Recommended Resources on Salvation

Jordan Atkinson

Living in the United States in the 21st century, we are blessed with a plethora of theological resources. The Bible, the gospel, and the things of God have never been so accessible as they are now in our society. Below are some of the books that have been most helpful for my understanding of salvation, which is the subject of Article IV of The Baptist Faith and Message.

Conversion by Michael Lawrence

Faith Alone by Thomas R. Schreiner

Finally Alive by John Piper (available as a free PDF download online)

It Is Well: Expositions on Substitutionary Atonement by Mark Dever and Michael Lawrence

Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray

What Is the Gospel? by Greg Gilbert

Sanctification

Jordan Atkinson

The Baptist Faith and Message concludes Article IV by describing sanctification and glorification: “Sanctification is the experience, beginning in regeneration, by which the believer is set apart to God’s purposes, and is enabled to progress toward moral and spiritual maturity through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in him. Growth in grace should continue throughout the regenerate person’s life. Glorification is the culmination of salvation and is the final blessed and abiding state of the redeemed.” As the Bible teaches, The Baptist Faith and Message affirms that sanctification is both objective and progressive and that glorification is the culmination of sanctification.

Objective Sanctification

The New Testament often speaks about sanctification in objective terms. Though it is most common for us to think about sanctification in its progressive sense (see below), the New Testament just as often speaks of sanctification objectively. Sanctification is not only something that we do over time, but something that God does to us at the moment of conversion. Consider Paul’s statement:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

Paul is contrasting the Corinthians’ past lifestyle as unbelievers and their present reality as Christians. Some of the Corinthian Christians were formerly fornicators, idolaters, and thieves. But Paul says they are now Christians; they are those who at some point in the past were “washed,” which Paul elsewhere uses as a metaphor for regeneration (Titus 3:5), and justified, which we know happens at conversion when a person trusts in Christ for salvation (Rom 3:21-26). Likewise, being sanctified in 1 Corinthians 6:11 is a conversion experience. When the Holy Spirit regenerates a person so that they immediately repent and believe the gospel, the Holy Spirit likewise sanctifies that person. He sets them apart to God as holy.

Furthermore, when Christ came into the world, He said, “Behold, I have come to do Your will,” in fulfillment of Psalm 40:8 (Heb 10:9). The author of Hebrews then draws out an implication of this quotation: “And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb 10:10). The sanctification present in this verse is not progressive but punctiliar. It takes place not over time but at one moment. Jesus’s obedience to the will of God, even unto death on the cross, set us apart to God as holy. That sanctification that He accomplished at the cross gets applied to us at conversion.

Progressive Sanctification

But Hebrews 10 goes on to affirm progressive sanctification, as well. By his self-sacrifice, Jesus “has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Heb 10:14). We are set apart to God as holy when we are born again. But we become increasingly holy (or should, as Christians) over the course of the rest of our lives on earth as Christians. As our statement of faith says, we “progress toward moral and spiritual maturity through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in [us].”

God’s “divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Pet 1:3). The Holy Spirit is at work in us as Christians. Nevertheless, we actively work out our salvation as God is actively at work within us (Phil 2:12-13). So Peter goes on to command us: “make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love” (2 Pet 1:5-7).

And Paul agrees with Peter. As Christians, we are freed from the domination of the flesh, and we are constrained instead by the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:9-10). This reality gives us hope of eternal resurrection (Rom 8:11). As those indwelled by the Spirit, we are indebted to Him, not our flesh (Rom 8:12). And we have the great promise: “if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom 8:13).

The End of Sanctification

Continuing in Romans 8, Paul shows that the end or goal of sanctification is glorification. God set us apart as holy at regeneration, He empowers us to be increasingly holy for the rest of our lives on earth, and He will make us perfectly holy in body as well as in spirit at the Second Coming of Christ. We have been redeemed, but we still “wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom 8:23). At death, we depart to be with the Lord spiritually in heaven (Phil 1:21; 2 Cor 5:8). At death, our spirits are set free from sinning, but our bodies lie “asleep” in the grave. However, at the resurrection, we will receive glorified bodies, and we will never again sin, either in spirit or body.

The apostle John makes this connection between present sanctification and future glorification clear: “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:2-3). In heaven, we will have glorified bodies, free from sin. If we are living for that eternal reality, then we will progressively purify ourselves more and more as we live our lives on earth.

Conclusion

The early church pastor-theologian Augustine had a biblically-faithful rubric for thinking through people’s relationship to sin:

  1. Adam and Eve before the Fall: able not to sin, able to sin
  2. Unsaved people after the Fall: not able not to sin
  3. Saved people after the Fall: able not to sin
  4. Glorified people in eternity: not able to sin

In terms of redemptive history, we Christians find ourselves in a state similar to Adam and Eve but better, for we have the indwelling Holy Spirit who is empowering us to gain victory over sin in this life. In the new heavens and new earth, we will find ourselves in the best position of all: fully free from the presence of sin, unable to sin at all, whether in feeling, thought, word, or deed. Surely this hope will make us cry out with John, “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev 22:20).

Conversion

Jordan Atkinson

Having described salvation as redemption, The Baptist Faith and Message next focuses on various aspects of salvation. Jesus accomplished redemption at the cross, but how does that redemption get applied to us? The application of redemption begins at conversion.

Regeneration, or the new birth, is a work of God’s grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace. Repentance is a genuine turning from sin toward God. Faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Saviour. Justification is God’s gracious and full acquittal upon principles of His righteousness of all sinners who repent and believe in Christ. Justification brings the believer unto a relationship of peace and favor with God.

The Baptist Faith and Message, Article IV

Conversion, then, involves the Holy Spirit’s regeneration of a person, that person’s repentance and faith, and God’s justification of the converted sinner. We may consider these things distinct from one another, but they all occur in the moment of conversion, when a person first has redemption applied to him.

Conversion as Regeneration

The application of redemption begins at conversion, the first aspect of which is regeneration, or the new birth. Jesus had a lengthy conversation with the Pharisee Nicodemus about regeneration during His earthly ministry (John 3:1-8). Jesus refers to the new birth in three ways: being born again (v. 3), being born of water and the Spirit (v. 5), and being born of the Spirit (vv. 6, 8). Jesus is not describing three different aspects of the new birth; He is describing the one new birth in three ways. Being born again and being born of water and Spirit both refer more plainly to being born of the Spirit. In these verses, Jesus is alluding to Ezekiel 36:25-27,

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Ezekiel prophesied that God would cleanse people from their uncleannesses and idols by putting His Spirit in them, which is depicted by the image of Him sprinkling clean water on them. So Jesus, too, said people must be born of water and the Spirit, and He was describing the new birth. Paul spoke similarly to Jesus: “he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5).

Indeed, other than Jesus, Paul is the most significant source of biblical teaching on the new birth. He tells the Corinthians, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17). And new birth into the new creation is like original creation: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6). The new birth of the Holy Spirit is necessary because before His work, we are “dead in the trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1). Conversion and the application of redemption to us first involves, then, the Holy Spirit regenerating our hearts and taking us from a state of spiritual death into a state of spiritual life.

Conversion as Faith and Repentance

This regeneration has a simultaneous, immediate effect: our faith and repentance. There is no gap of time between a person’s regeneration and his repenting and believing. All of these things are vital aspects of conversion. If regeneration is a new birth, a being born again, then faith and repentance are like a newborn baby’s cry. The way you know a baby has been born is that you hear him cry. The way you know someone converts is that he repents and believes. As our statement of faith affirms, “Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace.” Faith is part of God’s saving grace (Eph 2:8-9). Repentance likewise is a gift of God (2 Tim 2:25). And repenting and believing are activities that we people do. Jesus said that to enter the kingdom of God, we must “repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). And entering the kingdom of God is another way the Bible talks about being saved (Matt 19:23-26).

When we repent, we turn to God away from sin. To repent is to turn from wickedness (Acts 3:26), specifically the wickedness of opposing Jesus Christ (Acts 3:18). And to repent is to turn back, implicitly to God (Acts 3:19). It is in that moment that our sins––paid for by Jesus on the cross––are blotted out. The redemption Jesus accomplished gets applied to us.

“Faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Saviour.” First, we must accept Jesus Christ. We must know the facts of the gospel as they occurred in history (1 Cor 15:1-4). Regeneration gives this knowledge and intellectual belief. But saving faith is more than that. It is also commitment. Faith is assurance and conviction that the God of the Bible exists and rewards those who seek him in Christ (Heb 11:1, 6). Saving faith is relying on Jesus for eternal life (John 3:16, 18). And this commitment is wholehearted. We trust in Jesus not only as Savior but also submit ourselves to Him as Lord.

In conversion, the Holy Spirit regenerates us, and we immediately repent and believe.

Justification at Conversion

Conversion has an immediate effect: justification. “All sinners who repent and believe in Christ” receive “God’s gracious and full acquittal” from the penalty of sin. The great passage on justification in Scripture is Romans 3:21-26. We unrighteous sinners receive God’s own righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ (vv. 21–23). God is just to give us His righteousness because Jesus paid the penalty for our sin on the cross (vv. 24–26).

And this justification immediately results in us having peace with God. “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 5:1). As soon as we are justified, we are at peace with God. We are no longer God’s enemies but have been reconciled to Him (Rom 5:10). We therefore rejoice as those who have been made to be at peace with God (Rom 5:11).

Conclusion

The biblical teaching about conversion holds two complementary truths together in perfect harmony: we are not converted apart from the gracious work of the Holy Spirit in regenerating us in the new birth, and we are not converted apart from repenting and believing the gospel ourselves. Various Christians (even within the SBC!) put these truths together in different ways. The most important thing is that we hold together what we see in Scripture. What the Bible affirms, we affirm. And the glorious result of both of these aspects of conversion is that conversion immediately results in our justification from sin and reconciliation with God. That’s the good news we get to take to others! If they will repent and believe, they will be reconciled to God––no longer His enemy by their own choice of sin, but now His son or daughter through faith in Christ!

Redemption

Jordan Atkinson

In many ways, The Baptist Faith and Message progresses along a natural presentation of the gospel. We learn from Scripture that God has created us, but we have all rebelled against Him, and we thus earn His eternal condemnation. The good news is that God graciously saves people from sin, which is the subject of Article IV of Friendship’s statement of faith. “Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer. In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification. There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord.”

Salvation as Redemption

The Baptist Faith and Message first describes salvation in terms of redemption. To redeem something is to buy it back. The price of redemption is a ransom. In contemporary culture, we are most familiar with redemption and ransom payments in hostage situations. But Jesus spoke of His own death as “a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). As a ransom, Jesus died to pay the price we owed to God for our sin. He took God’s wrath in our place. As Isaiah had prophesied, “it was the will of the LORD to crush him; He has put him to grief,” and Jesus’s death was “an offering for guilt” (Isa 53:10). We have “redemption … in Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:24). And Jesus, who offered Himself as the God-man, gives us “an eternal redemption” (Heb 9:12). Salvation as redemption, then, encompasses all aspects of salvation that we experience from conversion to eternity: “regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification.” (Each of these aspects of salvation will be the subject of future blog posts.)

The Baptist Faith and Message rightly affirms that salvation is “redemption of the whole man.” Jesus died not only to save our souls but also to save our bodies. Salvation will ultimately and perfectly be experienced in the new heavens and new earth, where we Christians will have new, resurrection bodies, like Jesus’s own resurrection body (1 John 3:2). Our statement of faith thus stands in solidarity with the church throughout history. Early church theologians Irenaeus, Athanasius, and Gregory of Nazianzus all taught, “Only that which is assumed is redeemed [or healed].” Since Jesus was fully man, as well as fully God, we ourselves are wholly redeemed in salvation.

Salvation Offered to All

The Baptist Faith and Message also rightly says that salvation should be “offered freely to all.” The Gospel of Matthew concludes,

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Matthew 28:18-20

We call this text the Great Commission, and the commission truly is great in its scope. Jesus tells His disciples to “make disciples of all nations.” Jesus is the Redeemer not only of Israel but also of people “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev 5:9). Earlier in Matthew, Jesus had taught that gospel preachers should be indiscriminate with regard to the people whom they evangelize (Matt 13:1-9, 18-23). Even if people will reject the gospel immediately or fall away later (whether in a time of persecution or of prosperity), Christians should tell the good news of Jesus to everyone.

