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father" (John 5:23). No faithful prophet instructs the world to honour him in the same manner as God. "Before Abraham was, I am" Jesus' statement in John 8 is important, but it should be handled carefully: "Verily,…
Read article →Why the Trinity is not polytheism—and why Christians confess one God
…larly influential in my own Trinitarian understanding. In his Exposition of the Christian Faith, he holds together the distinction of Father and Son with the unity of the divine nature, and draws attention to the singular “name” in Matthew 28:19. His On the Holy Spirit helped me…
Read article →The Messiah cut off before the Temple fell
…tury BC. On this reading, the surrounding events concern Antiochus IV, the persecution of faithful Jews and the desecration of the Temple. This view possesses genuine explanatory strengths: Onias was an anointed priest. He was violently killed. His death occurred during the devel…
Read article →Which Gospel does the Qur'an affirm?
…distinguishes original revelation from later corruption. That is a confession of Islamic faith. It is not historical verification. If every agreement confirms the Qur'an and every disagreement proves corruption, the argument cannot fail even in principle. The Qur'an confirms onl…
Read article →Two accounts of judgement, mercy, and the sinner's hope before God
…slims believe in works; Christians do not.” Both traditions speak about judgement, mercy, faith, and obedience. The decisive difference is the cross. The scales in Islamic judgement The Qur'an repeatedly presents a weighing on the Day of Judgement. Surah 21:47 says that scales of…
Read article →Christianity, Islam and the verdict of the evidence
…The witnesses must be brought together. The competing explanations must be compared. Each faith must be required to account not merely for the evidence it prefers, but for the whole body of evidence—including the facts which create difficulty for its own claims. This is the closi…
Read article →What mercy, holiness and the cross reveal about God
…slim may distinguish Allah's general mercy towards creation from his special love for the faithful. He may argue that continued life, food, family, guidance and opportunity to repent are themselves expressions of mercy even towards those who are not presently loved. Surah 7:156 p…
Read article →Four popular claims tested in context
…ssover pattern; Christ is "our passover" sacrificed for us (1 Corinthians 5:7). Moses was faithful as a servant in God's house; Christ rules as the Son over His own house (Hebrews 3:1–6). Scripture names the fulfilment The matter does not depend only upon resemblance. Peter quote…
Read article →How Christians can think politically without surrendering conscience to a package deal
…already attached. Christians should be especially cautious about this. We already have a faith, a moral authority and a final allegiance. A political party is a temporary coalition assembled to gain and exercise civil power. It is not the Church. Its manifesto is not a creed. It…
Read article →Sources behind Qur’anic narratives
The clay birds, Seven Sleepers, Dhul-Qarnayn, and Mary's palm tree examined within the Jewish and Christian narrative world of late antiquity.
Read article →John Bunyan · Christian allegory · 1678
Christian's journey from the City of Destruction towards the Celestial City turns the trials, companions, temptations, and hopes of the Christian life into an unforgettable pilgrimage.
