“In terms of the future and the Messiah, Routledge views things from an amillennial context. Everything prophecied in the future was symbolized and fulfilled in Jesus. There is no future temple or time of peace before the new heavens and new earth. So when Ezekiel 40-48 describes this in detail, he was just condescending to people who could not otherwise understand except by making them think there was really going to be a temple and a repopulated Promised Land. Somehow Routledge doesn’t find this deceptive in the least, despite the fact that every example we have until after the New Testament was written believed in a literal fulfillment of a restored temple.” (my emphasis)
– From Richard Hess’s review of R. Routledge’s OT Theology in Denver Journal
No wise counselor would proscribe the perusal of controversies. Yet he who reads on different sides, must necessarily read much that is erroneous; and all tampering with falsehood, however necessary, is, like dealing with poisons, full of danger. If we might have our choice, it is better to converse with truth rather than error… – J. W. Alexander, Thoughts On Preaching, 173
The name [Immanuel] takes on a deeper meaning when applied to Him to whom alone it in the fullest truth belongs. It proclaims that in Jesus God dwells among us, and it lays bare the ground of the historical name Jesus, for only by a man who is one of ourselves, and in whom God is with us, can we be saved from our sins. The one Name is the deep, solid foundation, the other is the fortress refuge built upon it. He is Jesus [“Jehovah is salvation”], because He is Immanuel [“God with us”]. – Alexander Maclaren, Gospel of Matthew, Expositions of Holy Scripture, 11
Though changes may surprise us, yet they do not surprise God: but, as it is a great pleasure to us, to see our designs and forecasts accomplished; so, Infinite Wisdom delights itself to look on, and see all things start up into their place and order, as soon as called forth by his efficacious decree and foreknowledge. – Ezekiel Hopkins, “The Vanity of the World,” in Works, Vol. 1, 34.
Miserable souls are they who love not Christ; and dull unobservant people are they that know not what, or whom their souls love. Is the love of Christ a mere notion? Is it not a most sensible, holy and spiritual passion, or rather a heavenly grace? Can men love Christ and not feel it? Should they feel it and not avow it? Is there anything we should be ashamed of in the love for Christ, but the shameful smallness of it? – Robert Traill, “Sermons concerning the Throne of Grace,” in The Works of Robert Traill, Vol.1, 108
The Christian doctrine of God implies a definite conception of the relation of God to the created universe. So also the Christian doctrine of God implies a definite conception of everything in the created universe. – Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 4th edition ed. by K. Scott Oliphint, 32.
“If the land promise in the Abrahamic covenant was conditional (that is, based on an unspecified degree of obedience), then does the same principle of conditionality equally apply to the fulfillment of other aspects of the Abrahamic covenant, and particularly the resultant new covenant? If it is claimed in response that the Abrahamic covenant has distinctive conditional and unconditional elements, I would reply that such an attempted covenantal bifurcation is exegetically untenable, especially where a Calvinist understanding of Scripture is concerned, and indicates a fundamental doctrinal weakness.” – Barry E. Horner, Future Israel: Why Christian Anti-Judaism Must Be Challenged, 47.
“Some doubt that Jesus’ earliest followers considered him a Messiah, but this skepticism rejects all the explicit testimony that remains extant in favor of a hypothesis argued virtually from silence.” – Craig S. Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, 257
“[S]urely, if it be allowable to assume (with Hort) that for 1532 years, (viz. from A.D. 350 to A.D. 1882) the Antiochian standard has been faithfully retained and transmitted,- it will be impossible to assign any valid reason why the inspired Original itself, the Apostolic standard, should not have been as faithfully transmitted and retained from the Apostolic age to the Antiochian,- i.e. throughout an interval of less than 250 years, or one-sixth of the period.” – Dean Burgon, The Revision Revised, 295-296
Jesus and His disciples are unequal friends. He condescends greatly when accepting them as friends, they are lifted high by being accepted as His friends. – R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. John’s Gospel, 1050.
DR. RELUCTANT 