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BLUE BANNER FAITH AND LIFE J. G. VOS, Editor and M anager Copyright © 2016 The Board of Education and Publication of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (Crown & Covenant Publications) 7408 Penn Avenue • Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15208 All rights are reserved by the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America and its Board of Education & Publication (Crown & Covenant Publications). Except for personal use of one digital copy by the user, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. This project is made possible by the History Committee of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (rparchives.org). BLUE BANNER FAITH AND UFE VOLUME 31 JANUARY-MARCH, 1976 _______________ NUMBER 1 STUDIES IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION.................................................................3 TORONTO AND THE REFORMED F A IT H ..............................................................18 THE MYSTERY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT......................................................................18 REVIEWS OF RELIGIOUS BOOKS.............................................................................. 24 A Quarterly Publication Devoted to Expounding, Defending and Applying the System of Doctrine set forth in the Word of God and Summarized in the Standards of the Reformed Presbyterian (Covenanter) Church. Subscription $2.50 per year postpaid anywhere J. G. Vos, Editor and Manager 3408 7th Avenue Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania 15010, U.S.A. Published by The Board of Publication of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America Overseas Agents Britain and Ireland: The Rev. Adam Loughridge, D.D., 429 Cregagh Road, Belfast BT6 OLG, Northern Ireland Australia and New Zealand: The Rev. Alexander BarKley, M.A., 2 Hermitage Road, Newtown, Geelong, Victoria, Australia Known Office of Publication: 3408 7th Avenue, Beaver.Falls, Pa. 15010 Published Quarterly, Second Class Postage Paid at Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania 15010 With additional entry at LooKout Mountain, Tennessee 37350 2 Is Jesus Really God? By J. G. Vos A "liberal” clergyman was asked whether he exactly right, and then you can see a little hazy believed in the divinity of Christ. “Of course,” he whiteness in the sky. That is the Andromeda Galaxy. It replied; “for if I didn’t believe in the divinity of Christ I is two million (yes, two million) light years away from could not believe in my own divinity either!” A this earth, and getting farther all the time. Light travels, prominent writer of religious education materials said you know, at 186,000 miles a second, and a light year is “Jesus was the first man who ever dared to be divine.” the distance it travels, at that speed, in a year. You Someone else says that there is a spark of divinity in would have to travel at the speed of light for over two every human being, but Jesus has more divinity in him million years to reach this galaxy. It contains billions of than anyone else has. Still another person goes even suns as large as our sun. It is so vast that it takes light, at further and says “God” is another name for the totality 186,000 miles a second, about 100.000 years to get from of the universe, or all that exists, therefore in a sense one end of the galaxy to the other. And this is the nearest everything is divine, so Jesus must be divine too. Along of the spiral galaxies. Beyond it there are vaster ones, so this line, the poet Swinburne wrote about “the dust that distant that they can only be observed with great is God.” reflecting telescopes like that on Mount Palomar, California. None of these people really believes in the divinity (more properly, the deity) of Jesus Christ. They are all Now come back to John 1:1-3. All things were made using the term without accepting the real meaning of the by him, and without him was not anything made that term. Probably none of them really believes in God in was made.” Do you begin to grasp how great Jesus the Christian sense. They believe that “God” is just a Christ, the eternal Word, really is? This is the Being name for the universe, or for the sense of moral values in who, wonder of wonders, “was made flesh, and dwelt the human personality, or for the totality of human among us” (John 1:14). This is the Being who was born hopes and longings. Because they have such a poor idea of the Virgin Mary, and laid in a manger in Bethlehem — of God, they can speak of the “divinity” of Jesus without the Person who only had to speak a word, and the vast really saying very much. spiral galaxies of space came into being. This is the real truth of the divinity or deity of Jesus Christ. When the Bible speaks of Jesus Christ as “God” or “the Son of God”, we must realize that the background Did you ever stand on the shore of the ocean and of this is the Biblical idea of God — the idea expressed in look out toward the horizon? The water stretches as far the Shorter Catechism (No. 4) which affirms that "God as you can see. It seems to be endless. Yet you know that is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his thousands of miles across that water, there is the con­ being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and tinent of Europe, or the continent of Asia. But you can truth,” adding that “there is but one only, the living and only see the shore you are standing on and the water true God.” In the Bible the teaching that Christ is divine stretching out to the horizon that marks the limit of your means that Jesus is none other than the being defined in vision. Jesus Christ is like that, only even vaster. For the these absolute terms. ocean, after all, has a limit. It has its dimensions; it is not infinite. But Jesus Christ is the shoreless ocean of That Jesus Christ is human goes without saying: deity. We have seen one side of this mysterious Being — But the most important truth about Jesus is that He is we have seen the divine Being manifested in human God. He is the infinite Being who created the universe flesh in history. But He is without limits. No human and who holds it in existence from moment to moment. being has ever really seen the other side. Jesus Christ is This is wondrously brought out in the opening verses of so great and vast that only God the Father and the Holy the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and Spirit have ever really seen the other side. This is taught the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The by Jesus in His wonderful words in Matthew 11:27, same was in the beginning with God. All things were where He says, “no man knoweth the Son, but the made by him; and without him was not anything made Father.” that was made” — John 1:1-3; note the capitalized “W” on “Word” — this “Word” is a Person, not a thing — Does someone say it is hard to believe in this kind of THE Person who created everything, and controls Jesus? Yes, it may be hard, but this Christ is the real everything. Christ — He is the Christ of the Scriptures, and He is our real Saviour for eternity. The toned-down ideas of Christ The Andromeda Galaxy (formerly called a nebula) cited in the opening paragraph of this article are not only is the nearest of the great spiral galaxies in outer space. unreal — they are not worth believing in. The real Christ It is the only one that can ever be seen with the naked is eternally worth believing in. eye, without a telescope. You have to know exactly where and when to look, and the conditions have to be —The Goal Post 3 BLUE BANNER FAITH AND LIFE VOLUME 31 JANUARY-MARCH, 1976 NUMBER 1 Studies in the Book o f Revelation LESSON 54 THE TWO WITNESSES, THEIR TESTIMONY, DEATH AND VICTORY. Revelation 11, Continued Jeremiah was called to be a prophet (Jer. 1:10) GreeK word means the wild beast. This is no mere bunny and told that part of his worK would be to root out, rabbit or sheep or goat or something. ThinK of a man- pull down, destroy and throw down. Does this mean eating tiger, a furious wild beast; that’s the meaning that he was to be a revolutionary activist going around of this GreeK word for this beast here. This beast as in the country throwing bombs and setting Fire to govern­ chapter 13 is said to come to maKe war against the saints ment buildings? Certainly not. The prophet deals in the and witnesses and to overcome them, defeat them and spoKen word. He throws no bombs himself. He predicts even Kill them. Now the powerful missionary testimony what will happen if the people do not repent, and when of the church will be silenced if the two witnesses can be they do not repent, it finally happens. God sends judg­ Killed. Satan attacKs the church two ways, by external ment upon them. They seal their own doom by their persecution and internal division, heresy and hypocrisy. negative reaction to the message of God’s ordained The second is more effective in destroying the church witness calling a wicKed world to repentance, and when than the first. Many sections of the nominal church to­ this message is rejected, it finally brings divine judgment day are comparatively useless and ineffective.

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