View recommendation →Irenaeus of Lyons · Early Christian theology and polemic · c. 180–190
…he catholic Church, the word means the universal or whole Church confessing the apostolic faith; it must not be treated as proof that he would endorse every doctrine or institution of the later Church which now bears that name. Test his arguments and his use of Scripture as caref…
View recommendation →The wicked husbandmen, the fruit-bearing nation, and what Jesus said afterwards
…he sentence revoke God's covenants with Israel, or does it pronounce judgement upon the unfaithful rulers and generation then entrusted with the vineyard? The immediate context identifies Jesus' targets. The parable identifies what they had corrupted. The chronology of what Jesus…
Read article →Isaiah, John, and the Divine Identity of Jesus Christ
…ted Him. Israel’s exile reflects His judgement, and Israel’s restoration will display His faithfulness. Isaiah 40:3 announces a highway for YHWH through the wilderness. The picture is of the divine King coming to His people, with the landscape transformed for His arrival. Verse 5…
Read article →Christ the promised Seed, Gentile inheritance, and Paul's final blessing
…as a denial of the sufficiency of Christ. The Spirit had been received by the hearing of faith, not by works of the law (Galatians 3:1-5). Paul appeals to Abraham because the patriarch was counted righteous through faith before the law of Moses and before his circumcision: "Abra…
Read article →The olive tree, the natural branches, and the limits of the metaphor
…es really do enter blessings rooted in Israel's covenant history. They do so by grace and faith, alongside the believing remnant of Israel. Yet Paul continues to distinguish wild branches from natural branches and describes Israel's eventual restoration as natural branches return…
Read article →Unity in Christ and distinction in God's purpose
…tain separate standing before God. There is one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, and one baptism (Ephesians 4:4-5). Paul is equally direct in Galatians: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are a…
Read article →Near-death experiences, neuroscience, and the authority of Christ
…king have often passed through terror and suffering. We can admit uncertainty because our faith does not depend upon pretending that every mystery has been solved. But where an experience begins to preach, it must enter the dock. The light must be tested by the Light of the world…
Read article →Why the final seven is unfinished, future, and centred upon Israel and Jerusalem
…is not evidence that God has abandoned Israel. Jewish people continue to be saved through faith in Christ, and the gospel goes to all nations. It means that Daniel's measured programme for Israel and Jerusalem awaits its final phase while God forms the Church from Jew and Gentile…
Read article →A quiet invitation to draw near to Christ
…at Christ has withdrawn. Feelings of nearness vary, and weariness is not a measure of His faithfulness. His promise remains: “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5). But there is a gentle question worth asking: have we been making room for fellowship with Him?…
Read article →Responding to five common criticisms without defending what Scripture does not require
…conditional promises God made to Israel. It affirms one way of salvation by grace through faith, centred in Christ. It distinguishes Israel and the Church without teaching two gospels or two redeemers. The following answers do not prove the whole system. They clear away five comm…
Read article →What the historical evidence proves—and what it does not
…ensationalism true. It exposes an invalid historical standard. A later formulation may be faithful or unfaithful. Its date cannot decide the matter. Someone could have objected to every developing formulation, "The apostles never stated it in those terms." The proper reply would…
Read article →El, the Exodus, and the God Who Came from Sinai
…tself gives us a controlled demonstration that retaining Yahweh’s name does not guarantee faithful knowledge or worship of Yahweh. When Aaron makes the calf, the people attribute the Exodus to it. Aaron then proclaims: “To morrow is a feast to the LORD.” — Exodus 32:5 The feast i…
Read article →Why the Son assumed a complete human nature, not merely a body
…things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God.” — Hebrews 2:17 “In all things” does not mean that Christ shared our sin. Hebrews expressly says that He was “without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). S…
Read article →Eustathius of Antioch, the human soul of Christ and the pictures created by our words
…says that He was made like His brethren, suffered when tempted and became a merciful and faithful high priest (Hebrews 2:17–18). The same epistle says that He was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). These are not scenes performed by God behind a huma…
Read article →What 'yea and Amen' in Christ means for Israel and the covenants
…11:28). Christ concentrates the covenants in Himself because He alone can accomplish them faithfully. Their certainty rests upon His identity and work. That makes Him the guarantee that their particulars will stand, not the reason those particulars may disappear. There was no sma…
Read article →Origen, Arius and the line between Creator and creation
…Understanding why Scripture identifies Jesus as the eternal Creator helps us preserve the faith, strengthen our trust in God, answer objections wisely and know Christ more truly. Suggested excerpt: Ambrose argued that Scripture says the Word “was,” not that “He was not.” But does…
Read article →What Christ’s promise establishes—and what claims about infallible teaching still need to prove
