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Weekday of the Crucifixion

Doctrine / /

In answer to the question: “On what day was Jesus crucified?”, the website www.GotQuestions.org has written supporting arguments and problems for Friday, Thursday and Wednesday views. Then it went on to say that the day is not as important as the fact that Jesus did die for our sins and was physically, bodily resurrected. It also says that if the day “were very important, then God’s Word would have clearly communicated the day and timeframe.”

I will argue that the day is very important. Jesus on the day of His resurrection said the Old Testament Scriptures must be fulfilled and that it was therefore necessary that Christ suffer and to rise from the dead the third day.  Every time Jesus spoke of His coming death and resurrection, He did not do so without saying three days or the third day. Jesus told the evil generation the only sign they would be given involved three days and three nights and this without even directly mentioning death and resurrection. The Apostle Paul in stating the gospel said Jesus rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. And by Scriptures he surely meant the Old Testament. It is quite inconceivable that God would make such a point of three days without there being such a prophecy and without indicating exactly how it was fulfilled. But since this is stated as a part of the gospel, we could expect the enemies of the gospel to promote confusion over the matter that we would need to overcome to find the truth.

The one line of evidence for three days that Jesus gave from the Scriphttps://theologypoints.org/theology-slides-page-2/#weekdaytures was through the typology of Jonah being in the whale’s belly three days and three nights. There are no words in the Book of Jonah to relate this to Jesus’ burial. Jesus made this connection by pure typology. Since a matter is determined by two witnesses, we would expect a second witness to the three days in the Old Testament. And we should not be surprised if that is by typology. And since the Scripture directly states that the Jewish Passover is typological of Jesus’ sacrifice of Himself as the Lamb of God, we should look there concerning the three days. The PowerPoint slides, Weekday of the Crucifixion, examine the evidence there and match it to the New Testament Scriptures to establish the day of the crucifixion with certainty.

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Why does God multiply sorrow in childbirth?

Doctrine, Salvation / /

Sorrow in Childbirth is often counted as a punishment for Adam’s wife for disobeying the commandment not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But the punishment was death. That was promised ahead of time and fully came upon the woman, Adam and all his descendants.

Was it a curse like God put on the serpent and on the earth? God did not call it a curse, apparently because it was not a curse. Surely God had a good reason for this. I had thought for some time that other things might have made more sense—like maybe making the woman allergic to that specific fruit or something like that.

I looked everywhere I could think of to find the reason God to assigned sorrow in childbirth. I looked in commentaries in libraries and bookstores. I looked in religious encyclopedias. This was long before there was internet. But there were Bibles with explanatory notes, so I looked through every one of those I could find. I saw no satisfactory answer until one morning God showed me the answer in my Bible reading. And God’s answer, which I have written in the theology slides Sorrow in Childbirth, is far above anything I could have imagined.

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When Does a Human Body Get a Soul?

Doctrine / /

This has been an issue for a long time. But the Bible is really very clear about when a body gets a soul. I did not believe this for years and held on to a number of verses that seem to give basis to argue otherwise. But I am now convinced the Bible is consistent throughout. These slides, Body Gets a Soul, examine this issue carefully.

From the very beginning God stated that He made a body for a man and breathed into that body a breath of life to make man a living soul. There is no reason to believe God does otherwise with bodies that are formed through conception and birth. Every body gets a soul when God breathes into it a breath of life; and that occurs when a baby first breathes. There are verses that state this quite clearly. And verses to which one may appeal in order to argue otherwise are easily explained in light of this truth.

That unborn babies do not yet have souls surely has implications for the acceptability or unacceptability of abortion. What is very evident is that a human body, except for (independent) life itself, fully determines the nature of the soul associated with it. Furthermore, it is God that fully controls the body as it forms. So any attack upon the body as it forms in the womb, is an attack against the purposes of God and against a person to be fully formed in God’s image.

For discussion of these matters see the slides: Body Gets a Soul

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What Can We Know about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?

Doctrine / /

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden had a fruit forbidden to Adam and Eve on threat of death for eating it. They both ate of it and died. We understand their spirits within them died immediately, but their bodies did not die for many years. In Adam’s case he lived physically for nine hundred thirty years before he died. Their souls were condemned to die in ultimate separation from God in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone. Jesus Christ, having taken on the likeness of sinful flesh, has taken the condemnation of death upon Himself for all who will accept that sacrifice of Himself.

Fruit and Death

Theologians generally believe that it was not the forbidden fruit itself that caused death. They teach that it was the act of disobeying God that gave them experiential knowledge of good of good and evil and thus made them sinners. I believed this for years. But how is it that sin and death passed on to all of Adam descendants “who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression”? The evidence strongly suggests that sin and death has passed onto Adam’s descendants genetically. And if that is through physical, genetic change(s), then almost surely the physical fruit had a physical, biological effect upon Adam which was then passed on genetically to all descendants.

