Evangelical Theology Quotes

“Now while “Jesus wins in the end” is certainly true, it is a rather terse and vague slogan and does not capture the full breadth of what eschatology means.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“Perichoresis is our way of describing how the life of each divine person flows through each of the others, so that each divine person infuses the others and each has direct access to the consciousness of the others. It implies that the three persons of the Trinity exist only in a mutual reciprocal relatedness to each other.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“In the Nicene Creed, incarnation and redemption are also bound up together. Hence the words, “For us and for our salvation, he came down from heaven.” In Christian theology, the economy of salvation and the identity of Jesus Christ are intertwined. As such there is an indissoluble unity between the person of Christ and the work of Christ.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“Paul concludes his description of the Lord’s Supper with the words “for whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26). The meal that believers regularly celebrated was not just a celebration of Jesus’s death and resurrection; it also looked forward to his glorious return. Though Jesus is spiritually present at the meal, he is physically absent from the church. The church thus waits for the bodily return of Jesus to raise believers to life, to bring judgment, and to establish an everlasting kingdom.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“The word millennium means one thousand years. Those who believe that Christ will return to establish a millennial kingdom are called either chiliasts or premillennialists. Such a view is derived principally from Revelation 20:4–8,”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“According to the Scriptures, the world will end in an act of glorious new order where heaven comes to earth. This transformed world will radiate the glory of its Creator and the peace of God will reign in all its fullness. At this mother-of-all-endings, Christ returns to establish his kingdom and consummate the new creation.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“According to the Scriptures, the world will end in an act of glorious new order where heaven comes to earth. This transformed world will radiate the glory of its Creator and the peace of God will reign in all its fullness. At”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“Stick that in your zealot pipe and smoke it!”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“What is more, the Trinity is not an esoteric doctrine forged in an unholy marriage of Greek metaphysical speculation and dodgy biblical interpretation. Rather, to experience the salvific blessings of the gospel is to be immersed in a Trinitarian reality.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“The tragedy created in the garden of Eden by the disobedience of one man will be undone by the obedience of another man in the garden of Gethsemane.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“Jesus did not write a book, but he formed a community around him—a community that, at its heart, remembers and rehearses his deeds and words. Such a community has six characteristics: (1) It will be a community of praise. (2) It will be a community of truth. (3) It will be a community that does not live for itself but is deeply involved in local concerns. (4) It will be a community where men and women are prepared for and sustained in the exercise of the”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“Fourth, the ascension demonstrates that God has placed a human being as vice-regent of the universe. Jesus was the preexistent Son of God and was incarnated as a human being. When he was resurrected, he was still God incarnated as a human being, except now he had a glorified human body. When he ascended into heaven, he did not cease to be human, though he does remain the second person of the Trinity. Jesus ascended as a human being, and he remains in this glorified humanity for all of eternity. Hence the one enthroned beside God is a human being. In other words, it is human person who is at the helm of the universe.7”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“What this means is that Jesus was the real deal; but not only that, God’s whole deal with the world had changed. The new age that began as Jesus’ resurrection was the firstfruits of the future resurrection, and he was the firstborn of the new creation (Rom 8:29; 1 Cor 15:20, 23; Col 1:15, 18; Heb 12:23; Rev 1:5). So when the first Christians proclaimed Jesus’ resurrection to outsiders, it wasn’t a case of, “Well, chaps, you’ll never guess what happened last Sunday, our dear friend Yeshua ben Joseph, who got a raw deal at his trial, came back to life after his horrible execution. Isn’t God really nice!” The resurrection meant that Jesus was the climax of God’s plan.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“The church is assailed by Islamic fundamentalism in the East and secular fundamentalism in the West. I hate going into book stores because the religion section is soiled with volumes filled with ultraliberal, antiorthodox propaganda, wishy-washy nonsense of spiritual fuzzy-wuzzy feelings, biographical ramblings of Christian apostates, and greedy charlatans promising wealth and prosperity as if God were some kind of slot machine. I’m not bothered so much that people write these books, but I’m deeply troubled by the fact that so many people buy them. The world is cold, brutal, and dark, and it is only getting worse. If this is the hour approaching the millennium, I tremor to think what a tribulation might be like! Evidently postmillennialists do not receive email updates from Christian parachurch groups that minister to the persecuted church like Voice of the Martyrs and Barnabas Fund because Christians in Sudan, Iran, and North Korea know full well that the millennium ain’t getting closer from their point of view.