https://open.spotify.com/episode/0j3bGOn2BZvGGXXuNrGT2V?si=9pDFDn4tRf2hEMgWcJg6LA Questions 21-23 are particularly bound together. In Question 21, we confessed the truth that Christ’s hypostatic union, His true humanity and divinity, makes Him uniquely capable of being our Redeemer. He alone is able to mediate between the Holy One and sinful men because He is both God and man. Questions 22-23 now address …
Continue reading Question 22: Why Must the Redeemer Be Truly Human?
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5envUKev3Ayr9b60O79BpG?si=nF4_KAWnQ3m_mO3tdsYXNw In the garden, Adam and Eve needed neither redeemer nor mediator. They were free to bathe in the presence of God and to enjoy the world that He given them to steward. But they rejected their communion with God in a feeble attempt to seize even more power than God had already granted them. …
Continue reading Question 21: What Sort of Redeemer Is Needed to Bring Us Back to God?
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1KsMAyIAiPhbYwS6NApizi?si=yAGRzZ36QHi7VdD90uUKFw Although much of the New City Catechism so far has been establishing the reality of our sin and condemnation that makes the gospel necessary, we finally arrived at that good news in the previous question, where we confessed that there is indeed a way for us "to escape punishment and be brought back into …
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5JdQsZpRhSguoT7EL6Zzyx?si=dcYo3aeeTCOhKcZJSvCX4A The New City Catechism is divided into three parts. The first part focuses upon God the Father, creation, the Fall, and God's law. The second part concerns Christ, redemption, and grace. The third part instructs us on the Holy Spirit, our restoration to God, and our growing in His grace. Although this is the …
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6aB9296UvJlkSJY3wAumXK?si=F0AoM0wmS7qHqeENoENHDg Since Question 6 our catechism established God's law and our inability to keep it as God requires, forcing us to conclude that we are, in our very nature, sinners and idolaters. Our present question follows logically and ought to be of the utmost importance: will God allow our disobedience and idolatry to go unpunished? …
Continue reading Question 18: Will God Allow Our Disobedience and Idolatry to God Unpunished?
A few weeks ago, my wife reminded me of an experience early in our marriage that set the stage for my love of catechisms. We were speaking with a husband and wife who were Jehovah's Witness in our home, and the wife shared her testimony of why she left her Methodist upbringing to join the …
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4M3WQ8BtkuGKoDfZLplB9I?si=FNEWPYbrTViwoH7JThg9Ng This question is a subdivision of the previous but is also a further explanation of the first part of Question 9. The First Commandment (which reads, “You shall have no other gods before me”) is, at its core, God denouncing idolatry, condemning it as sin. He will not have us trusting in created things …
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6hWHVZcKXsVMBYelVlOgoa?si=d7a9d16631384c39 Although God’s law is good and although obedience to God’s law leads to a life of joy and blessing, we are unable to keep His commandments because of the sinful nature that we have inherited from our forefather, Adam. When he committed the original sin, he plunged all of humanity into a world of …
B. C. Newton 