Paul develops this theology of the universal offer of salvation in his magnum opus, Romans. The main point of Romans is that “the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom 1:16). The good news of the gospel is that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved,” (Rom 10:13), as they confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in their heart that God raised him from the dead (Rom 10:9-10). But those who call on Him must believe in Him, and to believe in Him they must hear of Him, and to hear of Him someone must preach Him to them (Rom 10:14). Paul’s own ambition was “to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named” (Rom 15:20). So it is vital for us Christians to tell the gospel to everyone we can.

For someone to experience the redemption of salvation, though, he must “accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer.” Jesus’s death on the cross is the only basis on which anyone is saved. He obtained eternal redemption for believers by His own blood (Acts 20:28; Eph 1:7). Jesus’s atoning death was not potential but actual. He accomplished redemption at the cross, and that redemption is applied without distinction to everyone who believes.

The universal offer of the gospel, then, is based on an exclusive claim: Christ alone gives salvation. He claimed as much in His life (John 10:25–28; 14:6). Peter confessed this truth, as well (Acts 4:8–12). Christ alone saves, but those He saves, He saves eternally.

Conclusion

Salvation truly is the redemption of the whole man. We are wholly redeemed because Jesus the God-Man offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sin on the cross. By His own blood, He redeemed believers from their sin. All who trust in Jesus for salvation are indeed saved by Him. So we Christians are to proclaim this exclusive salvation to everyone we possibly can. We have no way of knowing who will believe and who will reject the gospel. We have no way of knowing if someone after rejecting the gospel for years will later believe in Christ for salvation, possibly even after we have died! We joyfully hold all these biblical truths together. Praise God for the grace He has shown us in saving us from our sins! We’ll continue considering His saving grace over the next many blog posts.

Recommended Resources on Man in Biblical Perspective

Jordan Atkinson

Living in the United States in the 21st century, we are blessed with a plethora of theological resources. The Bible, the gospel, and the things of God have never been so accessible as they are now in our society. Below are some of the books and articles that have been most helpful to me to understand the creation and fall of man, which much of Article III of The Baptist Faith and Message treats, as well as how to combat sinfulness in my own life.

Resources on the Creation and Fall of Man

Created in God’s Image by Anthony A. Hoekema

Danvers Statement of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

Kingdom through Covenant by Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum

Nashville Statement of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

Resources on (Fighting) Sinfulness

Gospel Treason by Brad Bigney

Tempted and Tried by Russell Moore

The Enemy Within by Kris Lundgaard

We Become What We Worship by G. K. Beale

Man Fallen in Sin

Jordan Atkinson

God originally created man in His image, and the sixth day of creation ended with God proclaiming everything, including the creation of man as male and female, to be “very good” (Gen 1:31). Genesis 2 gives a complementary and more detailed account of the sixth day of creation (Gen 2:4-25). But then Genesis 3 comes, with its account of how man fell from his original sinlessness and God cursed all creation with decay. As the third article of The Baptist Faith and Message says,

In the beginning man was innocent of sin and was endowed by his Creator with freedom of choice. By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. Through the temptation of Satan man transgressed the command of God, and fell from his original innocence whereby his posterity inherit a nature and an environment inclined toward sin. Therefore, as soon as they are capable of moral action, they become transgressors and are under condemnation. Only the grace of God can bring man into His holy fellowship and enable man to fulfill the creative purpose of God. The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created man in His own image, and in that Christ died for man; therefore, every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love.

Man was originally sinless, but Adam’s fall resulted in all his progeny being sinful thereafter. Nevertheless, all people still remain divine image-bearers.

From Sinless to Sinful

As the goodness of gender was one implication of the “very good” nature of God’s original creation (Gen 1:31), so the sinlessness of man is another. And God in His grace gave Adam a choice whether to obey God’s command not to eat from the forbidden tree (Gen 2:16-17). In the original creation, without a sin nature, Adam had absolute choice whether to continue in his sinless state or to introduce sin not only into his own life but also into all the created world if he ate the forbidden fruit.

Tragically, Adam chose to disobey God and therein became a sinner. Satan in the form of a serpent tempted Eve directly (Gen 3:1-5), but Adam “was with her” (Gen 3:6). Satan distorted God’s word (Gen 3:1) and then after Eve inaccurately quoted God’s command herself (Gen 3:3) denied God’s word outright (Gen 3:4-5). Adam was with her, Eve—but he didn’t correct the serpent himself or even correct Eve’s misquotation. Adam didn’t stop
Eve from eating, he allowed her to eat the forbidden fruit, and when she didn’t drop dead immediately, he joined her. Eve was deceived into sinning—but Adam sinned with eyes wide open, willfully, flagrantly. Adam failed as Eve’s husband, as a man of God, as priest-king of the garden of Eden. And in so doing he abdicated his throne over the rest of creation to Satan. By getting Adam and Eve to obey him in the garden and give in to temptation to disobey God, Satan gained mastery over the human race. He is “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30), “the god of this world” (2 Cor 4:4), and “the prince of the power of the air” (Eph 2:2). Satan boasted to Jesus in his own wilderness temptation, “all this authority and their [nations’] glory … has been delivered to me” (Luke 4:6). Indeed, as John summarizes, “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19).

In describing the original fall into sin, the Bible shows that temptation comes not only from external sources (e.g., Satan) but also from internal desires (Gen 3:6). Eve saw the threefold goodness of the tree: its goodness for food, its physical beauty, and its desirability for acquiring wisdom, she took of its fruit and ate. God Himself proclaimed the tree to be good in these ways (Gen 2:9; 3:22). But it was wrong for Adam and Eve to take the tree’s fruit apart from God’s permission. Their desire for a good thing was greater than their desire for God, who is the greatest good, so they sinned.

Adam’s sin had immediate consequences. He and Eve felt shame. Sin broke their relationship not only with God but also with each other. Having broken trust with God, Adam and Eve could not trust one another. So they hid from one another by sewing together leaves into loincloths (Gen 3:7), and they attempted to hide from God, as well (Gen 3:8). Of course, they can’t hide from God, and God the just Judge passes judgment on them. Eve will have pain in childbearing, and there will be conflict between her and Adam (Gen 3:16). God’s judgment on Adam is most lengthy and last, because Adam bears covenantal responsibility for humanity’s fall into sin and the subsequent curse on the rest of creation. God curses the ground on account of Adam, and Adam’s work will be tiresome and troubled (Gen 3:17-19). Because of sin, Adam and Eve must be separated from God’s relational presence in Eden and be in exile to the east (Gen 3:23-24).

Because of sin, every life will end in death (Rom 6:23). Such is evident from the near-universal refrain of Genesis 5: “and he died” (Gen 5:5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 27, 31). “This unique litany of death … functions as the death-knell of the judgment in Eden.”1 Paul explains why everyone dies:

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

Romans 5:12-14

In Adam all die, because in Adam we all fell. Adam was the founding father of the whole human race. He was our head. But he fell. He sinned. He
transgressed God’s law, and mysteriously, we sinned in him, also. From Adam, we all inherit “a nature and an environment inclined toward sin.” But as soon as we all have the ability to choose to sin, we sin. We rebel against God and are set against Him (Rom 3:9-20). None of us are able or willing to save ourselves. We need God’s grace in order to save us, as our plight is so severe that we are in fact dead in our sins (Eph 2:1, 8-9).

Sacred though Sinful

God had created to be His image bearers (Gen 1:26-27). By sin, Adam marred that image. Ever since Adam’s original sin, we all by nature and by choice continue to be like carnival house mirrors. We distort God’s image even more than we portray it. Only Jesus, the sinless perfect man, is “the exact imprint of His nature” (Heb 1:3). Though the divine image in each of us is effaced by sin, it is not altogether erased. All people continue to be made in God’s image. Through faith in Christ, that image may begin to be restored.

Jesus died for sin, so all people are “worthy of respect and Christian love,” as our statement of faith affirms. Christian unity transcends all ethnic differences because of Jesus’s death for our sins (Gal 3:28; Eph 2:13-18). Jesus commissioned us His people to “make disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:19). The gospel should be proclaimed to “every nation and tribe and language and people” (Rev 14:6). By His blood, Jesus “ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev 5:9). In the end, this pan-ethnic group will be “a great multitude that no one could number” (Rev 7:9). So we Christians should treat everyone we encounter with great respect and love, both through acts of sacrificial service and through telling them the good news of Jesus.

Man Created in God’s Image

Jordan Atkinson

After grounding all matters of doctrine and practice in Scripture and setting forth what Scripture teaches about God, The Baptist Faith and Message next summarizes what the Bible teaches about humanity. Article III first describes man’s original created state: “Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. The gift of gender is thus part of the goodness of God’s creation.” As this paragraph affirms, all people are created in God’s image, as male or female.

The Image of God

According to Scripture, on the sixth day of Creation Week, God resolved to “make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen 1:26). Furthermore, God’s purpose in creating man in His image and likeness was “so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground” (Gen 1:26 NIV). Being made in God’s image speaks to man being His representative ruler over the rest of earthly creation. As God rules beneficently over all creation, so should mankind rule beneficently over the other earthly creatures (Ps 8:5-8). Even in relationships with other people, those in authority should not be authoritarian (Lev 25:43, 46; Mark 10:42-45). Being made after God’s likeness shows that mankind relates to God as a son relates to his father (Gen 5:1-3). Luke calls Adam the “son of God” (Luke 3:38). Paul proclaims that all people are God’s “offspring” (Acts 17:26-28).

God’s blessing of Adam and Eve shows how they are to exercise their God-given rule over the rest of creation and expand their dominion over it: by populating the earth and spreading out over it (Gen 1:28). As they do so, they are to steward the earth’s resources well (Gen 1:29-30; 9:3).

The Baptist Faith and Message rightly affirms, “man is the special creation of God.” Genesis 1, as well as the Bible as a whole, is incompatible with modern theories of macro-evolution. According to Scripture, humanity is not the product of millions of years of macro-evolution; rather, God specially created Adam and Eve as the first people on the sixth day of creation week. Indeed, the special creation of Adam and Eve is “the crowning work of His creation.” God’s creation of man is the climax of creation week. In Genesis 1, God’s creation of man takes more ink than His creation of anything else. The next chapter gives even more details about God’s creation of Adam and Eve (Gen 2:4-25). The gendered creation of man is also noted in that God created man “male and female” (Gen 1:26, 27).

The Goodness of Gender

God’s resolution to “make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen 1:26) is Trinitarian; God says that He (one) will make man in our (plural) image. Genesis has already shown the Holy Spirit to be active from the beginning of creation (Gen 1:2). Even from the first chapter of the Bible, we have a subtle hint to the plurality within the unity of God. And John would begin his Gospel by saying that Jesus, God the Son (“Word”), was also instrumental to creation (John 1:1-4, 14). The triune God created all the universe, including man, by the word of His power. And the Trinity (one God eternally existent as three Persons) appropriately creates man (singular) as both male and female (plural) from the beginning (Gen 1:27).

The gendered creation of humanity, then, is part of God’s original good creation. In fact, it is only after creating man, specifically as male and female, that God calls creation “very good” because it is complete (Gen 1:31). Being male or female is good, even from the beginning of creation, for at least two reasons:

  1. Being male or female is good because whether a person is male or female, he or she is fully an image-bearer of God (Gen 1:27).2
  2. Being male or female is good because God’s design for man to subdue and rule the earth depends in part on humanity being fruitful, multiplying, and filling the earth, which is possible only through the cooperation between both sexes (Gen 1:28).3

Gender distinctions are not the result of the fall. Abuses of these distinctions result from the fall of mankind (Gen 3:16), but gender distinctions themselves existed prior to the fall of mankind. God created Adam before Eve. When God gave Adam the command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Eve had not yet been created (Gen 2:16-18, 21-22). So Adam would have been responsible to pass this command along to Eve. God even refers to Eve as Adam’s “helper” (Gen 2:18), which points to Adam’s responsibility to lead her well in their relationship.

