Holy Spirit

"The Spirit belongs primarily to the future, in the sense that what we witness of teh post-resurrection action of teh Spirit can be understood only when viewed as a breaking-in of the future into the present. In ohter words, on the basis of the work of Christ, the power of the redeemed future has been released to act in the present in the person of the Holy Spirit."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible And The Future, Pg. 58

Eschatology

"Being a citizen of the kingdom, therefore, means that we should see all of life adn all of reality in the light of the goal of the redpmtion of the cosmos. This implies, as Abraham Kuyper once said, that there is not a thumb-breadth of the universe about which Christ does not say, "It is mine." This implies a Christian philsophy of history: all of history must be seen as teh working out of God's eternal purpose. This kingdom vision includes a Chrstian philosophy of culture: art and science reflect the glory of God and are therefore to be pursued for his praise. It also includes a Christian view of vocation: all callings are from God, and all that we do in everyday life is to be done to God's praise, whether this be study, teaching, preaching, business, industry, or housework."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible And The Future, Pg. 54

Past & Future

"The church has expereinced the victory of the Kingdom of God; and yet the church is, like other men, at the mercy of the powers of this world.... This very situation creates a severe tension-indeed, acute conflict; for the church i the focal point of the conflict between good and evil, God and Satan, until the end of the age. The church can never be at rest or take her ease but must always be the church in struggle and conflict, often persecuted, but sure of the ultimate victory."

George Ladd (quoted by Anthony A. Hoekema), The Bible And The Future, Pg. 52

Eschatology

"Invisibly, history has fundamentally changed; visibly, it is still the same, for the Kingdom of God is already at hand, and yet, as an eschaton, still to come. This ambiguity is essential to all history after Christ: the time is already fulfilled adn yet not consummated.... On account of this profound ambiguity of the historical fulfillment where everything is "already" what is is "not yet," the Christian believer lives in a radical tension between present and future. He has faith and he does hope. Being relaxed in his present experience and straining toward the future, he confidently enjoys what he is anxiously waiting and stiving for."

Karl Lowith (quoted by Anthony A. Hoekema), The Bible And The Future, Pg. 34

In Faith For The Future

"Hitler has occupied Norway, but in 1945 it was liberated. Suppose that up in the almost inaccessible north some small village with a Nazi overlord failed to hear the news of the liberation for some weeks. During that time, we might put it, the inhabitants of the village were living in the 'old' time of Nazi occupation instead of the 'new' time of Norwegian liberation.
... Any person who now lives in a world that has been liberated from the tyranny of evil powers either in ignorance of, or in indifference to, what Christ has done, is precisely in the position of those Norwegians to whom the good news of deliverance had failed to penetrate. In other words, it is quite easy for us to see that men can live B.C. in A.D."

John Marsh (quoted by Anthony A. Hoekema), The Bible And The Future, Pg. 31

Joy and the Honor of God

"If joy were more general among the Lord's people, God would be more glorified among men; the happiness of the subjects is the honor of the sovereign."

- Charles Spurgeon on Psalm 20:5

Apostle Paul

"... Before everything else, he [Paul] was the proclaimer of a new time, the great turning point in the history of redemption, the intrusion of anew world aeon. Such was the dominating perspective and foundation of Paul's entire preaching. it alone can illuminate the many facets and interrelations of his preaching, e.g., justification, being-in-Christ, sufferin, dying, and rising agin with Christ, the conflict between teh spirit and the flesh, the cosmic drama, etc.
The person of Jesus Christ forms the mystery and the middle point of this great historical redepmtive revelation. Because christ is revealed a new aeon has been ushered in, the old world has ended, and the enw world has begun."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible And The Future, Pg. 31

History

...The theologically decisive and interesting point is not the fact that goes back to Dionysius Exiguus, that the birth of Christ was taken as the starting point of subsequent enumeration... The decisive thing is rather the practice, which has been in vogue only for the last two centuries, of numbering both forward and backward from the birth of Christ. Only when this is done is the Christ-event regarded as the temporal mid-point of the entire historical process.

We say "Christian system of reckoning time." but it is the common system in the Western world... Yet today scarcely anyone thinks of the fact that this division is not merely a convention resting upon Christian tradition, but actually presupposes fundamental assertions of New Testament theology concerning time and history.

Oscar Cullmann, quoted by Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 28

History

"God is King and acts in history to bring history to a divinely directed goal."

George Ladd, quoted by Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 27

Redemption

For the Greeks, the idea that redemption is to take place through divine action in the course of events in time is impossible. Redemption in Hellenism can consist only in the fact that we are transferred from existence in this world, ...into that Beyond which is removed from time and is already and always available.

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 24

Meaning of History

"The twentieth-century Church of Christ is spiritually unable to stand against the rapid changes that take place around her because she has not learned to view history from the perspective of the reign of Christ. For that reason, she thinks of the events of her own time in entirely secular terms. She is overcome with fear in a worldly manner, and in a worldly manner she tries to free herself from fear. In this process God functions as no more than a beneficent stop-gap."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 23

Meaning of History

"Our generation is strangled by fear: fear for man, for his future, and for the direction in which we are driven against our will and desire.l And out of this comes a cry of illumination concerning the meaning of the existence of mankind, and concerning the goal to which we are directed. It is a cry for an answer to the old question of the meaning of history."

Hendrikus Berkhof, quoted by Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 23

Hope

"With us human beings, hope for a happy future usually rises from poverty and uncertainty; the Christian hope, however, rises from a possession which opens many more vistas for the future. That is why hope is regularly found in connection with faith and love, which are both possessions. But the very fact that we possess makes us feel painfully what we still miss; it 'tastes like more.' Hope therefore is the fruit of both possession and lack."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 21

Eschatology

What is unique about New Testament eschatology, therefore, is that it expects a future consummation of God's purposes based on Christ's victory in the past.

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 21

Eschatology

Chrisitianity, therefore, from the beginning exhibits an essential bipolarity. The end has come! The end has not come! And neither grace nor glory, neither present proleptic fruition nor future perfection of life in God can be omitted from the picture without the reality being destroyed.

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 14

Eschatology

The supreme sign of the Eschaton is the Resurrection of Jesus and the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Church. The Resurrection of Jesus is not simply a sign which God has granted in fabour of His Son, but is the inquguration, the entrance into history, of the times of the End.

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 14

Eschatology

The biblical idea of redemption always includes the earth. Hebrew thought saw an essential unity between man and nature. The prophets do not think of the earth as merely the indifferent theater on which man carries out his normal task but as the expression of the divine glory. The Old Testament nowhere holds forth the hope of a bodiless, non material, purely "spiritual" redemption as did Greek thought. The earth is the divinely ordained scene of human existence. Furthermore, the earth has been involved in the evils which sin has incurred. There is an interrelation of nature with the moral life of man; therefore the earth must also share in God's final redemption.

