Modern Wittenberg Castle Postings

1. The Living God exists of Himself.
2. God has revealed Himself to us in the Bible.
3. The Bible is the story of the Sovereign Lord making known to mankind that which was previously unknown of the knowledge of His name, power, and glory.
4. God’s Name, The LORD or Jehovah, reveals His mercy, grace, longsuffering, and bountiful goodness and truth to the objects of His love. He reveals His justice to the objects of His wrath.
5. God’s modus operandi to reveal His power is to employ weakness, foolishness, suffering, and even death itself—yet triumphing in resurrection.
6. God’s glory was revealed when His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, was His weakest—dead.
7. The story of God’s revelation is progressive (is alive and growing) from Genesis 1 through Revelation 22.
8. God says what He means, means what He says, and keeps His promises.
9. The revealed Word of God alone may bind the conscience.
10. God making choices throughout history to bring about His purposes is the essence of election.
11. Bible language as we receive it in the Scriptures takes precedence over slogans.
12. The Bible interprets itself and all secondary standards.
13. Secondary standards must not undermine Bible truth if they are to have any true authority. E.g. the Trinity, the divinity and humanity of Jesus, the work of the Holy Spirit, etc.
14. We summarily know God’s view of the “Covenant of Grace” as the “Five Points of Calvinism”.
15. Veering from the exact text of Scripture is potentially dangerous.
16. Definitions must be kept pure (free of baggage and overuse) in order to be useful. E.g. “Christian”, “saved”, “conversion”,etc.
17. The definition of anything in the Bible needs to be as comprehensive as its use in the Bible.
18. The Old Testament and the New Testament speak with one voice. The difference is the clarity.
19. The Old and New Testaments are essentially united with respect to salvation and sanctification.
20. Any truth that relies primarily on the New Testament must be able to be established at least in “seed form” in the Old Testament if it is to have abiding authority.
21. There is neither discontinuity nor incongruence between God’s pronouncement of a very good creation and the fall of man into sin.
22. God did not create man because He was lonely.
23. God did not lack anything that man could have supplied.
24. God does not need our worship.
25. The creation of man was a means to an end; it was not an end in itself.
26. That Adam had to perfectly obey and to perpetually obey God to “earn” everlasting life (the Covenant of Works) is an assumption brought to the realm of Bible interpretation.
27. In the Bible not Christ’s righteousness but our faith in God’s pronouncement towards us is credited (imputed) to us as righteousness. Atoning substitution on our behalf is at front and center.
28. Being a sinner is not a prerequisite to sinning.
29. God put “enmity” between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, not between Himself and the seed of the woman.
30. This “enmity” is also referred to as a “wall of separation” between the children of God and the children of the devil or as the “antithesis”.
31. God immediately remedied Adam and Eve’s dilemma by unilaterally reconciling them to Himself rather than alienating them from Him. This is grace.
32. The life of a disciple of Christ (seed of the woman) is a life of faith.
33. The Bible speaks of this antithesis in terms of “the righteous” and “the wicked.”
34. The irony of the antithesis is that the serpent acquires his seed from the seed of the woman. Cain, the first “seed of the woman”, received the curse of God. The sons of Eli, priests of God, were sons of beliel. Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve imbued with power by Jesus to heal and cast out demons, was the “son of perdition”. The Jews of Jesus day claimed to be the children of Abraham yet were of their father the devil. Notice also the parable of the wheat and the tares.
35. The Messianic community is composed of both the righteous and the wicked. This is the origin of “Not all Israel is Israel.”
36. Sanctification (setting apart) of God’s people is the essence of the antithesis or maintaining enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.
37. The (hi-jacked) seed of the woman (e.g. Cain) is treated ontologically and legally as such even by God until at some point in time and history its predestined identity is revealed.
38. The issuing of authoritative commands is not the only way God has of revealing His mind and will; nor, is it even the first and most natural way of doing so. E.g. Sabbath, marriage, sacrificial worship (Patrick Fairbairn)
39. Any statement of the Bible as truth is to be received by us by faith as truth.
40. Faith considered abstractly (in theory) or concretely (in action) is the gift of God.
41. Faith is a trust response to what God has said or done. It is dynamic—living, moving, active.
42. The Bible knows nothing of static (dead, lifeless) faith of which God approves.
43. God’s word of command imparts the power and responsibility to obey.
44. God’s commands can be obeyed and He is pleased with His people’s obedience.
45. The law is the “owner’s manual” of everlasting life. Everlasting life is the gracious possession; Obedience to God “maintains” it. Both are gifts of God.
46. Obedience to a law has never been the criteria for justification or everlasting life. God's calling and election in Christ establish that criteria.