As gender distinctions are increasingly maligned in our culture and as gender confusion becomes increasingly prevalent, it is increasingly important for us Christians to stand on the truth of God’s word that God from the beginning created man as male and female. Both genders bear equal dignity and worth as divine image bearers. Both genders have distinct roles in together fulfilling God’s mandate in creation.

Conclusion

We at Friendship Baptist Church gladly affirm The Baptist Faith and Message‘s summary of God’s original creation fo man as faithful to Scripture. The Bible is our final authority for all matters of faith and practice, and we are thankful for God’s clarity on the original good creation of humanity in His image, as both male and female. May we as men and women redeemed by the blood of Jesus strive to glorify Him as men and women in all we think, say, and do!

Faith-Fueled Freedom: Sermons on Galatians

friendshipchurchohio

Don’t Desert the Gospel (Galatians 1:1-9)

Please God, Not People (Galatians 1:10-17)

Preserve the Gospel (Galatians 1:18-2:10)

Live by Faith (Galatians 2:11-21)

Be Blessed by Faith (Galatians 3:1-14)

A Child of God by Faith (Galatians 3:15-29)

Why Christ Came (Galatians 4:1-7)

Be As I Am (Galatians 4:8-20)

Christ Has Set Us Free (Galatians 4:21-5:1)

Faith Working through Love (Galatians 5:2-15)

Walk by the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-25)

Fulfill the Law of Christ (Galatians 5:26-6:5)

Sow to the Spirit (Galatians 6:6-10)

Boast in the Cross Alone (Galatians 6:11-18)

The Good Shepherd and His Straying Sheep: Sermons on Amos

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God’s Irrevocable Punishment against the Nations (Amos 1:1-2:3)

God’s Irrevocable Punishment against Israel (Amos 2:4-16)

Hear and Testify God’s Word (Amos 3)

Prepare to Meet Your God! (Amos 4)

Seek the Lord, and Live (Amos 5:1-17)

Let Justice Roll Down Like Waters (Amos 5:18-6:14) *sermon notes available here* (incomplete audio)

Intercession and Confrontation (Amos 7)

Spiritual Famine (Amos 8)

Accept God’s Judgment (Amos 9)

From Heaven to Earth: The Life-Giving Law of the King of the Kingdom of Heaven (Sermons on Matthew 5-7)

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Happiness in Humility (Matthew 5:1-5)

Happiness in Righteousness (Matthew 5:6-8)

Happiness in Peace or Persecution (Matthew 5:9-12)

Salt and Light (Matthew 5:13-16)

The Old Testament’s Fulfillment and Function (Matthew 5:17-20)

Anger Danger (Matthew 5:21-26)

Avoid Adultery (Matthew 5:27-32)

Honest Speech (Matthew 5:33-37)

Freely You Received; Freely Give (Matthew 5:38-48)

Unhypocritical Righteousness (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18)

The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:7-15)

Seek God’s Kingdom and Righteousness (Matthew 6:19-34)

Don’t Be Judgmental (Matthew 7:1-6)

Prayer and the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:7-12)

Hear and Do Jesus’ Words (Matthew 7:13-29)

Let Justice Roll Down Like Waters (Amos 5:18-6:14)

friendshipchurchohio

an expository sermon on Amos 5:18-6:14 preached by Pastor Jordan Atkinson on October 6, 2019

Due to unforeseen technical difficulties, the last ten minutes of the sermon are unavailable on audio. Pastor Jordan’s sermon notes for the missing audio are below:

Because the elites in Samaria and Jerusalem were complacent about their sin, God decrees that they will “be the first of those who go into exile” (Amos 6:7). God will bring their rebellious revelry to an end! And that’s exactly what happened. Both Israel (2 Kgs 15:29-30; 17:6) and Judah (2 Kgs 24:1-2, 10-15; 25:2, 6-12) went into exile in multiple stages. In both cases, the kings and nobles were among those exiled in the first wave of foreign conquests. God’s word of judgment came to pass historically, so we can be sure it will come to pass in the end, as well!

We Christians should heed the warning of God’s judgment against the complacency of the elites in Israel and Judah. One of the repeated themes of the Book of Hebrews is the need for us Christians to persevere in the faith, not to apostatize and abandon the Lord we claim. Have you ever thought about the first way that the author of Hebrews describes apostasy? He first warns us to beware of drifting away from the gospel we have heard and not to neglect our great salvation (Heb 2:1-4). Apostasy at first is not the outright rejection of Christ; it does not begin when you walk out of church and never return. Apostasy begins with complacency, with drifting in the sea of life without being truly anchored in Christ by faith and with neglecting the means of grace God has provided (e.g., Bible reading, prayer, congregational worship and fellowship). Similarly, Peter commands us to be diligent to confirm our calling and election, based on the truth that God has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Pet 1:3-11)!

Finally, God commands us in this text to let justice roll down like waters because otherwise God’s wrath will roll over you (Amos 6:8-14). God swears to destroy Samaria (v. 8). Whole households will die (vv. 9-10). All houses, whether great or small, will be destroyed (v. 11).

God continues by berating Israel for the absurdity of their complacent injustice (vv. 12-13). Horses can’t run on rocks. You can’t plow a rocky mountainside with oxen to harvest grain or some other crop. Nevertheless, Israel has committed an equal (if not worse) folly: they have perverted justice. Furthermore, they are rejoicing over their recent military conquests of Lo-debar and Karnaim from Syria. As they rejoice over their capture of Lo-debar, they rejoice literally over “nothing,” as that is the meaning of the town’s name. And that boasting is especially foolish because Israel itself will be conquered by a foreign army (v. 14). All of Israel will be oppressed, even its expanded territory over Jeroboam II (cf. 2 Kgs 14:25).

Again, if you are not a Christian, you must see the tsunami of God’s wrath that threatens to consume you if you remain unrepentant in your sin. Repent and believe in the gospel! Don’t rejoice over nothing the way Israel did. Don’t foolishly remain in your sin the way Israel did. Repent! Go to the cross of Jesus and his empty tomb. Cry out to him for forgiveness of your sin and for eternal life! The glorious gospel promise is that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Rom 10:13). If you will confess Jesus’ Lordship (divine authority) over your life personally, if you will believe that God raised him from the dead because he had accepted Jesus’ sacrifice for your personal sin in your place, then you will be saved (Rom 10:9-10).

Recommended Resources on God

Jordan Atkinson

Living in the United States in the 21st century, we are blessed with a plethora of theological resources. The Bible, the gospel, and the things of God have never been so accessible as they are now in our society. Below are some of the books and articles that have been most helpful to me both to know God better and to love God better, the focus of Article II of Friendship’s statement of faith.

Resources on the Attributes of God

All That Is in God: Evangelical Theology and the Challenge of Classical Christian Theism by James E. Dolezal

God’s Greater Glory: The Exalted God of Scripture and the Christian Faith by Bruce Ware

Knowing God by J. I. Packer

The Holiness of God by R. C. Sproul

Resources on the Trinity

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, and Relevance by Bruce Ware

Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief by John M. Frame

Resources on God the Son

God the Son Incarnate: The Doctrine of Christ by Stephen J. Wellum

The Person of Christ by Donald MacLeod

Resources on the Holy Spirit

God’s Indwelling Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Old and New Testaments by James M. Hamilton Jr.

Spiritual Gifts: What They Are and Why They Matter by Thomas R. Schreiner

The Holy Spirit by Sinclair Ferguson

“The Witness of the Spirit in Romans 8:16: Interpretation and Applications” by Daniel B. Wallace. Pp. 37-52 in Who’s Afraid of the Holy Spirit? An Investigation into the Ministry of the Spirit of God Today, edited by Daniel B. Wallace and M. James Sawyer. (He has published an online version of this essay at bible.org.)

The Holy Spirit and the Church

Jordan Atkinson

The Baptist Faith and Message first describes the Holy Spirit’s relationship to Scripture. Having concluded that paragraph by discussing the Holy Spirit’s use of Scripture to convert sinners, the next paragraph about the Holy Spirit focuses on his relationship to the church, both individual Christians and local congregations. “He cultivates Christian character, comforts believers, and bestows the spiritual gifts by which they serve God through His church. He seals the believer unto the day of final redemption. His presence in the Christian is the guarantee that God will bring the believer into the fullness of the stature of Christ. He enlightens and empowers the believer and the church in worship, evangelism, and service.”

The Holy Spirit in the Individual Christian

The Holy Spirit cultivates Christian character. Paul famously talks about this as the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal 5:22-23). The Holy Spirit produces these fruits to replace the works of the flesh: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these (Gal 5:19-21). The works of the flesh characterize non-Christians. Works are the flesh are things that come naturally for us as sinners. However, the fruits of the Spirit are unnatural to us in sin; they are the result of the Holy Spirit’s ongoing grace in our lives, as he dwells in us and empowers us to grow in righteousness (Gal 5:16-18, 24-25). Paul also wrote about the Spirit’s work in Christians’ lives in Romans 8. Our bodies are still dead because of sin, but the Holy Spirit within us is giving us life (Rom 8:10). The Spirit has set us free from the law (Rom 8:2) so that we Christians no longer live for the passions of the sinful flesh (Rom 8:12) but rather put to death those sins that once characterized us so that they characterize us no longer (Rom 8:13).

The Holy Spirit also comforts us Christians. The Holy Spirit’s comfort is the emphasis of the next verses in Romans 8:

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him

(Rom 8:14-17)

The Holy Spirit assures us of our adoption as God’s sons. He doesn’t make us fear that we are slaves of sin. He bears witness to us that we are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. He comforts us as we suffer for Christ that we will one day be glorified with Christ. He comforted the early church so that it multiplied (Acts 9:31). He comforts us Christians with his constant presence (John 14:16). He also comforts us by teaching us through the Scriptures (John 14:26; 15:26).

The Holy Spirit bestows spiritual gifts on Christians. In fact, the gifts are “spiritual” gifts precisely because they come from the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:1-11; Rom 12:3-8; 1 Pet 4:10-11). Whether a gift is more extravagant or more low-key; whether a gift is to speak or to serve physically; whether a gift blesses many people or only a few, all spiritual gifts come from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives each Christian spiritual gifts so that the church may be built up and strengthened.

Finally, the Holy Spirit is the seal and guarantee of our salvation. Paul calls the Holy Spirit “the guarantee of our inheritance” (Eph 1:14; cf. 2 Cor 1:21-22). The Holy Spirit is the evidence we need that the Lord Jesus one day will come again and make all things new. God has also similarly sealed us with the Holy Spirit (Eph 1:13; 4:30). We can know that we will in fact persevere to the end and be saved because the Holy Spirit is indwelling us.

The Holy Spirit in the Church

As the Holy Spirit indwells each individual Christian, so the Spirit is also active in the church as a whole. “He enlightens and empowers the believer and the church in worship, evangelism, and service.” The Holy Spirit empowers the church’s worship. Jesus told the Samaritan woman, “the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (John 4:23). The Holy Spirit causes us to worship God, and he enables us to worship God (Phil 3:3). We have access to God only because of the Spirit (Eph 2:18). We pray to God “in the Spirit” (Eph 6:18).

The Holy Spirit also empowers the church’s evangelism. Jesus told his disciples that the Holy Spirit would bear witness to him, and they would bear witness to him (John 15:26-27). This progression of thought implies that the Holy Spirit empowers Christian evangelism. After his resurrection, Jesus instructs his disciples not to go out and bear witness beyond Jerusalem until they have received power from the Holy Spirit to do so (Acts 1:8). Later, the Holy Spirit fills Christians so that they continue to speak the word of God with boldness in the face of increasing persecution (Acts 4:31).

Finally, the Holy Spirit empowers the church’s service. The spiritual gifts mentioned above point to this reality. Furthermore, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and subsequent conversion of thousands of people resulted in Christians being “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). The Holy Spirit birthed the church in Thessalonica and empowered them to forsake idols for the living God and to be a very united church in spreading the gospel in their area (1 Thess 1:4-10).

