GOD OF HUMOUR AND DELIGHT
30/08/24 09:24
God is not stoic, not a version of Queen Vitoria and not a missionary for an austerity version of life. God’s obsession is not sin and us not sinning. God’s priority is belonging – of securing our union with Himself, so that we can live in our inclusion in the Holy Family that God has secured in Jesus Christ. God undoes our degradations and forgives sin. But God does this because Christ is our life, our forgiveness and our inclusion in the Communion that is God.
GOD NOT A MONISM
The person of God is triune. God is three persons, one God. The trinity in which each person is distinct, yet part of the other is the archetype of marriage, family, church, society and creation. In this communion each agent is part of the other, yet distinctly themselves – and cannot realise their uniqueness unless they participate in this communion. It’s called perichoresis.
LIFE AS PERSONS
Therefore, worship is a life and not just something we do in church. It’s why Christ is our life and the law is not. Why life in the encompassing Jesus is our life and why life in separated Adam and the knowledge of good and evil is not a life that is full or eternal. Jesus has secured this life and He lives to make it real for all of life – for people, the biosphere and the Earth. Jesus is the alpha and omega of inclusion and belonging. ‘And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth’ Eph 1.10 NLT.
IN COMMUNION
“In our modern world, in the tradition of Boethius and the Enlightenment, we usually equate the concept of “the person” with that of “the individual.” But in a Christian understanding this is a mistake. Just as the words “father,” “mother,” “husband,” “wife,” “brother,” “sister” are relational terms, so with the word “person.” The human person is someone who finds his or her true being in relation, in love, in communion. He [Jesus] does not appease an angry God to condition Him into being gracious, but in perfect acknowledgement of the holy love of the Father for a sinful world, seals God’s covenant purposes for all humanity by His blood. (1) Christ’s shed blood, His at-one-ment of us with Himself is our inclusion in God. In Christ God has taken steps to you so that you are not earning God. You are living in the reality of Christ who has earned you into communion with Himself.
(1) J.B. Torrance, Worship, Community and the Triune Grace of God.’ p.39,40.