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 11

Eschatology

"From first to last, and not merely in the epilogue, Christianity is eschatology, is hope, forward looking and forward moving, and therefore also revolutionizing and transforming the present. The eschatological is not one element of Christianity, but it is the medium of the Christian faith as such, the key in which everthing in it is set... Hence eschatology cannot really be only a part of Christian doctrine. Ranther, the eschatological outlook is characteristic of all Christian procalamation, and of every Christian existence and of the whole Church."

Jurgen Moltmann, quoted byAnthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p.3

human ability

"If an endless field of human knowledge and of human ability is now being formed by all that takes place in or der to make the visible world and material nature subject to us, and if we know that this dominion of ours over nature will be complete in eternity, we may conclude that the knowledge and dominion we have gained over nature here can and will be continued significance, even in the kingdom of glory."

Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 286

New Earth

"The world into which we shall enter in the Parousia of Jesus Christ is therefore not another world; it is this world, this heaven, this earth; both however, passed away and renewed. It is these forests, these fields, these cities, these streets, these people, that will be the scene of redemption. At present they are battlefields, full of the strife and sorrow of the not yet accomplished consummation; then they will be fields of victory, fields of harvest, where out of seed that was sown with tears the everlasting sheaves will be reaped and brough home."

Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 281

Faith

"I didn't say anything for many minutes, and we continued the slow walk toward the faculty club, Stockdale limping and arc-swinging his stiff leg that had never fully recovered from repeated torture. Finally, after about a hundred meters of silence, I asked, "Who didn't make it out?"

"Oh, that's easy," he said. "The optimists."

"The optimists? I don't understand," I said, now completely confused, given what he'd said a hundred meters earlier.

"The optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, 'We're going to be out by Christmas.' And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they'd say, 'We're going to be out by Easter.' And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart."

Another long pause, and more walking. Then he turned to me and said, "This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end-which you can never afford to lose-with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."

To this day, I carry a mental image of Stockdale admonishing optimists: "We're not getting out by Christmas; deal with it!" "

Jim Collins, Good To Great, Pg. 85

Suffering

"Throughout our research, we were continually reminded of the "hardiness" research studies done by the International Committee for the Study of Victimization. These studies looked at people who had suffered serious adversity-cancer patients, prisoners of war, accident victims, and so forth-and survived. They found that people fell generally into three categories: those who were permanently dispirited by the event, those who got their life back to normal, and those who used the experience as a defining event that made them stronger."

Jim Collins, Good To Great, Pg. 82

Service of Christ

"Here and now the man who gives himself wholeheartedly to the service of Christ knows more of the joy of the Lord than the half-hearted. We have no warrant from the New Testament for thinking that it will be otherwise in heaven."

Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 264

Humility

"Hundreds, if not thousands, of people hours had been spent in autopsies of the 7UP case. Yet, as much as they talked about this conspicuous failure, no one pointed fingers to single out blame. There is only one exception to this pattern: Joe Cullman, standing in front of the mirror, pointing the finger right at himself. "[It]... became apparent that this was another Joe Cullman plan that didn't work," he writes. He goes even further, implying that if he'd only listened better to the people who challenged his idea at the time, the disaster might have been averted. He goes out of his way to give credit to those who were right in retrospect, naming those specific individuals who were more prescient than himself."

Jim Collins, Good To Great, Pg. 77

Leadership

"Leading from good to great does not mean coming up with the answers and then motivating everyone to follow your messianic vision. It means having the humility to grasp the fact that you do not yet understand enough to have the answers and then to ask the questions that will lead to the best possible insights."

Jim Collins, Good To Great, Pg. 75

Leadership

"The moment a leader allows himself to become the primary reality people worry about, rather than reality being the primary reality, you have a recipe for mediocrity, or worse. This is one of the key reasons why less charismatic leaders often produce better long-term results than their more charismatic counterparts."

Jim Collins, Good To Great, Pg. 72

Life

"Adherence to the idea of "first who" might be the closest link between a great company and a great life. For no matter what we achieve, if we don't spend the vast majority of our time with people we love and respect, we cannot possibly have a great life."

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 62

Millenial Views

"The anomaly confronting us here is that one can read the whole Bible without discovering an inkling of this doctrine [the doctrine of two resurrections separated by a thousand years] until he arrives at its third from the last chapter. If, on coming to that chapter, he shall give a literal interpretation to one sentence of a higly symbolical passage, he will then find it necessary to retrace his steps and interpret an obscure passage of Scripture in the light of a clear statement. In this case, clear statements are being interpreted to agree with symbolism, the true meaning of which is highly debatable." Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 242

Eschatology

"This man is not merely a pre-eminently godless individual, but...in him the humanity hostile to God comes to a definitive, eschatological revelation....The figure of the 'man of lawlessness' is clearly intended as the final, eschatological coutnerpart of the man Jesus Christ, who was sent by God to overthrow the works of Satan."

Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 160

Christ coming

"Live as though Christ died yesterday, arose this morning, and is coming again tomorrow." Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 136

First Coming

"If believers like John the Baptist could have problems of this sort with predictions about Christ's first coming, what guarantee do we have that believers will not have similar difficulties with predictions about Christ's second coming? We are confident that all predictions about Christ's return and the end of the world will be fulfilled, but we do not know exactly how they will be fulfilled." Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 133

Prophecy

"Christ was indeed a king, but no such king as the world has ever seen, and such as no man expected; He was a priest, but the only priest that ever lived of whose priesthood He was Himself the victim; He did establish a kingdom, but it was not of this world." Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 132

Prophecy

"The first point to be considered [ in the interpretation of prophecy] is the true design of prophecy, and how that design is to be ascertained. Prophecy is very different from history. It is not intended to give us a knowledge of the future analogous to that which history gives us of the past." Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 132

Eschatology

"Whatever the reasons may be, the loss of a lively, vital anticipation of the Second Coming of Christ is a sign of a most serious spiritual malady in the church. Though there may be differences between us on various aspects of eschatology, all Christians should eagerly look forward to Christ's return, and should live in the light of that expectation every day anew."

Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 111

Realm of the Dead

"Persons do not go totally out of existence after death but go to a "realm of the dead". In this realm of the dead the ungodly shall remain, with death as their shepherd. The New Testament adds the detail that after death the ungodly will suffer torment, already before the resurrection of the body (Luke 16:19-31). God's people, however, knowing Christ was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, have the firm hope that they too shall be delivered from the power of Sheol. The New Testament again carries this hope one step further when it suggests that after death the godly are comforted (Luke 16:25)." Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 101

the body

"In biblical thought the body is not a tomb for the soul but a temple of the Holy Spirit; man is not complete apart from the body. Therefore the future blessedness of the believer is not merely the continued existence of his soul, but includes as its richest aspect the resurrection of his body. That resurrection will be for believers a transition to glory, in which our bodies shall become like the glorious body of Christ (Phil. 3:21)." Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 91

Truth

"All truth is from God; and consequently, if wicked men have said anything that is true and just, we ought not to reject it; for it has come from God. Whenever we come upon these matters in secular writers, let that admirable light of truth shining in them teach us that the mind of man, though fallen and perverted from its wholeness, is nevertheless clothed and ornamented with God's excellent gifts. If we regard the Spirit of God as the sole fountain of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it whenever it shall appear, unless we wish to dishonor the Spirit of God. For by holding the gifts of the Spirit in slight esteem, we contemn and reproach the Spirit himself." Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 74

Leadership

     Summary: The Two Sides of Level 5 Leadership

Professional Will                         Personal Humility

Creates superb results, a clear       Demonstrates a compelling

catalyst in the transition from       modesty, shunning public

good to great.                                    adulation; never boastful

Demonstrates an unwavering        Acts with quiet, calm

resolve to do whatever must be    determination; relies principally

done to produce the best long-      on inspired standards, not

term results, no matter how           inspiring charisma, to motivate.

difficult.

Set the standard of building an      Channels ambition into the

enduring great company; will        company, not the self; sets up

settle for nothing less.                     successors for even greater success

                                                 In the next generation.

Looks in the mirror, not out          Looks out the window, not in the

the window, to apportion               mirror, to apportion credit for the 

responsibility for poor results       success of the company - to other

never blaming other people      people, external factors, and good

external factors, or bad luck.         luck.

Jim Collins, Good to Great, Pg. 36

Glory

"You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit."

Harry S. Truman, quoted in; Good To Great, Pg. 17

New Creatures in Christ

"The people of God are not to be addressed as those who are still totally depraved, 'wholly incapable aof any good and inclined to all evil,' but are to be treated and addressed as new creatures in Christ. At the same time, however, it must be remembered that God's people are still imperfect. Christians should therefore deal with each other as forgiven sinners. There must always be a readiness to accept and forgive brothers who have sinned against us. Whatever correction is to be done, further, should take place in the spirit of Galatians 6:1, 'Even if a man should be detected in some sin, my brothers, the spiritual ones among you should quietly set him back on the right path, not with any feeling of superiority but being yourselves on guard against temptation(phillips).'" Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 70

Faith

"You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality."

Jim Collins, Good To Great, Pg. 13

Leaders

"The good-to-great leaders seem to have come form Mars. Self-effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy-these leaders are a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. They are more like Lincoln and Socrates than Patton or Caesar."

Jim Collins, Good To Great, Pg. 13

Holy Spirit

"The spirit belongs primarily to the future, in the sense that what we witness of the post-resurrection action of the Spirit can be understood only when viewed as a breaking-in of the future into the present. In other words, on the basis of the work of Christ, the power of the redeemed future has been released to act in the present in the person of the Holy Spirit." Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 58

Wisdom Literature

"Wisdom hath said, Those that seek me early shall find me; early in their lives, early in the day; for hereby we give to God that which he ought to have, the preference above other things."

Matthew Henry, The Secret Of Communion With God, Pg. 24

Citizen of the Kingdom

"Being a citizen of the kingdom, therefore, means that we should see all of life and all of reality in the light of the goal of the redemption of the cosmos. This implies, as Abraham Kuyper once said, that there is not a thumb-breadth of the universe about which Christ does not say, "It is mine." This implies a Christian philosophy of culture: art and science reflect the glory of God and are therefore to be pursued for his praise. It also includes a Christian view of vocation: all callings are from God, and all that we do in everyday life is to be done to God's praise, whether this be study, teaching, preaching, business, industry, or housework." Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 54

Prayer, In Jesus Name

" Direct this letter to be left with the Lord Jesus, the only Mediator between God and man' it will certainly miscarry if it be not put into his hand, who is that other angel that puts much incense to the prayers of the saints, and so perfumed presents them to the Father, Rev. viii.

   What we ask of the Father must be in his name; what we expect from the Father must be by his hand, for he is the Hight Priest of our profession, that is ordained for men to offer their gifts; Heb. v.1. Direct the letter to be left with him, and he will deliver it with care and speed."

Matthew Henry, The Secret Of Communion With God, Pg. 21

The New Kingdom

"We are in the kingdom, and yet we look forward to its full manifestation; we share its blessings and yet await its total victory; we thank God for having brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, and yet we continue to pray, "Thy kingdom come." Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 52

Eschatology

"Invisibly, history has fundamentally changed; visibly, it is still the same, for the Kingdom of God is already at hand, and yet, as an eschaton, still to come. This ambiguity is essential to all history after Christ: the time is already fulfilled and yet not consummated....On account of this profound ambiguity of the historical fulfilment where everything is "already" what it is "not yet," the Christian believer lives in a radical tension between present and future. He has faith and he does hope. Being relaxed in his present experience and straining toward the future, he confidently enjoys what he is anxiously waiting and striving for." Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 34

The Meaning of History

"...Before everything else, he [Paul] was the proclaimer of a new time, the great turning point in the history of redemption, the intrusion of a new world aeon. Such was the dominating perspective and foundation of Paul's entire preaching. It alone can illuminate the many facets and iterrelations of his preaching, e.g., justification, being-in-Christ, suffering, dying and rising again with Christ, the conflict between the spirit and the flesh, the cosmic drama, etc. The person of Jesus Christ forms the mystery and the middle point of this great historical redemptive revelation. Because Christ is revealed a new aeon been ushered in, the old word has ended, and the new world has begun." Anthony A. Hoekma, The Bible and the Future, p. 31

conversation

"When I am talking to somebody there are always two conversations going on. The first is on the surface; it is about politics or music or whatever it is our mouths are saying. The other is beneath the surface, on the level of the heart, and my heart is either communicating that i like the person i am talking to or I don't. God wants both conversations to be true. That is, we are supposed to speak truth in love. If both conversations are not true, God is not involved in the exchange, we are on our own, if you talk to somebody with your mouth, and your heart does not love them, that you are like a person standing there smashing two cymbals together. You are only annoying everybody around you. I think that is very beautiful and true." Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz, p. 221

Selfishness

"I hear addicts talk about the shakes and panic attacks and the highs and lows of resisting their habit, and to some degree i understand them because i have habits of my own, but no drug is so powerful as the drug of self. No rut in the mind is so deep as the one that says I am the world, the world belongs to me, all the people are characters in my play. There is no addiction so powerful as self-addiction." Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz, p. 182

belief and value

"So, when we find somebody who is cool on television or on the radio, we associate ourselves with this person to feel valid ourselves. And the problem i have with this is that we rarely know what the person believes who we are associating ourselves with. The problem with this is that it indicates there is less value in what people believe, what they stand for; it only matters that they are cool. In other words, who cares what i believe about life, I only care that i am cool. Because in the end, the undercurrent running through culture is not giving people value based upon what they believe and what they are doing to aid society, the undercurrent is deciding their value based upon whether or not they are cool." Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz, p. 105

belief

"There are things you choose to believe, and beliefs that choose you. This was one of the ones that chose me." Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz, p. 55

