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Wyatt Graham

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Theology

One Reason Why Pettiness Is Regarded as Piety

March 9, 2022 by wagraham 1 Comment

Herman Bavinck once wrote, “There is so much narrow-mindedness, so much pettiness among us, and the worst thing is that this is regarded as piety.” Bavinck was referring to two Christian groups the separatist churches of the Grievers and Seceders. Both groups left the state church, but they could not get along. 

Why? Not because of matters of orthodox doctrine. Both had it. But because of pettiness and narrow-mindedness. It is the old problem of Donatism, of a drive for purity that that cuts itself off from other people. We often feel holier than the body of Christ. 

But Jesus accepts us just as we are by faith. And so the body of Christ should welcome one another just as Christ welcomed us (Rom 15:7). To do anything less is to miss the mark of Christ’s love and formation of his body, the church.   

One reason why we often become petty and narrow-minded as Bavinck says is because we do not understand how God’s Spirit gifts the created world and people in it, even of unbelievers or believers whom we disagree with. We think we are at the centre of it all. We are not because any truth or goodness that we find in this world has its origin in God.  [Read more…] about One Reason Why Pettiness Is Regarded as Piety

Filed Under: Culture, Theology Tagged With: Holy Spirit, Natural Theology, Reformed Theology

Christ Reigns over All Governments Now

February 14, 2022 by wagraham 1 Comment

Christ reigns over all governments.

Christ is not waiting for politicians to submit.

Christ is not waiting for our Prime Minister to adopt biblical law so that he can be Lord of Canada.

Christ reigns. He is Lord. [Read more…] about Christ Reigns over All Governments Now

Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: Political Theology

On God’s Law in Nature

January 30, 2022 by wagraham 4 Comments

pen on paper

The reformed or Calvinist thinker Johannes Althusius (1557–1638) identified natural law (or common) as that law which God inscribed on the heart. Hence, it is common to all people, as God’s law in nature. God then uses our conscience to excuse or excuse us (Rom 2).

It is important to realize that this is the near-universal view of reformed thinkers from Amandus Polanus to John Calvin to whomever.

Natural law is not some law inside nature and apart from God, as Rushdoony believed, but rather it is the law of God inscribed upon our hearts as Paul the Apostle believed (Rom 2:14-15).

Where the rubber meets the road, however, is when it comes to obedience to God’s law. [Read more…] about On God’s Law in Nature

Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: Christian Reconstructionism, Natural Law, Theonomy

Do We Have Souls and Bodies?

January 28, 2022 by wagraham Leave a Comment

Most people believe in something like the soul. We know we live embodied lives. We also recognize that when we die, our bodies decompose. So if we live on, we live on without the body in some sense. Christians believe, however, in the resurrection of the body when we will once again reunite with our (then) immortal and incorrupt bodies. 

But about in the meantime? What has the apostle Paul been doing for 2,000 years without his resurrection body? In what way or form has he lived? Some might say, he has not lived since his soul has merely slept, unconscious of life, until the resurrection. But that simply won’t do because of how the Bible talks about life, death, and life after death.  [Read more…] about Do We Have Souls and Bodies?

Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: Soul

God’s Simplicity Means God Is His Attributes

January 1, 2022 by wagraham 1 Comment

Provides name of author and description of website as well as Twitter handle

Over the past while, some Christians have disagreed about how to talk about God’s nature. The disagreement centres on how to talk about God’s attributes. Everyone agrees that the Bible says God is just, merciful, and holy. 

Yet some conclude that each attribute of God can be distinguished in God because the Bible says God is each of these things.  Others say that each attribute of God cannot be distinguished in God but only in our minds. 

At the heart of the debate then is this: in God, are his attributes distinct, or is God One and we perceive his attributes as distinct things? 

I affirm that all that is in God is God because it better matches God’s revelation in Scripture and accords with reason. [Read more…] about God’s Simplicity Means God Is His Attributes

Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: Simplicity

Eternal Submission? Not Arianism, but still Wrong

November 10, 2021 by wagraham 7 Comments

pen on paper

In 2016 Evangelicals debated about the best way to affirm that God is one and yet Father and Son. The old answer is: the Father begets the Son eternally; the Son is eternally begotten. Beget and begotten are old words to describe how fathers generate children. A mother births them; a father begets. 

In recent years, evangelicals attempted to find a new way to talk about Father and Son. They said that the Father relates to the Son because he has paternal authority; the Son relates to the Father in a mode of submission. Authority and submission distinguish Father and Son. 

For the most part, people found the new approach insufficient. It implied eternal inferiority of the Son, implied two wills, and inserted the human life of Jesus where he obeyed the Father into God. It unintentionally implied a creaturely characteristic in God since Jesus’s creaturely obedience to the Father gets imported into how God is eternally! 

Recently, however, a theologian reaffirmed that the Father eternally has authority over the eternally submissive Son. Interestingly, the theologian cited Augustine and Hilary of Poitiers as proponents of his position.  [Read more…] about Eternal Submission? Not Arianism, but still Wrong

Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: Eternal Submission, Trinity

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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.

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