After Adam had sinned, God was very concerned to keep them from eating from the tree of life. That tree God will place on earth again in the new earth. But what about the forbidden tree? There was apparently no continuing reason to keep man from that. So is it still growing on earth? Of all the kinds of fruit on earth, Scripture only singles out one fruit with various prohibitions and warnings. That surely makes it a candidate as the once (and now sometimes) forbidden fruit.

Blood and Sin

Furthermore, Scripture sets forth a strong relationship between blood and sin. Blood is the life of the flesh in which sin dwells. It is only blood that can atone for sin, but only blood that is not itself contaminated with sin. Scripture also sets forth a strong relationship between blood and juice from the fruit that is singled out as dangerous. There are too many clues in Scripture about what happened when Adam ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil for us to be ignorant concerning that. These slides, The Blood of the Grape, systematically examine those Scriptural clues and make logical deductions for the purpose of setting forth doctrine that matches the Scriptural evidence.

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Baptism: an Overview

Doctrine, Salvation / /

Years ago when I had learned that baptism by immersion symbolizes the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, I tried to understand why baptism is in water. Scripture and common sense both clearly indicate that a simple immersion in water does not cleanse externally or internally. It cannot even be symbolic of cleansing.  Cleansing from sin is by the blood of Jesus Christ, and that is surely not applied while one is in the grave. When I saw a clear argument from Scripture concerning the meaning of the water just last summer, I decided to document it in a set of PowerPoint slides.

While I was well into that, I saw an internet blog speculating on where the water baptism used by John the Baptist came from. I thought surely the Scripture would give some clarification on that. And it surely does. So I added more slides about that.

My pastor then suggested I add in some slides about transliteration of the Greek words for baptize and baptism. Then if I would also talk about “saved by water”, I could teach an adult Sunday School class about baptism. By the time I had added discussions about John the Baptist, about Jesus’ baptism, about Holy Ghost baptism and baptism by fire, there was material for several lessons. And even as I was trying to organize all that material into a single set of slides for this website, I was presented with arguments for trine and face-forward immersions. To organize my thoughts about that I wrote more slides. And since they contributed to my understanding about baptism, I decided to add them as well.

So these Baptism slides are extensive. I would not have expected that there would be so much to say, when I started. And there is surely more that could be said. In fact, even as you consider this discussion, you may wonder why I did not comment on other things that may come to mind. My philosophy here has been not to examine the many false doctrines about baptism (except where doing so is clarifying), but to systematically establish Scriptural doctrine.

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The New Testament Is Not the New Covenant

Doctrine / /

The New Testament is not the New Covenant. To make the New Testament equal to the New Covenant is to deny God’s promises to Israel. When Balaam, with Balak’s encouragement, attempted to undermine God’s promises to Israel, God told him, “God is not man that he should lie; neither the son of man that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?”  Any hermeneutic that argues that God will go back on His literal promises to Israel is a hermeneutic that starts by calling God a liar. Rather, “…let God be true and every man a liar.”

None of the New Testament Scriptures indicate that God will fail to fulfill His promises in the Old Testament covenants. In fact the New Testament writers quote the Old Testament Scriptures as words of God not to be questioned. What God has promised He will do. And He will do it exactly as He has promised it.

God has said specifically that He will establish the new covenant with Israel. Paul says He will do that when the Deliverer will return to Israel. That obviously has not happened yet. Jesus instituted the new testament in His blood at His crucifixion. That has happened. The new testament and the new covenant are quite different. It is confusing that Greek New Testament Scriptures cannot distinguish these two concepts by different Greek words. But God has refined His words according to Psalm 12:6. Those refined words preserved for us in the King James Version have sorted out these concepts for us, so we can easily see how all of God’s promises to Israel will be fulfilled without modification.

Tribulation saints will be on earth after the Church has gone to heaven and before the new covenant is instituted at the start of the Kingdom. The discussion of the already established new testament and the coming new covenant in the Epistle to the Hebrews will be especially useful to them. They will need the information there about salvation and covenants to know how to live for God at that time.

See slides: The New Testament is not the New Covenant for a Scriptural explanation of these things.

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The Love of God

Doctrine / /

The Love of God is badly misunderstood by many. God is love. God does not need created beings to manifest love. So love is an independent attribute of God. Since God is a trinity, He manifests love between persons of the trinity. God’s independent love is as eternal as God Himself.

