The biblical theme of spiritual adultery stands in all its bluntness for a deeply offensive sin—the unfaithfulness of God's covenant people in departing from Yahweh, their husband, and going after false gods. Raymond C. Ortlund Jr. begins by showing how the Genesis vision of human marriage provides the logic and coherent network of meanings for the story of Israel's relationship with Yahweh. He ...

In this New Studies in Biblical Theology volume, David Peterson challenges the common assumption that the New Testament views sanctification as primarily a process. He argues that its emphasis falls upon sanctification as a definitive event, "God's way of taking possession of us in Christ, setting us apart to belong to him and to fulfill his purpose for us." Simply to identify sanctification ...

From a close study of key Old and New Testament texts and interaction with historical and contemporary theologians, Bradley Green shows how different aspects of the Christian life are each God-elicited, real and necessary. Reaffirming the best Reformed voices, this New Studies in Biblical Theology volume provides a biblical theology of the nature, role and place of works, obedience and faithfulness ...

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"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:27)

Genesis 1:26-27 has served as the locus of most theological anthropologies in the central Christian tradition. However, Richard Lints observes that too rarely have these verses been understood as conceptually interwoven ...

"Return to me, says the LORD of hosts, and I will return to you," (Zech 1:3 ESV). Repentance concerns the repair of a relationship with God disrupted by human sin. All the major phases of church history have seen diversity and controversy over the doctrine. The first of Luther?s famous ninety-five theses nailed to the church door in Wittenburg in 1517 stated that 'the entire life of believers should ...

Paul R. Williamson looks at the role of the covenant concept in Scripture and the meaning of this terminology. He then sets the idea of covenant in the context of God's universal purpose, and traces the idea through Noah and the patriarchs, the nation of Israel and the kingship of David. Lastly, he shows how the new covenant is anticipated in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New. In this ...

The Lord's commitment to make himself known throughout the nations is the overarching missionary theme of the Bible and the central theological concern of Exodus. Countering scholarly tendencies to fragment the text over theological difficulties, Ross Blackburn contends that Exodus should be read as a unified whole, and that an appreciation of its missionary theme in its canonical context is of ...

William Webb confronts those often avoided biblical passages that call for the corporal punishment of children, slaves and wrongdoers. How should we understand and apply them today? Are we obligated to replicate those injunctions today? Or does the proper interpretation of them point in a different direction? Webb notes that most of the Christian church is at best inconsistent in its application ...