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25 results for “Real Presence”
Clear searchJ. C. Ryle · Doctrinal and pastoral essays · 1874
…even when he is handling controversy. He states the question plainly, identifies what is really at stake, and repeatedly brings the reader back to Scripture, the simplicity of the gospel, and the spiritual welfare of ordinary people. The subjects are disputed, but the writing is…
View recommendation →Does John 6 teach the literal eating of Christ's body?
…ble arm of Jesus. The question is whether John 6 refers to the oral reception of Christ’s real body and blood in the Eucharist, so that the passage can be cited as proof of the Real Presence or transubstantiation. Roman Catholic teaching and apologetics repeatedly use it in preci…
Read article →The event is explicit; the real dispute is its timing
Every Christian Should Believe in the Rapture The event is explicit; the real dispute is its timing The rapture is often treated as though it were an eccentric event invented by dispensationalists. That framing confuses two different questions. The first is wheth…
Read article →The near was real. The far is still coming.
…on and the Coming Kingdom: Reading Isaiah 32–35 Across the Prophetic Horizon The near was real. The far is still coming. The historical horizon and the question of fulfilment “Was this fulfilled, or is it still future?” That is often a necessary question when reading biblical pro…
Read article →Isaiah, John, and the Divine Identity of Jesus Christ
…lory; verses 9–11 announce His coming as ruler and shepherd. The consolation is God’s own presence. Then Isaiah 40:12–26 enlarges the horizon. Who measured the waters? Who instructed God? What nation could weigh against Him? What image could represent Him? The stars are not divin…
Read article →Why the final seven is unfinished, future, and centred upon Israel and Jerusalem
…cisely that complex. Jesus places Daniel's abomination in the future Antiochus supplied a real precursor. Jesus nevertheless warned His disciples: "When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth,…
Read article →El, the Exodus, and the God Who Came from Sinai
…srael, 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 radically different conceptions of th…
Read article →Why apantēsis does not settle the timing of the rapture
…erefore no journey to heaven and no interval before the public descent. The background is real. The conclusion is overstated. What Paul actually says Paul's immediate concern is the grief of Christians whose fellow believers have died. He assures them that the departed will not m…
Read article →The gathering of the elect, one taken and one left, and Paul's revealed mystery
…n of that Israel-centred programme into Christ's public return. The gathering language is real Pretribulationists should not pretend that Matthew's gathering has no resemblance to rapture passages. It includes Christ's coming, clouds, a trumpet, angels, elect people, and worldwid…
Read article →A history of interpretation, polemic, and forgotten tension
…r to the displaced nation. Origen's wider interpretive method frequently sought spiritual realities beneath or beyond the literal form of the text. Allegory was not invented merely to remove Israel, and spiritual interpretation can uncover genuine biblical patterns. The danger ap…
Read article →Jesus and the fountain of living water
…ted with the world or troubled by the distance between religious profession and spiritual reality. He may not be able to explain everything he feels. He knows that he lacks what only God can give. Nor should we turn thirst into another test by which anxious people disqualify them…
Read article →The LORD, Zion, and the meaning of Beulah in Isaiah 62:4–5
…s name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel.” —Isaiah 54:5 Her apparent rejection was real as an experience of divine chastisement, but it was not final: “For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from…
Read article →Testing Islam's evidence for divine revelation
…hristians are frequently placed on the defensive. Has the Bible been corrupted? Did Jesus really claim to be God? Was He actually crucified? Has the doctrine of the Trinity compromised monotheism? Those questions deserve answers, and the preceding articles have supplied them. But…
Read article →Two failures, two responses, and the difference between remorse and repentance
…ar Failures, Different Endings Judas and Peter had more in common than we might initially realise. Both were personally chosen to accompany Jesus. Both heard His teaching, witnessed His miracles, and shared in the life of the disciples. Both were warned that they would fail Him.…
Read article →The peace Christ gives in a troubled world
…ical result was reassuring, the family is well or tomorrow appears predictable. These are real mercies, and we should receive them gratefully. But circumstances change. A telephone call, a diagnosis, a loss or an unexpected conversation can overturn in minutes the security we spe…
Read article →Why a loaded label does not settle the question
…e archangel, and with the trump of God” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). Nothing secret there. The real question is whether Scripture distinguishes Christ coming for His Church from His later return with His saints. That question cannot be answered by attaching a loaded label to one side.…
Read article →Spiritual ecstasy, altered states, and discerning what is from God
…, the loss of their ordinary sense of self, and feelings of being absorbed into a greater reality. Such experiences may be beautiful, terrifying, or apparently life-changing. They can feel more real than everyday life. Those who undergo them may be left convinced that they have e…
Read article →How the Lord knows His own—and how their lives bear His name
…Lord's knowledge of His own is sure. The responsibility of those who name Christ is also real. We must not use either truth to silence the other. A church troubled by words that eat like a disease Paul did not write these words during a peaceful theological discussion. Timothy w…
Read article →Not escape from the body, but its redemption
…behind and becoming something more like a ghost than a human being. Christians do have a real hope beyond death before the resurrection. Paul desired to depart and be with Christ, which he said was "far better" (Philippians 1:23). To be absent from the body is to be present with…
Read article →The glory philosophy could not contain
…not be flattened into a single crude slogan, but one recurring tendency is unmistakable: reality is arranged as a descent from higher, intelligible being toward lower, material existence. Salvation therefore looks like return—an ascent of the soul away from the bodily and change…
Read article →Born, begotten and firstborn in the eternal identity and saving work of the Son
…That distinction resolves the concern which prompted my original study. The resurrection really does fulfil and reveal something expressed in Psalm 2, but it does not bring the divine Son into existence. It is a decisive moment within the economy of redemption, not the beginning…
Read article →Michael Brown, 2 Thessalonians 1, and the public vindication of the saints
…at judgement Paul continues: “Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe.” —2 Thessalonians 1:9–10 This is more tha…
Read article →Trusting God when voices seek to weaken our confidence
…ed their peoples. Why should Jerusalem expect anything different? The military threat was real. The conclusion Rabshakeh demanded was false. Assyria’s victories did not establish that the living God was powerless. Intimidation often works by joining a real difficulty to an unjust…
Read article →Earth-dwellers, heaven-dwellers, and the literary structure of the Apocalypse
…plete. A change in His Church-forming and restraining ministry is not a denial of His omnipresence. The correct question is not whether believers exist during the Tribulation. They plainly do. It is whether Revelation identifies them as the Church promised exemption from the worl…
Read article →How Christians can think politically without surrendering conscience to a package deal
…lse. Social media intensifies the problem because it does not present a neutral sample of reality. It presents a selection shaped by whom we follow, what attracts engagement, what our contacts share and what a platform predicts will hold our attention. A feed can create the impre…
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