Wednesday, 14 November, 2018

Celebration of the Believer’s Security

Posted on Thursday, 19 February, 2015Sunday, 20 August, 2017 by Zheluo Cai

Romans 8:31–39

We may view this beautiful, hymn-like celebration of our security in Christ as a response to what Paul has just said (28–30, or 18–30 or even 1–30), but it is better to see it as a concluding reflection of chs. 5–8 as a whole. It falls into two parts. In the first (31–34) Paul reminds us that God is for us: in giving his Son, he has at the same time secured for us all that we need to get through this life and attain final salvation. No-one, then, is able successfully to bring any charge against us, to cause us to be condemned in the judgment. For it is God who has chosen us and justified us and his own Son who answers any indictment brought against us. The second part of the hymn (35–39) celebrates the love of God in Christ for us. It is as impossible to separate us from that love as it is to bring a charge against us. No earthly peril or disaster can do so (35b–36). Though such suffering can be expected, as Paul reminds us with his quotation of Ps. 44:22, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Nor can any spiritual power separate us from God’s love (angels, demons and powers in v 38). Indeed, there is nothing in all creation that can remove us from the new regime in which God’s love in Christ reigns over us.

Carson, D. A., France, R. T., Motyer, J. A., & Wenham, G. J. (Eds.). (1994). New Bible commentary: 21st century edition (4th ed., p. 1142). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press.

The Ainu, in the historical Japanese texts the Ezo, are an indigenous people of Japan (Hokkaido, and formerly northeastern Honshu) and Russia (Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, and formerly the Kamchatka Peninsula). On June 6, 2008, the Japanese Diet passed a bipartisan, non-binding resolution calling upon the government to recognize the Ainu people as indigenous to Japan, and urging an end to discrimination against the group. Recent research suggests that the historical Ainu culture originated in a merger of the Okhotsk culture with the Satsumon, one of the ancient archaeological cultures that are considered to have derived from the Jōmon-period cultures of the Japanese archipelago. The Ainu economy was based on farming, as well as on hunting, fishing and gathering.

The Once and Future Stars of Andromeda.
Credit and Copyright: ESA/Herschel/ PACS/SPIRE/J.Fritz(U.Gent) / XMM-Newton/EPIC/W.Pietsch(MPE). The Andromeda Galaxy, aka M31, is a spiral galaxy a mere 2.5 million light-years away. In reddish hues, image data from the large Herschel infrared observatory traces enormous lanes of dust, warmed by stars, sweeping along Andromeda's spiral arms. The dust, in conjunction with the galaxy's interstellar gas, comprises the raw material for future star formation. X-ray data from the XMM-Newton observatory in blue pinpoint Andromeda's X-ray binary star systems. These systems likely contain neutron stars or stellar mass black holes that represent final stages in stellar evolution. More than twice the size of our own Milky Way, the Andromeda Galaxy is over 200,000 light-years across.

The national flag of Nepal is the world's only non-quadrilateral national flag. The flag is a simplified combination of two single pennons, known as a double pennon. Its crimson red is the colour of the rhododendron, Nepal's national flower, while the blue border is the colour of peace. The inclusion of the celestial bodies indicates Nepal's permanence and the hope that Nepal will enjoy the same longevity as the Sun and the Moon. Additionally, the stylized moon represents the calm demeanour and purity of spirit of the Nepali people, while the stylised sun represents their fierce resolve. The current flag was adopted on 16 December 1962, along with the formation of a new constitutional government.

The Last Judgment is a fresco by the Italian Renaissance painter Michelangelo, covering the whole altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City. It is a depiction of the Second Coming of Christ and the final and eternal judgment by God of all humanity. There are over 300 figures, with nearly all the males and angels originally shown as nudes; many were later partly covered up by painted draperies. The work took over four years, between 1536 and 1541. Michelangelo began working on it twenty-five years after he finished the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and was nearly 67 at its completion. It was commissioned by Pope Clement VII but was completed under Pope Paul III.

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