Dante and Scot McKnight on the love of the Triune God

In the deep and bright essence of that exalted Light,
three circles appeared to me;
they had three different colors,
but all of them were of the same dimension;
one circle seemed reflected by the second,
as rainbow is by rainbow,
and the third seemed fire breathed equally
by those two circles.

Eternal Light,
You only dwell within Yourself,
and only You know You;
Self-knowing, Self-known,
You love and smile upon Yourself!

...The reason we are special is that we came from this three-circled splendor of loving Light that also draws us back into that Light so that we might be restored by embracing grace.

The story of the Eikon derives absolutely and only from the very beginning. God's own inner perichoretic dance of love, Dante's three Circles of Light dancing amongst themselves in such a manner that one is not sure which is which. We can now slightly modify our opening definition of the gospel: the gospel is the work of the triune, interpersonal God to restore Eikons to God and others into that divine communion, and to unleash it into the rest of the world.

Scot McKnight, Embracing Grace, 36, first quote from Dante's Divine Comedy: Paradiso.

quote of the week: Frederick Buechner on "God is love"

To say that God is love is either the last straw or the ultimate truth.

Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words, 231, quoted by Scot McKnight, 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed, 134

the essence of humility

Yesterday's post on proud Christians is not one of saying I am not proud and they are. How subtle pride can be! When we think we're not proud, that can be, and most normally, or readily is for us, nothing more than a proud thought. We are often blind to our own pride.

At the same time, Jesus not only epitomized humility, but he calls us as his followers to humilty. All indeed is a gift from God, and we all are in this together. God lets no one out of the mix, and loves to show his blessing through the most humble of his servants. When we think we have a leg up on others, we'd best beware. We're treading on dangerous ground.

As we look to Jesus, as recorded in the gospels, we find one who shows us the way a life of humility. It is one essentially of love. Love for God, love for others. A love which is by God's grace and in the Spirit. A love from which true humility flows. The love of God in Jesus by the Spirit.

What would you like to share on this?

a hermeneutic of love

I have yet to read Alan Jacobs, book, A Theology Of Reading: The Hermeneutics Of Love, and though it looks challenging in the language used, I look forward to doing so.

John in one of his letters puts truth and love together. In Jesus they go together, inseparable. Not that anyone has either down perfectly. Only Jesus himself did.

If we choose to put the worst case construction on someone, their writing, their lives, then we violate this truth in Jesus. If we try to find common ground with them, and how they are in the boundary lines of Christian orthodoxy, as well as to find good from them, then we do well. But if we jump on a statement they said, pulling it out of context, or refer to what someone else said about what they say, and we don't take the time and pains to do as I just said, then we do err.

Christians often are quite guilty in this. Truth and love are wedded together, forever, in Jesus. We must not let go of either. And that means we will consider what others are saying with love. And judge their words by God's revealed truth in Scripture, and in Jesus.

What might you like to add?

reinstated with love

After reflecting yesterday a bit on Peter's denials of our Lord, and on our denials, as well, today we take a look at Peter's reinstatement by our Lord. It ends up being a matter of love.

Of course Jesus, while telling Peter he'd deny him, also told him that when he turns in repentance, he is to strengthen his brothers. Peter had to remember those words. Then after Jesus' resurrection, the angels tell the witnesses at the empty tomb to go and tell the disciples "and Peter." Peter is explicitly mentioned, so that Peter gets the message that he indeed is included.

We come to the account in John, on the sea shore, where our Lord tells the disciples where to get the fish, as he prepares for a good fish "fry" on the beach. That had to bring back a vivid memory, to Peter. After they eat our Lord speaks to Peter. "Do you love me?" Although both agape, and phileo are used, most scholars today see them as interchangeable, as indeed they are, it seems, when reflecting on the Greek New Testament. So Jesus asks Peter three times if Peter loves him. And Peter each time says, he does, appealing in the end to Jesus' knowledge of him.

So as Peter denied Jesus three times, so Jesus asks him three times if he loves him. This breaks Peter's heart. Jesus tells Peter in the midst of this, to feed and take care of his sheep. Then he tells Peter how Peter will die, to glorify God.

At the heart of God's work for us in Christ, and our receiving of that gift is love. A love that hits us powerfully, initially. A love that works with us, in spite of us. A love which won't let us go, even when we do go astray. And a love that brings us back into God's arms in Christ. And gives us work to do, a task to finish, and the reason to live.

I'm glad for this unrelenting love, in my own life.

What might you like to add to these thoughts?

more grace

Although James 4:6 in context means something different, we can know in our struggles that "more grace" is available to us, in Jesus.

