Tag Archives: witness

The Trinity in Revelation – so what?

Revelation has the most developed trinitarian theology in the New Testament, with the possible exception of the Gospel of John…

At the same time as it withholds the glory of God from a world in which the powers of evil still hold sway, it recognises the presence of God in this present world in the form of the slaughtered Lamb and the seven Spirits who inspire the church’s witness. By placing the Lamb on the throne and the seven Spirits before the throne it gives sacrificial love and witness to truth (emphasis mine) the priority in the coming of God’s kingdom in the world, while at the same time the openness of the creation to the divine transcendence guarantees the coming of the kingdom. God’s rule does not contradict human freedom, as the coercive tyranny of the beast does, but finds it fulfilment in the participation of people in God’s rule: that is, in the coincidence of theonomy and autonomy.

Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge University Press, 1993), 164.

Leave a comment

Filed under Revelation

A thought on evangelism in our current climate

“By and large the press will tar every effort at evangelism with the label ‘proselytism,’, as we have already seen. But this provides us with an opportunity to insist on the different word associations that ‘proselytism’ and ‘evangelism’ have for Christians. The former is unworthy witness, the attempt to win others to our position out of unworthy or even corrupt motives. By contrast, to evangelize is … “to make an open and honest statement of the gospel, which leaves the hearers entirely free to make up their own minds about it.” If others wilfully confuse the two, there is not much we can do about it – but we should be bold not only to engage in evangelism but to make clear what it is and what it isn’t.”

D.A.Carson, The Intolerance of Tolerance (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 173-4.

Leave a comment

Filed under mission, Uncategorized