THEOparadox - The Biblical Paradox Blog: 6/1/12

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Stupid Reactions of an Idolatrous Heart - #5,683

I hear a great sermon by a great preacher who is used of God to show me the glories of Christ (and my need for Christ). I am confronted and deeply affected. Then I say to myself, "I need to get a lot more of this preacher . . ." and I prepare to start downloading all of his sermons I can find.

Do you see the problem here?

I don't need more of this preacher! I need more of Christ! But I am too easily distracted from Him, and too quick to depend on the arm of flesh . . .

HE is the point! HE is the ONE! HE is God incarnate and the one who became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God IN HIM. HE is the one who accomplished all that must be done for us to be saved. HE is the one who shed His blood, HE is the one who was raised from the dead for us, HE is the one who intercedes effectually, HE is the one who stands at the right hand of God, HE is the one who will return in a magnificence and splendor that will overthrow every evil in this world . . . not some preacher!

The preacher is not Christ. No man will ever be Christ for me but Christ Himself. The best I can do is become like Him by being with Him, and then lead others to Him by living for Him and abiding in Him and being changed by Him so that I am conformed to Him.

Christ is all, and is over all, and in all, and through all. Let a preacher, a disciple-maker or a friend play his limited part. But let Christ alone be magnified as a result.

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THEOparadox MISSION Statement:

~To honor God by upholding the authority, inerrancy and sufficiency of His Word, the Bible.
~To help students of the Word to interpret Biblical paradoxes in a way that faithfully reflects God's heart.
~To ignite a devotional flame that will help believers to warm up their theology and burn up their pride.
~To encourage Christian faith by resolving or explaining apparent contradictions in the Scriptures.
~To explore the nature and extent of paradoxes in historically orthodox, Reformed, Biblical theology.

~To provide Biblical resources for those who desire to know God and His Word better.

~To glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, the Friend of sinners and the Savior of the lost.

What is a PARADOX?

A tenet or proposition contrary to received opinion, or seemingly absurd, yet true in fact.

Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828 Edition

"... it is synonymous with apparent contradiction. A 'paradox' thus amounts to a set of claims which taken in conjunction appear to be logically inconsistent. Note that according to this definition, paradoxicality does not entail logical inconsistency per se, but merely the appearance of logical inconsistency."

James Anderson, Paradox in Christian Theology

Wise Words . . .

"By advocating paradox I don't want to give the impression that I'm giving a carte blanche to not think philosophically, to not think deeply, about these doctrines. Quite the opposite. . . . My position is that with each of these doctrines we reflect on them as hard as we can, we penetrate them as best we can based on the Scriptural data that we do have, but we also recognize that there are going to be limits, and that those limits are actually a positive thing and not a reflection of some inherent problem in the doctrines or in the process of theological reflection. . . . I think we can make progress, we can make

considerable progress, in understanding these doctrines and resolving some of the . . . initial difficulties that we have with them, but at the same time recognizing that we're always only going to get so far and when we bump up against the limits of our capacity to formulate them in certain ways or to resolve certain difficulties in them, we

shouldn't be too concerned about that. We certainly shouldn't say, 'Okay, we need to admit that Christians are ultimately irrationalists.' No. We don't need to say that at all. . . . It's a Biblically constrained rationality. It's a middle way between rationalism, of which I think [Gordon H.] Clark was a representative, and irrationalism, of which, to take an example I think the Neo-Orthodox - Karl Barth - would be an example, where you're saying that there are actual contradictions in there. So I think it's navigating a Biblical middle way between these two extremes: having too high a view of the human intellect, and perhaps too low a view of the intellect, of our ability to know the things

of God."

~Dr. James Anderson

Theological Paradoxes

Below I have listed some of the classic theological paradoxes (and a few interesting ironies, too) . . .

~The Trinity - God is One being revealed in three distinct persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit)
~God is transcendent (separate from His creation) yet immanent (in His creation)
~Omnipresence - God is always present everywhere, yet He sometimes speaks of Himself as "present" in a special way
~The Incarnation - God became a man
~The Virgin Birth - A Jewish virgin gave birth to the Son of God
~The Two Natures of Christ - Jesus is fully (100%) God and fully (100%) man

~The Atonement is sufficient to save every person, but efficient only for those who believe
~God is completely sovereign (in control of everything, everywhere, all the time) yet He is not the author of sin and he uses human choice to accomplish His purposes
~Inspiration of Scripture - The Bible was written by sinful human beings yet it is the inerrant and flawless Word of God
~Divine Revelation - Sinful man cannot comprehend God, yet God reveals Himself to sinful man
~Sanctification - Christians are sinners by nature, but saints by grace
~Suffering - God brings His joy and comfort into our lives through our experiences of pain, disappointment and suffering

There are many others. Paradox is everywhere when we attempt to understand God's ways in a genuinely Biblical way.

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Saturday, June 30, 2012

Stupid Reactions of an Idolatrous Heart - #5,683

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