LIVE THE EUCHARIST
14/03/24 07:26
There are people who do not accept Paul’s assertion that Christ is our life, because they are wedded to the contract view of living the gospel. This is to say that they live to formula – usually a collection of denominational icons/behaviours that they imagine earn them acceptance with God. They live from a contract of ‘I do this, so I expect God to do that.’ Such a formulation of self-earned grace may afford a shallow religious experience, but not the kind of peace and wholeness that Paul characterised as ‘Christ our life.’ Of course it furnishes no Kingdom agency whatsoever.
JUST PLAIN WRONG
While it is not overtly stated, in many cases Believers are of the view that grace/acceptance with God is earned by us, which means that for them access to grace depends on how well one is doing at sanctification. With this kind of entitlement embedded in the consciousness it is no wonder that so many Christians oppose or are hostile to unlimited grace and contrive for themselves some formula to serve as a contract between themselves and Christ. But such holiness is no more whole than a string bag.
CHRIST JUSTIFIES AND SANCTIFIES
Alexandra Radcliff citing Joble and others observes, “Joble suggests that the lack of emphasis on the subjective nature of sanctification particularly notable in Protestant theology is due to the atonement being connected strongly to justification but not to sanctification. He argues, '...the Christian tradition (perhaps particularly Protestant tradition) has worked with an over-tidy separation of justification from sanctification in a way that is not truly biblical. And it does not seem to have given the same thought to how the cross effected our sanctification.'
“When our sanctification is not rooted definitively with justification in Christ, Noble considers, 'we fit ourselves for heaven by the effort of our own sanctifying self-discipline. [Emphasis added]
“Similarly, Douglas Campbell has criticised attempts to explain the dialectical tension between divine and human agency by separating sanctification from justification. He argues that, in Paul, justification and sanctification are in parallel, not sequence.
“When sanctification is sequential to justification, this makes sanctification conditional upon our own endeavours. This is strongly condemned by G.C. Berkouwer as 'a violation of the grace of God' for 'it posits a substitute for the grace of God or tries to complete it with human works.” (1)
CORE DELUSION
Any formulaic, self-made grace is delusional and pathetic because it short-changes us. It substitutes assorted legalisms and position statements for what could have been us as the spirit and life of Christ manifest as Peter and May. The latter, aka spirit and life of God incarnated as the sons of God is what separates religious place-holding from Kingdom Agency’ and from those who live life authoritatively and not as the scribes and merchandisers of ‘the letter that kills.’
.
(1) Alexandra Radcliff phd Thesis. P 133.
JUST PLAIN WRONG
While it is not overtly stated, in many cases Believers are of the view that grace/acceptance with God is earned by us, which means that for them access to grace depends on how well one is doing at sanctification. With this kind of entitlement embedded in the consciousness it is no wonder that so many Christians oppose or are hostile to unlimited grace and contrive for themselves some formula to serve as a contract between themselves and Christ. But such holiness is no more whole than a string bag.
CHRIST JUSTIFIES AND SANCTIFIES
Alexandra Radcliff citing Joble and others observes, “Joble suggests that the lack of emphasis on the subjective nature of sanctification particularly notable in Protestant theology is due to the atonement being connected strongly to justification but not to sanctification. He argues, '...the Christian tradition (perhaps particularly Protestant tradition) has worked with an over-tidy separation of justification from sanctification in a way that is not truly biblical. And it does not seem to have given the same thought to how the cross effected our sanctification.'
“When our sanctification is not rooted definitively with justification in Christ, Noble considers, 'we fit ourselves for heaven by the effort of our own sanctifying self-discipline. [Emphasis added]
“Similarly, Douglas Campbell has criticised attempts to explain the dialectical tension between divine and human agency by separating sanctification from justification. He argues that, in Paul, justification and sanctification are in parallel, not sequence.
“When sanctification is sequential to justification, this makes sanctification conditional upon our own endeavours. This is strongly condemned by G.C. Berkouwer as 'a violation of the grace of God' for 'it posits a substitute for the grace of God or tries to complete it with human works.” (1)
CORE DELUSION
Any formulaic, self-made grace is delusional and pathetic because it short-changes us. It substitutes assorted legalisms and position statements for what could have been us as the spirit and life of Christ manifest as Peter and May. The latter, aka spirit and life of God incarnated as the sons of God is what separates religious place-holding from Kingdom Agency’ and from those who live life authoritatively and not as the scribes and merchandisers of ‘the letter that kills.’
.
(1) Alexandra Radcliff phd Thesis. P 133.
