Looking at Christ

It’s at the heart of marriage. It’s the joy of singleness. It’s vital to gospel ministry. It’s key to cross-cultural encounter. Friendship Peel away the superficial modern meanings of friendship and dig down into the ancient sources and you find something very rich and strong. Reading Augustine’s Confessions I am struck by how hugely important (for good or ill) his friends were in his life. He lived with them and ate with them. He loved them deeply. Their life choices – work, travel, marriage, ethics, philosophy – were each other’s business. In many ways their friendships were similar to the covenanted friendship of David and Jonathan (1 Sam. 18:1-4 cf. Ruth 1:16) – intensely loyal, devoted, knit together. In one of his most extreme passages, Augustine speaks of his anguish after the death of his friend: “I, who had been like another self to him. It was well said that a friend is half one’s own soul. I felt that my soul and his had been but one soul in two bodies, and ...

Most Bible lovers agree that the Old Testament Scriptures promise Christ, pattern Christ (in types and shadows) and present the problems that Christ solves (e.g. how can God justly justify the ungodly). Where there is less agreement is over the question of whether, to what extent and how is Christ present in the Old Testament. When the LORD ‘appears’ to people (e.g. Gen. 12:7) is that the second person of the Trinity – a Christophany – or is it a more indeterminate ‘theophany’? When the Angel of the LORD talks to people and it seems like the LORD God is speaking (e.g. Judges 2:1-3), is that the pre-incarnate Christ addressing them or is it an angelic being who is being used as God’s mouthpiece – like the LORD speaking through a long piece of piping coming out the mouth of the angel? There are differences on this and people I hugely respect (e.g. Gerald Bray) who would decide against seeing much of the Son of God physically/visibly/audibly present in the Old Testament. I don’t ...