We've all been in situations that were difficult, because of the people we have relationships to. Not to say that none of the difficulty is due to us. But I'm thinking of those who may be domineering, critical, harsh, judgmental, etc.

Sometimes I figure I'm near "the end of my rope." There's nothing left, and I'm read to bail out.

But God's call to us in Christ is higher. After all, isn't it a call to love even our enemies? We are told "as much as lies in us" we're to live at peace with all people. This is not just a "live and let live" kind of peace. But more than that, it's a peace that longs for the blessing of the other, the ultimate, lasting blessing being found in Christ.

So we need to pray and ask God for "more grace." I've found he gives it to us, and that there are "grace moments" when his love again can reign supreme, even if our capacities for it are still small.

This prayer, and need for "more grace" will be ongoing, no doubt. We can never think we've arrived in this life. But this promise along with faith presents opportunities for not only personal change, but relational change, akin and even attuned to the reality we have in the God who is love.

What would you like to add to these "notes"?

God's goodness

God is good. We have that to rest on from Scripture and in Christ.

That truth and all attending truths, one getting probably even more at the heart of everything: God is love, these truths should help us through difficult days. Sometimes we have to live in the midst of troubles without and fears within. True of me for the past several days, actually.

But God is good. We can see it in Providence, that is in God's blessings in our lives. The sunshine-filled blue skies with the green Spring-ing to life trees. What beauty! The warmth in the air, the birds singing.

Strength for another day. The desire to know God and his will in Jesus. To follow Jesus. To love God and love our neighbor. All gifts out of the goodness of our Creator.

I want to learn well during the hard times. They exist for a reason, and like all else can be used by God in our lives for our good. And I thank God for all his goodness to me, to my brothers and sisters in Jesus, to all people, and to the world.

"Your kingdom come, Father. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

What signs do you see of God's goodness in your life? What helps you through the difficult days?

love prevails

It is good when by God's work in Jesus love prevails. I'm not much of a bumper sticker fan, but one bumper sticker I wouldn't mind having on a car (if I had to) says, "Love Wins." Properly understood, that is indeed true.

In the end the love of God inherent in the Trinity, does indeed win. The love of God in Christ, which resulted in God's great redemptive work in him, wins. A love which by faith we can participate in, only because it is real and active, revealed to us in God's final word, Jesus. A love which makes itself known to me everyday, and hopefully through us in Jesus to others.

This is a necessarily short post today, because I overslept, and am still trying to shake the cobwebs off. But what do you think of the "Love Wins" bumper sticker? And what would you like to add here?

no condemnation

We are told that for us in Christ Jesus, there is no condemnation. This is because Jesus took our just condemnation on himself when he died on the cross for our sins. So that we can go away, free from guilt by the forgiveness of our sins, and free to live a new life in Jesus by the Spirit. It's interesting how this passage ties the new life we're to live out by the Spirit along with Christ's death for us. Yes, in Jesus we're no longer condemned, but we're to live out that life of no condemnation.

Over my life, even as a Christian, I've experienced many days in which I've felt condemnation. I've learned not to accept that so that those days have become less and less. I do have days in which the Lord is dealing with me in loving discipline. There is a big difference. We in Jesus must reject all condemnation, even if there is truth in the accusations to our hearts. Instead we must learn to rest in God, and seek the justification through Christ, which brings us peace no matter what.

I am glad God deals with me as one of God's children. So I don't accept the feeling of condemnation, even when I can't shake it. I simply seek to rest in God, and in the truth I find in God through faith in Jesus. The Spirit brings conviction to us, but not condemnation. A conviction over sin which helps us one step at a time deal with it in accepting God's forgiveness, making a clean break of it, while making appropriate restitution. Or, as in many times in my life, calling Satan's bluff, and standing on the truth that my sin is forgiven.

One other thing: Condemnation is on us and usually is hazy, whereas God's conviction on us is over our sin and is specific. And condemnation results in or would push us toward death, while conviction helps us find forgiveness and life in Jesus.

What thoughts on this would you like to add here?

a taste of heaven

I find it wonderful when in conversation with someone as with my mother yesterday on her birthday, there is in the air something like a taste of heaven. This happens among us in Jesus when we enjoy each other's company, and especially so when we're together to meet before the Lord. Of course by grace and through the Spirit we're always living in God's presence.

Sadly in this life we can experience a taste of hell, as well. I think of sins of the tongue here. Of course both the good and the bad begin in the heart. We think unworthy thoughts of others, maybe with some truth in them though surely distorted. And sooner or later if we don't deal with such thoughts through repentance and prayer, we find ourselves acting and speaking from them.

