LIVE THE OVERFLOWING GLASS
20/08/24 07:41
Knowledge of God is not made up, not supposition and not legitimated by sects/cults or sincere people who imagine they have an additional revelation to that found in scripture or the tradition of the Christian Church. Thomas Torrance writes, “According to Matt. 11:27 and Lk. 10:22, there is an exclusive relation of knowing between the Father and Son and we are drawn into that relation through the Spirit as is taught in 1 Cor. 2:9-12, such that it is only by receiving the Spirit of God from Christ that we can share in the Son’s knowledge of the Father and the Father’s knowledge of the Son which would otherwise be closed to us.” (1) This implies that should we remain stuck in legalism we will be blind to the fullness of our life in Christ.
BASED ON CHRISTIANITY
Alexandra Radcliff clarifies the importance of basing our doctrinal understanding on authentic apostolic teaching when she writes, “Theology when it is grounded in our participation in the vicarious humanity of Christ by the grace of the Holy Spirit.. is a point of profound theological, and, I believe, pastoral importance.” (2) Of ‘pastoral importance’ because it is spirit and truth that bears fruit in the Believers life. There is a big difference in participating in Christ to participating in us and our efforts, which blinds us to the real Gospel while dulling our spirit.
DON’T ACCOMMODATE TO DULLNESS
A legalised gospel not only suffocates our affinity with light and life but degrades into a system built on lies, indifference, and self-preservation at the expense of the church’s fullness in Christ.
Truth is life and its nature is both restorative and unfolding. We need to know that godliness is not found in ‘copying Jesus’ for we are not able to copy him with our best intentions.
NON-GOSPEL UN-LIFE
Neither is godliness found in ‘keeping close to Jesus’ since we are no more adept at doing this than the Hebrews were adept at keeping the law.
What Jesus is for us is our grace and our life – the latter being his life in us conforming us to His nature by the power of the Spirit. “That the eternal Son took what was ours that we might have what is his was not merely a central theme in Patristic thought. It lay at the heart of John Calvin’s account of the mirifica commutatio (the wonderful exchange manifest in the incarnate Son) and it would become a central affirmation in the soteriologies of Karl Barth, Hans Urs von Balthazar, and T. F. Torrance as also the many contemporary theologians influenced by them.” (3)
Our salvation and godliness is far simpler than many of the accretions and dilutions would make it. The Gift of Life and Sight is Christ Himself and the simplicity of this Gospel is Christ come in our flesh. This is life in the Spirit.
(1) Torrance, Thomas F.. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (T&T Clark Cornerstones) . Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
(2) Radcliff, Alexandra S.. The Claim of Humanity in Christ: Salvation and Sanctification in the Theology of T. F. and J. B. Torrance (Princeton Theological Monograph Series Book 222) . Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
(3) McSwain, Jeff. Simul Sanctification: Barth’s Hidden Vision for Human Transformation (Princeton Theological Monograph Series Book 232) . Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
