Soul Rejoice

  THE WORKS OF CHRIST ON EARTH Christology - Lesson 13 This lesson will highlight some of the works of Jesus Christ during His life on earth. Due to the nature of this overview, we will not be able to examine every text possible about the works of Christ. We must keep in mind what John ended His gospel with: There are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written (John 21:25).   This lesson on the works of Jesus Christ during His life on earth will essentially be an exposition of Philippians 2:5-8.

THE NAMES AND NATURES OF JESUS CHRIST Christology - Lesson 12 Our definition of Systematic Theology is that it is 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.   We come to our third topic: Christology. This is the study of the biblical data about our Lord. As always, our purpose is to give a general overview of systematic theology; an introductory glance at each of the doctrines. For this reason, we cannot gather together every text; but we will attempt to give a good representation of biblical texts for each subject discussed.   I once heard Sinclair Ferguson say that if you asked the average Evangelical Christian to tell you all they know about Jesus, they wouldn’t even take up five minutes before their knowledge of the subject was exhausted. This is not to shame anyone. This has served as a challenge to myself. I hope it will serve as a challenge to you also...

THE DECREE OF GOD Theology Proper - Lesson 11 The Bible has presented us with the God who is perfect in every way, without beginning or end, infinite in nature, incomparable in every way. We have been humbled as we have learned that God is not just a bigger and better version of us. He is who He is; and we are merely His creations, weak and finite, dependent and needy. Everything we have comes from His hand. Whatever we are, it is because He knit us together in our mother’s womb (Psa 139:13); and even there He knew us and had plans for us (cf. Jer 1:5).   We need to consider that in a much deeper way. Therefore, before we leave the topic of Theology Proper, we need to consider the scope of God’s sovereign DECREE concerning all things. [1]

  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.