Thoughts on ethics, society, politics, religion, philosophy, theology, and everything in between
Christians believe that one day Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead. The righteous will experience eternal life in God’s new creation. The wicked, on the other hand, will experience eternal death away from God’s presence in “Hell.” The doctrine of Hell is by far one of the most disliked aspects … Read more
Christians believe that salvation and eternal life come through faith in Christ alone. Apart from Christ, no one can have a true, saving relationship with God. Apart from Christ, good works can do nothing to earn salvation or eternal life. Skeptics have raised a number of objections to this Christian understanding of salvation. Exclusive and … Read more
According to Christian theology, the only way for a human being to be saved is for them to repent of their sins, believe in Jesus, and choose to follow Him as His disciple. It is difficult to know how to apply this theological idea to infants. Infants do not have any beliefs, nor are they … Read more
“Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:12). Salvation comes through Christ alone. Human religions are not paths to God and salvation, nor can their adherents be saved and be in Christ without explicitly putting faith in Jesus. The only way for … Read more
According to the Christian Gospel, God is at work through Jesus (and, by extension, His body, the Church) to reconcile all things to Himself. Scripture makes it very clear that salvation for the world, and for each individual, comes through Christ alone (John 14:6, Acts 4:12). Thus, while other world religions may contain some true … Read more
Universalism is the belief that every single human being will be saved and will experience eternal life. Some universalists believe that religions other than Christianity are alternative paths to God, and that people do not need to believe in Jesus in order to be saved. This form of universalism is a heretical denial of the … Read more
Modern Christians live in a religiously pluralistic world. The modern establishment of legal freedom of religion has allowed non-Christian religions to grow and thrive in Western societies. Furthermore, globalism has made our world more interconnected than ever, such that interactions between our society and societies dominated by non-Christian religions are unavoidable. In a way that … Read more
Because God is Holy, nothing sinful can bear to be in His presence. So, when God’s holy covenant people sin, this creates a serious problem, threatening their relationship with Him. In the Old Testament, God provided a sacrificial system to His people by which they could make “atonement” for their sins, rectifying the threat to … Read more
In a previous post, I addressed a popular interpretation of the Protestant principle of sola scriptura (“Scripture alone”), arguing that Protestants still must acknowledge church tradition to be to some extent authoritative, even if Scripture is their highest theological authority. In this post, I will address a popular interpretation of the Protestant principle of sola … Read more
What is salvation? Many Christians would answer that salvation means going to heaven when you die and having eternal life. These certainly are important aspects of Christian salvation. However, this answer represents an impoverished and shrunken understanding of salvation that misses important aspects of what Christian salvation means. A careful study of the concept of … Read more