REAL CHRIST. TRUE GOSPEL
29/03/24 08:33
The integrity of our view of who Christ is, what He has done for us and who we are as a result of His nature and achievements depends on our possession of the authentic Christ of God and our embrace of the true Gospel of Jesus and the apostles.
NO DICHOTOMOUS GOD
Mike Habets in his discussion of the theology of Thomas Torrance writes, “The identity of Jesus Christ as both the Revealer and the Revelation of God [is seen in the truth that] God is one in being and act.
PARTICIPATION IN CHRIST’S LIFE
“The significance of this christocentric epistemology is that in order to know God we must know Jesus Christ. ‘In the Hebrew idiom revelation implies not only the uncovering of God but the uncovering of the ear and heart of man to receive revelation.’ Revelation is neither static nor passive. .. Torrance sees revelation as event.” We may add that it is a continuing process, not given to inventing new gospels but revealing and explaining the original Gospel.
BE IN HIS LIFE
“When we wish to come to know a personal being we must, by necessity, participate in the life of that personal being for true knowledge to be realised. [This is why legalistic religion, which is innately separatist, blinds people to the simplicity and power of Paul’s ‘Christ who is our life.’] It’s the basic reason for the notable lack of spiritual discernment in such people. “This holds true for human relationships as well as divine. That is why’, Torrance contends, ‘we cannot know God without love, and if we are estranged without being reconciled to him.’ Torrance draws the following conclusion: ‘Knowing God requires cognitive union with him in which our whole being is affected by his love and holiness. It is the pure in heart who see God.’
SEEING AND KNOWING
“This seeing or knowing is a personal participation in the triune relationship of the Father’s love for the Son by the Holy Spirit and the Son’s love for the Father by the Holy Spirit. Knowledge is fundamentally relational, not merely cognitive; it is a personal knowing that comes only by personal participation.” (1)
Expressed above is Godliness and Real Life described as a state of being, portrayed as union with God in Christ rather than as shades of an incomplete atonement and the earning of Christ before we can have Christ as saviour, as indicated in sayings such as ‘keeping close to Jesus.’ It explains why the little child and the heart of belief may see the full Jesus and the riches of our inheritance in ‘Christ come in our flesh’ and why the religious person may miss this. Be blind to it because he is affixed to his self-help model of a more complicated/threadbare, religious rendition of ‘earning Christ.’
(1) Myk Habets. Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance. P 96.
NO DICHOTOMOUS GOD
Mike Habets in his discussion of the theology of Thomas Torrance writes, “The identity of Jesus Christ as both the Revealer and the Revelation of God [is seen in the truth that] God is one in being and act.
PARTICIPATION IN CHRIST’S LIFE
“The significance of this christocentric epistemology is that in order to know God we must know Jesus Christ. ‘In the Hebrew idiom revelation implies not only the uncovering of God but the uncovering of the ear and heart of man to receive revelation.’ Revelation is neither static nor passive. .. Torrance sees revelation as event.” We may add that it is a continuing process, not given to inventing new gospels but revealing and explaining the original Gospel.
BE IN HIS LIFE
“When we wish to come to know a personal being we must, by necessity, participate in the life of that personal being for true knowledge to be realised. [This is why legalistic religion, which is innately separatist, blinds people to the simplicity and power of Paul’s ‘Christ who is our life.’] It’s the basic reason for the notable lack of spiritual discernment in such people. “This holds true for human relationships as well as divine. That is why’, Torrance contends, ‘we cannot know God without love, and if we are estranged without being reconciled to him.’ Torrance draws the following conclusion: ‘Knowing God requires cognitive union with him in which our whole being is affected by his love and holiness. It is the pure in heart who see God.’
SEEING AND KNOWING
“This seeing or knowing is a personal participation in the triune relationship of the Father’s love for the Son by the Holy Spirit and the Son’s love for the Father by the Holy Spirit. Knowledge is fundamentally relational, not merely cognitive; it is a personal knowing that comes only by personal participation.” (1)
Expressed above is Godliness and Real Life described as a state of being, portrayed as union with God in Christ rather than as shades of an incomplete atonement and the earning of Christ before we can have Christ as saviour, as indicated in sayings such as ‘keeping close to Jesus.’ It explains why the little child and the heart of belief may see the full Jesus and the riches of our inheritance in ‘Christ come in our flesh’ and why the religious person may miss this. Be blind to it because he is affixed to his self-help model of a more complicated/threadbare, religious rendition of ‘earning Christ.’
(1) Myk Habets. Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance. P 96.