The grace found in Jesus is what can make the difference here. It is a grace which by faith realizes that in Christ our own sins have been forgiven, and God therefore deals with us in love as God's dear children. And so we are to see others in Jesus in the same way, as those of our family in Jesus. And look at those outside of Jesus as ones for whom Christ died. And who are invited through Christ to join us.

What would you like to say about this?

quote of the week: Scot McKnight on facing the face of God

The Jesus Creed...flows from the face of God's gracious love. We learn to live the Jesus Creed when we begin to face God. Sometimes, like Adam and Eve, we hide our faces from God, hoping God might not find us as God strolls through the garden. We hide from God for all kinds of reasons: Perhaps we did not learn to love well from our parents or family, or perhaps we have experienced or are still in a deeply wounding relationship, or perhaps we are tired and weary from seeking intimacy. Such experiences can turn our face from God. But, facing God heals us and empowers us to become lovers of God and lovers of others.

from Scot McKnight, 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed, 24. Passages added in links from chapter and book.

God's judgment

Our culture does not readily receive or appreciate God's judgment as given to us in Scripture. In other places on earth where the wicked are running rampant, the message of judgment is welcomed, and rightfully so. Just finished the last book of the Bible, Revelation. It resounds with final judgments on the earth, before the consummation when in Jesus heaven and earth become one in the new creation.

There is no need to see God's coming judgment as threatening. It is meant to be not only destructive of evil, but constructive by grace in all places God's grace in Jesus are touching. So when Jesus returns we can welcome that, knowing that in our case the judgment will be constructive and for our good. This is the question for us all, "Are we living in the grace of God available to us in Jesus?"

What is your first response when you hear or see the words, "God's judgment"? What does it conjure up in your mind? Is it unsettling, settling, or maybe some of both? For me it's some of both. Though Jesus took my judgment by his death on the cross, so that I need not fear eternal condemnation for my sins, yet I still will be judged by a loving yet devastatingly piercing, God of light. The fear of the Lord doesn't just begin at salvation, but continues on throughout all of life. Along with a growing love of God, should be a growing awe and reverence and yes, even fear. A fear not in the sense of doubting God's love for us in Jesus. But a fear born of appreciation in beginning to understand who this God is, that God is holy, as well as love. God essentially is love, but it's a holy love, a love to be understood in terms of God's holiness.

Why does our culture have such a hard time with God's judgment? I think there are a number of factors involved in this. How can we as God's people hinder or help others in regard to this?

What would you like to share in reference to God's judgment?

overwhelming, mysterious love

In a class going through the book of Ephesians, Byard Bennett (an award he won and I easily understand why- though I don't understand why different faculty come up on the award page!) is helping us see, both in ways known to the original hearers of the letter, as well as for us today, just what this book along with related writings from Paul is telling us, about our life in God through Jesus Christ.

Yesterday Byard helped us see how though we're involved in salvation, it's really not about a decision we make or anything we do, that's not what Paul is getting at at all. After all, we're dead in our trespasses (falling aside). So that we have no desire for God at all. Along with that we're set on our own ways, ways that lash out against God and God's will. (Unfortunately I don't take notes anymore, and Byard expressed it better, I go on memory here). There is no way we will turn to God ourselves; we are as good as dead.

Without believing in double predestination, the teaching that God simply chooses some of the human race for salvation through Christ, and lets the rest go to deserved eternal damnation, no, Byard and I reject that, Byard does not believe this is in Paul's thinking at all, neither here nor in the Romans 9-11 passage, Paul is teaching that God's love through Christ comes over those who believe in a mysterious way, which brings about salvation. Yes, the sinner is involved in it, but Paul makes no mention of that in the Ephesians passage (so far our track in the class: a "dense" passage, a lot in it). It's truly like through this love we end up overwhelmed and won over to God through Christ by the Spirit (who is not mentioned in that context of salvation, yet is mentioned in a different yet related context later).

God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that all would repent and live. There is something mysterious about this salvation, not to be solved by any theologians. Yet we know the ground of it, Jesus Christ, his person, word, life and work for us, and the result of that work. So that all who hear the good news of Jesus, and in repentance believe in both an accepting and submissive trust, are saved. In Ephesians God's great love for the dead is seen to bring new life in Jesus.

This great love continues on in our lives. God doesn't just abandon us after salvation. It's ongoing, as truly our salvation in Scripture is: present tense. That's a good thing. Left to myself I would drift away. I would not work through the issues in my life as I need to. I would go back to what I was before Christ. Although it is said that in Christ we are a new creation. So something in our lives is different now in Jesus.

