Thanks to today’s sponsor Thomas Nelson Publishers and Dr. John MacArthur for this todays book giveaway. To be perfectly honest I was a little nervous about Dr. MacArthur’s new book entitled “Slave” when I was asked to read through it. The subtitle reads, “The Hidden Truth About Your Identity in Christ.” Anything that states to reveal something “new” makes me nervous. Needless to say, I picked up the book just two days ago, but I soon found myself unable to put the book down. Dr. MacArthur does a fine job of examining New Testament texts and the need for textual criticism. He also does a in depth analysis the terms slave, Christian, and servant. It is surely a volume that every christian should have on their shelf. It will help you understand what it is to be in Christ and to belong to Christ. One of my favorite quotes from the book reads, “He is the Master and Owner, We are His possession. He is the King, the Lord, and the Son of God. We are His subjects and His subordinates. In a word, we are His slaves.”

Thomas Nelson Publisher’s and Dr. MacArthur are allowing me to give away 3 of these great volumes. All you have to do is share this post, either via FaceBook, Twitter, Blog or any other Social avenue you like, then email me a link to it at bryan [at] bryanlopez.com  and I’ll put you in the drawing. I will pick 3 winners this Friday. Did I mention you will be getting a copy of this book BEFORE it’s released in January 2011?

Check out this promotional video from Dr. MacArthur!

Here – theological method behind the formulation of his bibliology

Here – Enn’s fallacies

Enjoy.

Thanks to Brian from Apologetics315 for this great find!

This found at the Gospel Coalition blog: D.A. Carson’s “The God Who Is There” series simultaneously evangelizes non-Christians and edifies Christians by explaining the Bible’s storyline in a non-reductionistic way. The series is geared toward “seekers” and articulates Christianity in a way that causes hearers either to reject or embrace the gospel. It’s one thing to know the Bible’s storyline, but it’s another to know one’s role in God’s ongoing story of redemption. “The God Who Is There” engages people at the worldview-level.

Get all 14 MP3s in an RSS Feed Here, or right in iTunes here.
Each MP3 can be downloaded here.

1. The God Who Made Everything | MP3
2. The God Who Does Not Wipe Out Rebels | MP3
3. The God Who Writes His Own Agreements | MP3
4. The God Who Legislates | MP3
5. The God Who Reigns | MP3
6. The God Who Is Unfathomably Wise | MP3
7. The God Who Becomes a Human Being | MP3
8. The God Who Grants New Birth | MP3
9. The God Who Loves | MP3
10. The God Who Dies—and Lives Again | MP3
11. The God Who Declares the Guilty Just | MP3
12. The God Who Gathers and Transforms His People | MP3
13. The God Who Is Very Angry | MP3
14. The God Who Triumphs | MP3

Second Adam –

When God created man, He chose for Adam to represent his posterity as “federal head” in the covenant of works. Hosea 6:7 speaks of a covenant which Adam broke, and Romans 5:12-19implies that there was a covenant involved with Adam because he represents the human race. Isaiah 24:5 speaks of an everlasting covenant which is universal because it applies to the entire “earth”; this would also seem to be a reference to a covenant made with all mankind.

Jesus Christ took man’s place, fulfilling the covenant of works which Adam failed at, and thus Adam is an antitype of Christ. I Corinthians 15:45 speaks of Jesus as the “last Adam.”

From the Reformation Theology Site:

NCT is pretty much an in-house debate among (reformed) baptists and, the idea or system, I believe, has its roots in a reaction to legalism in some Reformed Baptist circles. Here are a couple of views they hold in contrast to Covenant Theology:

1) NCT rejects the covenant of works,

2) NCT rejects the active obedience of Christ. That is Christ’s full obedience to all the prescriptions of the divine law…making available a perfect righteousness before the law that is imputed or reckoned to those who put their trust in him.

3) NCT embraces only the passive obedience of Christ: Christ’s willing obedience in bearing all the sanctions imposed by that law against his people because of their transgression being the ground of God’s justification of sinners (Rom. 5:9), by which divine act they are pardoned.

