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Wyatt Graham

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Eternal Generation

ERAS Cannot Distinguish The Spirit from the Son And Father

May 23, 2019 by wagraham 1 Comment

Christians speak of the Son as being “the only begotten Son” (John 3:16) from all time to give words to how they can confess the oneness of God and say: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” (Rev 5:13).

If God sired the Son from all time, then the Son’s filial relationship to the Father has always described their relationship. It was an eternal begetting or an eternal generation.

Recently a number of Christians have either denied eternal generation, supplanted it, or at the very least have redefined it. The new paradigm takes the name Eternal Relations of Authority and Submission (ERAS).

At least two major obstacles stand before ERAS. First, how can one God eternally obey the one God? That implies two wills. But God is one and so has one will. So he cannot obey his own will.

Second, and what I want to focus on here, ERAS does not articulate how the Spirit can be distinguished from the Father and Son. In short, it cannot explain our worship or liturgical practice of baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

[Read more…] about ERAS Cannot Distinguish The Spirit from the Son And Father

Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: Eternal Generation, Trinity

How Names of God Reveal the Nature of God

March 20, 2018 by wagraham Leave a Comment

Image of Christ from the Hagia Sophia

One of the paradoxes of our faith is that God both reveals himself to us and yet is incomprehensible. We know him in part, yet we do not know him in full (at least, not yet).

And yet: we know God in part. It’s a real knowing, a real understanding. One of the best ways to learn about God is to focus on his names or titles in the Bible.

Here is a short sketch of some names of God in the Bible that reveal God’s nature. These names reveal how the Father and Son relate to another and how God is eternally beneficent and always shares of himself.* [Read more…] about How Names of God Reveal the Nature of God

Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: Eternal Generation, Trinity

Review of Retrieving Eternal Generation Edited by Fred Sanders and Scott Swain

March 16, 2018 by wagraham 2 Comments

Numerous books

Retrieving Eternal Generation edited by Fred Sanders & Scott R. Swain. Grand Rapid: Zondervan, 2017.

One of the most beneficial pursuits is the pursuit of the past. In recent days, Christians have particularly benefited from retrieving the spirituality of the past, the wisdom that earlier generations have left for them. And rightly so. Accessing the past’s wisdom is vital to spiritual growth.

Over the centuries, believers struggled to understand their scripture and the life of faith. But the Spirit has not been inactive among the faithful. And so learning from earlier Christian exegetes and from earlier Christian theologians offers great benefit for today. After all, Christianity didn’t appear suddenly in the late second millennium within North America. We have a heritage, a spiritual ancestry.

And this is why Retrieving Eternal Generation is so important. It offers the wisdom of two thousand years of meditation on Scripture and God. [Read more…] about Review of Retrieving Eternal Generation Edited by Fred Sanders and Scott Swain

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: Book Review, Eternal Generation

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Author Bio

Wyatt is the Executive Director of The Gospel Coalition Canada. He enjoys his family and writing. You'll generally find him hiding away somewhere with his nose in a book. Twitter: @wagraham; Instagram: wyattagraham. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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