Editor’s Note: This is the first post in a series on the atonement.During the first decade of the...
What is the Gospel?
Salvation According to His Word
Psalm 119:41, "Let Your mercies come also to me, O LORD— Your salvation according to Your word.”...
I Thirst
At the crossroads of history, Jesus hung nailed to a cross. The loss of blood from the beating...
Hope Is a Good Thing
In the movie Shawshank Redemption, Andy writes a letter to Red and includes the following remark, “Remember Red. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” If I could respond to Andy, I would simply say, “Amen.” The reason, of...
Christ, Our Substitute
2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” WHAT IS SUBSTITUTIONARY ATONEMENT? The cross of Jesus is where the substitutionary atonement happened. On the cross, Jesus served as our...
Christ, Forgiveness, and the Cross
“And Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’” (Luke 23:34) Jesus Christ, the God-Man, committed the most scandalously humble act in human history: He made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born as a man who was obedient...
All This To Fulfill What the Lord Had Spoken
In the wonderfully heart-warming, spirit-lifting, worship-inducing story of the birth of Jesus, as it is related to us by Matthew, there is one crucial element of the whole event that is often overlooked. That a virgin would bring forth a son is astounding; that Jesus...
He Came to Bring Salvation
“Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself" (Psalm 80:17). Psalm 80 is written by Asaph. This is one of 12 Psalms written by this musical and liturgical leader appointed by David. Asaph's identity is...
God’s Law is Good
On one hand, the Apostle Paul teaches us that we, as believers in Jesus Christ, “have died to the law through the body of Christ” (Romans 7:4) and on the other hand that “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (12). Which is it? Paul...
Saved by Grace
Growing up in Memphis, Tennessee, I remember when Danny Thomas, the founder of St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, died in February of 1991. Local and national cartoonists paid tribute to him in the next day’s newspapers, many of them showing him entering heaven “at the...
Good News for the Unwanted
Good News for the Unwanted Exclusion, expulsion, alienation, and forsakenness—these were major themes in the ancient Jewish world.[1] The “impure” could be expelled from the community. The carcasses of sacrificed animals had to be burned outside the camp. The...
Salvation Is Unflattering
As part of a Wednesday night summer series, our church has been studying some of the "salvation words" that are found in Scripture. As we've worked our way through concepts like substitution, reconciliation, and redemption a particular truth with which I have been...
Gluttony
The saying goes that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and for me, this has proven to be true on more than one occasion. I love food. I love cooking food, creating dishes, and mimicking cooking techniques of some of my favorite celebrity chefs like...
Expiation, Good Friday and the Wonder of the Cross
At my local church, we have a Good Friday service where we nail a piece of paper with our sins to the Cross. This event is symbolic of what Christ has accomplished for us. It is about more than just subscribing to our belief in the sufficiency of Christ finished work...
Easter: Pathetic Or Genius?
Jesus didn’t stutter when he said that he is the truth: I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” he said, “no one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6). Why did Jesus claim to be the truth, versus one single truth among many other truths? Why did he say...