LIVING FROM THE SEED OF LIFE
04/09/23 08:20
If our faith is only a collection of propositions we short-change ourselves and contain our living in the version of ‘the letter that kills’. Jesus’ Kingdom is more than a Belief System. It’s a state of being that is the effect of our inclusion in God at the Hand and Life of Jesus Christ. This is why it’s possible to define ourselves as the Body of Christ – which we are propositionally but live in a definition without substance – having little content because we live from an incomplete gospel and christ who is far less than the Christ of God.
WHAT AND WHO IS THE FAITH?
Thomas Torrance observes that, “The work of Irenaeus .. clearly reflects the general activity of the Church in the second and third centuries in its attempt to clarify the doctrinal substance of the faith in the light of its own objectively grounded order, in the course of which there emerged explicit formulations of belief which were eventually to take the form of the early creeds.
NOT JUST WORDS
“From the way in which Irenaeus himself handled these .. credal formulae, it seems clear that they were not doctrinal propositions connected together through a logico-deductive system of thought. [THEY WERE] assertions of belief that are organised from beyond themselves by their common ground in the apostolic deposit of faith and ultimately by the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ, the one incarnate truth of God from which all evangelical truths flow.”
GOSPELS DUMBED DOWN
We can if we are not particular, accommodate ourselves to abridged gospels and lesser christs by habit and aberrant socialisation. This results in paddocks of tares and a cursed community that is wizened and debilitated by the non-life that comes from the perversion of the truth and the dullness of spiritual discernment that results from darkness claimed as light. When we accommodate ourselves to these illusion we may not be overtly wicked – but we do make ourselves vulnerable to evil that waits for its opportunity to multiply some form of death, like cancer cells in the body.
The Word is a Person and the Christ with the power to separate truth from error and lead us in to all light/life. This scripture is not restricted to the words of the Bible but is descriptive of the Word in whom we interpret the Bible in terms of the Gospel of Jesus and the apostles. There is nurture in the apostle’s doctrine but loss in any other.
WHAT AND WHO IS THE FAITH?
Thomas Torrance observes that, “The work of Irenaeus .. clearly reflects the general activity of the Church in the second and third centuries in its attempt to clarify the doctrinal substance of the faith in the light of its own objectively grounded order, in the course of which there emerged explicit formulations of belief which were eventually to take the form of the early creeds.
NOT JUST WORDS
“From the way in which Irenaeus himself handled these .. credal formulae, it seems clear that they were not doctrinal propositions connected together through a logico-deductive system of thought. [THEY WERE] assertions of belief that are organised from beyond themselves by their common ground in the apostolic deposit of faith and ultimately by the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ, the one incarnate truth of God from which all evangelical truths flow.”
GOSPELS DUMBED DOWN
We can if we are not particular, accommodate ourselves to abridged gospels and lesser christs by habit and aberrant socialisation. This results in paddocks of tares and a cursed community that is wizened and debilitated by the non-life that comes from the perversion of the truth and the dullness of spiritual discernment that results from darkness claimed as light. When we accommodate ourselves to these illusion we may not be overtly wicked – but we do make ourselves vulnerable to evil that waits for its opportunity to multiply some form of death, like cancer cells in the body.
The Word is a Person and the Christ with the power to separate truth from error and lead us in to all light/life. This scripture is not restricted to the words of the Bible but is descriptive of the Word in whom we interpret the Bible in terms of the Gospel of Jesus and the apostles. There is nurture in the apostle’s doctrine but loss in any other.
