Christ in the Seat of Cosmic Authority

R.C. Sproul:

“It is a profound political reality that Christ now occupies the supreme seat of cosmic authority. The kings of this world and all secular governments may ignore this reality, but they cannot undo it. The universe is no democracy. It is a monarchy. God himself has appointed his beloved Son as the preeminent King. Jesus does not rule by referendum, but by divine right. In the future every knee will bow before him, either willingly or unwillingly. Those who refuse to do so will have their knees broken with a rod of iron.” (What Is Reformed Theology? Understanding the Basics)

Erastus

Archaeology and the Bible:

Paul’s reference to Erastus as the treasurer of Corinth (Romans 16:23) was thought to be erroneous, but now has been confirmed by a pavement found in 1929 bearing his name.

In the Beginning. . . .

God created all things, the world, and all the creatures that belong to it. He attributes this work to Himself, as one of the particular glories of His Deity, exclusive of all the creatures. “Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: ‘I am the LORD, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself. . . .’” (Isaiah 44:24 ESV) Thomas Boston writes:

The world could not make itself; for that would imply a horrible contradiction, namely, that the world was before it was; for the cause must always be before its effect. That which is not in being can have no production; for nothing can act before it exists. As nothing has no existence, so it has no operation. There must therefore be something which has existence in itself, to give a being to those things that are; and every second cause must be an effect of some other before it is a cause. To be and not to be at the same time is a manifest contradiction, which would infallibly take place if any thing made itself. That which makes is always before that which is made, as is obvious to the most illiterate peasant. If the world were a creator, it must be before itself as a created thing.

The production of the world could not be by chance. It was indeed the extravagant fancy of some ancient philosophers that the origin of the world was from a fortuitous concourse of atoms, which were in perpetual motion in an immense space, till at last a sufficient number of them met in such a happy conjunction as formed the universe in the beautiful order in which we now behold it. But it is amazingly strange how such a wild opinion, which can never be reconciled with reason, could ever find any entertainment in a human mind. Can any man rationally conceive, that a confused jumble of atoms, of diverse natures and forms, and some so far distant from others, should ever meet in such a fortunate manner, as to form an entire world, so vast in extent, so distinct in the order, so united in the diversities of natures, so regular in the variety of changes, and so beautiful in the whole composure? Such an extravagant fancy as this can only possess the thoughts of a disordered brain. (“God Alone Created the World”)