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54 results for “God's promises”
Clear searchOne Messiah, one gospel, and God's continuing purpose for Israel
The Unshaken Truth of God's Promises One Messiah, one gospel, and God's continuing purpose for Israel This series began with a question: has the Church permanently replaced Israel in the purpose of God? The answer cann…
Read article →What 'yea and Amen' in Christ means for Israel and the covenants
Do All God's Promises Transfer to the Church? What "yea and Amen" in Christ means for Israel and the covenants Paul makes one of the most comprehensive statements about the promises of God: "For all the…
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 words upon which the debate turns. We have tried to hear the…
Read article →Why Israel's failure cannot make the word of God fail
…y rebelled and, when Messiah came, the nation did not receive Him. What happens to divine promises when their recipients prove unfaithful? Scripture does not answer by minimising Israel's sin. Nor does it conclude that God's purpose must be transferred to a more deserving people.…
Read article →Fulfilment in Christ, the inclusion of the Gentiles, and Israel's future mercy
Does the New Testament Reaffirm Israel's Promises? Fulfilment in Christ, the inclusion of the Gentiles, and Israel's future mercy The Old Testament repeatedly promises Israel preservation, regathering, cleansing, the kingdom of Dav…
Read article →The question reaches beyond prophecy to the faithfulness of God
…may prefer words such as fulfilled, transformed, or expanded. They believe that Israel's promises have reached their true meaning in Christ and now belong to the multinational Church. Others maintain that Jewish and Gentile believers are one in Christ while national Israel still…
Read article →Conditional blessing, irrevocable promise, and fulfilment in Christ
…ds partly upon a distinction Scripture itself makes. Not every covenant contains the same promises or places the same obligations upon its recipients. The Mosaic covenant made Israel's enjoyment of blessing in the land conditional upon obedience. The promises to Abraham and David…
Read article →Why the Trinity is not polytheism—and why Christians confess one God
Not Three Gods Why the Trinity is not polytheism—and why Christians confess one God The Trinity is often rejected before it is accurately defined. “The Father is God, Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit…
Read article →Unity in Christ and distinction in God's purpose
…do believers possess in Christ?" It does not by itself answer, "Will God fulfil national promises made to Israel?" Israel existed before the Church Israel's national history begins with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, develops through the exodus and Sinai, receives a kingdom under Da…
Read article →What mercy, holiness and the cross reveal about God
…ract title. Surah 5:54 speaks of a people "who love Him and are loved by Him". Surah 3:31 promises: "If you sincerely love Allah, then follow me; Allah will love you and forgive your sins" (Surah 3:31, The Clear Quran, trans. Mustafa Khattab). Other passages say that Allah loves…
Read article →The olive tree, the natural branches, and the limits of the metaphor
…addresses the problem created by Israel's unbelief. If Israel received the covenants and promises, how can so many Israelites reject Messiah while Gentiles receive the gospel? Has God's word failed? Has God cast away His people? Paul answers both questions with "God forbid" (Rom…
Read article →Faith, assurance, and the unseen reality of God
…faithfulness of the One who has promised. We must therefore take care to distinguish His promises from our expectations. The chapter makes this especially clear through the people who suffer. Alongside accounts of deliverance, we find people who endure persecution, deprivation,…
Read article →Defining the position before testing it
…el no longer possesses a distinct future in the fulfilment of the biblical covenants. The promises reach their final meaning in Christ and the Church; any future conversion of Jewish people is their entrance into the Church, not the restoration of Israel as a nation with a distin…
Read article →Trusting God when voices seek to weaken our confidence
…me out to him. His argument reached its sharpest point when he compared the Lord with the gods of the nations Assyria had already defeated. Those gods had not saved their peoples. Why should Jerusalem expect anything different? The military threat was real. The conclusion Rabshak…
Read article →Christ the promised Seed, Gentile inheritance, and Paul's final blessing
…f the strongest arguments for identifying the Church as Israel. First, Paul says that the promises were made to Abraham and his singular Seed, Christ. Everyone who belongs to Christ is then called Abraham's seed and an heir according to the promise (Galatians 3:16, 29). If Christ…
Read article →A response to Michael Horton on the land promise, Amos 9, and the people of God
…er Gentiles now share in Abrahamic blessing. It is whether 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. Deu…
Read article →Abraham, Lot, divine wrath, and a pattern that must be used carefully
…ersecution, natural disaster, and the consequences of other people's sin. Scripture never promises believers immunity from every earthly calamity. Abraham's appeal concerns God's punitive judgement of Sodom as Sodom. God does not condemn the righteous as wicked when He executes t…
Read article →Divine judgement, the character of God, and the promise of escape
…ther period of persecution, or is it a defined hour of divine judgement from which Christ promises to deliver His Church? Persecution and wrath are not the same Persecution rises from the hatred of Satan, the world, and wicked rulers. Divine wrath is God's judicial response to si…
Read article →Regathering, national rebirth, and the spiritual renewal still to come
