Think Wink.

I am continuing in my post series about euaggelion or gospel or good news. Paul speaks of it in a peculiar way in 1 Timothy 1:11. He speaks of “the gospel of the glory of the blessed God.” Here in this text, Paul uses an interesting term to describe the gospel. He speaks of the beauty of the “blessed” God. The word there is an interesting choice of the apostle. It is the Greek word makarios. It is the term that Jesus used in the beatitudes when he would say “blessed are the/those/you…” (Matthew 5:3-11). It means happy. It is good news that God is a happy God. With in the trinity, God is happy. There is perfect enjoyment and happiness between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. There is no deficiency of relationship between the three. God has perfect joy. And this is good news because Jesus says in John 17:26, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” The love with which God loved the Son will be in us. The joy that is within the Godhead will be ours! All of the joy and gladness and happiness is ours! This is the ultimate satisfaction that nothing in this world can even come close to hoping to possibly offer us, not even sex!! Therefore when we die, Jesus says to us, “Enter into the joy of your master.” God is a happy God. His happiness is our happiness both now (John 15:11, John 17:13) and in eternity. God’s joy is our good news.

When I think of “euaggelion” or “gospel”…

The “euaggelion” of Peace

The Grace of “euaggelion”

I think Piper had it right when he stated the gospel like this in Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist,

The wisdom of God has ordained a way for the love of God to deliver us from the wrath of God without compromising the justice of God…The death of Christ is the wisdom of God by which the love of God saves sinners from the wrath of God, all the while upholding and demonstrating the righteousness of God in Christ (pg. 61-62)

The texts that most clearly shows this are first 1 Corinthians 1:23-24,

We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Christ’s death is that wisdom that enables God’s love to save us from his wrath. The question is, how did Christ’s death accomplish that for us? To answer this, I turn to Romans 3:23-26,

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…God put forward [Christ Jesus] as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Christ came to vindicate the righteousness of God. God in the times past had passed over sins when he saved people. Their sins were not punished, as his righteousness requires. Instead, God forgave them and passed over them in his “divine forbearance.” He allowed his hallowed and sacred name to be dishonored in order to love and save sinners. Thus to vindicate his name, Christ was sacrificed. On Christ were laid the sins of those who had come before. Thus God “might be just.” God now has the way to forgive our sins and still maintain that just standing in Christ. God “might be the just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

In his wisdom, God made a way to love us into heaven without dishonoring his name and righteousness.

Another look into euaggelion

When I think of “euaggelion” or “gospel”…

More From John Owen

This is the final and concluding post on the arguments of preterism as concerned with the Olivet Discourse in R. C. Sproul’s book The Last Days According to Jesus. In this post, I seek to distinguish between full/radical/consistent preterism and partial/moderate/inconsistent preterism. The primary difference between the two is this: full preterism sees all of the eschatological and prophetic passages in the New Testament as already fulfilled. They believe that the resurrection has already occurred as well as the New Heavens and New Earth of Revelation 21-22. Partial preterism believes that certain events have already been fulfilled but other events (i.e. resurrection, final judgment, eternal state) are yet future. To distinguish the two positions more definitively, I expound upon the opposing views of the resurrection.

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The Christian Carnival CLXXV (175): Trekkie

The Gospel of the Glory of Christ pt 3

Liberalism, Jesus, and Eschatology

This past weekend, my sister had some bad allergies. We gave her some medicine but it didn’t seem to work. To make it worse, she had some strep before this happened. She had a really bad asthma attack yesterday and she had to go to the ER. The doctors discovered a major infection in one ear and a minor one in the other. She also had an infection in her eye. To combat this she has been given antibiotics. Her strep that she had before was gone, although she is going to have to have her tonsils taken out. The doctors are worried about the asthma though. She doesn’t have pneumonia, which is a blessing. However, they are nervous that her lungs aren’t giving her enough oxygen. So we have to take my sister to a lung specialist. Please pray that Olivia is okay that God will heal her asthma and her infections. She is my princess and is very dear to my heart.

A second request is on the heels of a recent conversation I had with Gideon, a coworker who I have been sharing the gospel with. Last week, he asked me about sin; namely if I was a sinner or he was a sinner. I answered yes and showed him 1 John 1:8-10, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us…If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” He was shocked by this revelation to know that everyone is a sinner. He asked me how then anyone can be saved. I had already shown him that being a sinner means you go to hell. So I took him to Ephesians 2:1-10. Pray that the love of God will save this man’s soul, through the word of God, from the wrath of God that vindicates the righteousness of God.

A Prayer Request

Calvinism and Prayer

Spurgeon and Arminian Prayer

You have to check out this trailer for Transformers coming out 7.4.7–July 4, 2007. I am so EXCITED!!!! Click here.

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Ezra’s Infinitives

The Righteousness of God pt. 1

A Hard Decision for Me

Your results:
You are Mr. Freeze

Mr. Freeze 81% Lex Luthor 77% The Joker 76% Dr. Doom 72% Magneto 64% Green Goblin 61% Venom 55% Apocalypse 54% Mystique 53% Kingpin 51% Riddler 46% Two-Face 45% Catwoman 44% Dark Phoenix 42% Juggernaut 37% Poison Ivy 36%

You are cold and you think everyone else should be also, literally.

Click here to take the “Which Super Villain are you?” quiz…

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Your results:
You are Superman

Superman 65% Green Lantern 60% Spider-Man 60% The Flash 55% Robin 55% Hulk 50% Iron Man 45% Wonder Woman 40% Supergirl 35% Catwoman 30% Batman 25%

You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the “Which Superhero are you?” quiz…

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As a Calvinist, I do not get along with Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the Bible Answer Man radio show. Also, like myself, his temper can get the best of him sometimes when he his debating someone–I think I see too much of me in him sometimes and I don’t like it–and he can be just down right rude. However, he has published a string of books lately that I have just loved. The first two in mind are The Last Disciple Series: The Last Disciple, The Last Sacrifice. These are his counter to the Left-Behind series that has been published in recent years. It is a fictional account of the fulfillment of the Olivet Discourse and Revelation in AD 70. If you don’t agree with that type of eschatology, you will still benefit much from reading these two books. He does an excellent job bringing to life what it was like to live as a Christian in the Roman Empire during Nero’s reign, especially after he went loony. I felt like I was reading Suetonius’ The Twelve Caesars all over again. The other book is his recently published book The Apocalypse Code: Find Out What the Bible Really Says About the End Times and Why It Matters Today. This is my review of the book. I am not going to focus on the specific arguments, but rather what he argues for in general.

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Eschatology and Quizfarm.com

Israel, John Hagee, and Eschatology

Wednesday and Thursday

This is the second to last post in my series on the Olivet Discourse being fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem by General Titus in AD 70 and the case for partial preterism (a system of eschatology that I kind of subscribe to) based upon R.C. Sproul’s book The Last Days According to Jesus. In this post, I want to chronicle the destruction of Jerusalem and bring into the picture Flavius Josephus and that his account of its destruction is a large key to the preterist case for both Revelation and the Olivet Discourse referring to AD 70.

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Nahum’s Literary Device and Translation

To Capitalize or not to capitalize

Trouble in the SBC