The doctrine of the Trinity . . . summarizes the thrust of the central apostolic testimony that "it is not possible to turn to the God of Israel without at the same time turning to Jesus."Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine, 81; quote in italics from David S. Yeago
Showing posts with label Trinity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trinity. Show all posts
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Kevin Vanhoozer on the Trinity and the apostolic witness
Saturday, February 28, 2009
relationships
The Christian God is a relational god. This is at the heart of who God is as Father, Son and Spirit. God eternally dwelling within God's Self, each Person indwelling the Other, and loving the Other. This is one way to describe something that is beyond our understanding, yet evident from Scripture.
This is at the heart of our humanity, what it means to be human is relationships. All other truth points us in this direction: relationships. Of course the first and greatest commandment according to Jesus is to love God with all our being and doing, and the second like it, is to love our neighbor as ourselves. This love is to come from the face of God we experience in Jesus Christ, the face of the God who is love (as I was reminded of today, in Scot McKnight's 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed).
This is in large part why Dietrich Bonhoeffer was right to say that we must learn to listen well to our fellow human being. Otherwise we will find ourselves not listening to God. And in the end, our spiritual life will be dry and dead, while our religion may go on.
I don't care that much about what I know or what you know, not for itself. Yes, knowledge by faith is important. But the goal is relationship and communion with God and with each other. Of course only in Christ can people come to their senses and repent and thus find themselves found by God. The central need for relationship is inherent in us as humans made in God's image.
I love relationships, but I have to work at it, partly since I want to read and think and commune with other readers and thinkers. But in Christ's Body the church, we are made to be in a living, loving communion with all. And this being so through the common communion we have with God by the Spirit through Jesus Christ our Lord. A communion which longs to see all others come in and be a part, through Jesus.
What place do relationships play in your life? What place are they to have, and how?
This is at the heart of our humanity, what it means to be human is relationships. All other truth points us in this direction: relationships. Of course the first and greatest commandment according to Jesus is to love God with all our being and doing, and the second like it, is to love our neighbor as ourselves. This love is to come from the face of God we experience in Jesus Christ, the face of the God who is love (as I was reminded of today, in Scot McKnight's 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed).
This is in large part why Dietrich Bonhoeffer was right to say that we must learn to listen well to our fellow human being. Otherwise we will find ourselves not listening to God. And in the end, our spiritual life will be dry and dead, while our religion may go on.
I don't care that much about what I know or what you know, not for itself. Yes, knowledge by faith is important. But the goal is relationship and communion with God and with each other. Of course only in Christ can people come to their senses and repent and thus find themselves found by God. The central need for relationship is inherent in us as humans made in God's image.
I love relationships, but I have to work at it, partly since I want to read and think and commune with other readers and thinkers. But in Christ's Body the church, we are made to be in a living, loving communion with all. And this being so through the common communion we have with God by the Spirit through Jesus Christ our Lord. A communion which longs to see all others come in and be a part, through Jesus.
What place do relationships play in your life? What place are they to have, and how?
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
into your hands
When we think of Jesus' coming and his self-emptying ("kenosis") in becoming human, we have to see in it a complete abandoning of his life to God. This is difficult to speak of and think through since we're speaking of the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. While it was God the Son who became flesh or human, the Son, Christ, did not for a moment fail to be be fully involved himself in an active way, in becoming one of us for our salvation. The Father, the Son and the Spirit, as in all activities of God were intricately involved in this great act and undertaking. The Son was not merely passive in this, but active.
Yet in becoming human (while not, of course, losing God-ness at all, a mystery): even as an embryo to begin with, then born as a helpless baby, the Son certainly in truth committed his life into the Father's hands, into God's hands, and this was played out throughout his life. No one took Jesus' life from him, he made clear. He had the power to lay it down for death, and the power to take it back up again in the resurrection, I take it. Yet this is a true case of becoming one of us to bring us a salvation which is for the forgiveness of our sins by his death, but also to give us a new life to live in him here and now, the same kind of life he lived in faith and obedience to God.
When we celebrate Christmas we need to worship Jesus as the One who though God became a little baby for us. This was an act of God, the Trinitarian God. But it does not diminish for a moment the greatness of this commitment of life made by Christ and then lived out fully in his life and death.
We are to so follow. For me this has taken on major proportions in that for many years I've been bound by fear over at least one issue, which I believe God has helped me to entrust to him now for some time, and concerning which by grace I have not looked back so as to take it back into my own hands, and relive that anxiety. Like Jesus we are given this life in him to live out, a life committing our lives into God's hands fully to the very end throughout all the life God gives us.
God is present with us- Emmanuel- to help us, just as Jesus was helped throughout his life from birth to death.
What might you like to add to these thoughts?
Yet in becoming human (while not, of course, losing God-ness at all, a mystery): even as an embryo to begin with, then born as a helpless baby, the Son certainly in truth committed his life into the Father's hands, into God's hands, and this was played out throughout his life. No one took Jesus' life from him, he made clear. He had the power to lay it down for death, and the power to take it back up again in the resurrection, I take it. Yet this is a true case of becoming one of us to bring us a salvation which is for the forgiveness of our sins by his death, but also to give us a new life to live in him here and now, the same kind of life he lived in faith and obedience to God.