…y. It does force an important question: how should we read the many passages in which God promises to preserve Israel as a nation, gather its scattered people, restore them to the land, cleanse them, pour out His Spirit, and bring them under Messiah? The biblical pattern is not m…
Read article →The wicked husbandmen, the fruit-bearing nation, and what Jesus said afterwards
…herefore an abstract denunciation of Jewish ethnicity. Nor is it a declaration that God's promises had always belonged spiritually to a different people. It is a polemic against identifiable rulers at a decisive moment in Israel's history. The consequences nevertheless reach beyo…
Read article →Isaiah, John, and the Divine Identity of Jesus Christ
…e nations have never escaped His government. Babylon’s ascendancy does not mean Babylon’s gods have defeated 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 pi…
Read article →Near-death experiences, neuroscience, and the authority of Christ
…that there is another side. He is Lord of it. Christ teaches both mercy and judgement. He promises eternal life to the believer, yet also declares that the Father has committed judgement to the Son and that the dead will rise either to life or to condemnation (John 5:22–29). Scri…
Read article →How the Law reaches its goal and appointed end in Christ
…at the Law and the Prophets as a failed revelation which He must correct. He brings their promises, patterns, demands, and prophetic expectation to their intended completion. Yet fulfilment is not mere repetition either. When a promise is fulfilled, the promised reality has arriv…
Read article →Why the final seven is unfinished, future, and centred upon Israel and Jerusalem
…spective of faith. God's continuing purpose for Israel therefore magnifies rather than compromises His faithfulness. If His covenant promises can be dissolved by human failure or transferred without remainder, no recipient of grace has grounds for confidence. Romans 11 instead ho…
Read article →Responding to five common criticisms without defending what Scripture does not require
…progressive revelation, the distinct identities named in the text, and the unconditional 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.…
Read article →El, the Exodus, and the God Who Came from Sinai
…haps Midian, Edom or Seir—whose worship was later brought into Israel. Over time, the two gods were identified with one another. Yahweh absorbed El’s titles, took his position at the head of the divine council and eventually emerged as the only God of a fully developed Israelite…
Read article →The gathering of the elect, one taken and one left, and Paul's revealed mystery
…of a great trumpet and the return of scattered Israelites (Isaiah 27:12-13). Deuteronomy promises that God will gather His dispersed people "from the outmost parts of heaven" (Deuteronomy 30:3-4). The wording provides a natural Old Testament background for Matthew's gathering fr…
Read article →Circumcision of the heart and the identity of Paul's inward Jew
…the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked." —Deuteronomy 10:16 The same book promises a future divine work in Israel: "And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, t…
Read article →What the Father's love for the Son reveals about God
…-11; 12:11; Hebrews 9:14). In the same farewell discourse which leads into John 17, Jesus promises "another Comforter" whom the Father will send in His name (John 14:16, 26). The Spirit proceeds from the Father, testifies of the Son and glorifies the Son (John 15:26; 16:14). Jesu…
Read article →History, heresy, and the temptation of private Christianity
…l salvation also has a direct biblical explanation. The gospel publicly announces events, promises, and commands, and each hearer must respond. Faith cannot be performed by an institution on behalf of an unbelieving person. “The word is nigh thee,” Paul writes, and confession and…
Read article →A history of interpretation, polemic, and forgotten tension
…t Jewish people. Other evidence complicates the story. Writers who spiritualised Israel's promises could still expect a future Jewish conversion. Some anticipated a rebuilt Jewish temple and a final crisis centred upon Jerusalem. Early Christian thought was not a single system. T…
Read article →Jesus and the fountain of living water
…7:39 This is an invitation, but it is more than an invitation to temporary relief. Christ promises that the thirsty person who comes to Him will receive the Holy Spirit. The empty life does not merely receive a cup to carry away. God makes it the channel of a river. A cry on the…
Read article →The LORD, Zion, and the meaning of Beulah in Isaiah 62:4–5
…de there without inheriting it. Empires might administer it without possessing the divine promises attached to it. Israel’s relationship to the land is different. God appointed it as the geographical setting of Israel’s national life and vocation. It is the place in which the nat…
Read article →Seeing God, bodily resurrection, and life in the renewed creation
…redeemed will see God and find their perfect happiness in Him. It draws upon magnificent promises: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8); “we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2); and “they shall see his face” (Revelation 22:4). The difficulty beg…
Read article →A response to Hank Hanegraaff on resurrection, Daniel’s final week, and the Tribulation
…f Christ. The distinction concerns covenantal identity, historical vocation and prophetic promises—not whether one group is saved by Christ while another reaches God by a separate road. Nor does pretribulationism teach that God simply abandons Jewish people to destruction after r…
Read article →The covenant son and the sacrifice that points to Christ
…and Ishmael leave Abraham's household, God hears the boy's voice, preserves his life and promises to make him a great nation (Genesis 21:17–21). This matters morally and exegetically. Defending Isaac does not require Christians to speak as though God hated Ishmael. He saw Hagar'…
Read article →Two failures, two responses, and the difference between remorse and repentance
