What is the Gospel? – Voddie Baucham

When people say “no, our problem is this, or our problem is that”.  We say, no our problem is that God created the world and God created man and he put man in the garden to keep the garden and he gave the man a command and he held that man to perfect perpetual obedience to that command and he promised him life if he kept it and death if he didn’t.

Adam didn’t keep it.  He ate and because he ate, because of that one man, sin entered the world and death through sin, and everyone born from that man through ordinary generation inherited that man’s sin nature.  Because of that sin nature sins proceed from it and our world is broken because of that sin and we stand guilty before a holy and righteous God. We know that he’s holy and we know that he’s righteous and we crave justice, but the problem is that if God gives us justice, we all die. 

God, in his goodness and in his mercy, sent forth his son who was not born of ordinary generation but was born of a virgin.  Yes, the virgin birth matters.  Why?  Because if Christ is born of ordinary generation, he’s born in sin but because he’s not born of ordinary generation he’s not born in sin.  He is clean of sin his record is clean and he keeps his record clean, and he obeys God’s law. Because he’s fully God and fully man he obeys the law of God on our behalf and his active obedience. 

And then in his passive obedience God made him who knew no sin, to be sin for us all.  We, like sheep, had gone astray.  Each of us had turned to his own way but God laid upon him the iniquity of us all and Christ died for sin. Once, for all the just, for the unjust and God imputes our sinfulness to him. He nails our sinfulness to the tree and Christ dies and raises again on the third day for our justification.

And there’s another imputation. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to us so that God can be both just and the justifier of the one who places faith in Jesus Christ so that all those who come to Christ may enter so that all those who place faith in Christ might be saved. Not only saved but sanctified because he’s the firstborn of many brethren we’re justified and we’re adopted into the family of God and we’re sanctified and as his children we begin to bear the family resemblance and we’re further sanctified throughout this life by the very same gospel that saves us until one day when it’s all said and done we’re not just saved from the penalty of sin we’re not just saved from the power of sin but one day we’re glorified and saved from the very presence of sin.

That’s the gospel that we preach. That’s the gospel that we need and that’s the gospel that’s more than enough.

St. Patrick’s Breastplate

St. Patrick’s Breastplate is one of the great hymns of the church, sung especially for Saint Patrick’s Day, on Trinity Sunday, and at baptisms, confirmations, and ordinations. It is an Old Irish prayer of protection called a lorica, and the text is attributed to St. Patrick or his followers in early Celtic monasticism. Literally, lorica is the Latin term for body armor, thus the title “Saint Patrick’s Breastplate.” Cecil Alexander translated the prayer into an English hymn in 1889, and since then, it has also been known by its first line: “I bind unto myself today.”

Musically, this is one of the more challenging hymns to sing, not only because it is long but also because it contains multiple tunes: ST PATRICK for “binding verses,” but then DIERDRE for the “Christ be with me” verses. Some who encounter the hymn for the first time find it disorienting or even objectionable, but others receive this very strangeness as a part of its appeal and its power. This is an ancient prayer that reverberates across time, a witness to the strength of the Trinitarian God in every generation.

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History of the English Bible Timeline

1,400 BC: The first written Word of God: The Ten Commandments delivered to Moses.

500 BC: Completion of All Original Hebrew Manuscripts which make up The 39 Books of the Old Testament.

200 BC: Completion of the Septuagint Greek Manuscripts which contain The 39 Old Testament Books AND 14 Apocrypha Books.   Septuagent (LXX) – Greek translation of the Hebrew.  72 Jewish scholars translated in 72 days in Alexandria.   Reminiscent of the 72 elders with Moses in the presence of the lord (Exodus 24:9-11.  The very first translation of the Hebrew Bible was made into Greek, probably as early as the third century BC. This, the so-called Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, is traditionally dated to the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt (285-246 BC).

1st Century: Completion of All Original Greek Manuscripts which make up The 27 Books of the New Testament.

185-254: Origen Hexapla (Sixfold) – This book is one of the earliest examples of textual criticism and scholarly apologetics, as well as a true interlinear Bible. The Hexapla is formatted in six columns: one column of Hebrew text in parallel with five columns of various Greek translations. Origen’s purpose in compiling this was to counter Gnostic and Jewish attacks on early Christianity. This work also provided Christians with a comprehensive guide to the Old Testament. The original is estimated to have been more than 6,500 pages long and took more than 28 years to complete.  Lost between 4th and 7th centuries.  Only fragments exist today. 

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