Incarnation – The Order of Melchizedek

Melchizedek is an impressive priest.  He blesses Abraham, which implies that even father Abraham is inferior to him.  This is an order that would be described as hieros, rather than the usual term used in the New Testament, presbuteros, and coms not by descent from Levi, but is an order that allows sacrifice to be…

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Incarnation – Holiness

All of the Bible leads to the conclusion that God will come to be with us, but sin separates us from God. Sometimes we are tempted to downplay our sin, but that downplays God’s holiness. We see God’s holiness overpower many people in the Bible. We also see that the Messiah is prophesied to have…

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Incarnation – More on Hope

We can be confident that God will save us if we call on His name, but salvation is a process, and is not a magical proclamation that assures us Heaven no matter how wicked we are in this life. We must rejoice in our hope and in our sufferings, and know that to the extent…

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Incarnation – Hope

Throughout all of biblical history, God has rewarded those who hope in Him. There are those who will deny the action of God in their lives, even as the Hebrews ignored the explicit miracles they saw in the times of the Exodus, but those who have a fear of the Lord or who have an…

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Incarnation – More Davidic Prophecies

In 2 Sam 7, David seeks to make a house for the Lord, but God declares that He will establish a house for Israel, a promise fulfilled in Christ. Isaiah 7-12 concerns a prophecy to King Ahaz. A virgin or young woman will bear a son, and call him Immanuel, or God with us. This…

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Incarnation – Prophecies and Covenants

On Jacob’s deathbed, he declares that Judah is the tribe from which a king will come. Similarly, Balaam prophesies that a king would come out of Jacob. Jer 31:31 prophesies a new covenant, and Isaiah prophesies a suffering servant whose life points to Christ. There are several covenants, those of creation, conscience, Noah, Abraham, the…

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Incarnation – The Old Testament

God promises to Abraham that through him, all the nations will bless themselves. God is so involved with man that He will even send an angel to wrestle with man, as Jacob does. We are told to not be unclean, and God will welcome us. Through this time, we can see many Christophanies in the…

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Incarnation – Adam and Eve

Here begins a sweeping overview of salvation history. God created man because of love. God wants a relation with man, and man gropes after God. Prov 8:17 says that those who seek God diligently find Him, and Hebrews says something very similar. Sin clouds our minds, but even in Genesis 3, God promises an end…

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Dale Ahlquist on the Apocalyptic Conflagration

From the Rochester NY Chesterton Society’s 8th Annual Conference, Dale Ahlquist (President, American Chesterton Society) talks about the end of the world and how it factors into the world that God has created, a world of justice and peace, and a world that will undergo a revolution to conform it to God’s plan. We must…

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Kevin O’Brien as Hilaire Belloc

In this recording from the 2011 Rochester NY Chesterton Conference, Hilaire Belloc (played by Kevin O’Brien) takes a sweeping overview of Christian history with a look at what he conceptualized as the five major heresies. Arianism, one of the earliest great heresies, claims that Jesus was not God but a creature. St. Athanasius and some…

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