Hello everyone,
We spent the weekend with my dear friends in Minneapolis. An excellent sermon on “radical fellowship” (Acts 2:42-47) by Rick Gamache was the highlight (eventually it will be posted here: Sovereign Grace Fellowship). Great encouraged from
my friends Tom and the Bices.
Excellent news: The reversed interlinear bibles from Crossway have arrived!! Yes, this means the long-awaited reversed-interlinear “Blank Bible” project will begin soon (see our first “blank bible” project here). We will be announcing a contest to win a free one so stay tuned.
But coming up Tuesday, I will be back in Omaha with a review of Jeremiah Burroughs’ books titled Gospel Life. And later this week we will continue in our series on confessing sin to one another.
Until then, I stand amazed at the love of the God I killed,
Tony
Minneapolis
Tony Reinke 
I was not aware that God could be killed! I thought God was eternal, isn’t he?
Acts 20:28
Both eternal and a bloody death. A mystery too great for my mind. What eternal love that God would bleed for me!!
Tony
Granted, Jesus died. But did God die?
In what sense does Acts 20:28 teach that Christ died an eternal death?
Looking forward to your reply!
John, yes, Acts 20:28 clearly teaches God’s blood saves sinners. Jesus bled for sinners. Jesus is God. Such a simple verse to befuddle so many religions and excite such affection from the redeemed!
Christ both eternal and yet died a bloody death. What mystery, what wisdom, what a God, that He would purchase me with His own God-blood!!
Tony
Tony, you’re doing everything but answer the question. Did God die? Saying it is a great mystery is not an answer. Do the scriptures teach that God died? Can God die?
Yes, of course Christ (being God) means that God died. How am I hiding this??
That this is a deep mystery is also true. I cannot fully understand it. And it would be a grave mistake to think that I could understand this divine reality through my finite understanding. Revelation is necessary. Without communication of this from God Himself there is no possibility of understanding. It is a deep mystery, veiled to autonomous rationalism …
1 Corinthians 1:18 (ESV) For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” 20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
A “crucified Messiah” is certainly a mystery. I don’t fully understand and maybe never will.
Tony
Jesus the man died, God cannot die.
Jesus, being fully God, died. God bleeds, God dies. Father forsakes Son. Mystery.
Man bleeds, man dies, God is eternal. No mystery.
Yes, but we are talking of God who bleeds, of a crucified God. The most profound mystery.
ESV 1 Corinthians 2:8 “None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”
The “rulers of this age” missed that Jesus is the Lord of glory — He was no mere man. A grave mistake.
Tony
For more on the overwhelming importance of the divinity of Jesus see this little file I put together a few years ago.
Jesus said in John 8:24, “I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I AM [i.e. God] you will die in your sins.”
– Tony