18. Reflecting on the Incarnation

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In

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Father and Son In our previous meditation I made the statement that from this point in the life of Abraham, the Friend of God, we come to a new aspect of Abraham’s life. We shall begin to see Abraham and

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A long history of a moment (With apologies to Stephen Hawking.) Let’s begin by reminding ourselves of the place that this personal covenant between God and Abraham has in the overall revelation of God’s purposes. This is something we need

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Justice divine is satisfied How can God, at one and the same time, be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus? (Rom 3:26 KJV) That was the question we left hanging in the air in the previous

B. A servant to the circumcision

B. A servant to the circumcision

Now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy… . (Rom 15:8–9 NKJV)

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Why circumcision? I promised I would return to the account of the birth of Ishmael but I have been somewhat reluctant to start on this devotional, simply because of the propriety of the topic. In many ways, the Bible is

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Abraham, My Friend The Making of a Praying Man Preface: Every story has a purpose and my re-telling of this story has its purpose revealed in our sub-title. Abraham’s life is rich in illustration of the purposes of God and

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the head of an old man by Guernico used by kind permission of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Transcendent and Immanent It is wonderful to consider the way in which God, who measures the cosmos with a single span, is able

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Second best? We have tracked Abraham’s disastrous descent into Egypt, now let’s track his restoration.  He went up out of Egypt into the Negeb. And he was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold. Or as the Hebrew

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Machpelah, a costly hiding place In the Hebrews 11 ‘National Gallery of the Heroes of Faith’ there is a single reference to Jacob/Israel but with a double focus: By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons