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54 results for “Holy Spirit”
Clear searchSpiritual ecstasy, altered states, and discerning what is from God
Test the Spirits Spiritual ecstasy, altered states, and discerning what is from God Human beings have always sought to pass beyond the boundaries of ordinary consciousness. Across cultures and religi…
Read article →The Gospel, Human Perception, and the Illuminating Work of the Holy Spirit
WHAT DID THEY REJECT? The Gospel, Human Perception, and the Illuminating Work of the Holy Spirit We sometimes describe an evangelistic conversation in a single sentence: “I explained the gospel, and he rejected it.” That may be an accurate description. Scripture certainly sp…
Read article →Jesus and the fountain of living water
…ter." —John 7:37–38 John immediately explains what Jesus meant: "But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive." —John 7:39 This is an invitation, but it is more than an invitation to temporary relief. Christ promises that the thirsty person who c…
Read article →Why the Trinity is not polytheism—and why Christians confess one God
…often rejected before it is accurately defined. “The Father is God, Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit is God,” the objection runs. “That makes three gods.” It would—if Christians believed the Father, Son, and Spirit were three separate divine beings. Historic Christianity denies…
Read article →C. I. Scofield · Pastoral sermons · 1915
…argument is cumulative and rewards thoughtful rereading. New life in Christ Christ in us Holy Spirit Consecration Cleansing Christian joy Spiritual growth
View recommendation →The peace Christ gives in a troubled world
…. The promised Comforter The promise of peace cannot be separated from the promise of the Holy Spirit. Immediately before speaking of peace, Jesus said: "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all…
Read article →The near was real. The far is still coming.
…uage unexplained. The chapters speak of righteous kingship, renewed moral perception, the Spirit poured out from above, fruitful land, secure Zion, forgiven inhabitants, judgment upon the nations and the return of the redeemed. Their cumulative movement calls for an explanation l…
Read article →What the Father's love for the Son reveals about God
…tingness 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 before the foundation of the world, while the wider biblical testimo…
Read article →Circumcision of the heart and the identity of Paul's inward Jew
Does Romans 2:28-29 Make Christians "Spiritual Jews"? Circumcision of the heart and the identity of Paul's inward Jew Paul's description of the inward Jew is often treated as a decisive redefinition of Israel: "For he is not a…
Read article →Regathering, national rebirth, and the spiritual renewal still to come
The Restoration of the Nation of Israel Regathering, national rebirth, and the spiritual renewal still to come Israel's history contains both judgement and preservation. The Jewish people were conquered, exiled, dispersed across continents, denied sovereignty, and repe…
Read article →A response to Michael Horton on the land promise, Amos 9, and the people of God
No Holy Land? Covenant Discipline, Gentile Blessing, and Israel's Future A response to Michael Horton on the land promise, Amos 9, and the people of God Michael Horton's essay, “No Holy Land: D…
Read article →Four popular claims tested in context
…"Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles" (Isaiah 42:1). Later in the chapter we read: "Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their voice, the villages that…
Read article →Not escape from the body, but its redemption
…d disciples: "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." —Luke 24:39 The One standing before them was the same Jesus who had been crucified. He showed them His wounds. He could be touched, and H…
Read article →Isaiah, John, and the Divine Identity of Jesus Christ
…but assigns different meanings. Jesus, it argues, was the first human raised to immortal spirit life and the last raised directly by Jehovah; subsequent resurrections occur through Jesus.[^16] That interpretation recognises a real contextual feature: Jesus mentions His death and…
Read article →The olive tree, the natural branches, and the limits of the metaphor
…the picture represent? Paul introduces two related comparisons: "For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches." —Romans 11:16 The firstfruit consecrates the lump, and the root gives the branches their covenantal standing. The…
Read article →Near-death experiences, neuroscience, and the authority of Christ
…ied back from the brink: claims about God, judgement, reincarnation, universal salvation, spirit guides and the meaning of death. That remains the right question. A testimony may be moving without being self-interpreting. An experience may be sincere without every conclusion draw…
Read article →The incarnation, the limits of created perspective and the love philosophy could not imagine
…h the shadows pointed. The philosophical instinct tells us to move away from body towards spiritual fullness. Paul places fullness and body together in a single sentence. Christ turns the categories upside down. The Descent That Revealed His Glory Philippians 2 takes us further i…
Read article →How the Law reaches its goal and appointed end in Christ
…d with a more comfortable word and moving on. Paul speaks positively about 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 fr…
Read article →Why the final seven is unfinished, future, and centred upon Israel and Jerusalem
…ion. Daniel confesses Israel's covenant rebellion and pleads for "thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain" (Daniel 9:16). Gabriel's answer retains those subjects: "Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end o…