Conclusion

We at Friendship Baptist Church are thankful for God’s gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit. We are thankful for the fruit he has graciously produced in our lives so far, and we trust that he will continue to produce more and more fruit in our lives that glorify God. We also long to be faithful to follow the Spirit’s leadership in equipping us for worship, evangelism, and service. May we be faithful temples of the Holy Spirit every day of our lives, to the glory of God and for the sake of spreading his gospel!

The Holy Spirit and Scripture

Jordan Atkinson

The Baptist Faith and Message first confesses of the Holy Spirit: “The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, fully divine. He inspired holy men of old to write the Scriptures. Through illumination He enables men to understand truth. He exalts Christ. He convicts men of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. He calls men to the Saviour, and effects regeneration. At the moment of regeneration He baptizes every believer into the Body of Christ.” This paragraph of Friendship’s statement of faith focuses on the Holy Spirit’s relationship to Scripture. The Holy Spirit inspired the writing of Scripture in the past. He presently illuminates the meaning of Scripture to Christians and applies it to non-Christians in conversion to regenerate them and make them Christians.

The Holy Spirit’s Inspiration and Illumination of Scripture

The first article of The Baptist Faith and Message described the Holy Spirit’s inspiration of Scripture. That topic is also the subject of the first blog post in this series.

The Holy Spirit illuminates the meaning of Scripture so that people can understand it in the present. As Paul told the Corinthians, “we have received … the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God” (1 Cor 2:12). The Spirit makes it so that Scripture takes root in a Christian’s heart (1 Cor 2:13). Non-Christians cannot comprehend Scripture or its message of salvation on their own, apart from the illumination of Scripture (1 Cor 2:14-15). We Christians can understand and apply Scripture to our lives only by God’s grace through the power of his Holy Spirit at work in us (1 Cor 2:16).

The Holy Spirit especially illuminates us Christians to understand how Scripture exalts Christ, and he teaches us through Scripture how we are to exalt Christ in our everyday lives, by our thoughts, words, and actions. Such was one of the key themes of Jesus’ Upper Room Discourse following the Last Supper. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would bear witness about him to the disciples (John 15:26). Twice Jesus later told his disciples that the Holy Spirit “will take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16:14, 15). The apostle Peter also taught that the Holy Spirit exalts Christ through the Old Testament prophets: “Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories” (1 Pet 1:10-11).

The Holy Spirit’s Application of Scripture in Conversion

In addition to illuminating Christians’ minds to understand the Bible, the Holy Spirit also uses God’s word to convert people. The Holy Spirit takes people who are dead in their trespasses and sin and makes them alive in Christ (Eph 2:1-10). The Baptist Faith and Message summarizes Jesus’ teaching about the Holy Spirit in John 16:8-11 by saying, “He convicts men of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.” James Hamilton explains these verses: “The world stands condemned by the righteousness manifested in God’s judgment of sin at the cross because it has not believed in Jesus” (God’s Indwelling Presence, p. 90). Jesus had previously taught his disciples, “‘Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die” (John 12:31-33). Jesus taught that after his death and resurrection, he would send the Holy Spirit to convict people of the judgment that God rendered at the cross. Jesus defeated Satan at the cross. At the cross, Jesus paid the sin debt of anyone and everyone who would ever trust in him for salvation. The Holy Spirit applies the redemption that Jesus accomplished at the cross. He is the one who convicts sinners to feel the weight of their sin and the just condemnation it has earned them.

Connected to his work of conviction, the Holy Spirit “calls men to the Saviour.” The Holy Spirit does the work both of the gospel call and the effectual call. The Holy Spirit calls all people everywhere to repent as they encounter God’s word, the Bible, either by reading it for themselves or by hearing it read or preached. People are responsible to respond to the call of the Holy Spirit in the gospel, but on their own they resist him (Acts 7:51). In sin, a person’s natural response to the gospel is to reject it. Those who reject the gospel are not rejecting the preacher of the gospel but the God of the gospel (1 Thess 4:8). However, the Holy Spirit also effectually calls people to Christ, as Paul writes: “those whom he called, he also justified” (Rom 8:30). The Holy Spirit by his grace and power makes people to feel the weight of their sin, he calls them to the Savior, and by his power they respond in faith.

Those who are effectually called by the Holy Spirit in this way respond in faith because the Holy Spirit regenerates them. As The Baptist Faith and Message says, the Holy Spirit “effects regeneration.” Jesus told Nicodemus clearly, for a person to be saved, he or she must be born again, born from above, born of the Spirit (John 3:1-8). Jesus chides Nicodemus for his inability to understand Jesus’ teaching about regeneration, since God had promised to regenerate his people in the Old Testament (Ezek 36:25-27). One of the blessings of the new covenant would be that God would give people new hearts and put his Spirit within them so that they would be able to obey him from the heart (Jer 31:31-34).

The New Testament closely relates regeneration and baptism. Paul writes that God “saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). In the earliest church, people were baptized the same day that they were reborn by the Holy Spirit. Baptism is an outward sign of the inward reality of regeneration. The Baptist Faith and Message explains why that is the case: “At the moment of regeneration He baptizes every believer into the Body of Christ.” There is no biblical evidence for a second baptism of the Holy Spirit that is normative for Christians throughout time and across diverse cultures. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is just another way of talking about regeneration (1 Cor 12:13). The baptism of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was a special event to fulfill John the Baptist’s prophecy that Jesus would baptize people “in the Holy Spirit and in fire” (Luke 3:16; Acts 2:3-4). Later in Acts, we get the normative experience of Christian conversion described by how the first Gentile converts received the Holy Spirit and were regenerated and promptly baptized (Acts 10:44-48). (Those Gentiles spoke in tongues as a special sign confirming to the Jewish Christians there that the Gentiles had in fact received the Holy Spirit just as they had.)

Conclusion

The Holy Spirit inspired the Bible and continues to illuminate its contents to people today. Apart from the Holy Spirit, none of us can truly understand God’s word and apply it to our lives properly. The Holy Spirit applies Scripture in conversion to non-Christians. The Holy Spirit convicts people of their sin, calls them to repent and believe in the gospel, and regenerates their hearts. A person goes from being dead in sin to alive in Christ by the Spirit. When the Spirit regenerates someone, the person is simultaneously baptized into the body of Christ.

The Work of Christ

Jordan Atkinson

Having discussed the person of Christ, the Baptist Faith and Message includes a paragraph on the work of Christ: “He honored the divine law by His personal obedience, and in His substitutionary death on the cross He made provision for the redemption of men from sin. He was raised from the dead with a glorified body and appeared to His disciples as the person who was with them before His crucifixion. He ascended into heaven and is now exalted at the right hand of God where He is the One Mediator, fully God, fully man, in whose Person is effected the reconciliation between God and man. He will return in power and glory to judge the world and to consummate His redemptive mission. He now dwells in all believers as the living and ever present Lord.” This discussion of the work of Christ extends from the past, to the present, into the future.

The Work of Christ in His First Coming

In his first coming, Jesus’ work centered on accomplishing the redemption of his people from sin. Jesus did this by living a life of perfect obedience and dying in our place on the cross. The Baptist Faith and Message affirms what theologians call the active and passive obedience of Christ. The active obedience of Christ is “His personal obedience.” This is a positive way of putting the doctrine stated negatively in the previous blog post (Christ’s sinlessness). Jesus fulfilled the Law and the Prophets (Matt 5:17). “He is and does all that they predicted” (Charles Quarles, The Sermon on the Mount [Nashville: B&H Academic, 2011], 93). Jesus obeyed the Sabbath, even though the scribes and Pharisees objected to his actions (Matt 12:1-14). He affirmed the law of the tithe (Matt 23:23-24). Jesus perfectly obeyed the law.

Jesus’ death is referred to his passive obedience, even though he was no less active in going to his death than when he was obeying God’s commands. He submitted himself to the punishment of the law that everyone else deserved but that he didn’t deserve. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Gal 3:13). He accomplished redemption at the cross, and we receive this redemption “through faith” (Gal 3:14). “Christ crucified” is “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:22-24). Because Jesus died on the cross in our place, he “became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor 1:30).

We know that Jesus’ death accomplished redemption because God raised him from the dead. All four Gospels record Jesus’ resurrection. Paul affirms that Jesus appeared after his resurrection to Peter, his disciples, hundreds of Christians, and James his brother (1 Cor 15:3-7). John records that Jesus still had scars from the nails and spear that pierced him (John 20:19-29). He also tells us that Jesus ate, which indicates that his was a bodily resurrection (John 21:4-14). Forty days after Jesus’ resurrection, he ascended to heaven (Acts 1:3-11).

The Work of Christ Now

Now, Jesus is “exalted at the right hand of God where He is the One Mediator, fully God, fully man.” He remains the God-Man. Paul explains that it is precisely because Jesus humbled himself to death on a cross that God has highly exalted him to this position where he has the name above all others (Phil 2:6-11). Jesus told his disciples before the ascension, “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt 28:18). He is the one Mediator between God and humanity (1 Tim 2:5-6). As Mediator, he intercedes for us his people (Heb 7:23-25).

Jesus also now puts into effect the reconciliation between God and man that he accomplished at the cross. Now, God reconciles us to himself through Christ (2 Cor 5:18). He accomplished this reconciliation at the cross (2 Cor 5:19). He applies that reconciliation to people throughout history through the preaching of Jesus’ death and resurrection by Christians. All Christians have this ministry of reconciliation, of proclaiming to others that you can be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ as the atoning sacrifice for your sin.

Finally, Jesus “now dwells in all believers as the living and ever present Lord.” Jesus prayed that Christians would be “in” him and the Father (John 17:21). He also prayed that he would be “in them” (John 17:23, 26). Jesus now is present in the lives of all Christians in the person of the Holy Spirit, as will be discussed in future blog posts about the Holy Spirit.

The Work of Christ in His Second Coming

At his second coming, Jesus will accomplish two purposes: “to judge the world and to consummate His redemptive mission.” John foresaw Jesus accomplish each of these things in the vision the Lord gave him:

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

Revelation 20:11-21:8

The work of Christ as the incarnate Son of God extends from his first coming, through the present, to his second coming. Eternal judgment and eternal salvation will be consummated at the end of the age under the auspices of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us Christians praise our Lord Jesus for his obedient life, sacrificial death, triumphant resurrection, present intercession for us, and promised return! As we await his sure return, let us live faithful lives to him for his glory!

The Person of Christ

Jordan Atkinson

The Baptist Faith and Message has important confessions about both the person of Christ and his work. “Christ is the eternal Son of God. In His incarnation as Jesus Christ He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. Jesus perfectly revealed and did the will of God, taking upon Himself human nature with its demands and necessities and identifying Himself completely with mankind yet without sin.” Friendship’s statement of faith discusses Christ’s person in terms of his incarnation and human nature.

Christ’s Incarnation

The confession’s discussion of Jesus’ incarnation begins with a re-affirmation of Jesus’ eternal deity: “Christ is the eternal Son of God.” This contention was a major point in a previous blog post on the Trinity. Christ’s incarnation deals with how the eternal Son of God became a human being. God the Son became the God-Man, Christ Jesus. “He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.” Both Matthew and Luke begin their Gospels by teaching that Jesus is the eternal God the Son incarnate.

Matthew teaches that Jesus is Immanuel in fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 (Matt 1:22-23). Jesus was virgin-conceived and virgin-born. The angel affirms Jesus’ conception in the virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit to Joseph (Matt 1:20-21). Matthew teaches that Mary was still a virgin when Jesus was born (Matt 1:25). Jesus perfectly fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy, which was that not only would the Savior be born of a virgin but that the Savior would in fact be God incarnate.

Luke likewise opens his Gospel with an affirmation of Jesus’ identity as the incarnate Son of God. In perfect agreement with Matthew, Luke teaches that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35). Gabriel told Mary that her son “will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:33). For his kingdom to be eternal, he must similarly be no mere man but the God-Man, even as prophesied by Daniel, “one like a son of man … was presented before [God]. And to him was given a dominion … an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away” (Dan 7:13-14). Jesus’ incarnation shows that he is the eternal Son of God, but his special conception in no way diminishes from his full humanity. As the second Adam, it is fitting that Jesus, like Adam, would have no human biological father. It is fitting that the offspring of the woman to crush the head of the serpent would be conceived and born of a woman without the biological help of any human man (Gen 3:15).