The Devil

"I believe that the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather has us wasting time." Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz, p. 13

Prayer & Heaven

"Direct your prayer; this our Saviour has taught us in the preface to the Lord's prayer, Our Father which art in heaven. Not that he is confined to the heaven's, or as if the heaven, or heaven of heavens could contain him, but there he is said to have prepared could contain him, but there he is said to have prepared his throne, not only his throne of government by which his kingdom ruleth over all, but his throne of grace to which we must by faith draw near. We must eye him as God in heaven, in opposition to the god of the heathen, which dwelt in temples made with hands. Heaven is a high place, and we must by faith draw near. We must eye him as God in heaven, in opposition to the god of the heathen, which dwelt in temples made with hands. Heaven is a high place, and we must address ourselves to him as a God infinitely above us; it is the fountain of light, and to him we must address ourselves as the Father of lights; it is a place of prospect, and we must see his eye upon us, from thence beholding all the children of men; it is a place of purity, and we must in prayer eye him as an holy God, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness; it is the firmament of his power, and we must depend upon him as one to whom power belongs. When our Lord Jesus prayed, he lift up his eyes to heaven, to direct us whence to expect the blessings we need."

Matthew Henry, The Secret Of Communion With God, Pg. 20-21

Prayer

"We must direct our prayer to God, that is, we must continually think of him, as one with whom we have to do in prayer. We must direct our prayer, as we direct our speech to the person we have business with. The Bible is a letter God hath sent to us, prayer is a letter we send to him; now you know it is essential to a letter that it be directed, and material that it be directed right; if it be not, it is in danger of miscarrying; which may be of ill consequence."

Matthew Henry, The Secret Of Communion with God, Pg. 19

Prayer

In every prayer remember you are speaking to God,... you have an awe of him upon your spirits; let us not be rash with our mouth, nor hasty to utter anything before God, but let every word be well weighed because God is in heaven, and we upon earth.

Matthew Henry, The Secret Communion With God, p. 16

Prayer

... it is true all your desire is before God, he knows your wants and burthens, but he will know them from you; he hath promised you relief; but his promise must be put in suit, and he will for this be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them, Ezek. 36:37. Though we cannot by our prayers give him any information, yet we must by our prayers give him honor. It is true, nothing we can say can have any influence upon him, or move him to show us mercy but it may have an influence upon ourselves, and help to put us into a frame fit to receive mercy. It is a very easy and reasonable condition of his favors, Ask, and it shall be given you. It was to teach us the necessity of praying, in order to our receiving favor, that Christ put that strange question to the blind men, What would ye that I should do unto you? He knew what they would have, but those that touch the top of the golden sceptre must be ready to tell, what is their petition and what is their request?

Matthew Henry, The Secret Communion With God, p. 14-15

Death & The Judgement of God

"Do we not know that we are dying daily, that death is working in us, and hastening towards us, and that death fetches us to judgement, and judgement fixeth us in our everlasting state? And have we not then something to say to God in preparation for what is before us? Shall we not say, Lord make us to know our end! Lord teach us to number our days! Have we not business with GOd to judge ourselves that we may not be judged, and to see that our matters be right and good?"

Matthew Henry, The Secret of Communion with God, Pg. 12

Prayer

"Praying is lifting up the soul to God, and pouring out the heart before him; yet as far as the expressing of the devout affections of the heart by words may be of use to fix the thoughts, and to excite and quicken the desires, it is good to draw near to God, not only with a pure heart, but with a humble voice; so must we render the calves of our lips."

The Secret of Communion with God, Matthew Henry, Pg. 7

Acceptance of God

...here he receives an answer to that preayer, thou wilt hear, I doubt not but thou wilt; and though I have not presently a grant of the thing I prayed for, yet I am sure my prayer is heard, is accepted, and comes up for a memorial, as the prayer of Cornelius did; it is put upon the file, and shall not be forgotten.' Matthew Henry, The Secret of Communion with God, p. 6

Prayer

Chrysologus said, "He is sure to go into temptation who goes not to prayer." William Spurstowe, The Wiles of Satan, p. 91

Prayer

There is no duty at all times so seasonable and useful as prayer. When we want blessings, prayer is the dey whereby we unlock the treasury of heaven and gain the blessings we need. When we are assaulted by Satan, it is one of the best weapons we can use to defend ourselves with. William Spurstowe, The Wiles of Satan, p. 90-91

Prayer

...it is true all your desire is before God, he knows your wants and burthens, but he will know them from you; he hath promised you relief; but his promise must be put in suit, and he will for this be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them, Ezek. 36:37. Though we cannot by our prayers give him any information, yet we must by our prayers give him honor. It is true, nothing we can say can have any influence upon him, or move him to show us mercy, but it may have an influence upon ourselves, and help to put us into a frame fit to receive mercy. It is a very easy and reasonable condition of his favors, Ask, and it shall be given you. It was to teach us the necessity of praying, in order to our receiving favor, that Christ put that strange question to the blind men, What would ye that I should do unto you? He knew what they would have, but those that touch the top of the golden sceptre must be ready to tell, what is their petition and what is their request?

Matthew Henry, The Secret of Communion With God, p. 14-15

Battle

To encourage ourselves, consider that we have a better Captain and better armor. Satan fights with fleshly weapons, but the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God. Our own resolution is nothing without God.

William Spurstowe, The Wiles of Satan, p. 83

Satan's Wiles

"He more willingly prusues than fights, and his is more bold when we turn our backs than when we set our faces against him." William Spurstowe, The Wiles of Satan, p. 83

Scripture

Allow for but one lie in Scriture and all its authority will fall to the ground. Let it be once entertained or taught by Scripture or divine revelation that Christ shall come at such a time, and that time proves to be false, then faith comes to be weakened. The delay of Christ's coming bred scoffing in some (2 Peter 3:4), and made others say that there is either no resurrection, or that it is past already.

William Spurstowe, The Wiles of Satan, p. 65

Temptations

It is scarely possible for any man to put an exact difference between the biting of the serpent and the concupiscence and depravity of his own mind. I have not been able to make any distinction between the things the heart gives birth to and the evil tares the enemy sows and casts in; it is most uncertain what I should attribute to my self and what to him.

William Spurstowe, The Wiles of Satan, p. 62

Satan's Wiles

Many men can give no acount of time, parts, or estates, but they can of hunting, drinking, hawking, or so on. By his art and cunning, Satan makes men transgress proper bounds in the use of pleasures, recreations, nay, even necessary things. Therefore take heed what you do, or how you walk, and be sure to set boundaries to yourselves, remembering that excess may turn that which is good into an absolute evil. Eating may become gluttony; industry in a man's calling may become coveteousness; recreations may become looseness, when they are unbounded and not according to the rule and warrant of the Word.