…ncapable of sin. Its doctrine of infallibility concerns protection from error in teaching faith and morals under specified conditions. It includes certain definitive teachings of the pope and of the bishops in communion with him. The Vatican’s own summary makes these distinctions…
Read article →Circumcision of the heart and the identity of Paul's inward Jew
…pose is not to condemn Jewish ethnicity. It is to destroy confidence in privilege without faithfulness. Some recent interpreters propose a different addressee: a circumcised Gentile or Gentile claimant who calls himself a Jew. The wording of verse 17 can permit attention to the a…
Read article →Fulfilment in Christ, the inclusion of the Gentiles, and Israel's future mercy
…s of a merely political nationalism. They include forgiveness, holiness, deliverance, and faithful service before God. Israel's true hope was always spiritual as well as national. Jesus later promised the Twelve that in "the regeneration" they would sit upon twelve thrones, "judg…
Read article →The event is explicit; the real dispute is its timing
…teaches that only watchful or unusually spiritual Christians will be caught up while less faithful believers remain behind to be purified through the Tribulation. Its moral concern is understandable. The New Testament repeatedly commands believers to watch, remain sober, and avoi…
Read article →History, heresy, and the temptation of private Christianity
…eformations—secret-key religion, escape rhetoric, elite conversion status, and churchless faith—but fails when it becomes a historical genealogy or a substitute for doctrinal argument. Imagine a Christian whose faith is assembled from prophecy videos, private impressions, confere…
Read article →A history of interpretation, polemic, and forgotten tension
…stom spoke to a congregation attracted to Jewish observance. It cannot turn contempt into faithful pastoral speech. Augustine creates a more complicated settlement Augustine's influence upon Western Christianity makes his treatment especially significant. He commonly interpreted…
Read article →The LORD, Zion, and the meaning of Beulah in Isaiah 62:4–5
…saith the LORD.” —Jeremiah 31:32 Israel’s idolatry is consequently portrayed as marital unfaithfulness. Jeremiah calls faithless Israel a treacherous wife and summons her to return: “Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you.” —Jeremiah 3:14 Ezekiel…
Read article →Divine judgement, the character of God, and the promise of escape
…rist does not merely promise preservation from one harmful event. He promises to keep the faithful from an hour which comes upon the whole inhabited world for the testing of earth-dwellers. The object of deliverance is the period itself. The phrase "keep thee from" can be debated…
Read article →A response to Hank Hanegraaff on resurrection, Daniel’s final week, and the Tribulation
…t promised because Christians are exempt from persecution. The Church is called to suffer faithfully in this age. The pretribulation claim concerns the appointed worldwide hour in which God turns to judge the earth-dwellers, not a general promise that believers will escape whatev…
Read article →Two failures, two responses, and the difference between remorse and repentance
…that it was wrong, and attempt to repair some of the damage—yet still not turn to God in faith. Judas returned to the priests, but the text never shows him returning to Jesus. He confessed his sin to men who could not cleanse his conscience. When they coldly answered, “What is t…
Read article →A response to Michael Horton on the land promise, Amos 9, and the people of God
…hether Israel's disobedience annulled promises whose ultimate fulfilment rests upon God's faithfulness. Interrupted enjoyment is not cancellation The Mosaic covenant made Israel's continued enjoyment of the land conditional. Deuteronomy 28 warned that covenant rebellion would bri…
Read article →The peace Christ gives in a troubled world
…rselves while remaining estranged from Him. Scripture says: "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." —Romans 5:1 Christ did not make peace by ignoring our guilt or pretending that sin did not matter. He made peace through the blo…
Read article →Why the distinction matters when we speak about Jesus
…whom all things were made. The one who died upon the cross is the Lord of glory. To speak faithfully, we need to distinguish Christ’s two natures without dividing Christ Himself. Who He Is and What He Is The basic distinction is not as difficult as its theological vocabulary may…
Read article →E. W. Bullinger · Sermons · 1892
…al observation, and practical urgency: prophecy is meant to shape hope, watchfulness, and faithful living. Bullinger writes within a distinctive dispensational framework and readers need not accept every sequence, distinction, or prophetic conclusion in order to profit from the s…
View recommendation →Spiritual ecstasy, altered states, and discerning what is from God
…tied or critical judgement to be suspended should be treated with great caution. Biblical faith is not mindlessness. We are commanded to love God with all our mind and to prove what is acceptable to Him. What fruit does it produce? Does it lead to humility, holiness, truth, love,…
Read article →Creation, judgement, and the coming reign of Christ
…ctices (Leviticus 18:28; 20:22). This is not a passage about poor agricultural technique. Faithfulness requires us to retain its moral context. Yet the very point is that moral wickedness and the land cannot be sealed into separate compartments. Human sin defiles the place of hum…
Read article →Not escape from the body, but its redemption
…e of heaven. If the dead do not rise, then Christ has not risen; if Christ has not risen, faith is vain and we remain in our sins (1 Corinthians 15:12–19). The resurrection belongs to the heart of the gospel because the Christ who died for our sins rose bodily from the grave. Our…
Read article →The near was real. The far is still coming.
