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by
Wayne Grudem
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March 15 - December 27, 2021
THE PUNISHMENT OF SIN
The primary reason is that God’s righteousness demands it,
“This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins” (Rom. 3:25).
The Covenants between God and Man What principles determine the way God relates to us?
They may be superseded or replaced by a different covenant, but they may not be changed once they are established.
After the fall, God removed Adam and Eve from the garden, partly so that they would not be able to take from the tree of life “and eat, and live forever” (Gen. 3:22).
the covenant that existed before the fall has been referred to by various terms (such as the Adamic Covenant, or the Covenant of Nature), the most helpful designation seems to be “covenant of works,”
clearly depended on obedience or “works” on the part of Adam and Eve.
THE COVENANT OF REDEMPTION
a covenant that is not between God and man but is among the members of the Trinity. This covenant they call the “covenant of redemption.”
On the part of the Son, there was an agreement that he would come into the world as a man and live as a man under the Mosaic law (Gal. 4:4; Heb. 2:14–18), and that he would be perfectly obedient to all the commands of the Father (Heb. 10:7–9),
THE COVENANT OF GRACE
our faith in Christ is genuine, it will produce obedience (see James 2:17), and obedience to Christ is in the New Testament seen as necessary evidence that we are truly believers and members of the new covenant (see 1 John 2:4–6).
The Noahic Covenant. The covenant that God made with Noah after the flood (Gen. 9:8–17) is substantially different from the ones that follow, so there is some question whether it should be categorized with the other covenants that follow, that clearly belong in the category “covenant of grace”—but it does also depend on God’s grace.
God promised all mankind and the animal creation that the earth would no longer be destroyed by a flood.
The Abrahamic Covenant. Beginning with the covenant with Abraham (Gen. 15:1–21; 17:1–27), the essential elements of the covenant of grace are all present.
The Mosaic Covenant. What then is the “old covenant” in contrast with the “new covenant” in Christ? It is not the whole of the Old Testament because the covenants with Abraham and David are never called “old” in the New Testament. Rather, only the covenant under Moses, the covenant made at Mount Sinai (Ex. 19–24), is called the “old covenant” (2 Cor. 3:14; cf. Heb. 8:6, 13)
The Davidic Covenant. The covenant that God made with David does not replace the covenant with Abraham or the covenant with Moses but assumes their continuing validity and adds the new promise that the throne of kingship over God’s people would belong to David and his descendants forever, with certain conditions regarding the conduct of individual kings.
The New Covenant. The new covenant in Christ is far better because it fulfills the promises of a better covenant that were made long ago in Jeremiah 31:31–34, promises that were later quoted in Hebrews 8:6–13:
For many decades there have been discussions between the advocates of covenant theology and the advocates of dispensationalism.
above is representative of covenant theology, with its emphasis on the continuity between the Old Testament and New Testament (in the covenant of grace).
dispensationalism emphasizes discontinuity between the ways God related to people during periods of history, or “dispensations.” The seven dispensations are (1) innocence (Gen. 1:28–30), (2) conscience (Gen. 3:8–8:22), (3) human government (Gen. 8–11), (4) promise (Gen. 12–Ex. 19:22), (5) law (Ex. 20–Christ’s death)...
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The Doctrines of Christ and the Holy Spirit
The Person of Christ How is Jesus fully God and fully man, yet one person?
The doctrinal importance of the virgin birth is seen in at least three areas.
First, it shows that salvation ultimately must come from the Lord. Just as God had promised that the “seed” of the woman (Gen. 3:15) would ultimately destroy the serpent, so God brought it about by his own power, not through mere human effort.
unmistakable reminder that salvation can never come thr...
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Second, the virgin birth made possible the uniting of full deity and full humanity in one person.
Third, the virgin birth also makes possible Christ’s true humanity without inherited sin.
the fact that Jesus did not have a human father means that the line of descent from Adam is partially interrupted.
why did Jesus not inherit a sinful nature from Mary? The Roman Catholic Church answers this question by saying that Mary herself was free from sin, but Scripture nowhere teaches this, and it would not really solve the problem anyway (for why then did Mary not inherit sin from her mother?).
Jesus Had a Human Body. The fact that Jesus had a human body just like our human bodies is seen in many passages of Scripture. He was born just as all human babies are born (Luke 2:7).
Jesus became tired just as we do,
Jesus also rose from the dead in a physical, human body, though one that was made perfect and was no longer subject to weakness, disease, or death.
Jesus Had a Human Mind. The fact that Jesus “increased in wisdom” (Luke 2:52) says that he went through a learning process just as all other children do—he learned how to eat, how to talk, how to read and write, and how to be obedient to his parents (see Heb. 5:8). This ordinary learning process was part of the genuine humanity of Christ.
c. Jesus Had a Human Soul and Human Emotions.
“After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit” (John 13:21).
d. People Near Jesus Saw Him as Only a Man.
Jesus made the amazing proclamation, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). If we understand light to represent both truthfulness and moral purity, then Jesus is here claiming to be the source of truth and the source of moral purity and holiness in the world—an astounding claim, and one that could only be made by someone who was free from sin.
Could Jesus Have Sinned?
if Jesus was fully God as well as fully man (and we shall argue below that Scripture clearly and repeatedly teaches this), then must we not also affirm that (in some sense) Jesus also “could not be tempted with evil”?
doctrinal dilemmas where Scripture seems to be teaching things that are, if not directly contradictory, at least very difficult to combine together in our understanding.
Jesus met every temptation to sin not by his divine power but on the strength of his human nature
THE DEITY OF CHRIST
The Word God (Theos) Used of Christ.
The Word Lord (Kyrios) Used of Christ.
unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). Though these words are familiar to us from frequent reading of the Christmas story, we should realize how surprising it would be to any first-century Jew to hear that someone born as a baby was the “Christ” (or “Messiah”)23 and, moreover, that this one who was the Messiah was also “the Lord”—that is, the Lord God himself!
“Today in Bethlehem a baby has been born who is your Savior and your Messiah, and who is also God himself.”
Elizabeth says, “Why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43). Because Jesus was not even born, Elizabeth could not be using the word Lord to mean something like human “master.” She must rather be using it in the strong Old Testament sense,
John not only calls Jesus “God” but also refers to him as “the Word” (Gk. logos). John’s readers would have recognized in this term logos a dual reference, both to the powerful, creative Word of God in the Old Testament by which the heavens and earth were created (Ps. 33:6) and to the organizing or unifying principle of the universe, the thing that held it together and allowed it to make sense, in Greek thinking.
