1 John 5:1: “Everyone believing that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God…” Here John says that everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Notice that verse 4 of this chapter explains that everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. Therefore, we can […]
2 Chronicles 5:13, “…when the song was raised…‘For He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever,’ the house—the house of YHWH—was filled with a cloud…” YHWH’s goodness and steadfast love (covenant faithfulness) are on full display in this passage. What is the Lord’s goodness but His giving of Himself to His people? And
1 John 4:14-15, “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God.” John is here saying the same thing in two complimentary ways. To confess Jesus
Isaiah 6:3, “And one called to another and said, ‘Holy, holy, holy is YHWH of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!’” In Scripture, holiness is often associated with otherness and separateness (a holy vessel is separate from common vessels etc.), so we might assume that the perfect (threefold) holiness of YHWH
John 8:12, “I am the light of life, the one following me does by no means walk in the darkness, but has the light of life.” Jesus says that the one who follows Him will have the “light of life.” I’m taking that to mean “the reality-illuminating revelation of who God is, whom to know
John 1:5, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome [comprehended] it.” An interpretive question we must ask when we come to this passage is what we understand “κατέλαβεν” (translated either “overcome” or “comprehend”) to mean. The word appears again in John’s gospel only in 12:35 where the meaning seems to
Proverbs 9:10, “The fear of YHWH is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” The knowledge (intimate, personal knowledge—same word used for the way a husband and wife “know” one another in marital union) the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. By saying that knowledge of the Holy
Exodus 33:20, “…man shall not see me and live.” When Moses asks to see YHWH’s glory on Mount Sinai, the Lord responds by telling Moses that he cannot see His face, since to see the face of God means death for a sinful human. However, John tells us that—with the incarnation of the self-declaring Word
Proverbs 1:20-22, “Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice; at the head of the noisy street she cries out… ‘How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?’” At first it seems strange that Wisdom would speak to people in the “noisy streets” and “markets” and bustling of
Colossians 2:17, “These are a shadow of the things to come, but the body that casts it belongs to Christ.” The translation I typically read from renders the last part of this verse, “…the *substance* belongs to Christ.” And that is accurate, it gets the point across. But while looking at this verse
John 19:5, “Behold the Man.” The word used for “man” here can also mean simply “human” (recall that, until recently, “Man” / “Mankind” could mean all of the human race…the same is true for the Greek word here translated “man”). When God Incarnate stands before the judgment seat in the tattered regality of His mock-robe
Romans 9:20-21, “But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?…Has the potter no right ver the clay…?” Dark-veiled, the hand of Sovereignty Does fashion all aright And from the clay, humanity Is well-formed in His sight But we from vantage creaturely Cannot His purpose know Why one is formed for dignity
John 20:27-28, “[Jesus] said to Thomas…’see my hands; and put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’” Sometimes we read this passage and think that Jesus presents His wounds to Thomas as proof that He really has been raised from
John 13:4, “He laid aside His outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.” When Jesus dresses Himself for service in the upper room, He is re-enacting the incarnation by revealing the same inclination of God’s heart that moved the Son to lay aside the outer garments of manifest glory and
Psalm 104:24, “O YHWH, how manifold are your works, in wisdom you have made them all…” 1 Corinthians 1:23-24, “Christ crucified…[is] the wisdom of God.” The wisdom of God IS Christ crucified. Archetypical wisdom is not merely God the Son abstracted from the man Jesus Christ, rather it is God the Son proclaimed as
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1 Corinthians 2:10, “…even the depths of God.” The phrase, “these things” 1 Corinthians 2:10 refers to the wisdom of God, given by God, through which God is known and the soul is saved, namely, the wisdom of God revealed in the redemptive work of the crucified Christ. The crucified Christ as wisdom and power,
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John 17:21, “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” The identity of God as manifest in the crucified and risen Jesus is the Whole around and in
Revelation 4 + Rev.7:17, 22:1 As John enters into the explicitly apocalyptic section of his book And prepares to detail the progressive dismantling of the world as we know it, it is fitting that he starts with a strong emphasis on the cosmic centrality and sovereign authority of the One True God. That is what
Psalm 29:5,8,9-10, “The voice of YHWH breaks the cedars…The voice of YHWH shakes the wilderness…and in his temple, all cry, ‘Glory!’ YHWH sits enthroned as king forever.” . Matthew 27:50-51, “Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up His spirit….And the earth shook.” The voice of YHWH thunders with greatest majesty on
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Proverbs 30:3-4, “I have not learned wisdom, nor have I knowledge of the Holy One. Who has ascended to heaven and come down?” John 3:13-15, “No one has ascended into heaven except He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the
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