…, his language can open onto a horizon that the immediate circumstances do not exhaust. A faithful reading must therefore ask a further question: Does the historical event exhaust the language of the prophecy? Isaiah 32–35 provides a particularly instructive test. Hezekiah belong…
Read article →Israel's Messiah, Israel's Scriptures, and a gospel for the world
…'s covenant world Jesus was not a Gentile religious founder who arrived with an unrelated faith. He was born to a Jewish mother, circumcised on the eighth day, presented at the temple, and raised in obedience to the law of Moses (Luke 2:21-24). Paul summarises His historical sett…
Read article →Regathering, national rebirth, and the spiritual renewal still to come
…ertainty of restoration rests not upon Israel's political strength but upon the Creator's faithfulness. Ezekiel sees a nation brought back to life Ezekiel's vision of dry bones is sometimes applied generally to spiritual revival. The prophet himself identifies the bones: "Son of…
Read article →Sir Robert Anderson · Biblical and apologetic argument · 1897
…Him? Anderson refuses the easy answer that every unanswered prayer is caused 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 ques…
View recommendation →Hippolytus · Exposition, prophecy, and polemic · early third century
…a clear premillennial witness, and repeated concern that Christian belief should issue in faithful and holy living. Treat Hippolytus as an important early witness rather than an authority whose every conclusion is binding. The identity of Hippolytus and the authorship of some wor…
View recommendation →What Jesus promised the apostles about Israel's future
…esus promised the apostles about Israel's future Peter once asked the question which many faithful disciples have quietly wondered: what will those who sacrifice for Christ receive? Jesus answered with a promise larger than personal reward. He spoke of His own glorious throne, tw…
Read article →Born, begotten and firstborn in the eternal identity and saving work of the Son
…ld, or a child unique within a relationship. Hebrews 11:17 is especially instructive: “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son.” Isaac was not the only male whom Abraham had physically fathered;…
Read article →Election within Abraham's family, the believing remnant, and the future of the nation
…ow in Romans 9 is therefore not a change to an unrelated subject. Romans 9-11 defends the faithfulness of the God proclaimed in Romans 8. The verbal links are important: those whom God foreknew in Romans 8 are secure in His purpose, and Paul later insists that God has not cast aw…
Read article →Constantine, Arius, the Trinity, the biblical canon—and the myths that refuse to die
…ity. His own letter after the council says that his “primary endeavour” was that unity of faith and unanimity of worship might be preserved. Political stability and sincere religious concern need not be mutually exclusive motives. Neither motive tells us whether the bishops' theo…
Read article →Michael Brown, 2 Thessalonians 1, and the public vindication of the saints
…the safety of an academic seminar. They were suffering. Paul commends their “patience and faith” in all the persecutions and tribulations they endured (2 Thessalonians 1:4). He then writes: “Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble yo…
Read article →Earth-dwellers, heaven-dwellers, and the literary structure of the Apocalypse
…:13; 11:10; 13:8, 12, 14; 17:2, 8). The phrase describes more than geographical location. Faithful saints also stand physically upon the earth. "Earth-dweller" is a moral and eschatological identity: those whose allegiance, security, and hope belong to the rebellious world-order.…
Read article →A forensic reading of Christ's Olivet Discourse
…claim defended here is this: within Matthew 24, "the elect" most naturally identifies the faithful people of the Tribulation within Israel's prophetic setting, rather than the Church as the Body of Christ. The group may include other redeemed people gathered at Christ's return, b…
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