Isaiah 53 - Does it really say God "crushed" Jesus? (More Problems with Penal Substitution)

Whenever I challenge a Protestant to show where the Bible teaches that God the Father poured out His wrath upon Jesus, one of their go-to verses is Isaiah 53:10 where it says: It was the will of the Lord to crush him. At first appearance, this does come off as suggesting the Father actively inflicted punishment upon Jesus, but it turns out that there are two versions of this text, one of which uses a very different word than "crush".

A Reformed exegetical whopper on The Parable of the Good Samaratan (plus a bonus Papacy Proof)

From the What in the world was he thinking? File comes a link that Bryan Cross shared a little over a month ago on his blog, but I didn't have a chance to re-share it until now. The link is to a January 2014 blog post by Tullian Tchividjian, who teaches at Reformed Seminary (and is Billy Graham's grandson). In his post, Tullian "interprets" the parable of the Good Samaritan - that famous parable from Luke 10:29-37 where Jesus teaches us what it means to 'love our neighbor'. This is pretty straightforward stuff, and yet, astonishingly, Tullian ends up turning the simple lesson of Jesus on it's head. 

Here are some key excerpts (see the main article for the full story) from Tullian's article: 

This parable is perhaps the best known story Jesus ever told after the parable of The Prodigal Son. It is, however, also the most misunderstood.

Another Papacy proof from the Early Church - (Pope Hormisdas, AD519)

Here's a relatively brief apologetics argument for the Papacy that I was introduced to which I think is worth sharing. I'll start with a historical background (with lots of assistance from Wikipedia), then present the argument, and then I'll end by examining some potential objections.

Natural Law...OR...New Covenant in Rom. 2:14-15 - What "Law" is written on the heart?

This is somewhat of a Part 2 to my previous post, "Imputed Righteousness in the New Covenant?"

For this post I want to share a fascinating find regarding a fascinating text of Scripture that is often glossed over when reading Romans 2. Embedded within the context of Paul's claim that "the doers of the law will be justified" (2:13) is a curious statement that the Gentiles "who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires" (2:14) and so reveal that "the law is written on their hearts" (2:15). This text can play a key role in Protestant-Catholic discussions because the way it uses the term "law," which is a crucial term to understand when reading Paul. It is my contention, as well as that of a growing number of Protestant scholars, that the term "law" (Greek: nomos) specifically refers to the Mosaic Law, and not to some more generic eternal law of God. Recognizing the serious negative implications of this for Sola Fide, some Protestants are fond of turning to Romans 2:14-15, thinking that this text provides an escape. In this post I will show that this text doesn't help this Protestant objection at all, and in fact opens an avenue to prove the Catholic position. 

Imputed Righteousness in the New Covenant?

 [Update: Don't miss Part 2 of this series!]

This will be something of a Part 1 of a two-part post. In this post I want to point out something fascinating that I noticed regarding the Protestant heresy known as Imputation, specifically the notion that Christ kept the law perfectly in our place and transferred this perfect obedience to us so we could be members of the New Covenant. This is more formally known as "Imputation of Christ's Active Obedience," but the truth is, the New Testament writers never speak of this, and in fact it contradicts many New Testament passages. One passage I want to point out is a crucial passage for Christians, since it comes from the Old Testament and is one of the clearest prophecies that there would be a New Covenant. 

In Jeremiah 31 we read:

31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

This Prophecy is huge for a couple of reasons. As noted earlier, this Prophecy is one of the clearest and most important prophecies telling us there would be a New Covenant. And this New Covenant will be characterized by two main details: (1) forgiveness of sins, and (2) having the law written upon their hearts so that they may know how to love God and neighbor.