Soteriology

Read Part 1 and Part 2.

A Brief Detour

The gospel is good news. News is about events, which means that the gospel is about events. The gospel is not merely the narration of the events, however. It includes the true explanation of the meaning of the events. Such explanations are rightly called doctrines; therefore, the gospel is fundamentally doctrinal.

The Christian gospel is deliberately defined by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. It consists of two events: Christ died, and Christ rose again from the dead. Each event is supported by evidence. The genuine death of Christ is supported by the evidence of the burial, which includes the whole complex of events involving the examination and preparation of the body. The bodily resurrection of Christ is supported by the evidence of the witnesses, of whom Paul supplies an appreciable list.

Paul also explains the meaning of the events. The death of Christ was not a death such as other men die. He died “for our sins,” which is explained more fully elsewhere as penal substitution. Christ bore “our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Pet. 2:24); He was made “to be sin for us, who knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21); God “laid on him the … [transgression] of us all” (Isa. 53:6). The substitutionary atonement, and all that it assumes, is a major aspect of the gospel.
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The Gospel of Free Acceptance in Christ: An Assessment of the Reformation and New Perspectives on Paul by Cornelis P. Venema. Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2006. 352 pp. $28.00/hardback.

Purchase: BOT, CBD, WTS Bookstore, Amazon

ISBNs: 0851519393 / 9780851519395

LCCN: BS2655 J8 V46 2006x

DCN: 227 V456g

Special Features: Selected Bibliography, Index of Persons, Index of Selected Subjects, Index of Scripture References.

Subject(s): The Apostle Paul, Justification, New Perspective on Paul

(from the jacket cover)

by John C. Whitcomb, Th.D

The second Person of the Triune God added a human nature to His divine nature a little more than 2,000 years ago! This stupendous and miraculous event was revealed to God’s people from the beginning of the world. God announced to Satan (in Gen. 3:15) not long after the creation of Adam and Eve (which occurred “at the beginning,” Matt. 19:4, KJV): “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed (the unbelieving community of mankind) and her seed [all true believers represented by their Savior]; [He] shall bruise thy head [a fatal, judicial blow delivered to Satan at the cross—John 12:31], and thou shalt bruise His heel [the crucifixion of Christ]” (KJV).

Especially noteworthy is the emphasis on “the woman” (rather than “the man” or even “the man and the woman”). If Adam was the responsible head of that family unit (“by one man sin entered into the world,” Rom. 5:12, KJV; and “by man came death,” 1 Cor. 15:21, KJV), what function was Eve to have, in the light of this prophetic announcement? Adam perceived that his wife, though instrumental in the fall (1 Tim. 2:14), would, by the amazing grace of God, be instrumental in bringing their Savior into the world. Therefore he named her “Eve” (i.e., “life” or “living”), “because she was the mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20, KJV).
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