Christ’s Human Nature

Jesus Christ was both fully God and fully man. As a man, he had a full “human nature with its demands and necessities and identif[ied] Himself completely with mankind yet without sin.” Each part of this statement is important. Jesus took on the demands and necessities of human nature. He was fully human physically, intellectually, emotionally, and volitionally.

Fully human, Jesus was in his humanity constrained by space and time, even as God is spirit and omnipresent. As a man, Jesus experienced hunger that Satan strove to exploit (Matt 4:1-3). He got thirsty in the heat of the day (John 4:6-7). Jesus experienced the tragedy of homelessness (Matt 8:20). He needed sleep (Matt 8:24). As a human, Jesus “grew and became strong, filled with wisdom,” and he “increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:40, 52). From the excruciating agony of the cross, Jesus thirsted (John 19:28-30).

Jesus as a man also knew the limitations of human knowledge. The most direct statement of the human limitation of Jesus’ knowledge, in addition to Luke’s statements that Jesus grew in wisdom as he grew from a child to an adult, comes late in Jesus’ ministry: “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matt 24:36). As a human being, Jesus experienced the reality of Deuteronomy 29:29, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God.”

Fully human, Jesus had human emotions. He felt pity (Mark 1:41). He marveled at unbelief (Mark 6:6). He had compassion on people (Mark 8:2). He loved people (John 11:5). He got angry (John 11:33). His soul was greatly troubled on the eve of his crucifixion (John 12:27).

Finally, Jesus had a fully human will, as well as a divine will. As a boy, Jesus had to submit to Mary and Joseph as his parents, which he did (Luke 2:51). Even as an adult, his will is subservient to that of Father God (John 5:19, 30). Jesus’ submission of his human will to the divine will is most apparent in Gethsemane:

And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

Mark 14:32-36

As a man, Jesus very naturally did not want to die. As a perfectly righteous man, Jesus very rightly did not want to experience the cup of the wrath of God. But even at this moment of greatest temptation, Jesus submitted his human will to that of God the Father. Donald Macleod describes Jesus’ triumph over temptation most poignantly:

he was not being called upon to mortify a lust. He was being called upon to frustrate the holiest aspiration of which man is capable … We must be careful not to misconstrue the effect of Jesus’s sinless integrity at this point. Far from meaning a shorter, painless struggle with temptation it involved him in protracted resistance. … The very fact that he was invincible meant that he endured the full force of temptation’s ferocity, until hell slunk away, defeated and exhausted.

The Person of Christ (Downers Grove: IVP, 1998), pp. 226-228

And Macleod’s quote gets at the truth of the last aspect of the Baptist Faith and Message’s discussion of Jesus’ human nature: his sinlessness. Scripture teaches that Jesus was both without a sin nature and that he never once committed a sin.

Numerous Bible verses affirm that Jesus did not have a sin nature. Paul calls Adam a type of Christ (Rom 5:14). Just as Adam originally did not have a sin nature, so did Christ not have a sin nature. His miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit also miraculously preserved his humanity from receiving a sin nature. Throughout his life, Jesus was in the position that Adam was in the Garden of Eden. But unlike Adam, Jesus never sinned. Both Paul and John explicitly state that Jesus was and is sinless: Jesus “knew no sin” Paul said (2 Cor 5:21), and John says, “in him there is no sin” (1 John 3:5). These statements not only affirm the sinless actions of Christ but also the sinless nature of Christ.

In addition to being sinless, Jesus never committed a sin. He was “like his brothers in every respect” and “suffered when tempted” (Heb 2:17-18). Because he never gave in to temptation, “he learned obedience” and was “perfect” (Heb 5:8-9). Because he was perfect, his sacrifice was acceptable to God (Heb 7:27-28). Peter teaches plainly, “he committed no sin” (1 Pet 2:22). Macleod’s comments are again helpful, “Nowhere in the structures of his being was there any sin. Satan had no foot-hold in him. … There was no affinity with sin. There was no proclivity to sin. There was no possibility of temptation from within. In no respect was he fallen and in no respect was his nature corrupt” (ibid., 222).

We at Friendship Baptist Church are so thankful that God became man in the person of Christ Jesus. We are so thankful that he was perfectly obedient in his full, human life. We are thankful for his sinlessness, which he credits to us through faith in him.

God the Father

Jordan Atkinson

After affirming the biblical doctrine of the Trinity, Friendship’s statement of faith confesses our understanding of God the Father in more detail: “God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace. He is all powerful, all knowing, all loving, and all wise. God is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. He is fatherly in His attitude toward all men.” The Baptist Faith of Message teaches that God the Father reigns with providential care and grace, is perfect, and is Father of all people, especially Christians.

The Father’s Reign with Providential Care and Grace

The Baptist Faith and Message connects God’s Fatherhood to his reign over all things. God reigns over the universe, his creatures, and the flow of human history.

Scripture repeatedly affirms God’s providential reign over the universe. This reign begins with his act of creation but persists throughout history. Even after the Fall, God reigns over the universe with providential care and grace. David praises God’s reign over the daily cycle of the sun, “which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat” (Ps 19:5-6). God makes the sun rise every morning. He daily gives all the earth its heat. Another Psalm similarly teaches, “Say among the nations, ‘The Lord reigns! Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity'” (Ps 96:10). God reigned with care by establishing the earth and sustaining its continued existence. This providential care assures us that one day he will fully judge all the people of the world throughout history. One of the final “Hallelujah” Psalms especially emphasizes God’s ongoing care for the universe as abundant cause to praise him (Ps 147). We should praise God because he created the stars (v. 4), he provides rain (v. 8), he provides food for wild animals (v. 9), he makes the seasons pass one into another (vv. 16-18).

The Bible also teaches that God providentially cares for his creatures. We’ve already considered this from Ps 147:9, but it is taught throughout Scripture. It is a major theme of God’s first speech to Job in Job 38-39. Psalm 146 similarly affirms God’s care for the people he has created. He provides justice for oppressed people, food for hungry people, and freedom for captive people (v. 7). He gives sight to the blind, lifts the heads of those bowed down, and loves righteous people (v. 8). He protects sojourners, widows, and orphans, even as he punishes the wicked (v. 9). Well did Jesus comfort us, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Matt 10:29-31).

God also providentially reigns over the course of human history. This truth is a major theme of Daniel. Daniel interprets Nebuchadnezzar’s troubling dream as a vision of the succession of world empires until the beginning of God’s own eternal kingdom from heaven (Dan 2:36-45). Daniel later reveals the meaning of an even more personally troubling dream to Nebuchadnezzar: he will lose his mind and kingdom until he learns that God “rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will” (Dan 4:25). Daniel’s prophecy is fulfilled, and Nebuchadnezzar confesses at the end,

At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever,
for his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
    and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;
all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,
    and he does according to his will among the host of heaven
    and among the inhabitants of the earth;
and none can stay his hand
    or say to him, “What have you done?”

Daniel 4:34-35

Paul later makes the same point: God “made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place” (Acts 17:26). God the Father is sovereign over all things, from the stars in the sky, to the number of hairs on our heads, to the course of human history.

The Father’s Perfections

God’s eternal power and infinite knowledge were the subject of previous blog posts. Left to be treated are God’s perfect love and perfect wisdom.

God’s perfect love is a major theme of the New Testament. It is especially prevalent in the writings of the apostle John. One of the most well-known verses in the Bible teach us about God’s love: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). But the Father’s love for the world is rooted in his love for Jesus Christ: “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand” (John 3:35). Jesus prayed that he wanted the world to “know that you sent me and loved them [Jesus’ disciples] even as you loved me” (John 17:23). And God is constantly answering this prayer: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 John 3:1). John even gives us the most sustained teaching about God’s love in the Bible:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins

1 John 4:7-10

We Christians are to love one another because God has loved us by saving us from our sins.

God is also perfectly wise. His wisdom is evident in his creation of all things (Ps 104:24-30; Prov 3:19-20; 8:22-31). God’s wisdom is also manifest throughout salvation history:

Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation

Luke 11:49-51

Jesus taught that God’s wisdom mercifully sent prophets and apostles to Israel to warn them to repent and fear him. And God’s wisdom also determines to avenge himself against those who sinned against him. The glorious salvation and judgment of God regarding both Israel and Gentiles makes Paul exclaim, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Rom 11:33). God is so wise that Paul elsewhere says, “the foolishness of God is wiser than men” (1 Cor 1:25).

The Father’s Fatherhood

God the Father is Father not only of Jesus Christ eternally, but he is also the Father spiritually of all who have faith in Jesus Christ. In addition to texts considered regarding this in the last blog post, consider also Romans 8:14-17,

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

We Christians are not slaves but sons.

But by virtue of creation, God is also the Father of everyone on earth, as mentioned in the previous blog post (cf. also Matt 5:44-45).

What can we learn from the Fatherhood of God for our own lives as Christians? The repeated refrain concerning God’s Fatherly reign in the Psalms was to worship him and to give thanks to him. Jesus also teaches us to pray to God as our Father, which is also a point Paul makes in the passage above. Finally, the Fatherhood of God is a truth that should comfort us in the midst of the various trials we face. If God is in providential control over the course of human history, then he is also in providential control over the twists and turns in our own lives.

The Trinity

Jordan Atkinson

The Bible not only describes God as eternally powerful and infinite in all perfections, but it also teaches that God has eternally existed as the Trinity. The One God has always existed as three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Because the Bible is Trinitarian, the Baptist Faith and Message is Trinitarian: “The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.” This confession makes the same point as the following diagram, a common visual conception of the Trinity for hundreds of years:

There is one God who exists eternally as three Persons. Each Person is fully God, and each Person is distinct from the others. The rest of Article II discusses each member of the Trinity in greater detail. This blog post will therefore focus on presenting the biblical evidence for how the Bible refers to each member of the Trinity as God and how the Bible describes the distinct personal attributes of each.

The Father

Scripture affirms the Fatherhood of God from the beginning. God’s creation of Adam and Eve in his image points to his Fatherly relationship to them (Gen 1:26-27; 5:1-2). Luke explicitly refers to Adam as “the son of God” (Luke 3:38). Later, God refers to Israel as his “firstborn son” (Exod 4:22). God was also father to the Davidic kings (2 Sam 7:14; Ps 2:7). God’s Fatherhood is even clearer in the New Testament. Jesus refers to God repeatedly as his Father (Matt 7:21; 10:32–33; 11:27; 12:50; 16:17; 18:10, 14, 19; 20:23; 25:34; 26:29, 39, 42, 53). In the Sermon on the Mount, he reveals that he has come so that his disciples can also call on God as “your Father” (Matt 5:16, 45, 48; 6:1, 4, 6, 8, 14, 15, 18, 26, 32; 7:11). In fact, as Creator, God is the Father of everyone, in a sense (Acts 17:28–29; Heb 12:9).

As Father, God the Father has the distinct personal attribute of being unbegotten. Jesus especially teaches the Father’s distinction in role from him as the Son in John 5:19-27. The Father is the origin of divine works (v. 19). The Father has life in himself and has granted the Son to have life in himself (vv. 21, 26). The Father has ultimate authority to judge and has given that authority to the Son, as well (vv. 22, 27). John Frame helpfully explains, “That the Father has some sort of primacy is implicit in the name Father in distinction from Son and Spirit. … The Son and Spirit become voluntarily subordinate to the commands of the Father, because that kind of subordination is appropriate to their eternal nature as persons” (Systematic Theology, p. 501).

The Son

The New Testament repeatedly affirms Jesus’ divinity. John affirms it from the beginning of his Gospel (John 1:1, 14, 18). He refers to Jesus as the “Word of God” who is eternally coexistent with God and identified with God (v. 1). As the Word, he “tabernacled” among people just as God dwelled in the Tabernacle during Israel’s wilderness wanderings (v. 14). He is the only-begotten God at the Father’s side who reveals the Father (v. 18). When he sees the resurrected Jesus, Thomas exclaims and calls him “my Lord and my God” (John 20:28).