4) So they (NCT) rejects the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to sinners being related to his having fulfilled the law. Rather the righteouenss he imputes to sinners is simply from the fact that he is God. So the emphasis is on his death and not on his life.

Wheras a covenant theologian would affirm Christ lived the life we should have lived and died the death we deserve, the NCT theologican would only subscribe the the second half of that statement. They would reject the idea that Christ fulfilled the covenant of works from our side. In our view (CT) this significantly downplays the necessity and importance of the incarnation.

Note: Whlie the above represent many within the NCT camp, I understand that it does not describe all streams of thought in NCT. Apparently some have moved closer to CT in these areas and differ only in that Christ having fulfilled the law makes the moral law no longer binding on the believer.

Covenant Theology (or Federal theology) is a prominent feature in Protestant theology, especially in the Presbyterian and Reformed churches, and a similar form is found in Methodism and Reformed Baptist churches. This article primarily concerns Covenant Theology as held by the Presbyterian and Reformed churches, which use the covenant concept as an organizing principle for Christian theology and view the history of redemption under the framework of three overarching theological covenants: the Covenant of Redemption, the Covenant of Works, and the Covenant of Grace. These three are called “theological covenants” because although not explicitly presented as covenants, they are, according to covenant theologians, implicit in the Bible.

In brief, Covenant Theology teaches that God has established two great covenants with mankind and a covenant within the Godhead to deal with how the other two relate. The first covenant in logical order, usually called the Covenant of Redemption, is the agreement within the Godhead that the Father would appoint his son Jesus to give up his life for mankind and that Jesus would do so (cf. Titus 1:1-3).

The second, called the Covenant of Works, was made in the Garden of Eden between God and Adam and promised life for obedience and death for disobedience. Adam disobeyed God and broke the covenant, and so the third covenant was made between God and all of mankind, who also fell with Adam according to Romans 5:12-21.

This third covenant, the Covenant of Grace, promised eternal blessing for belief in Christ and obedience to God’s word. It is thus seen as the basis for all biblical covenants that God made individually with Noah, Abraham, and David, nationally with O.T. Israel as a people, and universally with man in the New Covenant. These individual covenants are called the “biblical covenants” because they are explicitly described as such in the Bible.

Media – Covenant Theology, by Bruce Ware

HT: Resurgence

Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology p. 8-9ish.

I am the person whom when befouled by the filth and mud of crimes you cleansed with the blood of Jesus Christ, you enlightened by the Spirit, you restored to a holy life, and made the heir, fellow, and partaker of eternal happiness. What more could I have ever asked of you since you have given me all things with Christ?… Since you took pity on the falls of your weak and foolish creature, through your prophet you indicated that you did not wish the death of the sinner but that he be converted and live. You wish to receive back the wretched sinner not just once but seven times seventy should that be needed, if he repents and returns to your flock. See, here I am, condemning, hating, revoking, renouncing whatever I did against your dignity and your holy will. I protest that I will order my whole life in a better way. So I ask you, good Father, seeing that you have so encouraged me through Jesus Christ our Lord, that you will to bestow on me such strength as may suffice. I am your work, both as regards my natural constitution and as regards this new spiritual regeneration. Therefore I beg you not to despise me–may that which cannot be done through my merits (I can find no good in them), be done through the merits of Jesus Christ and through your holy name, to which be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Peter Martyr Vermigli (A.D. 1499-1562)

“It is a great sin to think any sin little; but it is a greater sin to think the righteousness of Christ is not above all sin. Our disobedience is the disobedience of man; but Christ’s obedience is the obedience of God: therefore, our believing in Christ doth please God better than if we had continued in innocency, and never sinned. The least sin is unpardonable without this obedience and righteousness of Christ; and the greatest is pardonable by it. Therefore, O seek in to Christ, to be clothed upon with this righteousness.”

- Ralph Erskine, “And Walking in Him, Opened,” in The Works of Ralph Erskine, p. 332, vol. 24.