God’s love for His creation is a dependent love. It depends upon there being created beings. Dependent love is necessarily a lesser love. God manifests his love for fallen humanity through the sacrificial death of His son. Each person in this Church Age who accepts that death for himself is placed by the Holy Spirit into Jesus Christ. In this way he enters into the eternal love of God. Those who reject the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ for them, reject God’s love, and remain under God’s eternal wrath. God’s love for sinners, as great and as deep as it is for living sinners, is no longer extended to those who die before accepting it. That love is necessarily temporary.

If there were not two levels of love, then God’s love for sinners would be equivalent to God’s eternal love. And that would lead to one of two heresies. (1) If God will love forever every person to whom He extends love (everyone), then there would be universal salvation. (2) If God does eternally love some and not others, then He must never love some. That would be limited atonement. The slides, The Love of God slides document the differences in the two levels of love through New Testament Scriptures.

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The Lake of Fire and Brimstone

Doctrine / /

I am sorry to say the Lake of Fire and Brimstone will be the future for multitudes –past, present and future– living on this earth.  It is prophesied by God though His prophets and apostles. There is sufficient Scripture about the Lake of Fire and Brimstone to tell us a lot about it.

photo of brown owl
Screech Owl

We are aware that God rained fire and brimstone upon the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to completely destroy them, even though we do not see clear evidence of fire and brimstone there today. According to Scripture God will again rain fire and brimstone onto this earth in judgment. That will produce a lake of fire and brimstone that will be evident to earth’s inhabitants for the full one thousand years of the coming Millennium. And it will continue onto the new earth even after this present earth has been burned up.

The Lake of Fire and Brimstone will be on the earth where earth’s residents will be able to go and view both it and those in it. In these slides, Lake of Fire and Brimstone, we will explore where it will be, how it will get there, what it will look like to observers, and who will be in it.

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Satan: His Beginning and End

Doctrine / /
volcano, lava, iceland-7396466.jpg

That Satan was an archangel or the highest ranking angel is a common misconception. It is often stated just this way in church doctrinal statements. But in the KJV the beast called Satan is said to have been a cherub above the throne of God. He was a fifth cherub, the one representing before God the class of reptiles. As such he was the serpent, the most subtle of all the beasts of the field.

In the very chapter where Paul tells us the serpent deceived the woman, he tells us Satan deceives by transforming himself into an angel of light. Theses slides, Satan: His Beginning and End, deal with where he came from and where he will end up. They are not a study of his methods and practices.

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Salvation is different in different dispensations

1 Comment / Salvation / /

That salvation is different in different dispensations is a challenging topic. It stirs up considerable controversy. I have heard fundamental Baptist pastors declare that whoever says anyone ever got saved in any other way than by grace through faith apart from works is a heretic. They have learned to twist any Scripture to agree with that. Once a seminary dean told me that he did not need Scripture to support this view, because it would impugn the very character of God to suggest He would save different people in different ways.

I have placed extensive Scriptural evidence for God’s different methods of salvation in different dispensations in the PowerPoint slides Dispensational Salvation, so I will not attempt to place those arguments here. But within the first few chapters of God’s words to us, it is evident that Adam and Eve had unique choices to make concerning right and wrong. Likewise, no other person on earth has had the promises and opportunities that God offered to Abraham and his descendants. God most certainly does deal with different people in different ways.

Accept God’s Justice

In every case where God has dealt with man there are inevitable similarities. God in every situation has the same character and attributes. Man in every case has human nature. But within those parameters, humans can be marvelously different from each other, live under vastly different conditions and face staggeringly different situations. God deals with each person individually. And he deals with people in ways we may not count as fair. For when we question His fairness, He asks, “O man, who art thou that repliest against God?”

God has, indeed, placed within us a sense of what is just and what is not. But we attempt to apply that sense of justice with limited information and limited understanding. In Scripture God has also given us details of His interactions with various people in various circumstances. It is these details that help us to understand God in His dealings with men.  It is entirely inappropriate for us to undermine what God has written with our own limited sense of justice.

Understand Dispensations

Our limited sense of justice probably sustains our strongest resistance to accepting that God has dealt with mankind differently through different dispensations. But one will have very limited understanding of the Bible without recognizing such dispensations. But even dispensationalists have resisted the truth that God’s method and nature of salvation is different in different dispensations. This resistance to truth greatly confuses our understanding of Scripture even when we accept that there have been dispensations.

To assign God’s present method of salvation to all dispensations, does not directly hinder evangelism in this Church Age. But it does greatly hinder our understanding of the Bible in other dispensations. To fully understand Scripture we must accept that God has said what He meant to say; and that He means what He said. The slides Dispensational Salvation present a full step in that direction.

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