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“The motto of Wheaton College, “For Christ and His Kingdom,” is based on a postmillennial belief that the church can advance Christ’s kingdom in their revivalist crusades and social work until the present age becomes a millennium of Christ reigning on earth through the church militant.3 Ken Gentry avers: “The historical prospect of gospel victory bringing blessing on all nations comes by gradualistic conversion, not by catastrophic imposition (as in premillennialism) or by apocalyptic conclusion (as in amillennialism).”4”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“We can summarize this by saying that God has one plan to take people from being “in Adam” to being “in Messiah.” We call this plan the covenant of grace. Redemptive history is the manifestation of this covenant as it pertains to the progressive revelation of the God who works for the salvation of his people. The covenant history is neither a series of disconnected dispensations nor a binary pairing of covenants defined by grace versus law; rather, each new covenant presupposes and renews what preceded it.20”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“The new covenant is the eschatological fulfillment of the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants by bringing the Abrahamic promises to bear on Jews and Gentiles through faith in Jesus Christ. What is new in the new covenant is the death and resurrection of Jesus as the means of salvation, Jesus as the object of faith, God’s people as multiethnic, and the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The obligations of the new covenant are not the moral law of the Decalogue but the example of Jesus, the teaching of Jesus, and life in the Spirit. Those things represent the “law of Christ” (Gal 6:2) and their performance fulfills the Mosaic law. Nonetheless, the law remains as a type of wisdom for Christian living, but it no longer defines the constitution or conduct for God’s people.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“(1) Karl Barth was not an evangelical. He was a European Protestant wrestling with how to salvage Protestant Christianity in the wake of World War I, which exposed the debacle of liberal theology. Barth was not an inerrantist or a revivalist, and he was wrestling with a different array of issues than the “battle for the Bible.” (2) Karl Barth is on the side of the good guys when it comes to the major ecumenical doctrines about the Trinity and the atonement. Barth is decidedly orthodox and Reformed in his basic stance, though he sees the councils and confessions mainly as guidelines rather than holy writ. (3) Karl Barth arguably gives evangelicals some good tips about how to do theology over and against liberalism. Keep in mind that Karl Barth’s main sparring partner was not Billy Graham or the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, but the European liberal tradition from Friedrich Schleiermacher to Albert Ritschl. For a case in point, whereas Schleiermacher made the Trinity an appendix to his book on Christian Faith because it was irrelevant to religious experience, Barth made the Trinity first and foremost in his Church Dogmatics, which was Barth’s way of saying, “Suck on that one, Schleiermacher!” (4) Evangelicals and the neoorthodox tend to be rather hostile toward each other. Many evangelicals regard the neoorthodox as nothing more than liberalism reloaded, while many neoorthodox theologians regard evangelicals as a more culturally savvy version of fundamentalism. Not true on either score. Evangelicalism and neoorthodoxy are both theological renewal movements trying to find a biblical and orthodox center in the post-Enlightenment era. The evangelicals left fundamentalism and edged left toward a workable orthodox center. The neoorthodox left liberalism and edged right toward a workable orthodox center. Thus, evangelicalism and neoorthodoxy are more like sibling rivals striving to be the heirs of the Reformers in the post-Enlightenment age. There is much in Karl Barth that evangelicals can benefit from. His theology is arguably the most christocentric ever devised. He has a strong emphasis on God’s transcendence, freedom, love, and “otherness.” Barth stresses the singular power and authority of the Word of God in its threefold form of “Incarnation, Preaching, and Scripture.” Barth strove with others like Karl Rahner to restore the Trinity to its place of importance in modern Christian thought. He was a leader in the Confessing Church until he was expelled from Germany by the Nazi regime. He preached weekly in the Basel prison. His collection of prayers contain moving accounts of his own piety and devotion to God. There is, of course, much to be critical of as well. Barth’s doctrine of election implied a universalism that he could never exegetically reconcile. Barth never could regard Scripture as God’s Word per se as much as it was an instrument for becoming God’s Word. He never took evangelicalism all that seriously, as evidenced by his famous retort to Carl Henry that Christianity Today was Christianity Yesterday. Barth’s theology, pro and con, is something that we must engage if we are to understand the state of modern theology. The best place to start to get your head around Barth is his Evangelical Theology, but note that for Barth, “evangelical” (evangelische) means basically “not Catholic” rather than something like American evangelicalism. Going beyond that, his Göttingen Dogmatics or Dogmatics in Outline is a step up where Barth begins to assemble a system of theology based on his understanding of the Word of God. Then one might like to launch into his multivolume Church Dogmatics with the kind assistance of Geoffrey Bromiley’s Introduction to the Theology of Karl Barth, which conveniently summarizes each section of Church Dogmatics.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“EVANGELICALS AND KARL BARTH You may have noticed that we’ve been talking a lot about this “Karl Barth” chap (pronounced “Bart,” not “Barth”!). For many Protestant theologians Karl Barth simply is modern theology. For some Barthian acolytes everything that we say about theology now is really just a footnote to Karl Barth. When I was teaching in Scotland, I learned that at Aberdeen University there were more people writing doctoral theses on Karl Barth than writing doctoral studies on Jesus and Paul combined!52 For many evangelicals, however, Karl Barth is the bogeyman. The initial reception of Barth by American theologians such as J. G. Machen, Cornelius Van Til, and Carl F. Henry was far from positive. In fact, when I began doctoral studies at university, my pastor prayed that I would not come under the influence of the neoorthodox! I can honestly say that given the many weirdos and whackos that I met in the religious studies department of a secular university, sharing an office with a Barthian postgrad student would have been an absolute delight.53 There are four things young evangelicals need to know about Karl Barth.54”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“The gospel is a theocentric revelation. It is a pronouncement, a proclamation, a publication of good tidings about God. The “gospel of God” is good news from God and about God. It is news in the sense of reporting the events of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. However, it does not simply state facts about Jesus; it also tells us what those facts mean in the context of God’s purposes in redemptive history. What is more, the good news is new news. The gospel tells us something that was otherwise unknown but now made known. Because the gospel tells us something about God, it is didactic in nature and propositional in content. Because the gospel is the place where we encounter God, it is also profoundly personal. The gospel mediates the presence and power of God and imparts the promise of the Holy Spirit. The gospel shows—and we will explore this further—that God’s unveiling of himself is both propositional and personal.