The Assurance of New Life - Psa. 118:17

Intro.

Psalms 113 to 118 form what is known as the “Hallel”; a set of Psalms that have for millennia been sung at the Feast of the Passover and other festivals. At the Passover Psalms 113 and 114 were sung before the meal and Psalms 115 through 118 were sung after it. Thus, in the Gospels we read that at the Last Supper, “after they had sung a hymn they went out to the Mount of Olives.” (Matt. 26:30). This means that this text was on the lips of our Lord just prior to His arrest and Passion!

1. The Testimony of a Child of God

At one time or another most Christians have dealt with folks who were quite indignant about the Christian claim to actually know their sins are forgiven and that they are safe for all eternity.

To make such a statement - to believe that one may have perfect assurance about going to heaven when we die, strikes some people as presumptuous in the extreme. Their experience of life tells them that nothing is for certain - not in this life, so how can we be sure of what will be in the next life (if there is one)? How could any rational person say with the Apostle Paul, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”? “No” they say, “that is just in that old book, you can’t believe what that book says.”

Now, if their contention is true, or if it has any grounds, then I would have to admit that we Christians can’t really know what we profess to know. We cannot know for sure that when we die we shall enter into new life; that we shall, as it were, be released from the grip of death and shall step out of this life and into eternal bliss with our God and our Redeemer. If they are correct, they need not listen to the Gospel. The Gospel, in fact, would not be worth the preaching!

Entering Blogsville (with a very small bang)

My friend Tom Pryde is an accomplished blogger. My beautiful wife Gina always has something interesting to say. Many other pals of mine have cool blogs. As for lil’ ol me, well, I’m not sure I really grasp this whole culture of blogdom, blogtown, blog..whatever, but I do enjoy it. So, I’m gonna give it a try.

My blogs will likely center on what I’m doing at Veritas School of Theology or on what I’m reading or what I’m meditating on, or maybe what evangelical goofball or atheist ingrate I’ve allowed myself to be affected by. Whatever it may be, I am going to try to observe the “golden rule of blogging” (orchestra!!) - blog for yourself first.

As I sit here I have just completed the recording of one of the final lectures of my course “The Doctrine of God (1). Today I dealt with the Incomprehensibility of God and the matter of God accommodating Himself to our capacity. I stuck this material near the end of the course because it is somewhat abstract and I hope that the preceding stuff on God’s attributes and trinitatian nature will have ‘prepared’ my students to better appreciate it. I only have to cover God’s names and images (again, placed here in order to bring the discussion back to Scripture), some heretical concepts of God - such as modalism, open-theism and process thought, plus what I believe is a pretty serious problem in J. Feinberg’s formulation of the Trinity, and God’s relation to time (where again Feinberg departs from classic orthodoxy), and I’m done!

After DG (1) has finished I intend to begin recording “Intro. to Biblical Apologetics’ and (DV) and “The Doctrine of Revelation.” I might take a stab at Church History (1) as well. This blog will keep prospective students updated on progress.

Another thing I’m going to start is a “Quote for the Day” category where I shall place a new (and worthwhile) thought from a great Christian of the past -why is it that only dead Christians have great thoughts? - :). Don’t be surprised if the guy has been dead for a few centuries. Folks back then seemed to ruminate on things more than we do today. Precisely why that is the case will maybe be a subject I’ll broach down the road a bit.

Let’s see what happens…..