…etrayed Jesus with a kiss; Peter abandoned Him with an oath. Both men discovered that sin promises more than it can deliver. Judas obtained his silver but could not enjoy it. Peter escaped immediate danger but could not escape the accusing voice of his conscience. Sin may offer p…
Read article →The divine identity of Jesus across the Gospels
…surrection by itself is not a synonym for deity. Jesus raised other people, and Scripture promises a future resurrection of the dead. The significance of His resurrection lies in whose claims it vindicates and what follows it. The one who forgave sins, ruled the Sabbath, received…
Read article →Seth D. Postell, Eitan Bar & Erez Soref · Messianic biblical theology · 2017
…nt code which the Church must simply re-enact. The authors read its narratives, patterns, promises, and commandments as a coherent witness whose goal is found in Yeshua. Their Jewish and Israeli setting makes the discussion especially valuable, while the book's clarity opens ques…
View recommendation →Why a loaded label does not settle the question
…ls His disciples that He is going to His Father's house to prepare a place for them, then promises: “I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” —John 14:3 Christ comes and receives His people to Himself. The natural direction of the pr…
Read article →An unrequited love for the historic Church
…ered, now renewed by God. He connected the kingdom with the resurrection of the just, the promises to Abraham and the liberation of creation from corruption. This was not an embarrassing remnant of crude literalism sitting awkwardly beside his anti-Gnostic theology. It arose from…
Read article →Spiritual ecstasy, altered states, and discerning what is from God
…ed not be suspicious of every powerful emotion. But our assurance rests in Christ and His promises, not in the intensity of our sensations. The safest spiritual life is not the one containing the greatest number of extraordinary experiences. It is the life rooted in Christ, gover…
Read article →The near was real. The far is still coming.
…not a detailed chronology. These chapters stand near the culmination of the warnings and promises of Isaiah 28–35, immediately before the historical account of the Assyrian crisis in chapters 36–39. Reading them as a sustained unit respects that arrangement without requiring tha…
Read article →Israel's Messiah, Israel's Scriptures, and a gospel for the world
…That priority was covenantal, not racial favouritism. Israel had received the covenants, promises, temple service, and messianic hope. The King came first to the people whose prophets had announced Him. The title "Son of David" carried that history. Crowds used it when appealing…
Read article →Christianity, Islam and the verdict of the evidence
…ianity. The Bible had been changed. The Qur’an had never changed. The Trinity meant three gods. The Council of Nicaea invented the deity of Jesus. Nicaea, Calvinism and later denominational disputes might be confused with one another as though Christian history were a collection…
Read article →Born, begotten and firstborn in the eternal identity and saving work of the Son
…ive: “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; Ishmael had already been born. Yet Isaac was Abraham’s monogenēs: the unique son…
Read article →Four popular claims tested in context
…is not. John 14–16: is Muhammad the Comforter? On the night before His crucifixion, Jesus promises His disciples "another Comforter". The Greek word is paraklētos, which can describe a helper, advocate or one called alongside. The Muslim claim Some Muslims argue that Jesus was pr…
Read article →Election within Abraham's family, the believing remnant, and the future of the nation
…t test case. God had foreknown Israel, called the nation, entrusted it with covenants and promises, and set His love upon the fathers. Yet much of Israel now stood in unbelief. If that history simply ended in permanent rejection, how secure could anyone be in the declared purpose…
Read article →Michael Brown, 2 Thessalonians 1, and the public vindication of the saints
…ians 1:5–10 as a decisive passage. Paul is writing to Christians enduring persecution. He promises them rest when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in flaming fire, taking vengeance upon the disobedient. Brown therefore concludes that the Church receives deliverance at Chris…
Read article →Earth-dwellers, heaven-dwellers, and the literary structure of the Apocalypse
…r candlesticks, examines their doctrine and conduct, warns them, comforts them, and gives promises to the overcomer. "Church" or "churches" appears repeatedly because these assemblies are the stated earthly audience. The final promise to Philadelphia is especially relevant: "Beca…
Read article →A forensic reading of Christ's Olivet Discourse
…ting remains the organising centre. Clue seven: the gathering echoes Israel's restoration promises Matthew's gathering language has important Old Testament parallels. Moses told Israel: "If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy…
Read article →A sign of Israel's renewal, not Israel's disappearance
…tself establishes less than either side sometimes claims. Read within Jesus' ministry and promises, however, it points towards renewal rather than erasure. Twelve means Israel Israel's twelve-tribe identity runs through the biblical story. Jacob's twelve sons became the heads of…
Read article →The positive argument of the whole series, brought together
…escribes an hour coming upon the whole world to test "them that dwell upon the earth" and promises Philadelphia, "I also will keep thee from the hour" (Revelation 3:10). The earth-dwellers form a consistent moral company throughout the book: they rejoice over God's slain witnesse…
Read article →How Christians can think politically without surrendering conscience to a package deal
…power. Its programme will contain moral convictions, economic predictions, negotiated compromises, donor interests, historical traditions, responses to present events and calculations about what can win an election. No Christian should expect that mixture to reproduce the mind o…
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