Trueman engages the question of “What is man?” and demonstrates how contemporary definitions of mankind result in the dehumanizing of our neighbor.
This is an excerpt from the third chapter of By Water and the Word: God’s Gift of Baptism for You by Brian Thomas (1517 Publishing, 2026), pgs 52-60.
Even when the bitter places sink down deep into our bones, the Restorer never relinquishes his grip on you.

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No one twisted Jesus’s arm to make him enter Mary’s womb. No one tricked him into being born into a world strung out on the meth of sin. He came in with his eyes wide open.
God graciously bursts our foolish plots by coming our way, into our very flesh, and being God with us.
We are all sojourners in a perilous cosmos, what is sometimes conceptualized as the theology of the pilgrim.
Over the last few weeks it’s been painful and disappointing to hear the stories of victims that have been abused and assaulted by powerful celebrities, executives, and politicians.
“Obey God and he will bless you,” says the wind and the reed is bent over and bruised throughout. “God will never stop loving you but you can disappoint him,” says the wind and the once lit candle is now a sad smoldering wick.
For since it was not enough that the Lord of heaven and earth hung on our every word, the Word came down from heaven and hung upon the cross.
The devil tempts us to hope in things that we can do.
What is it to be an heir of the Reformation? It is to look outward to Christ bleeding and dying on the cross as Great Rescuer of sinners—of me.
Where Jesus speaks to us, takes ahold of us, and gives Himself to us.
Whether we realize it or not, all these online, self-editing actions are nothing more than our admission that we believe that we are so deeply flawed that no one will love us just as we are.
We’re by nature counters. So long as we can add, subtract, multiply and divide something, anything, we have some measure of control and comparison.
We all desperately need God’s only Son to take our place, to cleanse us by His blood, to wipe away our evil deeds.