Various epistles also refer to Jesus as God. He refers to Jesus as “Christ, who is God over all” (Rom 9:5). He calls Jesus “our great God and Savior” (Titus 2:13). Peter likewise calls Jesus “our God and Savior” (2 Pet 1:1). Though the New Testament only directly refers to Jesus as God only a few times, Jesus is called “Lord” scores of times. Since “Lord” is the word used for “God” in the Old Testament, affirmations of Jesus as “Lord” actually affirm Jesus as God.

The Son’s distinct personal attribute is his begotten-ness, something that John hinted at even in John 1:14, 18. Though the ESV translates monogenes here as “only,” the word in fact is better translated “only-begotten,” as in the KJV or NASB (cf. also John 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9). The word monogenes communicates sonship. The Son is the “begotten” of the Father. But since the Son is God, he is “eternally begotten.” The Nicene Creed affirms that Jesus Christ is “the only-begotten Son of God, begotten from the Father before all time, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not created” (translation in Frame, Systematic Theology, p. 491). The only-begotten-ness of Jesus is also called “eternal generation.” “To say that the Son is eternally generated from the Father is to say that something about his eternal nature makes it appropriate for him to be begotten in time,” rather than the Father or Spirit (ibid., p. 494).

The Holy Spirit

A few important New Testament texts explicitly affirm the deity of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” (Mark 3:28-29). The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit has generated much debate, but whatever precisely it is, it points to the deity of the Holy Spirit, since blasphemy is directed toward God.

Acts 5 is perhaps even more telling. When Ananias sold his land and lied about the proceeds, Peter confronted him, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God” (Acts 5:3-4). Notice Peter’s logic: Ananias lied to the Holy Spirit, and he lied to God. The Holy Spirit is God.

Finally, consider Paul’s statements about Christians being the temple in 1 Corinthians. “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple” (1 Cor 3:16-17). “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” (1 Cor 6:19). A temple by definition is a dwelling place of God. For Paul to say that the Holy Spirit dwells within Christians, who are temples, is for Paul to call the Spirit God. Furthermore, Paul refers to Christians’ bodies as the temple of God and as the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God.

The distinct personal attribute of the Holy Spirit is that he proceeds from the Father and the Son. Jesus said, “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me” (John 15:26). The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, and the Son sends him. John Frame again is helpful: “The Spirit is the member of the Trinity whom the Father and Son send, over and over again, to do their business on earth. Unlike the Son, he is not generated or born into a human body. … So perhaps there is value in defining eternal procession as that quality of the Spirit that makes it appropriate for him to receive these missions from the Father and Son and to proceed as he does into the temporal world” (ibid., 497).

The Unity of the Trinity

In its affirmation of the Trinity, the Baptist Faith and Message concludes by saying that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist “without division of nature, essence, or being.” Jesus taught his disciples that he and the Father were “in” one another (John 14:10-11). He also described his unity with the Spirit to them (John 14:16-18). Paul similarly said, “the Lord [Jesus] is the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:17-18). “Each of the three persons is ‘in’ the other two, and therefore each exhausts the divine nature” (ibid., 432-433).

This essential unity of the Persons of the Trinity expresses itself in their great works throughout history. All three members of the Trinity were active in creation (Gen 1:1-2; John 1:3). All three were also integral to the redemption of God’s people (Eph 1:3-14). The Father planned salvation (vv. 3-6, 8-10, 12); the Son accomplished salvation (vv. 7, 11, 13a); and the Spirit applies salvation (vv. 13b-14). Peter describes salvation in this way: “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood” (1 Pet 1:2). Finally, all members of the Trinity mutually glorify one another. Jesus prayed about his and the Father’s glorification of one another (John 17:1, 4-5). He taught his disciples about how he and the Father glorified the Spirit, and vice-versa (John 14:12; 16:7, 13-14).

Some people may complain, “The Trinity’s not a Scriptural term! It’s extrabiblical!” But the above Scriptures show that although the term “Trinity” is not in Scripture, the teaching and concept of the Trinity certainly is. We at Friendship Baptist Church are unapologetically Trinitarian because the Bible teaches that God from eternity past has existed as a Trinity: one God, in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Bible’s Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions: Sermons on Genesis 1-11

friendshipchurchohio

God’s Creation of Everything (Genesis 1:1-25)

God’s Creation of Humanity (Genesis 1:26-31)

God’s Rest and Ours (Genesis 2:1-3)

Worship: The Purpose of Work (Genesis 2:4-17)

God’s Good Design for Marriage (Genesis 2:18-25)

Paradise Lost (Genesis 3:1-7)

God’s Judgment and Salvation (Genesis 3:8-24)

Rule over Sin, or Be Ruled by Sin (Genesis 4:1-16)

Worldly Idols and Godly Priorities (Genesis 4:17-26)

In Adam All Die (Genesis 5)

Gross Corruption and Confounding Grace (Genesis 6:1-8)

Reverent Fear (Genesis 6:9-8:19)

A Covenant Relationship with God (Genesis 8:20-9:17)

Cursing and Blessing for All Nations (Genesis 9:18-10:32)

Futile Sin and Faithful Salvation (Genesis 11)

God’s Infinite Perfections

Jordan Atkinson

After confessing God’s eternal power and divine nature, the Baptist Faith and Message affirms God’s infinite perfections. By virtue of his deity, God is perfect in every way: ” God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections. God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures. To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience.” The Baptist Faith and Message not only lists God’s perfections but also teaches how people should respond to God’s perfections.

God’s Perfections

The Baptist Faith and Message first lists holiness as the perfection of God. The New Testament affirms, “God is love” (1 John 4:8), and that is wonderfully true, but the Bible even more loudly proclaims God’s holiness. The late R. C. Sproul’s comments are most apt:

Only once in sacred Scripture is an attribute of God elevated to the third degree. Only once is a characteristic of God mentioned three times in succession. The Bible says that God is holy, holy, holy. Not that He is merely holy, or even holy, holy. He is holy, holy, holy. The Bible never says that God is love, love, love; or mercy, mercy, mercy; or wrath, wrath, wrath; or justice, justice, justice. It does say that He is holy, holy, holy, that the whole earth is full of His glory.

R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 1998), p. 26

Sproul is referring to Isa 6:1-3, Isaiah’s vision of God’s glory in the temple. But what exactly does God’s holiness mean? When we say that God is infinite in holiness, what do we mean? Peter Gentry helpfully defines God’s holiness:

God is absolutely holy. Holy means that He is completely devoted and in this particular context, devoted to his justice and righteousness which characterizes his instruction of people of Israel in the Covenant, showing them not only what it means to be devoted to him but also what it means to treat each other in a genuinely human way

Peter J. Gentry, “No One Holy Like the Lord,” Midwestern Journal of Theology 12, no. 1 (2013): 33

The Psalms especially demonstrate the soundness of Gentry’s definition of God’s holiness. The great messianic psalm of lament, Psalm 22, begins with an affirmation of God’s holiness in terms of salvation even in the midst of suffering: “Yet you are holy,” David says to God, which God had demonstrated by delivering and rescuing previous generations of Israel (Ps 22:3-5). Similarly, Psalm 99 says of God, “Holy is he!” (Ps 99:3). The Psalmist then describes God’s holiness as his love for justice and as his faithfulness to answer his people with forgiveness (Ps 99:4-8). God is holy, and he is devoted to work salvation for his people and to judge their wicked enemies.

The next perfection of God in The Baptist Faith and Message is his omnipotence. Certainly God is all-powerful, and his exercise of that power was a major point in the previous blog post.

God’s perfect knowledge is the perfection that gets most attention in this part of Article II, and rightly so. Our faith in the perfection of God’s knowledge distinguishes us as Southern Baptists. God is “all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures.” Every piece of that affirmation is vital to our faith as Southern Baptist Christians.

God’s perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future. We believe God’s knowledge is temporally exhaustive because the Bible says so. God commanded Israel through Isaiah,

Remember this, and stand firm,
recall it to mind, you transgressors,
remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, “My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose,”

Isaiah 46:8-10

According to these verses, one of the ways we know that the God of the Bible is the true and living God is because unlike every other so-called God, this God actually knows “the end from the beginning.” His counsel stands, and he accomplishes all his purpose. This lesson is what Job learned at the end of his great suffering: “I know you can do all things,” he admitted to God, “and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2). These verses show, “God’s knowledge depends only on himself. God knows all things by (1) knowing himself, and (2) knowing his own plan for the universe” (John Frame, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief [Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2013], 306).

If God knows the end from the beginning, that would necessarily include his knowledge of the future decisions of his free creatures. Things not yet done would be contingent upon the future decisions of free creatures, who may make any number of choices. For God to declare those things from ancient times, he would have to know the decisions his creatures would make before they made them. This affirmation is a point of controversy, even among evangelicals, and even among some Baptists. But we Southern Baptists affirm this truth because (again) the Bible teaches it.

Consider Isaiah 45. God names Cyrus as the one who would decree the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the release of the Jews from exile. God foretold this through Isaiah hundreds of years before Cyrus’s birth! During Isaiah’s ministry, Assyria and Babylon were the two great empires; the Persians were not on anyone’s radar for being the next empire to come afterward! Consider all the decisions of free creatures God had to know to predict this: most broadly, he had to know that Cyrus would decide to wage war against Babylon and succeed, and he had to know that Cyrus’s parents would name him Cyrus. But these events are contingent upon countless other events before them. God’s knowledge truly is exhaustive and meticulous and includes the future decisions of his free creatures.

The death and resurrection of Jesus is the clearest proof that God knows the future actions of his free creatures. In the first Christian sermon, Peter proclaimed, “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:22-24). Jesus’ death was the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. God had planned Jesus’ death for the salvation of people from every tribe, tongue, and nation from before the foundation of the world, and Jesus’ death necessitated the free choice of the Jewish leaders and lawless pagans to execute him. God knew the decisions they would freely make, and they were accountable for those sinful choices.

Our Response to God’s Perfections

God’s infinite perfections demand our love, reverence, and obedience. We should love God for his infinite perfections (Matt 22:37-40), especially for the way that he expresses his holiness in acting to save us, and in the way that he uses his perfect knowledge to effect our salvation through the death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ. We should revere or honor God for his infinite perfections. The Bible most often refers to our reverence for God as “fear” of God (e.g., Deut 6:13; Ps 25:11-15; 1 Pet 1:17). Finally, God’s infinite perfections should inspire our obedience. Such is the thrust of 1 Peter 1:14-16, ” As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.'” The holiness of God calls us his people to be holy likewise.

We at Friendship Baptist Church are not perfectly holy. But we serve a perfectly holy God. And we are striving to grow in increasing conformity to his holiness, day in and day out, week in and week out. We love him, and seek to show him our love by our reverence for him and obedience to his commands. We would invite you to join us in this lifelong journey!

God’s Eternal Power and Divine Nature

Jordan Atkinson

After describing our understanding of Scripture, Friendship’s statement of faith goes on to profess what we believe about God. Article II begins, “There is one and only one living and true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe.” These statements flesh out what Paul teaches in Rom 1:19-20. Those verses describe God’s “eternal power and divine nature” as “invisible attributes” that “can be known about God.” Following the order of Article II, this blog post will consider God’s eternal power and divine nature in reverse order.

God’s Divine Nature

The Baptist Faith and Message begins its discussion of God by affirming God’s divine nature. “There is one and only one living and true God.” Both the Old and New Testaments affirm this sort of monotheism. In Genesis, Adam’s descendants begin “calling on the name of the Lord” in the third generation from Eden (Gen 4:26). Abraham and Melchizedek both serve “God Most High” (Gen 14:18-23). The plagues on Egypt were meant to show how God is the one true God as opposed to the idols of Egypt (Exod 12:12). Moses especially emphasizes the oneness of God in Deuteronomy 4:32-39. The God of Israel is the Creator God (v. 32). The God of Israel alone appeared in fire to people and spoke audibly to them (vv. 33, 36). The God of Israel alone redeemed a nation of slaves from a mighty empire (vv. 34-35, vv. 37-39). Such are the truths behind the great monotheistic confession at the heart of Deuteronomy and of Old Testament faith: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut 6:4). Jeremiah later explicitly says that man-made gods are not gods (Jer 16:20).