When we celebrate Christmas we need to worship Jesus as the One who though God became a little baby for us. This was an act of God, the Trinitarian God. But it does not diminish for a moment the greatness of this commitment of life made by Christ and then lived out fully in his life and death.
We are to so follow. For me this has taken on major proportions in that for many years I've been bound by fear over at least one issue, which I believe God has helped me to entrust to him now for some time, and concerning which by grace I have not looked back so as to take it back into my own hands, and relive that anxiety. Like Jesus we are given this life in him to live out, a life committing our lives into God's hands fully to the very end throughout all the life God gives us.
God is present with us- Emmanuel- to help us, just as Jesus was helped throughout his life from birth to death.
What might you like to add to these thoughts?
Thursday, March 06, 2008
dialing down
One of our greatest enemies is pure expectation, and I mean the kind that revolves around our wish list, having to do with our perceived needs, wants and feelings. Not that these things aren't important in their place, but they're out of place in us humans, because of sin. They displace God himself: Father, Son and Spirit. And the irony is that in the end they're only really satisfied and fulfilled in God. Which means we must leave the old path of pursuing our needs, wants in accordance with our feelings, behind.
What we need, of course it begins in Jesus, and apart from him this won't happen...., but what we need to do is to "dial down." I mean we need to put our perceived needs, wants and feelings into the hands of God. As we do that, displacing them so that the Triune God through Christ becomes the center, than we'll find that our desires eventually begin to be fulfilled.
This is not easy in this life where sin is simply turning good things into idols so that those good things, no longer received as from their Creator, God, end up sending us down a long and winding dead end path. We may get what we want, but we'll have lost something of ourselves, of our true humanity, in the process. So that what is left is less satisfying to ourselves and others around us.
To dial down for me means to quit my own expectations about life, or what anything in life ought to be. Instead I need to see what is already there and present as gifts from God. And I need to give thanks to God, worshiping only him.
We can do so only in prayer. We need to give our wills over to God and embrace his will, even when we don't understand or maybe just don't like it. Dialing down will end up getting us in on the real good, while failing to do so will see the good not last forever. In God through Jesus the real good does last forever. And better still- along with that- we'll be lost in wonder, love and praise for our God.
This is a process, and like everything else in this life involves growth on our part which will involve repentance from our old ways and repeatedly so, faith open to God's ways in Jesus so that we increasingly are on that path and grow. So that we become more and more confirmed in this.
What do you think about dialing down?
What we need, of course it begins in Jesus, and apart from him this won't happen...., but what we need to do is to "dial down." I mean we need to put our perceived needs, wants and feelings into the hands of God. As we do that, displacing them so that the Triune God through Christ becomes the center, than we'll find that our desires eventually begin to be fulfilled.
This is not easy in this life where sin is simply turning good things into idols so that those good things, no longer received as from their Creator, God, end up sending us down a long and winding dead end path. We may get what we want, but we'll have lost something of ourselves, of our true humanity, in the process. So that what is left is less satisfying to ourselves and others around us.
To dial down for me means to quit my own expectations about life, or what anything in life ought to be. Instead I need to see what is already there and present as gifts from God. And I need to give thanks to God, worshiping only him.
We can do so only in prayer. We need to give our wills over to God and embrace his will, even when we don't understand or maybe just don't like it. Dialing down will end up getting us in on the real good, while failing to do so will see the good not last forever. In God through Jesus the real good does last forever. And better still- along with that- we'll be lost in wonder, love and praise for our God.
This is a process, and like everything else in this life involves growth on our part which will involve repentance from our old ways and repeatedly so, faith open to God's ways in Jesus so that we increasingly are on that path and grow. So that we become more and more confirmed in this.
What do you think about dialing down?
Friday, December 14, 2007
Advent and beauty: part two
The Advent story itself, as given to us in Scripture does have a beauty all its own. What more beautiful reading is there in all of Scripture than the account in Luke 2:1-20? This beauty mirrors the beauty of the Son of God himself, in its majesty and simplicity. From this beauty we find beauty everywhere in the new humanity in Jesus found all over the earth.
Advent and beauty is about the story of God becoming human in Jesus. This means humanity's dignity and honor already given, is underscored and marked forever. There is nothing more important in this world than truly becoming more human together in Jesus. The together and in Jesus are each important since to be human is to be in true relation to God, to one's self, to others and to God's good creation- especially the earth. "In Jesus" we share in the radically relational God, in the Triune community and communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, insofar as humans can share in that communion. This begins now and is meant for all of us together, no one left behind. And thus we come to share in a beauty not of this world, but come to this world and for this world, in the Advent of Jesus.
Advent and beauty is about the story of God becoming human in Jesus. This means humanity's dignity and honor already given, is underscored and marked forever. There is nothing more important in this world than truly becoming more human together in Jesus. The together and in Jesus are each important since to be human is to be in true relation to God, to one's self, to others and to God's good creation- especially the earth. "In Jesus" we share in the radically relational God, in the Triune community and communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, insofar as humans can share in that communion. This begins now and is meant for all of us together, no one left behind. And thus we come to share in a beauty not of this world, but come to this world and for this world, in the Advent of Jesus.
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