Read article →El, the Exodus, and the God Who Came from Sinai
…text, it may designate the God of Israel, gods, heavenly beings or other occupants of the spiritual world. That ambiguity is real, but it cannot decide the identity of the one being named. English-speaking Christians, Muslims and Hindus may all use the word God while intending ra…
Read article →Why the Son assumed a complete human nature, not merely a body
…ribes the inward life in distinction from the body. Scripture can also speak of the human spirit, and the terms soul and spirit sometimes overlap. Christians disagree over whether ordinary human beings should be described as body and soul, or as body, soul and spirit. This articl…
Read article →What 'yea and Amen' in Christ means for Israel and the covenants
…ne of the Twelve. The recipients remain meaningful because the promises are not shapeless spiritual benefits. They contain identifiable persons, relationships, events, offices, places, and outcomes. Christ secures their fulfilment according to God's purpose; He does not make ever…
Read article →Origen, Arius and the line between Creator and creation
…personal source within the Trinity: the Son is eternally begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father—and, in the Western confession, from the Father and the Son. But personal order does not require inequality of nature. A human son receives his nature fr…
Read article →The gathering of the elect, one taken and one left, and Paul's revealed mystery
…rophetic world of Israel: The abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel stands in the holy place. Those in Judea must flee to the mountains. Flight on the sabbath day creates a specific difficulty. False messianic claimants exploit Israel's expectation. The Son of man appears…
Read article →Fulfilment in Christ, the inclusion of the Gentiles, and Israel's future mercy
…le 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 promises are fulfilled in Christ. They are. The ques…
Read article →The man of sin, the last trumpet, the first resurrection, and the last day
…be revealed" (2 Thessalonians 2:7-8). The text does not identify the restrainer, but the Spirit's present restraining ministry through the Church remains a plausible explanation. The chapter is genuinely disputed. Its purpose is to deny that the Day has arrived, not to give an e…
Read article →Why Israel's failure cannot make the word of God fail
…is name. Ezekiel declares: "I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went." —Ezekiel 36:22 The passage then promises regathering, cleansing, a new heart, and the indwelling Spirit (Ezekiel…
Read article →Conditional blessing, irrevocable promise, and fulfilment in Christ
…produce under the law. The covenants are not competing plans. Together they reveal how a holy God judges sin without surrendering the purpose He has sworn to accomplish. The Abrahamic covenant establishes the promise God called Abram and promised to make of him a great nation, g…
Read article →History, heresy, and the temptation of private Christianity
…rine 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 genealogy; decisive doctrinal contradiction; and, regrettably, sometimes yes…
Read article →Does John 6 teach the literal eating of Christ's body?
…or a continuing provision of food. In each case, earthly understanding initially misses a spiritual reality. Jesus gives the interpretive key Jesus now explains the bread: “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never th…
Read article →Signs, expectancy, and the event the Church is told to await
…does not identify the restrainer in the surviving letter, so certainty is impossible. The Holy Spirit's restraining ministry through the Church is a plausible identification, and its withdrawal fits a gathering before the lawless ruler's unveiled career. The Spirit Himself would…
Read article →The LORD, Zion, and the meaning of Beulah in Isaiah 62:4–5
…he immediate 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…
Read article →Seeing God, bodily resurrection, and life in the renewed creation
…arks of crucifixion, and He ate with His disciples. Paul does call the resurrection body “spiritual” (1 Corinthians 15:44), but the contrast is not between material and immaterial. A spiritual body is a body fully animated and governed by the Spirit, no longer subject to corrupti…
Read article →A response to Hank Hanegraaff on resurrection, Daniel’s final week, and the Tribulation
…nal week as a period in which God completes His declared purposes for Daniel’s people and holy city, while the prophets repeatedly join Israel’s distress to national deliverance, cleansing and restoration. Once those non-essential claims have been removed, however, Hanegraaff has…
Read article →Two failures, two responses, and the difference between remorse and repentance
…y Christ can provide. Judas stood near the Saviour physically, but he did not flee to Him spiritually. Peter: Brokenness That Led Back to Christ Peter’s Sin Peter’s failure began with confidence in himself. When Jesus warned that the disciples would be offended because of Him, Pe…
Read article →Why the distinction matters when we speak about Jesus
…r was separated from the Person of the Son. The body placed in the tomb was His body; the spirit committed into the Father’s hands was His human spirit. The Son did not cease to exist, nor did the union established in the incarnation collapse. The death was therefore genuinely hu…
Read article →An unrequited love for the historic Church
…efend the true incarnation of Christ against those who turned Him into an apparition or a spiritual myth. I love their insistence that the God of the gospel is the Creator of heaven and earth, that the body is not evil, that Jesus Christ truly suffered in the flesh, and that He r…
Read article →Creation, judgement, and the coming reign of Christ
…d blood belonged to God, that approach to Him was costly, and that created life was never spiritually meaningless. The biblical doctrine is balanced and demanding. Animals may serve legitimate human needs, but they are not therefore beyond the concern of their Creator. The beast…
Read article →How the Lord knows His own—and how their lives bear His name
…d established. Moses answered: "Even to morrow the Lord will shew who are his, and who is holy; and will cause him to come near unto him." —Numbers 16:5 He then warned the congregation: "Depart, I pray you, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest ye…
Read article →Christianity, Islam and the verdict of the evidence
…which preceded it. Christianity says that the one God eternally exists as Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Islam treats that confession as an assault upon divine unity. Christianity says that reconciliation rests upon Christ’s finished sacrifice. Islam calls people to submission, repe…
Read article →The glory philosophy could not contain
…h in Gethsemane is not rebellion. Every affection, appetite and action of His humanity is holy. Yet His humanity was not a separate person standing beside the eternal Son. The subject of these experiences is the Word Himself. The One who was with God in the beginning is the One w…
Read article →What Jesus promised the apostles about Israel's future
…renewal or re-creation. Its only other New Testament occurrence refers to the believer's spiritual renewal (Titus 3:5), but Matthew supplies a different setting here: the Son of man sits upon the throne of His glory. The same Gospel later uses almost identical language: "When th…
Read article →What mercy, holiness and the cross reveal about God
…eneral mercy and saving mercy need not be identical. Nor should a Christian object that a holy God must love wickedness or approve the unrepentant. Love which delights in cruelty would not be virtuous love. Moral opposition to corruption is not a defect in God. The real question…
Read article →Born, begotten and firstborn in the eternal identity and saving work of the Son
…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 toward creation and within history to accomplish redemption. The distinction…
Read article →The wicked husbandmen, the fruit-bearing nation, and what Jesus said afterwards
…tion 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 beyond those individual men. Jeru…
Read article →Constantine, Arius, the Trinity, the biblical canon—and the myths that refuse to die
…ted into a Trinity, placing in their order the three Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form … yet of one substance.” —Tertullian, Against Praxeas, 2 Tertullian's old translation is dense, but…
Read article →Governmental restraint, the final ten kings, and the preparation of the temple
…sanctuary repeatedly come into view. Daniel 9 expressly concerns “thy people and upon thy holy city”. This gives the succession its prophetic focus amid the wider history of nations. Daniel 9:24. The ten horns belong to the fourth beast: “And the ten horns out of this kingdom are…
Read article →Trusting God when voices seek to weaken our confidence
…ed to know the One to whom they belong. They need to learn, through Scripture, that he is holy, faithful, wise, and good—and that his promises remain dependable when circumstances are frightening. This calls for careful teaching. Confidence in God must not become confidence in ev…
Read article →Earth-dwellers, heaven-dwellers, and the literary structure of the Apocalypse
…nt, the Church must be present. The conclusion assumes what must be proved. Saint means a holy person. Israel had saints before Pentecost. The Church did not create God's ability to save. If the Church is gathered before the final week, people may still believe through the testim…
Read article →A forensic reading of Christ's Olivet Discourse
…re shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place... Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains." —Matthew 24:15-16 The holy place, Judea, the mountains, and the danger of returning from the housetop or field form a…
Read article →A sign of Israel's renewal, not Israel's disappearance
…roject. Nor should the believing remnant be made identical with the unbelieving nation in spiritual standing. The Twelve represent Israel as it ought to be—gathered around, taught by, and obedient to its Messiah—while calling the wider nation to the same faith. Does this make the…
Read article →The positive argument of the whole series, brought together
…me has a defined subject Daniel's seventy weeks are decreed upon "thy people and upon thy holy city" (Daniel 9:24). After the sixty-nine weeks Messiah is cut off and Jerusalem is later destroyed. The final week therefore remains distinct, with a covenant, a marked midpoint, sacri…
Read article →Labour, purpose, and faithfulness in a fallen world
…ly an achievement When the tabernacle was to be built, God did not treat craftsmanship as spiritually unimportant. He said of Bezaleel: "And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship." —Exodus 31:…
Read article →How Christians can think politically without surrendering conscience to a package deal
…The passage concerns factionalism within the Church rather than modern elections, but the spiritual instinct is recognisable. Human attachment becomes a badge of identity, and belonging begins to replace judgement. The Christian belongs to Christ. That prior allegiance limits eve…
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