LIVE YOUR KINGDOM LIFE
16/08/24 08:12
The trouble with law-based theology is that it focusses attention on ourselves – so that our obsession becomes a self-centred inquiry of the self to see how we are doing in earning acceptance with God. The weakness in this ungodliness is that it makes for formulated versions of righteousness and a contractual relationship with Christ – when our riches are that we have been gifted Christ our life and given the adventure of participating in the fellowship of the trinity as a way of life.
MORE THAN A PIOUS NAME
Thus the naming of a church as Holy Trinity, Gunnedah or Gilgandra is more than a piety. It shows that our lives have been grounded by Christ in the Communion that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This means that the law is not the issue of salvation as legalistic sects may maintain. The trinity and our inclusion in its communion is the foundation of our life in God, so that in this Holy Communion we are in God and God is in us with the result that we are regenerated as sons/daughters of God.
BASIS OF KINGDOM LIFE
“It is no accident then that one of [Thomas] Torrance’s most valuable and wide-ranging insights was that the doctrine of the Trinity, when rightly understood, was the ‘ground and grammar’ of theology. It constrains theologians to think from a centre in God provided in the incarnation, ministry, death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord who is coming again to complete the redemption. Any attempt to think from a centre in ourselves simply misses the fact that we have already been justified and sanctified in the person and work of Jesus Christ, the One Mediator.” (1)
The reality of our inclusion in God by God releases us from the prison of self-obsession, of the drag of long-held erroneous ideas and the supposed need to judge self and others to see how we are going. Which is why Paul remarked, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me’1 Cor 15.10 NIV.
FREE TO BE SONS/DAUGHTERS
Paul is not obsessed with self-examination or guilt. He is free to be Himself in God’s grace, not fretting over sins but pressing into the righteousness of God that is His in Christ to perform the mission that Jesus has laid on him as a key apostle of the Kingdom Jesus began.
Because of this. Holy Communion is not a rite in which we get ourselves sad enough to try harder. No. It affirms that just as the bread and wine become us, so Christ becomes us by incarnation.
(1) Torrance, Thomas F.. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (T&T Clark Cornerstones) . Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
MORE THAN A PIOUS NAME
Thus the naming of a church as Holy Trinity, Gunnedah or Gilgandra is more than a piety. It shows that our lives have been grounded by Christ in the Communion that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This means that the law is not the issue of salvation as legalistic sects may maintain. The trinity and our inclusion in its communion is the foundation of our life in God, so that in this Holy Communion we are in God and God is in us with the result that we are regenerated as sons/daughters of God.
BASIS OF KINGDOM LIFE
“It is no accident then that one of [Thomas] Torrance’s most valuable and wide-ranging insights was that the doctrine of the Trinity, when rightly understood, was the ‘ground and grammar’ of theology. It constrains theologians to think from a centre in God provided in the incarnation, ministry, death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord who is coming again to complete the redemption. Any attempt to think from a centre in ourselves simply misses the fact that we have already been justified and sanctified in the person and work of Jesus Christ, the One Mediator.” (1)
The reality of our inclusion in God by God releases us from the prison of self-obsession, of the drag of long-held erroneous ideas and the supposed need to judge self and others to see how we are going. Which is why Paul remarked, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me’1 Cor 15.10 NIV.
FREE TO BE SONS/DAUGHTERS
Paul is not obsessed with self-examination or guilt. He is free to be Himself in God’s grace, not fretting over sins but pressing into the righteousness of God that is His in Christ to perform the mission that Jesus has laid on him as a key apostle of the Kingdom Jesus began.
Because of this. Holy Communion is not a rite in which we get ourselves sad enough to try harder. No. It affirms that just as the bread and wine become us, so Christ becomes us by incarnation.
(1) Torrance, Thomas F.. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (T&T Clark Cornerstones) . Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