I wish each of you could have heard the great teaching (and the service and sermon were powerful yesterday, but the message is not up on our church's website yet). I try to replicate something of it here. Life changing. Byard played a clip for us from one of the renditions/movies of the Shakespeare play, Much Ado About Nothing in which Benedick and Beatrice try to hold out to the end, denying any love for each other in the public setting. But when letters they had written for each other yet held on to, are brought to the intended recipient right there, they end up giving in and having to acknowledge that their hearts are changed and that they do actually love each other. And they end up embracing that love and each other. A picture of how our hearts are changed towards God through Christ.

What might you like to add to this?

quote of the week: Frederick Buechner on the claim that God is love

To say that God is love is either the last straw or the ultimate truth.

Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words, 231, quoted by Scot McKnight, 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed, 134.

the gospel and relationships

The gospel is more about relationships than it is about law. In other words at the heart of the gospel is the restoration of broken relationships between God and humans, and between humans with each other, as well as with God's creation. Sin breaks relationships, and the gospel restores them.

God in Christ did this by becoming one of us in the Incarnation. God became flesh or human to restore us humans into a relationship with himself. The heart of the law is love to God and love to our neighbor. When we break God's law by our sin, we're violating relationships. So it's more than just disobeying a command, but it's breaking or diminishing a relationship.

We as Christians should be known for our love for God, our love for each other, our love for all people including even our enemies, and our love for God's creation. We should be known for that, that is what should mark us.

I'm again rereading Scot McKnight's fine book, Embracing Grace: A Gospel for All of Us, and it's a good and (always) timely reminder of just how big the gospel is, and its aim. Its aim is nothing less than love, which of course is the heart of God in the gospel as we know in probably the most beloved Bible verse of all.

As we work on understanding and more importantly living out the gospel, we need to live out this love which Jesus carried out to the full, and by which God has reconciled the world to himself in Jesus, so that all sinners might find their true home and be at home with God and others and look forward to the completion of this beginning of the new creation in Jesus.

obsession

Augustine had more to write on love, and less on sex than many realize. His concern over obsession was over affections that are good, created by God, but disordered in fallen humanity. In other words I see something of the goodness of something of God's creation and instead of loving it in its proper place, I can begin to make it the center of my affections, displacing the Giver, God. All of God's gifts are to be received and enjoyed, but always with God as the center of our affection. We find out that when we know God's love and return something of that love to God, in other words when by grace we begin to live in God's love, paradoxically we appreciate God's good gifts in a way that actually brings more enjoyment and delight.

For Augustine, and for C.S. Lewis it was never a question of humans having too strong affections, but that they are disordered so that humans obsess over what can't really bring either the lasting or depth of satisfaction that God alone can bring. To begin to really know God's love and seek to live in that love towards God and others will translate into a joy for life, as we appreciate the good gifts from God for what they are. But left to themselves apart from this love of God, all the gifts from God while still good, lose their luster, and besides, none can replace God, since all else is hardly a poor substitute at all. And with that we become obsessed and enslaved to that which is not only not a god, but ends up dehumanizing us in the process.

I have found this so in my life. When by grace I am endeavoring in Jesus to live in God's love, life takes on a new delight. That's when I have to be careful because I can so easily set my heart on something less than God during such times, since I find such delight in God's good gifts. But then what I set my heart on I find to be a poor substitute for God, as I leave "the spring of living water" for "broken cisterns that cannot hold water" (Jeremiah 2:13). In the end we lose out entirely when God is not first in our affections. And we receive all things fully when God is first and supreme in our affections. Either way, that begins in this life, and even has fulfillment here and now.

What thoughts would you add to this? How do you look at this in your own life?

(After reading from The Consolations of Theology, edited by Brian S. Rosner, the chapter, "Augustine on Obsession", by Andrew Cameron.)

lacking love

The church in Ephesus was surely known for its zeal for righteousness and truth, and even for God. It was a church which believed in the truth God has revealed in Scripture and in Jesus. And it believed in judging error both in what people believed and what people practiced.

Though Christ commended this, there was one problem which was threatening its very existence as a church. This church had left its first love. Somehow other things became more important than that. Somehow God was not loved with the pure, ardent devotion which real love involves. We are called in the first and greatest commandment to love God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind. The words in Revelation suggest that they left this love behind, something they did. But involved in that was likely the losing sight of God's holy love for them in Jesus. They had lost sight of the great love of God in Jesus. They were no longer acting in this love.

