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Gerald Owens, The Incarnation as Divine Self-Defintion

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Fundamentally, salvation is very simple. In 1 John 4:14-15 we read:

14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.[NIV]

This central claim of Christianity is the most controversial: that a man who looked like everyone else and had a body just like everyone else’s that died like everyone else’s, was God. To deny that claim it is to depart from Orthodoxy Christianity as seen by both Calvinists and Arminians. However, its implications call into question some of the core assumptions of Calvinism, for what definition of God permits Jesus to be God?

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J.I. Packer and Arminianism

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by Roger Olson

Today I received an e-mail from a reader who asked why I didn’t mention J. I. Packer in either Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities or Against Calvinism. That’s a good question. I didn’t, so now I will.

To the best of my knowledge, the only lengthy, detailed treatment of Arminianism in print by Packer was his Introduction to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ in A Quest for Godliness. It may be found at this web address. There Packer, a Calvinist, completely misrepresents Arminianism. It’s truly shocking how distorted his understanding of Arminianism was then. I don’t know if it’s improved since then or not.

For example, there he wrote that:

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For the Sins of the Whole World

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This post is an excerpt from the book review of Death of Death in the Death of Christ.

I plan on 1) presenting the passages that teach Christ died for the world, 2) presenting my argument for unlimited atonement, 3) explaining 1 John 2:1-2, 4) going into some detail on the word “world”, and 5) addressing John Owen’s counter definition.

The Text

The New Testament has 10 passages which teach Christ died for the world. 1 John 2:1-2 is one of them.

1My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:2And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

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Friday Files: Monergism

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Calvinists often love the terms ‘monergism’ and ‘synergism’. The usefulness of these terms is dubious, and the use of the term ‘monergism’ as some test for orthodoxy can be question begging, but they have become…

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