The ESV app and over 45 Crossway titles are already available for Apple’s iPad, which released this week. In the iBookstore, you’ll find books from John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Mark Dever, Paul Tripp, and more!
Stay tuned as Crossway books are being added daily and all future titles as they are published.
The iBooks app is available for download directly from the store on your iPad.
Adrian Warnock discusses Raised with Christ and urges readers to not neglect the resurrection in his recent interview on Blogging Theologically. Check out the full interview here. Read a sample chapter on The Empty Cross, The Empty Tomb here.
What was the greatest pleasure for you in writing this book?
The resurrection lies at the very heart of our faith. I am convinced that studying it has many, many benefits for us. I definitely feel closer to Jesus as a result. Now I have the rest of my life to try and actually live in light of the implications of this wonderful event.
In your study, what was the one thing that was particularly challenging for you personally? Was there only one thing?
The biggest thing was realizing just how much I had personally been neglecting the resurrection. I had preached sermons that stopped at the cross and never mentioned the gospel, had not explained the full gospel, and I even wrote a tract which omitted the most important part of the gospel we have been entrusted with! How could I and so many others have done that? There were many other challenging points, but they mostly stem from this shameful neglect.
You write that “revival” is best described as “a powerful intensification by Jesus of the Holy Spirit’s normal activity.” I really appreciated this as I’ve only heard it described in terms of signs, wonders and people falling on the ground. Why is it that so many seem to think that revival can occur where God’s Word is not preached?
I suppose because so few people actually read church history! If we read about revivals, a very clear God-centered, Bible-focused prayer-prompted picture of a revival emerges.
How has your study of the Resurrection transformed your faith? What did it reveal as lacking? What strength did it bring?
I think I am still painfully aware that I do not experience the same power that raised Christ from the dead as much as I should. Many Christians who have gone before have had a strong sense of personally knowing the risen Jesus. As Paul put it, I long “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection.” When I am most confident of the resurrection, I am most sure of my own salvation and future resurrection, most full of hope, most joyful, and most aware of Christ’s power in me. I know now that I must never again let the resurrection become something I assume.
The historical fact of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus are continually denied, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Why do you think this denial continues to be so prevalent when, as you point out in your book, the apostles would not have died for a deliberate deception?
The blindness of unbelief is astonishing. Remember that when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, rather than believing, the Jewish leaders made plans to kill both Jesus and even Lazarus!
What effect do you hope your book will have on its readers?
I pray it will prompt many of them to begin a lifetime of studying the resurrection, seeing it all over the Bible, reading books about it, sharing it with others, and most importantly of all, living in light of its wonderful implications.
Any final encouragement?
I urge your readers to commit to reading a book about the resurrection this year, or maybe even more than one! It need not be mine, necessarily, but every Christian should read a book about this foundation of our faith.
from Scandalous by D. A. Carson
Do you want to see the greatest evidence of the love of God? Go to the cross. Do you want to see the greatest evidence of the justice of God? Go to the cross. It is where wrath and mercy meet. Holiness and peace kiss each other. The climax of redemptive history is the cross.
Because it is this God who is offended by our sin and stands over against us in judgment, and it is this God who loves us anyway, this sort of passage [Romans 3:21-26] deals most powerfully and potently with the problem and provides the remedy. God in the fullness of time sent forth his own Son. In this one climactic sacrifice, God takes action both to punish sin and to forgive sinners. In any final sense, the sins had remained unpunished; now they are punished in the very person of the Son. And God is now both just and the one who justifies the ungodly. This is received by faith.
Do you believe? Or do you find yourself among the millions who begin to glimpse what the cross is about and dismiss the entire account as scandalous? A living-and-dying-and-living God? A God who stands over against us in wrath and who loves us anyway? A cross where punishment is meted out by God and borne by God? Scandalous!
And what will you do when you give an account to him on the last day, and tell him that you read this chapter or heard this message and walked away?
We’ve been working to get the ESV ready for the launch of Apple’s iPad. We are pleased to announce that the ESV iPad app, the “ESV Bible,” is now available for free in the iTunes store.
ESV Bible currently offers the same features as the iPhone App but has been optimized to take advantage of the iPad’s new interface.
What does this mean and why is it significant? In Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross, J. I. Packer explains that Hell in this context means Hades, not Gehenna. The difference being that Gehenna means the state of final retribution for the godless. Hades or Hell in the context of the creed means death—that Jesus really died a genuine death. He went to the place of the departed, known in Hebrew as Sheol.
Packer continues to explain:
Jesus was “put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (1 Pet. 3:18), Jesus entered Hades, and Scripture tells us briefly what he did there.
What makes Jesus’ entry into Hades important for us is not, however, any of this, but simply the fact that now we can face death knowing that when it comes we shall not find ourselves alone. He has been there before us, and he will see us through.
You can read the Preface, Chapter 1 (True Contemplation of the Cross by Martin Luther), and Chapter 2 (He Set His Face to Go do Jerusalem by John Piper) of Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross here.
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