47. The seed of the woman (we who are in Christ) are justified by the faith of Jesus Christ.
48. Union with Jesus Christ is everything with regard to spiritual blessing.
49. Hypothetical union with Christ is ludicrous. Either baptism into Christ unites or it doesn’t.
50. Obedience is faith expressed in time and history.
51. Obedience is "incarnational" faith.
52. The intended response to grace received is thankful obedience.
53. One possible response to grace received is to turn away and to be worse than not having received grace.
54. The covenant is the ground upon which the Church stands or falls.
55. Heaven is populated with many people whom (before they died) never believed in justification by faith or in anything else for that matter (Hint: elect infants).
56. The “curse of the law” is not an inability to keep the law sinlessly.
57. The “curse of the law” or the covenantal curse is captivity to a foreign power.
58. The Covenant is a relationship between God and the seed of the woman with terms (conditions). (Steve Schlissel)
59. Conditions are only a threat to those who want to violate them. (Steve Schlissel)
60. God’s law is to be loved not endured.
61. God’s law need not be kept sinlessly in order for one to be said to have kept the law.
62. Lack of sinless perfection is no obstacle in pleasing God or doing His will.
63. Promises given by God to anyone are real and are to be believed. Persistent unbelief (disobedience) renders promises null and void.
64. Not to believe the promises constitutes unbelief.
65. Doubting God’s promises is the spirit of apostasy.
66. God did not appoint the seed of the woman to suffer wrath. This is a sure promise—believe it (see # 89).
67. God does not lie nor change His mind. Meaning that if you stay in the course God marks out for you, then He delivers on the promise He makes to you. (Steve Schlissel)
68. Presumption has to do with believing not enough (the curses are real)…or too much of what God says (adding to God’s words –making Him say something that He doesn’t).
69. The essence of the unpardonable sin is unbelief—failure to believe God.
70. What man himself does in time and in history is of eternal consequence for good or bad.
71. Our Heavenly Father will not forgive us if we do not forgive others.
72. As often as a person seeks forgiveness (or is repentant) he is to be forgiven. When he quits repenting, he quits being forgiven.
73. At Mt. Sinai God entered into a marriage contract/covenant with Israel. This was a gracious act on God’s part.
74. The commissioned apostolic gospel message consists of the following:
 Jesus Christ, an historical person, is Lord over heaven and earth, Jew and Gentile.
 God raised Jesus from the dead.
 God commands everyone to repent of his sins.
 Jesus is the judge of the quick (living) and the dead.
 The forgiveness of sins is proclaimed only through the name of Jesus.
75. Baptism pictures the gospel.
76. Baptism is a solemn religious oath and has meaning and significance apart from the response and heart condition of the recipient. (P. Richard Flinn)
77. God establishes a personal relationship with everyone who is baptized.
78. Baptism means the same to adult and infant alike.
79. The Spirit of Jesus Christ assures us that when we are baptized we are spiritually cleansed from our sins now as really as we are externally washed with water now.
80. Baptizing and teaching a convert makes a disciple.
81. That baptism is an oath and induction into the Christian religion are necessary elements in receiving the gospel message.
82. A convert is not regenerated until he is baptized in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
83. Baptism is the official beginning (the wedding) of Christian discipleship.
84. Trinitarian baptism is of God—not of man.
85. By faith the covenant sign of baptism gives warrant for the one baptized (and all under him) to claim God to be his God.
86. The Lord’s Supper is the union and communion (consummation) between Christ and His bride.
87. Adults need to be converted and be like children—not the other way around.
88. Salvation has three aspects: Definitive, Progressive, and Ultimate. Any one of these is referred to as salvation.
89. Salvation for the seed of the woman is largely a non-issue because God has particularized it in history. I.e. in circumcision and baptism.
90. Covenantal worship involves no ambiguities with regard to the salvation of the worshipers.
91. Baptism does not automatically save anyone finally.
92. Man does not cooperate in any way with God in his salvation.
93. God does not cooperate in any way with man to save him.
94. Salvation is a double 100%: 1) all of God—the blueprint (the end), “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” 2) all of man—the building (the means), “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” Christ’s incarnation, the inspiration of scripture, and God’s sovereignty/ man’s responsibility are also examples of “double hundred percent.”
95. The context of the Bible is the covenant community of Israel/the Church. Jesus was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel not to the Gentiles. His stories took that into account. Any generalizing of Jesus’ teachings must acknowledge this fact. So that, any kind deed done to a pagan has also been done to Christ is a misapplication of Matthew 25:40. The verse qualifies the deeds done as having been done to His brethren (those who obey the will of His Father).