Tried With Fire

Here is what Herman Bavinck has to say about the human body and how it belongs to the image of God as much as the soul. "In the fourth place, also the human body belongs integrally in the image of God. A philosophy that either does not know or rejects divine revelation always lapses into empiricism or rationalism, materialism or spiritualism. But Scripture reconciles the two. Man has a "spirit" ( pneuma ), but that "spirit" is psychically organized and must, by virtue of its nature, inhabit a body. It is the essence of humanity to be corporeal and sentient ... The body is not a prison, but a marvelous piece of art from the hand of God Almighty, and just as constitutive for the essence of humanity as the soul. It is our earthly dwelling, our organ or instrument of service, our apparatus; and the "members" of the body are the weapons with which we fight in the cause of righteousness or unrighteousness. It is so integrally and essentially a part of ou...

This promise and announcement the fulfillment of the New Testament fully satisfies. In this respect also, the unity or oneness of God is the point of departure of all revelation. But out of this oneness the difference in the Divine being now, in the New Testament, comes into much clearer light. This happens first in the great redemptive events of incarnation, satisfaction, and outpouring, and next in the instruction of Jesus and His apostles. The work of salvation is one whole, a work of God from beginning to end. But there are three high moments in it, election, forgiveness, and renewal, and these three point to a threefold cause in the Divine being: that is, to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The very conceiving of Christ already shows us the threefold activity of God. For while the Father gives the Son to the world (John 3:16), and while the Son Himself descends from heaven (John 6:38), that Son is conceived in Mary of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:20 and Luke 1:35). At His b...

"In short: the Word, the promise, the covenant, which the Lord gave to Israel at the exodus from Egypt, have existed throughout the ages, and still stood fast even after the Captivity in the days of Zerubbabel, so that the people had no need to fear (Haggai 2:4-5). When the Lord led Israel out of Egypt He became the Savior of Israel. And this disposition of God towards His people came to expression in the fact that in all their oppression He was oppressed (He regarded the affliction of His people as His own affliction), and that He therefore sent them His Angel to preserve them. He redeemed them by His love and grace and He took them up and carried them as His own throughout those days of old. He sent them the Spirit of His holiness in order to lead them in the ways of the Lord (Isa. 63:9-12). In the days of the Old Covenant, the Lord through the high priest laid His threefold blessing on the people of Israel: the blessing of vigil, the blessing of grace, and the blessing of peace...

"Of greater significance is the teaching of the Old Testament to the effect that God brings everything in His creation and providence into being by His Word and Spirit. He is not a human being, who, at the cost of great difficulty and exertion, makes something else out of the materials He has at hand. Instead, simply by the act of speaking, He calls everything into being out of nothing. In the first chapter of Genesis we are taught this truth in the loftiest way possible, and elsewhere, too, it is expressed most gloriously in word and song. He speaks, and it is done; He commands, and it stands fast (Ps. 33:9). He sends out His word, and melts the morsels of ice (Ps. 147:18). His voice is upon the waters, shakes the wilderness, causes the hills to skip like a calf, and discovers the forests (Ps. 29:3-10). Two truths are contained in this exalted account of God’s works: the first is that God is the Almighty One who has but to speak and all things leap into being, whose word is law...

"If this confession of the trinity of God takes such a central position in the Christian faith, it is important to know on what ground it rests and from what source it has flowed into the church. They are not a few in our time who hold that it is the fruit of human argument and academic learning and who, accordingly, regard it as of no value for the religious life. According to them the original Gospel, as it was proclaimed by Jesus, knew nothing about any such doctrine of the trinity of God — that is, nothing about the term itself nor about the reality to which the term was intended to give expression. It was only — so the argument goes — when the original and simple Gospel of Jesus was brought into relationship with Greek philosophy and was falsified by it that the Christian church absorbed the person of Christ in His Divine nature, and eventually also the Holy Spirit into the Divine Being. And so it came about that the church confessed three persons in the one Divine being. ...

The expression "first-born" does not in clude Christ in the realm of the creatures, but ex cludes him from that realm. Being the firstborn and only begotten Son and Logos, and the adequate image of God, he from eternity sustained a very unique relation to the Father. And although as Mediator Christ is represented as dependent upon and subordinate to the Father; so that he is the servant sent to complete the Father's work, obedient unto death, and delivering his kingdom unto the Father; in essence and being he remains, nevertheless, co-equal with the Father. Accordingly, when in John 14:28 Jesus says that his going to the Father is for the disciples and occasion for rejoicing, "for the Father is greater than I," he does not mean that the Father is greater in power - for John 10:28-30 teaches differently - but he refers to himself in his humiliation . The Father in his glory is greater than the Son in his humiliation. But when Jesus goes to the Father this infer...