Soul Rejoice

  THE TRINITY Theology Proper - Lesson 10 We have discussed how God is perfectly incomprehensible, far beyond our capability to fully know and understand. We are the creature, and He is the creator. How could the pot ever comprehend the potter? How can the finite understand the infinite?   Thus, in theology, we must learn to be content with answers that make the questions harder and more of a problem. This is true in every aspect of theology, but it is certainly true when we talk about the essence of God. I hope that we have underscored the greatness of God in such a way as to highlight the mystery of God’s being and the awe and fear that is due Him by all creatures. Theology teaches us about God as He has revealed Himself in the Bible, but it also exposes the limits of our understanding. Theology does not attempt to solve the deep mysteries of God. Rather, it is like we stand at the shore of the ocean and marvel at its vastness and mystery. Yet it is our joy to plumb the ...

THE BEING OF GOD Theology Proper - Lessons 8-9   Since theology is the study of the being and works of God as He is revealed in the Bible, we must take some time to focus on God’s being. As this course is a broad overview of systematic theology, we must resist the temptation to spend too much time here. [1] It is my hope that this section makes you thirst all the more after knowledge of the Holy One.   We saw in the last lesson that God exists, and that He has revealed Himself by His names: Almighty God, Most High, Eternal, and Alive, who was, is, and will always be the sovereign provider, healer, banner, sanctifier, peacemaker, shepherd, justifier, and present comfort of His people—all wrapped up in the name Yahweh.   The Bible fills in the picture of God with numerous references to His ESSENCE or NATURE . While we should hesitate to separate these two, Essence is often used to refer to what God is in Himself (for instance, God is Spirit [John 4:24] and Trinity [...

  THE EXISTENCE AND NAMES OF GOD Theology Proper- Lesson 7   In the previous six lessons, we have defined Christian Theology as the study of the being and works of the God who has revealed Himself in the Bible. For this reason, we spent some time verifying the reliability of the Bible as the revelation of God through men, the recognition and collection of which books were divinely inspired, and the accuracy of the Bible’s transmission through history. Now, as we turn to the study of the existence and being of God, we, through reliance on our definition of Christian Theology, can skip over the “natural proofs” of God’s existence [1] and start to dig deep into the Scriptures. What has God revealed about Himself?   This is THEOLOGY PROPER . In Theology Proper, we study the being of God. We need to first realize that while God has made Himself known in the hearts of all people, because the creation testifies to His existence and being (Rom 1:18-22), sin has ruined our ...

CANONICITY AND PRESERVATION Bibliology- Lesson 6 We have defined Christian theology as the study of the being and works of the God who has revealed Himself in the Bible. We have also studied how God moved the authors of Scripture by His Spirit, so that they, without error, wrote down what God desired them to write. We need to ask: “How do we know which writings belong in the Scriptures?”   This brings us to the issue of CANONICITY . When we speak of the canon of Scripture, we are referring to those books that are included in the Bible. The word canon comes from the Greek Word κανων (kanon, from which we get our word ‘cane’), which means “rod, measuring rule, standard” (Gal 6:16; 2 Cor 10:13, 15, 16). “By 350, Athanasius was the first to use the term in the technical sense in which we use it today—to designate the collection of inspired books as the ‘standard’ of the faith.” [1]   When you get down to it, canonicity is much simpler than many would lead us to believe.

  INERRANCY AND AUTHORITY Bibliology- Lesson 5 If we define Christian theology as the study of the being and works of the God who has revealed Himself in the Bible, we must be sure of the trustworthiness of Scripture.    “The trustworthiness of the Scriptures lies at the foundation of trust in the Christian system of doctrine, and is therefore fundamental to the Christian hope and life.” [1]     In the last lesson, we learned that the Bible claims that it is the revelation that was breathed out by God ( inspiration ) that is sufficient for life and godliness. We also learned that the Bible is clear ( perspicuity ), yet must be illumined to us by God. Once illumined to its truth, the Scripture animates a person. Finally, we learned that the Bible endures forever ( eternality ).   If all of this is true, then it follows that the Bible is both inerrant and authoritative. “There is no such thing as inspiration which does not carry with it the correlation of inf...

BIBLICAL REVELATION, INSPIRATION, SUFFICIENCY, PERSPICUITY, ILLUMINATION, ANIMATION, AND ETERNALITY Bibliology- Lesson 4   If Christian theology is the study of the being and works of the God who has revealed Himself to us in the Bible, then it is to the Bible that we go to learn about God.    The Bible is the REVELATION of God. The word ‘revelation’ comes from the Greek word αποκαλυπτω (apokalupto), which means to uncover or reveal. When we speak of the revelation of God, we mean the revealing of the being and works of God. As we will see, God has revealed Himself in a multitude of ways.   He has made Himself known to us in the Bible. We sometimes will refer to this as SPECIAL REVELATION . How, then, did God reveal Himself to the authors of Scripture?

THE METHOD OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY Prologomena - Lesson 3 REVIEW -  Definition of Christian Theology: The study of the being and works of the God who has made Himself known in the Bible. Definition of Systematic Theology: The study of the being and works of God by gathering together the biblical information on different topics and arranging them together in a logical fashion. The Topics of Systematic Theology:   a.            Bibliology - Bible b.            Theology Proper - God c.            Christology - Christ d.            Pneumatology - The Holy Spirit e.            Anthropology - Man f.             Angelology - Angels g.     ...