“When you’re absolute beginners,” folk singer M. Ward tells us, “it’s a panoramic view, from her majesty Mount Zion, and the kingdom is for you.” What he seems to suggest here is that, at any beginning point, there appears an infinite potentiality to life, stretching out like a majestic panorama before us. W.H. Auden, in hisContinue reading “From Ashes 10: Søren Kierkegaard – Original Sin and the Fear of Possibility”
Category Archives: Theology
Catechism 24
Why was it necessary for Christ, the Redeemer, to die? Since death is the punishment for sin, Christ died willingly in our place to deliver us from the power and penalty of sin and bring us back to God. By his substitutionary atoning death, he alone redeems us from hell and gains for us forgivenessContinue reading “Catechism 24”
Catechism 23
Why must the Redeemer be truly God? That because of his divine nature his obedience and suffering would be perfect and effective; and also that he would be able to bear the righteous anger of God against sin and yet overcome death. (New City Catechism) The price too great to pay ourselves, the heightContinue reading “Catechism 23”
Catechism 22
Why must the Redeemer be truly human? That in human nature he might on our behalf perfectly obey the whole law and suffer the punishment for human sin; and also that he might sympathize with our weaknesses. (New City Catechism) Mystery, this: the perfect life lived, Law satisfied, and yet my death visited onContinue reading “Catechism 22”
Catechism 21
What sort of Redeemer is needed to bring us back to God? One who is truly human and also truly God. (New City Catechism) Can both dwell in one body – God and man, as though torn asunder, the two were somehow reconciled? As far as east is from west:Continue reading “Catechism 21”
Catechism 20
Who is the Redeemer? The only Redeemer is the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, in whom God became man and bore the penalty for sin himself. (New City Catechism) From Adam’s flesh the perfect Man: God, human, redeeming what the apple’s curse has eaten. Who else? Our kinsman, yet notContinue reading “Catechism 20”
Catechism 19
Is there any way to escape punishment and be brought back into God’s favour? Yes, to satisfy his justice, God himself, out of mere mercy, reconciles us to himself and delivers us from sin and from the punishment for sin, by a Redeemer. (New City Catechism) Yet Eve’s offspringContinue reading “Catechism 19”
From Ashes Part 5: “…all things are wearisome…”
Vanity of vanities, the Preacher saith, All things are vanity. The eye and ear Cannot be filled with what they see and hear. Like early dew, or like the sudden breath Of wind, or like the grass that withereth, Is man… (Christina Rossetti, “The One Certainty”) Some years ago, the greatest comfortContinue reading “From Ashes Part 5: “…all things are wearisome…””
Catechism 18
Will God allow our disobedience and idolatry to go unpunished? No, every sin is against the sovereignty, holiness, and goodness of God, and against his righteous law, and God is righteously angry with our sins and will punish them in his just judgment both in this life, and in the life to come. (New CityContinue reading “Catechism 18”
From Ashes Part 5: “…all that I have written is but straw”
…if the evil which is the cause of sorrow be not so strong as to deprive one of the hope of avoiding it, although the soul be depressed in so far as, for the present, it fails to grasp that which it craves for; yet it retains the movement whereby to repulse that evil. If,Continue reading “From Ashes Part 5: “…all that I have written is but straw””
The Consolations of Writing 