Tag: john 3
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What About Human Responsibility?
Jesus has so far affirmed Pharisee soteriology. God first loves an individual. In response to God’s love, the individual cares to keep God’s Law. If a person keeps God’s Law, that person is righteous. God’s love is what brought the person into righteousness (i.e. saved the person). When the person kept the Law, that was…
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Jesus as Prophet and The Personal Salvation Debate Among Jews in the First Century
In these notes, I first show the point of John 3:1-2 by offering a biblical apologetic for Jesus as having the authority of a prophet to reveal new revelation. Then, I explore the theological environment of First Century Judea in order to provide historical context for Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus. It is no surprise that…
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On Salvation and Reprobation
From the debates between Paul and the Gnostics through the ancient dialogue between Augustine and Pelagius to the exchanges between Luther and Erasmus or Calvin’s disciples and those of Arminius to the more modern upheaval between the New Calvinists and Free Willists, the doctrine of election has dominated Christian discussion. Election is the doctrine that…
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What if we loved Christ?
In the Christian faith, we have this weird phrase that no one really understands. We say that people must be born again or be saved. There are a couple of questions that usually come up when we are speaking to someone who isn’t familiar with Christian lingo, or Christianeze. The first is this, “What am…