By: Bill

Bill — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 09:11:37 +0000

It is true that we have been purchased and redeemed by Christ’s blood so that he can present us blameless before God. And scripture is very clear, that He is the Shepherd that laid down his life for his Sheep. Certainly this is great comfort for the body of believers. With that said, the gospel has to be offered indiscriminately to all men, and solely focusing on what God has done for the elect or his church or us is problematic, in the sense that it does not give any comfort to the many that have not come to Christ yet and are still in a state of unbelief (and such lack assurance of salvation) which Christ prayed for in John 17. These people must be loved first, before they can or will believe, they have to be told first the good news of the gospel and this has to be done before they come to saving faith. As John wrote, we can only love because he loved us first, so we must tell unbelievers the love of God for them. This is why when we speak of Israel, and God’s people, we must embrace the entirety of the human race, including radical atheists, radical islamic members, buddhists, hindus, etc. They are all God’s people in a sense, and they have all been redeemed as well just like the members of the OPC or any other christian church have. And this is incredibly important, because even though God died exclusively for his people, when the gospel is preached everybody must be included as his people. The gospel must be preached to every man as if he was one of the elect (because we do not know who the elect are, only God does), and we must tell unbelievers and idolaters that worship other Gods the same gospel we are telling OPC members every Sunday, and give the same absolution. God commands us in the Great Commission to announce the good news of the gospel to every man. And this good news is, Christ is dead for you, he died for you, regardless whether you are a Christian or Muslim or an Atheist today, Christ is dead for you and forgives your sins freely and unconditionally. The Marrow of modern Divinity by Edward Fisher is a tremendous book on how to preach the gospel, and clearly says that there is a warrant for every man to believe that Christ died for him, they are commanded to believe it because it is an objective truth that When the gospel is preached (unlike when we do theology) Christ died and took upon himself the sins of Christians, just as he did the sins of Muslims, Christ is no respecter of persons, and we must preach that Chris has redeemed all men, ransomed them all, Hosea’s wife is not the Church, but the entirety of the human race in that sense. So in an objective sense Hosea’s wife is the Church, i.e. Israel, but when we proclaim the gospel to the world because we do not know who is elect and who isn’t, we must preach Hosea’s wife as the entirety of the world, every single man ever born is Hosea’s wife when the good news of the gospel is announced to the world. The gospel is clearly good news for the elect alone, from an objective standpoint or theological standpoint, but when it is announced to the world we must proclaim it as good news to the entire world because we do not know who the elect are, so we must make sure that Hosea’s wife is not just the holy christian church, but the entirety of the world churches including pagan and apostate religions as well as atheists. If we fail to do this, we have failed to proclaim the word of God faithfully, and we fail to announce Christ and all his benefits to all men, not just the elect. The program was excellent though, and I really liked it. The only issue I wanted to point out is that I have noticed that a lot of the Reformed have a problem with verses of scripture that are universal in nature, encompassing all men not just those in the Church, and do not realize that the authors of scripture never had that issue. God is the Savior of all men, but specially those who believe, but he is clearly not the Savior of believers only but of muslims and radical atheists as well.

Comments on: Hosea 3 — Purchased by the Lord

By: Bill