William Spurstowe, The Wiles of Satan, p. 60-61

Prayer

Will a prayer that is like an arrow from a slack bow, which never pierced the breast, ever pierce the heavens? Will the hearing of the Word, when the running sands in the hourglass are more eyed than the minister, ever convey its sweetness to such an hearer? Will a sabbath that is spent only in the forbearance of bodily labor, without any ascensions of the soul to God in holy meditation, or breathings after Him in fervent prayer, either fill a man with the foretastes of heaven or make the fruitation of God in an eternal sabbath to be deemed as his only happiness?

William Spurstowe, The Wiles of Satan, p. 56

Enumeration

"Satan does not care how much men hear, or how often they pray, if he can but allay their intention and fervency in both, by either distracting their minds or deadening their affections, so as to make them the skeletons of duties without a soul to enliven and actuate them, naked forms without any power of godliness." William Spurstowe, The Wiles of Satan, p. 55

Bonaventure

"The devil may allure, God alone can effectually change, but none can compel us." William Spurstowe, The Wiles of Satan, p. 33

Armor of God

"Oh, what a troublesome passage must every Christian expect in his way to heaven, who is to conflict with armies of these infernal Anakims? How necessary is it that he put on the armor of God to obtain a victory? For in his own might no man can prevail. If Elijah, a prophet of a heroic spirit, complained of his being left alone to contest with the priests of Baal and the idolaters of Israel, so as to grow weary of his life, how apt will the best of men be to faint and sink in the long and sharp forces and powers of darkness if not aided and supported by the strength of Christ? If therefore we would be successful combatants in the spiritual warfare, we must do as David did, who prepared to encounter Goliath by disarming himself of his warlike habiliments, and going forth only in the name of the Lord of Hosts. We must put off all carnal confidence, which will be useless to us as Saul's armor was to David, and be strong only in the Lord, and in the power of His might. This is what will both animate us in the fight and give unto us an assured victory in the issue." William Spurstowe, The Wiles of Satan, p. 28

The Great Ability of Satan to Tempt

"his experience animates him with the confidence to assault the best and holiest of saints; if not to extinguish their light, yet to eclipse their luster; if not to cause a shipwreck, yet to raise a storm; if not to hinder their happy end, yet to molest them in their way." William Spurstowe, The Wiles of Satan, p. 21

Demonstration

"First, his long experience as a tempter has made him exact in discerning and choosing the most fitting reasons for it." William Spurstowe, The Wiles of Satan, p. 18

Demonstration

"...the duration and long experience of the devil, who has thereby become skillful to destroy, and to have his temptations be like the arrows of a mighty expert man, none of which return in vain (Jeremiah 50:9)." William Spurstowe, The Wiles of Satan, p. 16

Demonstration

"In his nature, he is both spiritual and an intellectual essence, in each of which respects his advantage over man is very great..." William Spurstowe, The Wiles of Satan, p. 10

life

"This (eternal) life on the new earth is nothing other than the full realization of the covenant. God, who from eternity bound himself to be our God - and not to be God in any other way - here proves himself indisputably and undeniably our God, who completely cares for us both directly (Rev. 21:3-4) and indirectly (symbolized by the removal of the sea in v. 1). We come to be God's faithful covenant partners and children..." Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 241

Prayer Requests

"In the old testament, death is seen as the ultimate threat; only Israel's faith that the Lord's power extended even over death allowed the people to hope for a resurrection. The real gain of the New Testament is that this hope is fulfilled in the resurrection of Christ, simultaneously retaining its character of a promise still to be fulfilled in our resurrection. Christ the firstborn has arisen. The rest of necessity follows (1 Cor. 15: 20-23). Christ's resurrection is the warranty of our own." Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 227

Resurrection

"The tremendous importance of our resurrection is not bound up with the cosmic dimensions of salvation only, but also with Christ's resurrection. Indeed, the resurrection of Christ was the core of the joyful message proclaimed by the disciples, and his resurrection is inseparably connected with ours (1 Cor. 15:13). 'From the outset both were inseparable for faith.'" Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 226

Healing

"He is never less concerned about physical than about spiritual need(Mark 6:34ff.) Salvation is strikingly linked with physical healing in Acts 4:9: Peter pronounces the cripple "saved" ("cured," NEB), and goes on to speak of the only name in whom and through whom is salvation (v. 12). So physical healing is an essential part of the salvation brought by Jesus; "spiritualizing" the gospel makes it something foreign - in fact, no gospel at all." Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 226

Resurrection

"It is unthinkable, in biblical terms, for a person to deny the resurrection while taking comfort in knowing that his soul(thought the superior component) is saved. The sould is not saved if the body does not rise, since this would mean that God had abandoned the work of his hands. Then all his promises would lapse. If the body does not rise, then "your faith has nothing in it and you are still in your old state of sin. It follows also that those who have died within Christ's fellowship are utterly lost" (1 Cor. 15:17-18)." Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 226

Hell

"In fact, hell is as much a reality as the new earth, but it is a reality which stands in a different relation to God than that of the new earth. To be precise, hell is no part of the executions of God's creation plan; it is only the reality of his displeasure." Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 223

Biblical Gender Roles

"The idea of headship and submission never began! It has always existed in the eternal nature of God Himself. And in this most basic of all authority relationships, authority is not based on gifts or ability; it is just there…. [The relationship between Father and Son, and Holy Spirit] is one of leadership and authority on the one hand and voluntary, willing, joyful submission to that authority on the other hand. We can learn from this that submission to a rightful authority is a noble virtue. It is a privilege. It is something good and desirable. It is the virtue that has been demonstrated by the eternal son of God forever. It is His glory, the glory of the son as He relates to His Father."

~Wayne Grudem, qtd. in Feminine Appeal – Seven Virtues of a Godly Wife and Mother p. 122

Hell

"The sentence of final damnation is not a realization of the eschaton or telos, God's original purpose in creation. Hell is indeed an end, but only an end without an accomplished goal-i.e., an end which is miscarried. Just as Christ does not realize God's goal and so the eschaton during the interim period in unbelievers, so also hell is no realization of the eschaton with them. What happens is that the decisive character of unbelief produces a miscarriage."

Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 221

Eschatology-Justification by faith

"The Bible knows no tension between justification by faith and judgment by works. That the object of our works is the Lord himself(represented in the least important of his brothers) shows at once the decisive unity of faith and works. Works are the result and vindication of faith(James 2:14ff.)."

Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 217

Eschatology- The Last Judgement

"The last judgment is therefore not decisive in the sense that any person's eternal future remains in the balance up to that moment, God then judging that person according to criteria which up to then remained obscure. Judgment is completed during the interim period, in the sense that faith in Christ or rejection of Him is decisive. The believer knows already that he or she will not be lost (John 3:16), will not come up for judgment (3:18, 5:24), but has eternal life (3:36, 1 John 5:11-13). Similarly, to the disobedient it must be proclaimed that they will not see eternal life, but that God's wrath rests on them (John 3:36)."

~Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 217

Eschatology- Second Coming

"According to Barth the content of the second coming is the same as that of the cross and resurrection: proclamation that he who was judged on Golgotha is the judge of the living and dead and that in him salvation and consummation have dawned. The only difference is that everything has a provisional and passing form at Christ's resurrection, a sense of being the end in penultimate form."

~Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 210

Eschatology-Second Advent

"Whenever the imminence of the second advent functions properly in its biblical context as a call to unceasing vigilance and service, there God's people cease from their calculations and are no longer confused."

Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 200

Eschatology-Anti-Christ

"...'you do not know when the moment comes' (Mark 13:33). It is a grave misunderstanding of the signs of the times and of the nearness of the Lord's return to interpret Israel's return to Palestine as a sign that the second coming is about to take place or to expect the prophecy of Antichrist to be fulfilled in one personal Antichrist. This undermines the message which the Church has had to preach during every one of the past nineteen centuries, which is that Christ's second coming is near and may happen at any time."

~Andrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 193

Eschatology

"This much-abused book is thought by many Christians to predict events which will occur only many centuries later. In fact it is filled with an urgent message for the Christians who lived when it was written. They had to be ready, for it spoke of things that "must shortly" (1:1) because "the hour of fulfillment is near" (1:3) and because Christ is "coming soon" (3:11). Three times in Revelation 22 Jesus says, "I am coming soon." This is another instance, not of distant things, but of signs which lay before the door, not the distant, since the Judge was at the door (James 5:9)."

~Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 192

Hell

"But it is still God who pronounces the verdict. It is he who in his grace and love determines to relive us in this hopeless situation and bring us back into fellowship by virture of his Son's merits. But he also determines to abandon the unbeliever, who refuses his help and will not tread the path back to happiness opened by God in his goodness. In this way God remains the king, the sovereign Lord, but the lost have no one but themselves to blame for their condition."

Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 221

Eschatology

"We should note that the reason God's goal is truly realized in the church-- as it was not in Israel-- is not that we have been more faithful or exercised our calling more effectively than the people of Israel; rather, Christ has come and-- without our aid-- realized the covenant for us and has created the new humanity independently of our faith (Eph. 2:15). The Church existed in Christ before any individuals came to faith. He is the eschatos, who reaches the eschaton before our decision of faith, thus guaranteeing that where Israel failed the Church succeeds. That the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church, while Israel is rejected (Matt. 16:18; Rom. 11:15), is, from salvation-historical viewpoint, owing to no virtue of the Church but to Christ. And this is exactly what opens a new perspective for Israel."

~Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p.164

Faith, Eschatology

"Precisely because faith is neither a human accomplishment nor a human contribution, but rather a confession that everything has been done for us by Christ, we have no Christ if we have no faith."

Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 159

Eschatology

"The whole range of the Spirit's activities is what Christ does through him, whether as a continuation of that already begun during Christ's earthly ministry or as a something new. Whatever the Spirit does, he does as the Spirit of Christ. So Christ does it- in and through him."

Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 145

Eschatology, Ascension

"It follows that the ascension did not inaugurate a period of mourning. It was not the beginning of the time of which Jesus said, "the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and on that day they will fast" (Mark 2:20). That "day" came between the crucifixion and the resurrection. But Luke reports that immediately after Jesus' ascension "they returned to Jerusalem with great joy and spent all their time in the temple, praising God" (Luke 24:52ff.)."

~Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 142.

Eschatology

"For Jesus, the Kingdom of God meant exactly that-the reign of God over this world and its inhabitants. It meant the driving out of Satan, the cleansing of this world's ills, and the restoration, the recreation, of the garden where man could walk with God in the cool of the evening and God could say, 'It is good.'"

~Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 121

Jesus' Miracles

"Jesus' miracles affect a disordered nature: since we must someday rise bodily, the earth must be remade. Jesus begins this already during his earthly ministry. The kingdom is his gracious dominion for the salvation of his entire creation."

Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 120

Eschatology

"Only now is it clear just how radically Cullmann's linear view of time affects his whole outlook on the New Testament. For him, New Testament eschatology is more a matter of time categories than of a person. That is why he finds it so easy to fit Jesus into a series of things which must happen. Jesus and his kingdom are only one more step toward a consummation which draws ever nearer, as a certain new things happen."

Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 110

The Birth of Christ

"... The theologically decisive and interesting point is not the fact that goes back to Dionysius Exiguus, that the birth of Christ was taken as the starting point of subsequent enumeration.... The decisive thing is rather the practice, which has been in vogue only for the last two centuries, of numbering both forward and backward from the birth of Christ. Only when this is done is the Christ-event regarded as the temporal mid-point of the entire historical process.
We say "Christian system of reckoning time." But it is the common system in the Western world.... Yet today scarcely anyone thinks of the fact that this division is not merely a convention resting upon Christian tradition, but actually presupposes fundamental assertions of New Testament theology concerning time and history."

Oscar Cullmann Quoted by Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and The Future, p. 28

Eschatology

"In light of these equations between Jesus and the kingdom, we must affirm with Origen that Jesus is the autobasileia, the kingdom-as-person."

~Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 108

History

"The twentieth-century Church of Christ is spiritually unable to stand against the rapid changes that take place around her because she has not learned to view history from the perspective of the reign of Christ. For that reason, she thinks of the events of her own time in entirely secular terms. She is overcome with fear in a worldly manner, and in a worldly manner she tries to free herself from fear. In this process God functions as no more than a beneficent stop-gap."

Hendrickus Berkhof Quoted by Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and The Future, p. 23

Eschatology

"The Gospels are not disciples' diaries, written day after each day with Jesus about the experiences of that day. They were written after his resurrection and express the meaning of his birth, words, deeds, and cross in the light of that resurrection. Had he not risen, no Gospels would have been written; because he did, it is clear that he is God's Son (Rom. 1:4)"

~Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 9

Fear

"Our generation is strangled by fear: fear of man, for his future, and for the direction in which we are driven against our will and desire. And out of this comes a cry of illumination concerning the meaning of the existence of mankind, and concerning the goal to which we are directed. It is a cry for an answer to the old question of the meaning of history."

Hendrikus Berkhof Qtd. by Anthony A Hoekema, The Bible and The Future, p.23

Eschatology

"Obviously this 'perishable' body is not replaced by a new, glorified one. Rather it is changed, and it is as a changed body that 'this perishable' body enters glory. So there is at least historical continuity between the two."

~Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 94

Hope

"With us human beings, hope for a happy future usually rises from poverty and uncertainty; the Christian hope, however, rises from a possession which opens many more vistas for the future. That is why hope is regularly found in connection with faith and love, which are both possessions. But the very fact that we possess makes us feel painfully what we still miss; it 'tastes like more.' Hope therefore is the fruit of both possession and lack."

