Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Stories, frankly all human stories are practically always about one thing aren’t they? Death. The inevitability of death. . . . “There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that happens to man is ever natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must…
Matthew is organized around 5 discourses, which trace out the history of Jesus as a recapitulation of the history of God and Israel in the Old Testament. Jesus first speaks as a new Moses, instructing His disciples on a mountain about a righteousness that surpasses the righteousness of the scribes…
The fall of the Sethites in Genesis 6 is the third fall of mankind, or the third degree of Adam’s original fall. Adam sinned in a Garden against his Father by stealing something he was supposed to wait to obtain. (“Every tree shall be food for you” Genesis 1:29.) Cain…
The recent fantasy film Noah and a slightly related blog comment by my friend Douglas Wilson have stirred up again the question of whether the “sons of God” in Genesis 6 who married the “daughters of men” were fallen angels or the priestly line of Seth. Doug argues for angels,…
The prophecy of Jude concerns apostasy. An illustration of apostasy and its consequences is found in verse 6, which the New American Standard Bible translates this way: "And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for…
At His death, Jesus is surrounded by a Roman centurion and his cohort of Gentile solders. Matthew doesn't say that any disciples are there. But women are, and so is Joseph of Arimathea, identified as a “disciple” but, as John tells us, a “secret disciple for fear of the Jews,”…
Showing page 176 of 309
Showing page 35 of 43
Finlan ( Paul’s Cultic Atonement Metaphors ) wants to distinguish sharply between sacrifice and the removal ritual of the day of atonement. He is not persuasive. He claims that “Hebrew sacrifice must be performed in the temple, and it is used to cleanse the temple, which is the center and…
Finlan doesn’t think there’s any idea of substitution in the sacrificial rites, though there is in the scapegoat ritual ( Paul’s Cultic Atonement Metaphors , 91). To see a penal substitution in sacrifice, “assumes something that is never stated in Hebrew texts: that the animal is being somehow punished.” He…
Dorothy Sayers once said that the incarnation and atonement prove that, whatever God may be up to with His world, He is determined to play by the rules. Paul would have agreed. Stephen Finlan writes ( Paul’s Cultic Atonement Metaphors , 101), apropos of Paul’s use of cultic terminology in…
Yahweh brought Israel out of Egypt “on eagles’ wings” (Exodus 19:4). John A. Davies argues ( A Royal Priesthood ) that this is no trite metaphor: “Representations of [eagles and vultures] are found in close association with royalty in both Egypt and Mesopotamia. A series of temple scenes in Egypt…
Priests have been despised throughout the modern era, but in Scripture the priest is a foretaste of the destiny of the human race. He is a sign of the restoration of the imago Dei . John Davies explains how ( A Royal Priesthood , 164-5): “Just as the original creation…
Hosea 6:7 has been a Reformed proof text of an Adamic covenant: They broke covenant like Adam. Recent commentary has been skeptical. “Adam” can mean “mankind,” rather than the individual first man. John Davies ( A Royal Priesthood , 202) thinks the older interpretation, however “unfashionable,” has something to commend…
Showing page 678 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
