Rebecca Writes

The last two contributions to Children’s Poetry Month are poems by Emily Dickinson, so I’ll join in and contribute one from this hauntingly mysterious poet, too.

• Jen of joythruChrist has The Daisy Follows Soft the Sun.
• Kim from Hireath posts one she learned along with her son a few years ago.
• And here’s one of my favorites from Emily:
  
  I’m nobody! Who are you?
  Are you nobody, too?
  Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!
  They’d banish us, you know.
  
  How dreary to be somebody!
  How public, like a frog
  To tell your name the livelong day
  To an admiring bog!

Christ is exalted in his sitting at the right hand of God, in that as God-man he is advanced to the highest favor with God the Father,[1] with all fulness of joy,[2] glory,[3] and power over all things in heaven and earth;[4] and doth gather and defend his church, and subdue their enemies; furnisheth his ministers and people with gifts and graces,[5] and maketh intercession for them.[6]

1. Phil. 2:9

   Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name …

2. Acts 2:28

   You have made known to me the paths of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.

   Psa. 16:11

   You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

3. John 17:5

   And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

4. Eph. 1:22

   And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church … .

   I Peter 3:22

   … who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

5. Eph. 4:10-12

   He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ … .

   Psa. 110:1

   The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”

6. Rom. 8:34

   Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Question 54, Westminster Larger Catechism

Recent contributions on the theme of Children’s Poetry:

• Rosemary posts a children’s classic from Robert Louis Stevenson.
• Billy the Blogging Poet has written a whole blog of kid’s poems. Try this one: The Great Gravy Boat.

There are only a few more days in February, so if you’ve planned to play along with the Children’s Poetry theme, you’d better get on it right away. If you’ve posted a poem for kids, send me the link. Don’t have a blog? Don’t let that stop you! Post your poem in the comments of this post, and I’ll use it.

by participating in a discussion on the Baptist Board*. This one’s called atonement/justice and forgiveness, and the atonement theory put forward seems to be exactly the same one I posted about in the olden days when I first started blogging. So, of course, I couldn’t pass the discussion by. (I go by russell55 on that board. At the time I signed up there, my first choices for name were taken, so that’s my maiden name plus my birth year.)

 

In addition to being centered around an atonement theory I’ve already studied up on, this discussion is a rich source of the same kind of statements discussed in the series I posted recently called Thinking About Faith Alone and Christ Alone. (You can access all those posts from that link.) Here are some I could have added to the collection discussed there:

Man’s sin is paid for in advance but, the condition [for salvation] isn’t only having our sins paid for. You see that condition has been paid but, if there is no repentance and confession. The rest of the entire condition [for salvation] has not been met.

Can you see how this statement is a denial of Solus Christus, which affirms that what Christ did is sufficient for our salvation?

 

How about this?

Yet there is ONE sin that is UNPARDONABLE - Rejection of the Son - UNBELIEF

Yep, another denial of Solus Christus by the denial of the sufficiency of Christ’s work. Christ’s work was not sufficient grounds upon which the sin of unbelief could be pardoned.

 

Want more? The brackets in this one are original.

The atonement was done for all time for all in Christ Jesus. … But since we did not sacrifice ourselves, thereby personally asking forgiveness, forgiveness became a different thing — a personal thing. If not, then John would have never needed to say that if we confess our sins [then] He is faithful to forgive them. That is indeed an if/then proposition and not an accomplished fact on the Cross.

Christ’s atonement, if this statement is true, is not sufficient grounds for forgiveness. We must add our confession to his work, thereby providing some of the grounds by which we are pardoned.

 

I could go on, but I won’t. I have a life. At least I think I do.

 

One last hymn in the series of hymns that paraphrase or allude to Romans 8:31-39.

When oldest son was in grade 8, he flew with his dad to Togiak, Alaska, a fly-in village in southwest Alaska, to see his dad’s best friend from his school days back in Crosby, Minnesota. Steve, the friend, lived near Togiak with his family for a few years, teaching in a couple of schools around that area.

 

Togiak has excellent fishing, and here they are with a couple of salmon. When it came to catching halibut, dad was the king, but that’s a story for another day. You can see who caught the biggest salmon!

 

Oldest son was in the process of growing his hair long. He grew it until it reached the middle of his back and wore it that way for a few years. At this stage, however, it was just long enough to curl up underneath his cap, and it was, as you can see, quite blond.

 

On the flight to Togiak, oldest son and his dad were the only passengers on the plane. On the way there, the plane made it’s regular supply stop in a tiny village. Every time the plane came, it was customary for most of the people in the village to come out to meet it. It was, I’m told, the big event of the week. Not only was it exciting to get the stuff the plane dropped off, but the pilot had a light complexion, and the villagers, being used to darker people, found him particularly interesting. But this time, instead of just a little giggling, they were laughing out loud and pointing at the plane. All of them. The pilot turned around and looked at oldest son. “Buddy,” he said, “they’ve never seen anything like you!”

 

 

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post that brought up the subject of propitiation, but at that time, I didn’t write anything about the meaning of the word propitiation because it wasn’t necessary to do so in order to make the point of that particular post. Propitiation is a good word, but it’s not one that’s used in everyday language, is it? I’d be willing to bet that if you did street interviews asking random people to define propitiation, you’d go a long time before you found someone who could define it properly.

 

So what does it mean? It’s a word that’s used in some versions of the Bible in the translation of a family of Greek words: hilasmos and other words related to it. It may be that you use a translation that doesn’t used the word propitiation at all, since many versions make other translational choices. Still, it’s a good thing to understand what it means, at the very least in order to understand this facet of what Christ’s death accomplished for us.

 

Propitiation and the Greek words it translates have to do with turning away or appeasing anger. It has everything to do with dealing with anger or wrath, and in the New Testament, it’s God’s wrath that is being turned away or propitiated. Propitiation is a personal word. Let me quote Leon Morris:

Click to read more ...