This is a danger for all of us in Jesus. It's not like if we do love that what else we do doesn't matter. Read on in the letters to the seven churches and you'll see other churches were in danger of no longer being a church because of other problems they weren't dealing with. But love is the first and greatest commandment. If we lack this love for God and for our neighbor, then anything else we do has a hollow ring to God.

I see zealous Christians who talk about the lack of truth and holiness in the church, and often seem to hold other Christians at arm's length. They talk about other Christians and churches derisively. I wonder if whether we love or not shows up in how we look at others and what we say about them. Those who know this deep, deep love of Jesus in their own life, will not throw stones at others who may be failing.

This must have been quite a shock to the church at Ephesus, to hear Christ threaten their very existence as a church over their lack of love. Even calling their love into question must have been a shock to them. But it was meant to be a wake up call for them, and can be for us as well. Do we really love Jesus? Those were life changing questions for Peter. And such a question is for us, as well. And what does such love involve? Yes, doing what God says, but there's more to it than that, because though the church at Ephesus was doing much of that, they were no longer doing what they had done out of love for Christ. God wanted that. A good question for me today, how have I departed from my first love? And why? Have I lost sight of God's love for us, for me- in Jesus? What do I no longer do that I used to do out of that love?

Any thoughts here?

God's love, in spite

There are so many in spites in our lives. We often are at our wit's end for one reason or another. Just a part of living in a fallen world in which even though we're in Jesus, we are not fully recovered.

This is where we need to remember God's love, in spite of all those things that hit us here and there. God's love is made clear to us in Jesus and in Jesus' reference to God as Abba or Father, as Scot McKnight points out in his excellent book, The Jesus Creed. Jesus chose Abba, the Aramaic word for father, and taught us to pray, "Our Father". He referred to God in prayer as "Father," except when on the cross he cried out, "My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?" as he prayed the psalm.

There is the certainty of trouble in this life. But there is a certainty that nothing whatsoever can separate us from God's love for us in Jesus our Lord. We need to learn to rest better in that love and live our lives, steadily in that love, more and more. It is most independent of whatever circumstances we face.

And that Abba love is made known to us in Jesus, in his life, death, resurrection and ascension, as well as his coming return. In him we share in the victory to come, which actually begins now as the new creation breaks in both through us as God's new eschatological people and through the multifaceted good works we do in the Lord which usher in something of God's new creation in Jesus by the Spirit.

But in all of this, while God's love reaches everywhere towards his creation, we must not lose sight, as Scot reminds us, that it's a personal love, this Abba love to each one of us from God in Jesus. And as we learn to live in that love, we can end up helping others do the same. Truth is more caught than taught. So it must become a way of life with us, and more and more who we are in Jesus.

What would you like to share to help us in this?

life in love

Life "in love" surely makes all the difference in the world. We read that Jacob served Laban seven years for Rachel, but that they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her. To know the love of God in Jesus can help us to endure much. And this love needs to carry over to God's loved ones, and even, as we learn from Jesus, to our enemies.

None of us are loveable all the time, maybe not much of the time. Of course it's a gift when we are loved, and when we can and do love. God is love, and our lives need to be lived in that love. A love which will lay down one's life if need be for the beloved, and gladly. But a love which also lives a lifetime of love for the beloved. And that when it's all said and done, they would be like just a few days, because of love. The greatest love being the love of God for us in Jesus Christ. A love which remains when all else may and will falter.

For me this is important, and a great blessing in life, though so little known in comparison to what is available for us in Jesus. The great blessing is to be coming to know more and more God's love in Jesus, and to return something of that to God and to others.

What might you like to share with us about "life in love"?

quote of the week: Scot McKnight - the wedding wine- Jesus

What this sign reveals, John tells us, is "his glory." Jesus, who is himself the manifestation of God's glory, reveals his own glory - who he is and what he is here to do - in this miracle. When the water turns to wine and the eye of faith peers into the purification vessels, it sees not sacred water but sacred wine. The eye of faith sees not an image of itself but the image of Jesus floating on the surface of the wine. Jesus is seen in this wine for who he really is: the one who not only provides but is himself the joy of the kingdom.

All human yearning is ultimately a yearning for an abundance of the sort of wedding wine that is Jesus himself. This is to say that our yearning is really to know the joy that comes from knowing the love of God (in Jesus). The Jesus Creed reveals that what humans ultimately yearn for is love for God and others. To know that love is to know the joy of the wedding wine Jesus alone provides.

from The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others, by Scot McKnight, p. 165