The New Testament upholds the monotheism of the Old Testament, though this monotheism is transformed by the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. (A future blog post will focus on the Trinity in detail.) Paul and Barnabas affirm the reality of a single Creator God when they preach at Lystra, “We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them” (Acts 14:15). Paul later writes to Christians in Corinth, “Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that ‘an idol has no real existence,’ and that ‘there is no God but one.’ For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’—yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (1 Cor 8:4-6). This monotheism is transformed by the reality that Jesus Christ is Lord (and thus divine), but it is still monotheism. There is one God, not many. There is no God but one. And Paul reminds the Galatian Christians, “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods” (Gal 4:8). The God of the Bible alone is God; he alone possesses the divine nature.

The Baptist Faith and Message goes on to describe God’s divine nature in terms of his intelligence, spirithood, and personhood. Since Friendship’s statement of faith considers God’s perfect knowledge in greater detail later in Article II, this blog post will focus on God’s spirithood and personhood as aspects of his divine nature. Jesus clearly teaches, “God is spirit” (John 4:24). God exists beyond the world of space and time. He created the physical universe (Gen 1:1). He exists before and beyond it. He is a spirit, unbound by the limitations of space like we creatures are.

The personhood of God is also a vital aspect of his divine nature. God’s personhood speaks to his self-sufficiency. God does not need humanity for relationship. He has eternally existed as the one God in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus’ prayer the night before his crucifixion makes this point especially clear: “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence iwth the glory that I had with you before the world existed. … Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:5, 24). The three Persons of the Trinity had perfect relationship from eternity past; God had perfect communion within himself before creating a single creature.

God’s Eternal Power

Nevertheless, it is God’s work in relation to the created universe that demonstrates to us his eternal power. As the Baptist Faith and Message summarizes, God exercises his eternal power as Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe.

The Bible repeatedly extols God’s power as Creator of the universe. Such is how the Bible opens (Gen 1-2). God created all things by the word of his power. He spoke, and everything came into being out of nothing (Heb 11:3). The Psalmist reflects, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host” (Ps 33:6). John refers to Jesus as the Word, who “was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1-3).

The Bible begins with God’s good creation in Genesis 1-2, but it quickly addresses the intrusion of death into creation through Adam’s sin in Genesis 3. From Genesis 3:15 onward, God proves himself to be not only the Creator of creation but also the Redeemer of creation. The scope of God’s curse in Genesis 3:17-19 is global, so the redemption that he accomplishes will be global, as well. Paul explains, “the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom 8:19-21). John envisions a new heavens and new earth in which God’s dwelling place is once more with man, where there will be no more death, mourning, crying, or pain, because the former things have passed away and Jesus has made all things new (Rev 21:1-5). God will redeem not only his people but also all creation in the end.

Until then, God preserves the universe. God “gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). He causes the sun to rise every morning, and he sends rain both to the just and to the unjust (Matt 5:45). He constantly keeps his promise: “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Gen 8:22). In God the Son in particular “all things hold together” (Col 1:17), and “he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb 1:3). God preserves every atom in the entire universe and sustains every natural process until the time comes for him to make all things new.

Finally, God shows his eternal power as the Ruler of the universe. Psalm 47 especially makes this point. God is the “great king over all the earth” (v. 2). He is not only King of Israel, but he is also “the King of all the earth” (vv. 6-7). “God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne” (v. 8). Daniel later makes the same point. God is the eternal king who does his will in all the earth (Dan 4:34-35). And God would reveal his kingship especially through a coming king (Dan 2:44-45). The Lord Jesus is this long-awaited King, and he established God’s eternal kingdom by his life, death, and resurrection. He has all authority in heaven and on earth (Matt 28:18). He has been highly exalted and given the name above every name (Phil 2:9-11).

As Article II goes on to explain, the proper response to this eternally powerful God is to love, revere, and obey him. The next blog post in this series will consider that response in context of God’s infinite perfections, the next part of Article II.

Recommended Resources on Scripture

Jordan Atkinson

Living in the United States in the 21st century, we are blessed with a plethora of theological resources. The Bible, the gospel, and the things of God have never been so accessible as they are now in our society. Below are some of the books and articles that have been most helpful to me for getting a better understanding of Scripture, the focus of Article I of Friendship’s statement of faith.

Resources on the Authorship, Accuracy, and Authority of Scripture

Baptists and the Bible by L. Russ Bush and Tom J. Nettles

“Still Sola Scriptura: An Evangelical View of Scripture” by James M. Hamilton Jr.

Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief by John M. Frame

The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978)

“The Definition of the Term ‘Canon’: Exclusive or Multi-Dimensional?” by Michael J. Kruger

Resources on the Aim and Christ-centered Nature of Scripture

Biblical Theology: How the Church Faithfully Teaches the Gospel by Nick Roark and Robert Cline

Christ-Centered Biblical Theology: Hermeneutical Foundations and Principles by Graeme Goldsworthy

God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology by James M. Hamilton Jr.

The Hermeneutics of the Biblical Writers: Learning to Interpret Scripture from the Prophets and Apostles by Abner Chou

“The Seed of the Woman and the Blessing of Abraham” by James M. Hamilton Jr.

“The Skull Crushing Seed of the Woman: Inner-Biblical Interpretation of Genesis 3:15” by James M. Hamilton Jr.

What Is Biblical Theology? by James M. Hamilton Jr.

What Is the Gospel? by Greg Gilbert

The Bible’s Christ-Centered Testimony

Jordan Atkinson

We at Friendship Baptist confess, “All Scripture is a testimony to Christ.” Previous blog posts have shown that both Jesus and the apostles teach us to read the Bible in a Christ-centered way. This blog post gives examples of how both the Old Testament and the New Testament testify to Christ.

Old Testament Testimony to Christ

Three word pictures in the Old Testament are especially clear in their testimony to Christ: offspring, son of God, and prophet.

First, Christ is the offspring anticipated throughout the Old Testament. This prophecy goes all the way back to Genesis 3:15, when God judged the serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” This prophecy foretold that someone would someday ultimately overcome the source of evil, though suffering in the process. Later biblical passages picked up on this prophecy (e.g., Num 24:17; Isa 28:3; Hab 3:13). Adam seems to have believed in the good news of this prophecy, based on his name of Eve (Gen 3:20). This prophecy also seems to have been handed down through the generations, as Lamech echoes it when he names his son, Noah (Gen 5:28-29). God further specifies that this offspring will descend from Abraham (Gen 22:17-18) and later David (2 Sam 7:12-13). Christ is this long-awaited offspring (Gal 3:16).*

Second, Christ is the perfect Son of God. In a previous blog, I noted the Adam-Christ typology that Paul uses in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15. In addition to being a tied to biblical covenants, the Adam-Christ typology is also rooted in both Adam and Christ’s identity as sons of God. Genesis itself portrays Adam as the son of God. God made Adam “in the likeness of God,” and Adam later “fathered a son in his own likeness” (Gen 5:2-3). “Likeness” communicates the idea of sonship. In his Gospel, Luke traces Jesus’ genealogy all the way back to Adam, whom he identifies as “Adam, the son of God” (Luke 3:38). Jesus is the long-awaited perfect Son of God. Jesus existed as God the Son from eternity past, and he became incarnate as the Son of God. He was Son of God in his incarnation first by virtue of his virgin birth (Luke 1:35). He was also son of God as the Davidic heir (Luke 1:32). Davidic kings were referred to as God’s sons (e.g., 2 Sam 7:14; Ps 2). Davidic kings were God’s sons in that they were the representative head of Israel, which was collectively God’s son (Exod 4:22-23). All the failed sons of God in the Old Testament, from Adam to Israel to David and the subsequent Davidic kings, are foils for the one Perfect Son of God, Jesus Christ.

Third, Christ is the perfect prophet. Moses had prophesied, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen” (Deut 18:15). Moses told the people that they would be obligated to listen to this prophet (Deut 18:19), but they should not listen to false prophets, who would be known by their immorality or by the untruthfulness of their prophecies (Deut 18:20-22). Though true prophets ministered after Moses, Deuteronomy ends with an indication that a final, perfect prophet was expected: “And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face” (Deut 34:10). But Jesus was this long-awaited prophet, as the Messiah (John 4:16-19, 25-26), and as the one identified as better than Moses and Elijah at the Mount of Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-8). All the faithful prophets of the Old Testament foreshadowed Jesus, and all the false prophets were the inverse of him.

New Testament Testimony to Christ

It may seem obvious that the New Testament testifies about Christ, but even sermons and Bible studies based on various New Testament passages may be Christ-less and gospel-less. Such is a travesty, for indeed the New Testament testifies to Christ as the Savior and Lord of the world. For the sake of space, the rest of this post will only summarize how various sections of the New Testament testify to Christ and the gospel of his salvation.

Jesus is the long-awaited Davidic king (Matt 1-4) and new Moses (Matt 5-7) who brings about the kingdom of heaven (Matt 8-28). Christ is the Son of Man, with power over diseases, demons, disasters, and death (Mark). Jesus is the Son of God, who inaugurates God’s new covenant not only with Jews but also with Gentiles (Luke). Christ is the Word of God who inaugurates God’s new creation through the destruction and resurrection of God’s temple, his body (John). Jesus is the Lord whose gospel spreads to all (Acts). The epistles (Romans-Jude) collectively proclaim that Christ is the Lord of the church, which should submit to him by obeying all his commands. Revelation concludes the New Testament and all Scripture by identifying Jesus as the Lord who will return to judge all the earth.

We Christians should attend to all of Scripture, not only the New Testament but also the Old Testament, as testimony to Jesus Christ. We should read and apply the Old Testament to our lives today in light of Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of the Old Testament and as the head of the new covenant. Let us therefore read all of Scripture as a testimony to Christ and as a means of conforming us more into his image!

*A former pastor and professor of mine, Jim Hamilton, has written two really helpful articles about Genesis 3:15 and the identification of the offspring of Abraham with the offspring of the woman.

Apostles on the Christ-Centered Nature of Scripture

Jordan Atkinson

Not only does Jesus instruct Christians to read the Old Testament in a Christ-centered way, but the apostles also teach Christians to read the Old Testament in a Christ-centered way. The Christ-centered nature of the Old Testament is especially clear in Paul’s letters, Hebrews, and 1 Peter.

Paul on the Christ-centered Nature of Scripture

Both of Paul’s longest epistles, Romans and 1 Corinthians, model for Christians how to read the Old Testament as a testimony to Christ. In both epistles, Paul employs an Adam-Christ typology. Paul says, “Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come” (Rom 5:14). Adam’s sin and death leads to the sin and death of everyone after him, even before God’s written law arrived with Moses. Paul understands this as an inverse parallel of Christ:

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Rom 5:18-21

According to Paul, Christ is the antitype of Adam. Adam is an antihero, but Christ is the great Hero. Adam’s sin led to death for all before there had been any track record of righteousness. Christ’s righteousness, by contrast, leads to eternal life for all those who trust in him, even after people have lived whole lives of unrighteousness.

Paul maintains this Adam-Christ typology in 1 Corinthians 15:42-49. Christians, from birth, bore the image of Adam, and therefore will one day die physically in weakness and thus experience dishonor. But through faith in Christ, Christians now bear the image of Christ, and therefore will one day be resurrected physically in power and thus experience glory. In Adam, Christians were perishable, but in Christ, Christians will be imperishable.

Paul’s identification of an Adam-Christ typology seems to work on the basis that both Adam and Christ are covenant heads. Adam was the head of humanity at the original creation covenant (Hos 6:7). Christ is the head of the new humanity within the new covenant (Luke 22:20). By extension, Christians can continue to compare and contrast Christ with other covenant heads from the Old Testament: Noah, Abraham, Moses, David. All of the Old Testament occurs within these covenant epochs (or dispensations). Therefore, all of the Old Testament may be profitably (2 Tim 3:16) compared and contrasted with our current new covenant era.