Hendrikus Berkhof quoted by Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, Pg.21

Apocolyptic

"His comparison makes it clear that we can deduce nothing about the resurrection body from contemplation of our present bodies. "What you sow is no the body that shall be, but a naked grain...and God clothes it with a body of his choice" (vv 37, 38). "The splendor of the heavenly bodies is one thing, the splendor of the earthly, another" (v. 40)."

Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 93

The End

Christianity, therefore, from the beginning exhibits an essential bipolarity. The End has come! The End has not come! And neither grace nor glory, neither present proleptic fruition nor future perfection of life in God can be omitted from the picture without the reality being destroyed.

Anthony A Hoekema, The Bible and The Future, Pg.14

Apocolyptic

The use of imagery limits our knowledge of resurrection. But we have no alternative, since resurrection is without analogy. This restricts us to "negative knowledge", i.e., to knowledge of what it is not rather than of what it is. We have already said that resurrection is not merely becoming alive again; it is conquering death. Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 93

Apocolyptic

"This is the point at which eschatology breaks through ordinary history and becomes apocolyptic. We now enter a realm of which we have no experience, for which we have no analogy. It is futile to doubt or deny the resurrection because we have no experience of dead people rising and so no analogies for Jesus' resurrection. The apocolyptic sphere is that for which no analogies exist, the realm where radically new things happen. This explains why apocolypctic message are so often couched in strange and unparalled imagery, as in the book of Revelation."

Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 92

Redemption

"The biblical idea of redemption always includes the earth. Hebrew thought saw an essential unity between man and nature. The prophets do not think of the earth as merely the indifferent theater on which man carries out his normal task but as the expression of the divine glory. The Old Testament nowhere holds forth the hope of a bodiless, nonmaterial, purely "spiritual" redemption as did Greek thought. The earth is the divinely ordained scene of human existence. Furthermore, the earth has been involved in the evils which sin has incurred. There is an interrelation of nature with the moral life of man; therefore the earth must also share in God's final redemption."

Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, Pg. 11

Incarnation

Jesus reveals God as the God who cares, who comes to live among us, who shares our lot, who makes our lost cause his cause, and who adopts us as his children and heirs. Jesus also reveals the true human being, who serves God from love, who finds life's meaning in service to God and neighbor, and who exists for others. God's goal for his creation-"I shall be your God, and you shall be my people"- is our most concise summary of the covenant. In Jesus' life, both parts become a reality: he reveals the true god who loves us and the true human person who serves God in thankfulness.

Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 87

Eschatology

"From first to lat, and not merely in the epilogue, Christianity is eschatology, is hope, forward looking and forward moving, and therefore also revolutionizing and transforming the present. The eschatological is not one element of Christianity, but it is the medium of the Christian faith as such, the key in which everything in it is set.... Hence eschatology cannot really be only a part of Christian doctrine. Rather, the eschatological outlook is characteristic of all Christian proclamation, and of every Christian existence and of the whole Church."

Jurgen Moltmann Quoted by Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and The Future, Pg. 3

Gnosticism

Gnosticism is a rather broad term. Essentially it refers to the Greek idea which regarded all matter as inherently evil while good lies in the spirit or soul of man. The Gnostics thus taught that salvation did not include the physical body. Their highest aspiration was to be released from their imprisonment in the body so that the soul could be free. Gnostic thought affected Christianity by denying that Jesus had come in the flesh. 1 John 4:1-3  is almost certainly aimed at Gnostics.

Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan, Pg. 243

Eschatology

He is the eschatos; in him the eschaton is already present, as well as being still in the future. "Beginning" and "development" are of little value here. Because this person has come, the eschaton has come; because this person will come again, the eschaton lies still in the future. Mere development and occurence of new things are a wholly inadequate description of eschatology. Tim, after passing of time, and development play their parts only because this person, Jesus Christ, has a history and lives it out in time. Eschatology cannot be subsumed into time-lapse, because the end cannot be restricted to a specific point of time or a period in history. Because is the end, his whole history is the actualization of the end, the fulfillment, and the goal. Eschatology is not primarily interest in the endtime, be it near or far, but in the End, a person. Therefore it is concerned with the manner in which he reaches the end or gal. He has reached it for us; he reaches it in us now; he will reach it in the future with us (and this of course invovles normal time-lapse and thus the salvation-historical character of eschatology).

Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 86

Legalism

The New Testament contains many passages of command and exhortation to live holy lives. When we remove these from the wider context of the already perfect status before God that we possess thought faith in Christ, then we reduce Christian living to a form of legalism quite foreign to the New Testament. The corrective to this is to keep firmly in our minds that the whole of Christian existence is the application of the gospel to every part of our lives. We start with Christ as the new creation for us, and move towards the goal, which is to be made like him in the universal new creation. As in biblical theology, so in Christian living, Christ is Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan, Pg. 233

Eschatology and Atonement

From this perspective, the atonement can never mean less than the realization of the eschaton. To characterize the atonement as a mere possibility to be realized later by our faith, or to regard it as objective-awaiting later subjective actualization(usually implying that this actualization is the decisive factor!) is to miss both the eschatological reality of the atonement and the radicality of a number New Testament statements (e.g., John 19:28; Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:18-19; Eph. 2:15-16; Col. 1:20; 2:4). Such statements concern nothing less than the peace which has been restored, the eschaton which has been realized, and the covenant, God's goal in creation, which has come into being. When God no longer holds our sins against us, when there is peace between ourselves and God, and when he has made us his friends, then he is our God and we are his people. Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology,p. 83

The Resurrection

The Resurrection is central because it presupposes his death and because it stands as the new beginning of the human race. It may be for this reason that the birth of Jesus as the new creation is not a theme that is developed in the New Testament. The new humanity rises in the resurrection of Jesus; and in our own bodily resurrection, our participation in the kingdom will cease to be one that is experienced by faith alone and will become a fact of our total experience. Thus, we are born again by Christ's resurrection (1 Peter 1:3). Through his resurrection we enter into newness of life (Rom 6:4-11)

Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan, Pg. 229

Salvation

The end of the old age occurs when Jesus comes the first time because he is the embodiment of the new age. Yet the old age continues to exist along with the new age so that the two overlap. The idea that the end has come and the fact that the end is not yet come, corresponds to the Christian being saved and still waiting to be saved. Jesus comes into conflict with the old age because he invades it to destroy it. In this conflict he is rejected, suffers ad dies. The suffering ministry of Christ as the servant lies at the heart of the gospel.

Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan, Pg. 228

prophecies

These prophecies about the end, fulfilled in a sense during Jesus' crucifixion, show just how definetely the New Testament writers saw the crucifixion in an eschatological light. Yet these prophecies are not fulfilled in every way at the crucifixion; they possess dimensions which still await fulfillment. This shows how unsystematically the New Testament writers approach eschatology. Prophecies which refer to the end can be fulfilled both at the crucifixion and later. This should serve as a warning against taking a narrowly eschatological view of the crucifixion, as though it excluded all future expectation. Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 76

Heb. 9:26

"The context of this expression leaves little room for doubt of its meaning. It is used as the opposite of "since the world was made." So we have the beginning and the end of the world, and writer regards the incarnation and earthly life of Jesus as this end. Only two verses later it is said that Christ "will appear a second time" (v. 28). This does not mean that the "the end of the age"- the incarnation-is after all not that end. It is, rather, an indication just how free and unsystematic early Christian thought on this subject really was, how freely it could move when contemplating the end-precisely because, for those people, the end was a person and his history, not specific events called "the last things." This is just one more instance of how a single goal may be reached several times."

Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 71

Eschatology

...denying the resurrection of the body jepordizes the meaning of the entire gospel. This perspective, that of the human person as a whole, is part of eschatology's cosmic significance. Jsus did not just "save souls" when on earth. The gospels hold more accounts of miraculous healings than of forgiveness of sins. This means that the physical aspects of the human being must also be addressed by eschatology. Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 68

Covenant

As Schoonenberg encapsulates it in a single sentence, "salvation consists in the covenant between God and man, and the God-man is the covenant in person." Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 58

Sanctification

Christ, then, becomes our other identity, our alter ego. We possess and know this other self only faith, hence we "live by faith, not by sight" (2 Cor 5:7). Consequently, we have died with Christ and have been buried with him (Rom 6:3-11; Gal 2:19-20; Col 2:12,20), we have also been raised with him (Rom 6:4-5, 11; 1 Cor 15:22; Eph 2:5) and we have ascended to the Father with him (Eph 2:6). In Christ we are a new creation (2 Cor 5:17). None of these things are goals for us to achieve for they already exist perfectly in Christ on our behalf.

Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan, Pg. 221

Jesus the Man

He became a human not for himself but for us, to be our representative before God. He came to stand in for us, for the faithless partner, enabling us to stand in his place at God's right hand. Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 58

Sanctification

Certainly the Spirit dwells in us, but he does so to maintain our faith-union with Christ. This union, which is signified by baptism, is described as effecting something quite amazing. It means that what took place in Christ in his life, death and resurrection, God now regards as having involved us. The merits and perfection of Christ are applied to us so that what belongs to him as the true Son of God, belongs to us who are caught up "in him".

Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan, Pg. 220

The Gospel & Sanctification

Examination of the New Testament documents shows that growth is not stepping out from the gospel, but rather stepping out with the gospel. Many of the problems dealt with in the epistles arise from a failure to apply the gospel to some aspect of life. The solution to this problem is to restore the gospel to its rightful place at the center of our thinking and doing.

Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan, Pg. 219

Gratitude and Obedience

The call to obey God's commandments is so urgent throughout the Bible because it is a call to gratitude, and it is really unthinkable that gratitude should not be the result of grace. Though a person may have freedom of choice in the prescence of idols, choosing whether to obey or not, we have no choice when God commands us. Obedience is the only possible response. Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 57

Baptism of The Holy Spirit

The giving of the Spirit is related to the person and work of Christ. Just as Jesus undoubtedly had the Spirit before his baptism, so the disciples had the Spirit before Pentecost. At his baptism, the Spirit came on Jesus with respect to his task as the Savior. The disciples, if they were believing Jews, had the Spirit with respect to the foreshadowing of Jesus in the Old Testament Covenant. As disciples of Jesus, their faith in him as their Master was a divine gift and therefore of the Spirit. At Pentecost the Holy Spirit comes upon them for the first time with respect to the fully revealed Christ. This can happen only after he is glorified (Jn 7:39).

Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan, Pg. 214

Reconcilation

Because God is the covenant God whom we know in Jesus, reconciliation is his answer to our breaking of his covenant. Reconciliation is more than a reaction to faithlessness; it is the pursuit of God's original act, through which he intends to realize his goal, the covenant. Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 57

Temptation

The last Adam emerges to be head of a new human race. He fulfills Adam's tasks perfectly. He is tempted in like manner, so that by overcoming he might bring his new people back into the garden, into fellowship with God.

Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan, Pg. 204

Promise Land

On the basis of this interpretation of the prophetic promises, the Jews were waiting for a return of a great crowd of people to the Promised Land. Event he remnant would be a considerable group. They were not prepared for the true people of God to be one man. They could not see that everything that God had intended for intended for Adam and then for Israel was being fulfilled in the perfectly sinless human existence of Jesus.

Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan, Pg. 204

Creation and Grace

If grace is God's free favor to his creatures, then creation is grace. We could never merit being made by God; it was not necessary that he make us. He did not need us. So in making us, he bestows an incomparabl favor on us: the opportunity to be his creatures, for whom he takes responsibility and for whom he cares. He makes it possible for us to enjoy his favor, love, and happiness by giving us the opportunity of living in his communion of love. Above all, he enables us to praise and adore him and give him glory. All this is conferred by a greater upon a lesser, by God upon us. It is nothing less than grace. Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 53

Prophets

The Prophets warn that the unconditional blessing of the covenant cannot be enjoyed by those who continue to break the covenant.

Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan, Pg. 182

Wisdom Literature

The Psalms and the works of wisdom show that the history of redemption, the covenant and the prophetic word from God, are not merely religious ideas or statements about the past but encounters with the living God. The great objective facts of God's work for his people to save them can never remain merely out there. They are the foundation for spiritual experience and endeavor. They motivate and shape piety, worship and good deeds. They are the indispensable means by which the Spirit of God regenerates the heart, mind and soul of those whom he calls into fellowship with himself.

Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan, Pg. 177

Repentance

God is the One who is Jesus surrenders his life that we might live(John 10:11ff.) and moreover, who devotes himself to our health, safety, and happiness(as shown by healing, feeding, and nature, miracles). In widest sense of the word, we learn to know in Jesus a God who is for us, who does not wish any to perish, but that will come to repentance(Ezek. 33:11; 2 Pet. 3:9). He is the God who is good to all and whose compassion extends to all his works (ps. 145:9). His wrath endure only for a moment, but his mercy is eternal (Isa. 54:7ff.; Ps. 30:6). Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ Eschatology, p. 49

Wisdom & Suffering

The believer may encounter suffering and tragedy that seem to be senseless and a denial of God's care and control of events. The book of Job explores the problem of this hidden order and how wisdom may find its greatest expression in the humble recognition that humans are puny creatures, and that God's loving kindness may be expressed in ways that we simply cannot grasp.

Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan, Pg. 176

Jesus

Jesus cannot be imagined apart from his existence and activity for the world and humanity. His healings, his miracles, his teachings, and his parables are all nothing else than an exegesis of Immanuel, God-with-us. Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, p. 49