Bible reading for weekend December 3 -- 5 Dec 3 -- Nahum 1 and Luke 17 Dec 4 -- Nahum 2 and Luke 18 Dec 5 -- Nahum 3 and Luke 19 ================ "The LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him. But with an overflowing flood he will make a complete end of the adversaries, and will pursue his enemies into darkness." (Nahum 1:7-8) TIME'S UP FOR NINEVEH (Nah 1-3). The prophecy of Nahum is God's word to the people of Nineveh, part two. Jonah was part one, chronicling a city-wide repentance of Assyrians in the capital about a hundred years earlier. The closing bookend is Nahum, and the Assyrian empire is big, powerful, and aggressive. Notice the references to chariots (2:3-4, 13; 3:2). The Assyrians were a militarily advanced culture, and cruel in their warfare. Whatever spiritual receptivity they had at the time of Jonah was gone by the time of Nahum. Nahum may not have actually visited Nineveh, for it seems the book was w
Shortly before his death on January 1, 1937, J. Gresham Machen dictated a final telegram to his friend and colleague, Professor John Murray. It was brief:
Comments
Yet Reformers like Luther, Calvin, and others, did not believe in Active Obedience, and they pointed to very powerful texts like 2 Corinthians 5:21, Romans 3:21-26, Romans 4:6-8, and Galatians 2:21, which all frame justification as a matter of the Cross alone and forgiveness, no "active obedience".
Christ's righteousness is seamless, his righteous life and atoning death being inseparable: "with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot." (1 Pet 1:19). His death would not be perfect and meritorious were he not blameless and unblemished in his (active) life and obedience before the Father. By virtue of our union with Christ are we not united to (and share in) all of Christ and his righteousness.
Yet you have raised a good question as to whether this theological distinction is valid. Will study more.