Paul applies this very principle in 1 Corinthians 10:1-11. He portrays the exodus from Egypt as a foreshadowing of Christian baptism (vv. 1-2). He identifies the rock from which Israel drank in the wilderness as, in fact, Christ (v. 4). These sorts of observations enable Paul to refer to these things from Old Testament history as examples for Christians’ own instruction to abstain from idolatry, sexual immorality, and grumbling (vv. 6-11).

Christ is in fact God (1 Cor 10:9), so we Christians can read things said about God in the Old Testament and rightly apply them to Jesus, albeit being careful to hold to Trinitarian orthodoxy as we do so. Paul teaches us that the Old Testament in fact is a testimony to Christ.

The Christ-centered Nature of Scripture in Hebrews

Perhaps more thoroughly than any other New Testament book, Hebrews shows the Christ-centered nature of all Scripture. Christ is “a high priest after the order of Melchizedek” (Heb 5:10). Hebrews 7 spends a chapter unpacking this statement, which shows that Psalm 110 prophesied of Jesus (a point also made by Jesus himself in Matt 22:41-46 and by Peter in Acts 2:34-35). Similarly, the other Psalms also point forward to Jesus and the new covenant (cf. Acts 1:16-20; 2:25-28; 4:23-30; 13:32-39; Heb 1:5-14; 2:5-9, 11-13; 3:7-12; 5:5-6; 10:5-10).

The author of Hebrews gives us another way to interpret the Old Testament as a testimony to Christ. Hebrews 11 is known as the hall of faith chapter, and it describes the faith of Old Testament saints. But it concludes,

And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Heb 11:39-12:2

According to the author of Hebrews, all the heroes of the faith in chapter 11 are just “a great cloud of witnesses” spurring us on to follow after “Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” himself. We certainly can gain good moral lessons from various Old Testament figures, but they all were sinners like us. Their imperfect examples point us to the perfect example of Christ himself (cf. 1 Pet 2:21-25; 4:1).

The Christ-centered Nature of Scripture in 1 Peter

1 Peter also emphasizes the Christ-centered nature of Scripture. Peter explicitly says that the Old Testament prophets prophesied of Christ by the Holy Spirit: “Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person tr time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories” (1 Pet 1:10-11). Peter acknowledges that the Old Testament prophets didn’t know many of the specifics about the coming Christ, but they did truly know that the Christ was coming, and they prophesied of him. Peter also says, “It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven” (1 Pet 1:12). Doesn’t 1 Pet 1:10-12 sound a lot like Heb 11:39-12:2?

In fact, Peter is basically drawing out the argument of Heb 11:39-12:2 over the course of his whole book. Just as Israel was holy in the old covenant, Christians should be holy in the new covenant (1 Pet 1:13-2:3). Jesus is the cornerstone of the true temple of God, and Christians are being built up into that temple (1 Pet 2:4-8). Therefore, Christians are in fact God’s covenant people now just as the nation of Israel was under the old covenant (1 Pet 2:9-10). Peter addresses his audience as his “beloved” who should abstain from sin and keep their conduct pure instead (1 Pet 2:11-12). He commands them to “be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution” (1 Pet 2:13), first to government (1 Pet 2:14-16). He tells them to relate to everyone rightly (1 Pet 2:17-4:11). Christian slaves should submit to masters, ultimately because Christ suffered for his people and left them an example to follow, prophesied by Isaiah 53 (1 Pet 2:18-25). Christian wives should “likewise,” following the example of Christ, submit to their husbands (1 Pet 3:1-6), and Christian husbands should “likewise” honor their wives (1 Pet 3:7). All Christians should follow Jesus’ example of enduring unjust suffering (1 Pet 3:8-22), ceasing from sin (1 Pet 4:1-6), and living a holy life (1 Pet 4:7-11). The Old Testament prophesied the fiery trials that befall Christians as the people of the Messiah, so they should not be surprised (1 Pet 4:12-19). Peter concludes by exhorting all Christians to be humble, again based on the Old Testament (1 Pet 5:1-7), and by exhorting them to resist the devil and endure suffering until God exalts them in Christ, even as “Babylon” presently causes them trouble as the Roman Empire (1 Pet 5:8-14).

The New Testament letters take Jesus’ teaching about the Christ-centered nature of the Old Testament and show that it remains normative for Christians even today.

Jesus on the Christ-Centered Nature of Scripture

Jordan Atkinson

Article I of Friendship’s statement of faith ends by affirming that Scripture is Christ-centered. This is an implication of its earlier statement that Scripture has “salvation for its end.” Since salvation is the aim of Scripture, it makes sense that the Savior would be the focus of Scripture. Indeed, all of Scripture is Christ-focused. Both the OT and NT provide testimony throughout their pages to Christ. Article I rightly concludes, “All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.” We believe this first because Jesus himself instructs us to read all of Scripture as a testimony to himself.

The Gospel of John includes many teachings of Jesus not contained in other Gospels. John shows how Jesus on multiple occasions taught people that he was the fulfillment of the Old Testament. On one occasion, Jesus taught the religious leaders who were opposing him,

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people.But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?

John 5:39-47

In this passage, Jesus tells his opponents plainly: “the Scriptures … bear witness about me” (v. 39). Jesus was not introducing a new reading of the Old Testament. He was not reading the Old Testament contrary to the intentions of either their human or divine authors. Rather, Jesus was pointing out that the Old Testament all along was bearing witness to him. They were preparing the Jewish people for him. They were setting the stage for him.

Jesus is even more direct (if that were possible) later in the same paragraph. He tells his opponents that he will not accuse them to the Father, but Moses will (v. 45). Jesus audaciously claims that Moses “wrote of me” (v. 46). Jesus’ opponents don’t believe him because they don’t believe the Old Testament (v. 47).

John records another instance of Jesus teaching that he fulfilled the Old Testament. “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad” (John 8:56). Jesus goes even further back in biblical history. Not only did Moses look forward to Jesus, but the very Founding Father of the Jewish people, Abraham, looked forward to Jesus’ coming!

If John records how Jesus taught even his enemies to read the Old Testament as a testimony to him, then Luke records how Jesus taught his disciples to read the Old Testament this way. On the day of his resurrection, Jesus rebuked two disciples walking to Emmaus as they mourned his recent death,

O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?

Luke 24:25-26

Luke then tells us, “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Biblical scholars who argue that Christians shouldn’t read the Old Testament in a Christ-centered way are quick to point out that this verse doesn’t say that Jesus told those two disciples that everything in Scripture concerns him. But this verse does tell us that there are multiple threads both in the Law and also the Prophets of the Old Testament that point forward to Christ and indicate that he had to suffer before he entered glory. And the New Testament repeatedly shows us how to identify these threads, and following that method, they are in fact everywhere in the Old Testament.

Luke also records that Jesus taught all the apostles likewise. “He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). Jesus taught the apostles how to read the Old Testament as a testimony to him, and Peter immediately applied various Psalms of David to the infant church (Acts 1:16-20). Peter’s Pentecost sermon similarly models Christocentric preaching from various Old Testament texts (Acts 2:14-36). The Christocentric Old Testament interpretation of the New Testament epistles is itself the fruit of Jesus’ own Christocentric reading of the Old Testament.

We read all of Scripture as a testimony to Christ because Jesus himself read Scripture this way and taught others to do the same.

The Bible’s Holy Authority

Jordan Atkinson

God’s authorship of Scripture implies not only the absolute truthfulness of Scripture but also the authority of Scripture. Scripture is authoritative over all areas of our lives. Friendship’s statement of faith confesses of Scripture: “It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried.” These statements mean that Scripture is the authoritative standard for how God will judge us. It also is the standard by which we are united to fellow believers in a local church, and it should be the standard by which we evaluate all truth claims that we encounter.

Scripture: The Standard for God’s Judgment

Scripture reveals God’s righteousness. God judges people according to the standard of his perfect righteousness. One Bible passage that teaches this is Psalm 98:7-9,

Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
the world and those who dwell in it!
Let the rivers clap their hands;
let the hills sing for joy together,
before the Lord, for he comes
to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with equity.

Scripture reveals God’s righteousness. It teaches us that God will judge with righteousness, as in Psalm 98 (cf. also Pss 9:8; 72:2; 96:13). As Paul reminds us in the New Testament, “God shows no partiality” (Rom 2:11). God will judge all people perfectly fairly, and Scripture shows us the perfect righteousness of God by which he will judge the world.

Scripture also presents God’s commands for us, according to which we will be judged. In Romans 2:6-8, Paul teaches, “He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.” The New Testament repeatedly instructs us that God will judge all people according to their works (2 Tim 4:14; 1 Pet 1:17; Rev 2:23; 20:12, 13). Scripture is the standard for righteousness. God’s law is in Scripture. Scripture is the standard, then, for God’s judgment.

Scripture: The Standard of Christian Unity

Scripture is also the standard for Christians’ unity within a local church. For Christians to have fellowship with one another in a local church as fellow church members, they must have a common understanding of how Scripture defines the church. Friendship Baptist Church gladly confesses with our fellow Southern Baptists that Scripture has clear standards for church membership and church governance, which our church strives to maintain.

Scripture puts two basic requirements on people for church membership: repentant faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (Gal 3:10; 1 Tim 3:15) and baptism as a public profession of that faith (Acts 8:12; 16:14-15, 30-34, 40; 18:8).

The New Testament also teaches that each local church is autonomous under the Lordship of Jesus Christ (2 Cor 8:1-5; Rev 2-3). Each church democratically determines its doctrine (Rev 2:6, 14-15, 20), membership (1 Cor 5:1-2, 4-5, 7, 12-13), and leadership (1 Tim 5:19-20).

(Future blog posts on Article VI of Friendship’s statement of faith will defend the above biblical definitions of church membership and governance.)

Scripture: The Standard of Our Judgments

If John 3:16 was the most widely-known Bible verse in 20th century America, then Matthew 7:1 may be the most widely-known Bible verse in 21st century America: “Judge not, that you be not judged.” People devoted to religious pluralism latch onto that verse more than any other in the Bible, often in order to combat a Christian’s obedience to the Bible (e.g., in evangelism or confrontation of sin). But as Friendship’s statement of faith affirms from the outset, Matthew 7:1 does not forbid all human judgments. Rather, our human judgments should be based on Scripture, which is the “supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried.”

The subsequent context of Matthew 7:1 is vital for not misapplying that verse. Multiple Christian thinkers rightly remind us: “a text without a context is a pretext for a proof text.” And the context of Matthew 7:1 shows that Jesus was not prohibiting all judgments but a particular kind of judgment. Matthew 7:1 was but the introductory sentence of a full paragraph that runs through Matthew 7:5.

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Jesus was warning his disciples not to be too severe (v. 2) or hypocritical (vv. 3-5) in their judgments of others. Certainly Jesus’ statement did not mean that Christians should expose sin. Rather, Jesus’ statement was telling Christians to expose sin in a certain way: lovingly, and only after they have examined their own hearts for the very same sin. In fact, the commitment of Article I to judge everything according to the standard of Scripture is obedient to Jesus’ command, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment” (John 7:24).

As Friendship’s statement of faith reminds us, we should judge “all human conduct” by the standards of Scripture. We should evaluate behaviors by Scripture’s teachings. We should apply timeless Scripture to time-bound cultural practices of 21st century America.

We should also judge “all human … creeds” according to Scripture. We should evaluate everything we believe about God, salvation, humanity, the world, etc., according to Scripture. Whenever we find a contradiction between our beliefs and Scripture’s clear teaching, we must submit to Scripture. Creeds and doctrinal statements are good, but they (even the Baptist Faith and Message!) must be measured against the ultimate standard of Scripture.

Finally, we should judge “all human … religious opinions” according to Scripture. Certainly, if we evaluate Christian beliefs against Scripture, we should certainly critically appraise non-Christian religious beliefs against Scripture! When another religious system confronts us and seeks to entice us, we must reject its claims on the basis of God’s holy word, the Bible. We should seek to share the true gospel with the other religion’s adherent with whom we are speaking.

The Bible’s authority is the ultimate standard, not only of God’s judgment of us, but also our unity as a church and our own judgments of all things in life. Based on truly biblical principles, the Baptist Faith and Message helpfully articulates our belief as Southern Baptists that we ought to conform every aspect of our life to the standards of Scripture.