SEEING IN JESUS AND THE APOSTLES
16/02/24 08:02
Recent issues are here.
We need to live the Gospel that is the Gospel expounded by Jesus and the apostles for it is only this Gospel that can make us men and women in the image of the Son of God. Distortions of this Gospel how ever small make us workers and slaves when we could have been sons of God in actuality.
SEEING PROPERLY
Thomas Torrance writes, “Once established, however, as an interpretative instrument of thought, the homoousion * served as a further guide to the understanding of the Holy Scriptures, yet always in subordination to the inspired teaching of the apostles, and as a cardinal point of belief by reference to which the on-going instruction of the faithful could be given steady and authoritative guidance.
PASSING ON TRUTH
“It is when the Church is engaged in this kind of theological interpretation, Athanasius claimed, that it keeps its feet upon the apostolic foundation and is able to hand on to the next generation the true teaching as it had received it from the previous generation without perverting it.” (1)
A non-perverted Gospel depends on the frame used by Jesus, the apostles, the Church Fathers and Reformers. In truth it belongs to a catholic interpretation of the Bible. Not a Roman Catholic one but the framing of the Gospel in the tradition and understanding of the Universal Church. This Gospel is of ‘no private interpretation’ and specifically is not beholden to the specious legalistic versions that arose in the 19th Century.
NO RED HERRINGS
The Bible is to be interpreted in the Person of Christ and His accomplishments for us with the knowledge that moralism and the law are not the key issue of salvation. Our incorporation in God in Jesus Christ is the key issue and our gifting of communion with God in Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the reality to which Christ is the Door.
This avoids the specious interpretations of scripture that stifle Christian growth when law keeping rather than our inclusion in the communion of the trinity is made the foundational hermeneutic. Legalism is a heretical example of foundationalism* that opposes itself to the One foundation that has been laid in Jesus Christ. Legalism suffocates the foundation of new creation life that is Christ come in our flesh: Incarnation.
(1) Thomas Torrance. The Trinitarian Faith, p 130
*Foundationalism – Douglas Campbell. The triumph of God’s Love.
*Homoousion - is a Christian theological term, most notably used in the Nicene Creed for describing Jesus (God the Son) as "same in being" or "same in essence" with God the Father (ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρί). The same term was later also applied to the Holy Spirit in order to designate him as being "same in essence" with the Father and the Son. Those notions became cornerstones of theology in Nicene Christianity, and also represent one of the most important theological concepts within the Trinitarian doctrinal understanding of God.
We need to live the Gospel that is the Gospel expounded by Jesus and the apostles for it is only this Gospel that can make us men and women in the image of the Son of God. Distortions of this Gospel how ever small make us workers and slaves when we could have been sons of God in actuality.
SEEING PROPERLY
Thomas Torrance writes, “Once established, however, as an interpretative instrument of thought, the homoousion * served as a further guide to the understanding of the Holy Scriptures, yet always in subordination to the inspired teaching of the apostles, and as a cardinal point of belief by reference to which the on-going instruction of the faithful could be given steady and authoritative guidance.
PASSING ON TRUTH
“It is when the Church is engaged in this kind of theological interpretation, Athanasius claimed, that it keeps its feet upon the apostolic foundation and is able to hand on to the next generation the true teaching as it had received it from the previous generation without perverting it.” (1)
A non-perverted Gospel depends on the frame used by Jesus, the apostles, the Church Fathers and Reformers. In truth it belongs to a catholic interpretation of the Bible. Not a Roman Catholic one but the framing of the Gospel in the tradition and understanding of the Universal Church. This Gospel is of ‘no private interpretation’ and specifically is not beholden to the specious legalistic versions that arose in the 19th Century.
NO RED HERRINGS
The Bible is to be interpreted in the Person of Christ and His accomplishments for us with the knowledge that moralism and the law are not the key issue of salvation. Our incorporation in God in Jesus Christ is the key issue and our gifting of communion with God in Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the reality to which Christ is the Door.
This avoids the specious interpretations of scripture that stifle Christian growth when law keeping rather than our inclusion in the communion of the trinity is made the foundational hermeneutic. Legalism is a heretical example of foundationalism* that opposes itself to the One foundation that has been laid in Jesus Christ. Legalism suffocates the foundation of new creation life that is Christ come in our flesh: Incarnation.
(1) Thomas Torrance. The Trinitarian Faith, p 130
*Foundationalism – Douglas Campbell. The triumph of God’s Love.
*Homoousion - is a Christian theological term, most notably used in the Nicene Creed for describing Jesus (God the Son) as "same in being" or "same in essence" with God the Father (ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρί). The same term was later also applied to the Holy Spirit in order to designate him as being "same in essence" with the Father and the Son. Those notions became cornerstones of theology in Nicene Christianity, and also represent one of the most important theological concepts within the Trinitarian doctrinal understanding of God.