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“The problem is that this “doctrinal grid,” which refers to an eternal, conscious punishment of the wicked in hell, is itself not a metaphor taken too seriously but part of the fabric of the biblical warnings about judgment. Daniel contrasts “everlasting life” with “everlasting contempt” (Dan 12:2), and Paul similarly contrasts “death” with “eternal life” (Rom 6:23). The final state is described as “eternal fire” (Matt 18:8; 25:41; Jude 7), and “eternal judgment” (Heb 6:2). Concerning the destruction of God’s enemies, John says that the “smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever” (Rev 14:11; cf. 19:3). It seems, then, that conditionalists disparage those scriptural passages that speak clearly of a never-ending state for those who reject the worship of the true God and the way of humanness that follows from it.27 Eternal punishment is not injurious to God’s justice and love; rather, it upholds it, as Robert Gundry writes: The NT doesn’t put forward eternal punishment of the wicked as a doctrine to be defended because it casts suspicion on God’s justice and love. To the contrary, the NT puts forward eternal punishment as right, even obviously right. It wouldn’t be right of God not to punish the wicked, so that the doctrine supports rather than subverts his justice and love. It shows that he keeps faith with the righteous, that he loves them enough to vindicate them, that he rules according to moral and religious standards that really count, that moral and religious behavior has consequences, that wickedness gets punished as well as righteousness rewarded, and that the eternality of punishment as well as of reward invests the moral and religious behavior of human beings with ultimate significance. We’re not playing games. In short, the doctrine of eternal punishment defends God’s justice and love and supplies an answer to the problem of moral and religious evil rather than contributing to the problem.28”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“In any case, we can speak of a single “salvation” in the Old Testament, understood as entering the promises of God, which consist of God’s dwelling with his people, in his especially prepared place and under his reign. The form of that promise can vary from Adam to Ezra, but the substance remains consistent. Israel’s “gospel” announces that God’s grace precedes human action, faith is the appropriate response to God’s promises, obedience to divine commandments permits the perpetuation of divine blessings, and the goal of salvation is the restoration of communion between Creator and humanity through the chosen people. It is from this story, and not despite it, that we encounter the gospel of God, the gospel of Christ, the gospel of the Son, the gospel of the kingdom, the gospel of salvation, and the gospel of peace.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“The story of Adam and Even is not a prescientific fable or a pious fiction of human origins. Rather, it is a theologically embedded story of God’s creation of the human race; a story with characters as real as the earth they stand on, and yet they stand for more than being our primal parents, as their story testifies to the creative power of God over the world of human beings and explains how God’s perfect paradise went wrong. 4.  Paul clearly believed in a literal Adam, who was prototype and antitype to Christ, the second Adam (Rom 5:12–21; 1 Cor 15:21–22, 45). If there never was an original Adam, there never was an original sin; and if there was no original sin, that puts Jesus (risen or otherwise) into the realm of the unemployed.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“Human language for God brings us only partial and incomplete analogies, parables, similes, and images of what God is like. All God language, including that freighted with connotations of human gender, male or female, and sonship, is only analogous to God’s being and not an absolute description of his person.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“The gospel is the summit of the wisdom of God as it reveals the folly of human religion and the bankruptcy of worldly philosophy.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“The sequence of events described in the gospel is the work of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is hardly my own discovery. Consider this statement from the Martyrdom of Polycarp 22.1: “We wish you well, brothers and sisters, while you walk according to the doctrine of the gospel of Jesus Christ; with whom be glory to God the Father and the Holy Spirit, for the salvation of His holy elect.” The early church recognized that the saving event announced in the gospel was the combined and unified effort of all three members of the Godhead. The Father chooses, the Son redeems, and the Spirit sanctifies.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“The operation of God as he is described as acting in the gospel intimates the triune nature of God. Only a triune God can do what is done in the gospel. Think about what actually happens in the events narrated in the gospel. The different persons of the Godhead each perform significant roles in executing the divine plan to bring salvation to the world. God the Father sends the Son, the Son ministers in the power of the Spirit, the Father hands him over to the cross, the Father by the Spirit raises the Son up, after his ascension the Father and the Son dispense the Spirit to the church, and the Spirit gives glory to the Father and the Son.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“Theology is something that is learned, lived, sung, preached, and renewed through the dynamic interaction between God and his people.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“theology is not the study of ideas about God; it is the study of the living God.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction

“The power of God knows no limit, no condition, and no contingency other than being expressed in accordance with his own character.”
― Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction