The Tulip Driven Life

THE INTERTRINITARIAN LOVE OF GOD COMMUNICATED TO THE ELECT THROUGH UNION WITH THE GOD-MAN IN HIS OVERCOMING THE FALL Thomas Booher Doctrine of Salvation May 2, 2013 Why did man fall? For the reformed, it is because God in some sense planned for man to fall. For others, it is because God foresaw what Adam and Eve would choose, and He decided to let them choose rebellion. In either case, the greatest theological problem remains the goodness of God in light of the existence of sin. How can they co-exist? Free will does not satisfy as an answer because God knew beforehand that man would choose to rebel and could have chosen not to create man. In so doing He would not have violated man’s free will because there would have been no men. The implication is that if God went through with creating man knowing he would rebel against Him, God either had a good purpose for doing so, or He was somehow constrained t...

  By: Thomas Booher What will life in the renewed creation be like? How similar will it be to life now? Is such a question even one we should be asking? True, to daydream of dwelling within the unmitigated presence of God in a spotless, perfected land is not what God calls Christians to do. Some may appeal to 1 John 3:2 and say believers should only concern themselves with being faithful to God now since God has not revealed what life in glory will be like, except that we will be holy like Him: “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” All Christians agree that eternal life will be spent praising and worshiping God for all that He is and has done, but how praising and worshiping expresses itself is debated, particularly in regards to work and our earthly activities. While it is true tha...

By: Thomas F. Booher Maybe that should be the overarching name that most identifies conservative churches in America today. The SCA (Shattered Church in America) comprises Christians from various conservative denominations that would consent on paper and proudly affirm the authority of Scripture, the trinity, the full deity and humanity of Christ, and the five solas of the reformation. There may be Arminians and Calvinists and people in between. What they are all united in would be the above affirmations, even if different camps emphasized them and expressed them in slightly different ways. From the Bible belt to the burnt over district, these believers see themselves as the champions of orthodoxy, the heart and soul of American spiritual vitality.  I think our heart has almost stopped beating.  We have marketed Christianity. We have made church into a mirror (albeit poor one) of popular culture. We have lost most anything that is distinctly Christian, and ...

The Doctrines of Grace – Elect According to Foreknowledge, Part 1 In his first letter, Peter wrote to certain exiles as those who were elect according to the foreknowledge of God, 1 Pet 1:1,2. These exiles are believers scattered in ancient Asia Minor (modern Turkey ). Precisely who these saints are is somewhat difficult to answer, that is, is Peter writing to Jewish believers who were interspersed among the Gentiles, or are they believers in general, Jewish and Gentile? Good arguments can be made for both interpretations. What is striking is that Peter uses language that is similar to Paul’s in his letters to Gentiles, e.g., Ephesians. Yet, generally speaking, Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, while Peter went to the Jews (Gal 2:7). Regardless, whoever his readers were, what Peter declared to them is true for all of God’s people, and that declaration is this-- they are elect according to the foreknowledge of God.  Election refers not to a general choice by God to sav...