Where was Christ's soul between his death and resurrection? Was it in heaven? Did it descend to the dead? This book answers that question, in two parts. The first half of the book is dedicated to exegesis, looking at what the Scriptures tell us about this important issue. The second half of the book is dedicated to historical sources relating to the doctrine of the descent in Protestant Churches in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
This book is a primer, in three parts, dealing with God's Unity, God's Trinity, and God's Decree. Deity and Decree intends to teach the longstanding doctrine of God taught in the Christian church throughout the centuries. Christians who confess the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689) will find it especially pertinent to explaining the language and teaching of chapters 2 and 3 of those confessions of faith.
Few phrases in Scripture have occasioned as much discussion as has the “I am who I am” of Exodus 3:14. What does this phrase mean? How does it relate to the divine name, YHWH? Is it an answer to Moses’ question (v. 13), or an evasion of an answer? The trend in late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarly interpretations of this verse was to superimpose later Christian interpretations, which built on Greek and Latin translations, on the Hebrew text. According to such views, the text presents an etymology of the divine name that suggests God’s active presence with Israel or what God will accomplish for Israel; the text does not address the nature or being of God. However, this trend presents challenges to theological interpretation, which seeks to consider critically the value pre-modern Christian readings have for faithful appropriations of Scripture today. In “Too Much to Grasp”: Exodus 3:13?15 and the Reality of God, Andrea Saner argues for an alternative way forward for twenty-first century readings of the passage, using Augustine of Hippo as representative of the misunderstood interpretive tradition. Read within the literary contexts of the received form of the book of Exodus and the Pentateuch as a whole, the literal sense of Exodus 3:13–15 addresses both who God is as well as God’s action. The “I am who I am” of v. 14a expresses indefiniteness; while God reveals himself as YHWH and offers this name for the Israelites to call upon him, God is not exhausted by this revelation but rather remains beyond human comprehension and control.
"The Mystery of Christ is well-written, displays ample knowledge of issues discussed concerning covenant theology by Baptists and paedobaptists, grounds its arguments in scriptural exegesis and theology, recovers old arguments for a new day, presents a cohesive map of the covenants of Scripture, and exalts our Lord Jesus Christ, the last Adam, throughout." -- from cover review by Richard C. Barcellos
This book deals with something that you may have never even heard of, the doctrine of divine impassibility. Impassibility is not a word often used in sermons. Even when people are studying systematic theology, impassibility tends to receive a small amount of attention. So what is it? And why is this important? Divine impassibility is defined as follows: God does not experience emotional changes either from within or effected by his relationship to creation. This is a scriptural truth, and a very important part of our system of theology. In chapter two of our Confession, "Of God and the Holy Trinity," we read the following in paragraph 1: The Lord our God is but one only living and true God; whose subsistence is in and of himself, infinite in being and perfection; whose essence cannot be comprehended by any but himself; a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions. But is this doctrine important? Yes. This is the doctrine of God. If there is a part of theology about which we should be especially careful and sensitive, it should be the doctrine of God. God is "without . . . passions"? If you are thinking, "I'm not really sure what that phrase means," then you are not alone. It has become increasingly clear that many in our day are lacking study and knowledge in this area. Given these factors, we can conclude that we need teaching on this subject. It would be a mistake to jump straight into asserting the doctrine of divine impassibility and defending it. It is one piece in a system of doctrine. It stands upon and connects to many other facets of the doctrine of God. So what we need to do in our study is to build up to it. By doing so, we will appreciate not only the doctrine itself, but also just why it cannot be tampered with. So, to start from the ground up, we need to go where the doctrines grow, the Holy Scriptures.
The descent of Jesus Christ to the dead has been a fundamental tenet of the Christian faith, as indicated by its inclusion in both the Apostles' and Athanasian Creeds. But it has also been the subject of suspicion and scrutiny, especially from evangelicals. Led by the mystery and wonder of Holy Saturday, Matthew Emerson offers an exploration of the biblical, historical, theological, and practical implications of the descent.
There has been a lack of serious historical investigation of the famous creedal statement 'Christ descended into hell' that was universally affirmed by the church for the first 1500 years of Church history. This unique book is an in-depth investigation of the history of the doctrine of Christ's descent and how Revelation 1:18 alludes to that significant doctrine. The author demonstrates a real passion and a rigorous argument for Christ's triumphal descent into the underworld in order that he would 'fill all things' (Eph 4:10).
Thomas Cranmer was Archbishop of Canterbury (1533-1556) in the reign of Henry VIII and Edward VI. He was deposed under Mary Tudor and burned at Oxford as a heretic. The charges brought against him were based chiefly on the doctrine of the Lord's Supper expounded in this book. The core of Cranmer's teaching was that the sacrament was essentially spiritual in nature. The body of Christ was not present in a physical or carnal way, as the Church of Rome taught by its doctrine of transubstantiation. Cranmer based his position on Scripture, in particular St. John's Gospel, where, he showed, Christ meant eating and drinking His body and blood to be understood as receiving by faith the benefits of His death for sins. To think of eating and drinking Christ's actual body and blood with the mouth is, he argued, a gross misunderstanding; the purpose of the sacrament is to satisfy spiritual hunger. The Roman doctrine, he maintained, was also contrary to the true Catholic teaching of the two natures of Christ - His humanity and His divinity. In the creeds we confess that Christ has ascended bodily into heaven, not to return to earth in that manner until the last day. The true Catholic faith, therefore, requires us to believe that He is not present with us in the nature of His humanity but that He is present in the nature of His deity. To teach, as the Church of Rome does, that He is present bodily in the sacrament is to deny this teaching of the creeds, to assert a heretical doctrine of the one nature of Christ and to deny His real humanity. For this reason Cranmer called his book 'A Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament'. The errors of Rome also extended to the notion that the sacrament was a sacrifice offered by the priest to take away sins. Cranmer refuted this from the Scriptures and the ancient Fathers.
