Archive by Author

Christology of the Gospels Debate (1): The Way of the Lord

March 23, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 16 Comments

This is the first in what will be a series of “debates” about the Christology of the Synoptic Gospels. In short, the question is: do Matthew, Mark, and Luke depict Jesus as in some sense divine or pre-existent?

The common ground between the debaters is this: We both affirm that Jesus is the pre-existent son of God; moreover, we both agree that working out the theology of Jesus’ human action in the Gospels is a rich and under-explored enterprise.

Where we disagree is this: to what extent to the Synoptic Gospels depict, or anticipate, the theology that is more clearly articulated later to the effect that Jesus is the pre-existent son of God?

I turn it over now to my good friend, Rodrigo Morales (hereafter RJM) to kick things off.

RJM: Our blog host has had a longstanding reading of the Gospels according to which the Synoptics emphasize Jesus’ humanity with nary an intimation of Jesus having any kind of divine identity. Let me preface my disagreement with Daniel by reiterating that I find much of his reading of Jesus’ humanity insightful and theologically compelling.  I have no problem highlighting the theological significance of Jesus’ humanity – indeed, I think Christological orthodoxy compels us to do so. Nevertheless, as I’ve mentioned to Daniel on multiple occasions, what I have a bone to pick with is his absolute “Nein!” to any hints of Jesus’ divinity in the Synoptic Gospels. This disturbs me not just because of my allegiance to traditional orthodox Christology.  As I provocatively put it in a comment on one of his posts, I also believe this “Nein” is unfaithful to the texts themselves. Daniel has graciously offered me the opportunity these next couple of weeks to dialogue/debate the topic with him on the blog, and so today we offer the first of what will be a series of exchanges on the topic.

JRDK: The format will be as follows: I will give Rodrigo the first and last word in each discussion. He will offer an exegetical observation that he sees as pushing us toward affirming a divine Christology and I’ll give my response. He will then have an opportunity to reply. Either of us might jump into the comments, but I’ll try to behave by not engaging in
unseemly surrejoinders too early in the game.


Topic 1: The Way of the Lord (Isa 40:3 in Mark 1:3)

RJM: The Gospel of Mark, thought by the majority of scholars to be the earliest of the Gospels, also is the one most often interpreted as having a “low” or human Christology.  There is no doubt that Jesus’ humanity plays an important role in Mark’s Gospel. Nonetheless, occasionally the evangelist subtly hints at another dimension of Jesus’ identify.  It is fitting to begin with the prologue.

Mark begins with a mixed citation of Scripture drawn from Malachi, Exodus, and Isaiah.  Much could be said about each of these verses, but for now let’s focus on the way Mark uses the quotation from Isaiah, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” In context Isaiah 40:3, one of the few verses cited by all four evangelists, speaks of preparing a highway for Israel’s God.  The way the Synoptic evangelists appropriate the verse, John the Baptist is the one who prepares the way.  But whose way does John prepare?

Perhaps more clearly in Mark than in the other Gospels, it is Jesus’ way that John prepares.
It is significant that shortly following the opening Scripture citation, the Spirit drives Jesus “into the wilderness,” the place where the prophet is to prepare the way of the Lord.  Moreover, the central section of Mark (8:22-10:45) is punctuated by references to “the way” (8:27; 9:33, 34; 10:17, 32, 46, 52).  The way of the Lord is the way of Jesus to Jerusalem and ultimately to the cross.

Mark does not come out and crassly equate Jesus with the God of Israel, but for those with ears to hear, he implies that there is more to Jesus than meets the eye (to mix metaphors).

JRDK: NT writers have a lot of freedom in their use of OT citations. In the end, it is the use to which the writer of the NT puts the OT passage that determines what the OT passage signifies in its new, Christian context. Rodrigo has described well the story of Mark—and in a way that speaks against the identification of Jesus with YHWH.

The “way of the Lord” is the way of a suffering Messiah on his way to death. This doesn’t indicate that Jesus is YHWH, but rather YHWH’s servant. YHWH is establishing his reign on the earth through a peculiar human king—a suffering and dying king. Indeed, that the way of the Lord is the way of death would seem to tell strongly against an identification with YHWH. If there is an identification between YHWH and the earthly king it is one in which the Lord represents the LORD, and possibly bears his name. Because of the freedom NT writers have in using the OT, this narrative context is more important than the original reference to YHWH in making sense of Isa 40 in Mark 1:3.

I would also say that citing OT context in this case is a double-edged sword. Mark 1:2-3 is not just from Isa 40, it’s also from Mal 3:1. Malachi 3:1 in both Hebrew and Greek uses the first person pronoun: “I am sending my messenger and he will prepare the way (or have regard) before me.” And YHWH is speaking. If Mark had intended to indicate that Jesus is YHWH, it seems that he should have left the first person pronoun in place.

Alternatively, if you see Exo 23:20 as the source for the citation, then “you” does not refer to God but to God’s people Israel upon whom YHWH has set his name. The use of these other verses would seem to indicate that YHWH and Jesus are separate, and perhaps are being intentionally distinguished.

RJM: Though it’s neither here nor there, I can’t help but note the irony that the proponent of a passible God is using Jesus’ suffering as an argument against his identification with YHWH in Mark.  But now to the actual points.  At some points Mark very well may present Jesus as the LORD’s representative; however, I think there is more to it than that.  To take but one example, at the end of the story of the healing of the demoniac, Jesus instructs the man to go tell his household “how much the Lord has done for you” (Mark 5:19).  I suppose this could be a Bob Dole moment on Jesus’ part, but a more likely reading is that the Lord = the LORD.  What does the man do?  “And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis all that Jesus had done for him” (Mark 5:20). Again, Mark is subtly identifying Jesus with the LORD.  In the next exchange I’ll point to a story in which the point is made somewhat more clearly, though still only for those with ears to hear.

As for the Malachi and Exodus citations, again, I have no problem with Jesus functioning as Israel’s representative.  Because the language of the quotation is closer to that of Exodus than that of Malachi, I suspect this is part of what Mark has in mind.  Nevertheless, my argument is not that Mark’s Jesus is not human, but that he is both human and divine.  I don’t think the change in pronouns is sufficient to negate the identification of Jesus with the LORD, particularly in light of the other subtle ways Mark makes this identification.

JRDK: We now invite you, the avid reader, to jump in. I will say no more except to voice my tremendous pleasure at Rodrigo poking fun of me about the whole passiblity thing.

Resurrection in CT

March 22, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 1 Comment

Well why not? Maybe I can make my blog a running commentary on Christianity Today…

I’m now in possession of the April issue, which features a lovely picture of Jesus with a crown of thorns, and the promise of a Scot McKnight article on why the failure to find the “real” Jesus is a good thing.

But since I promised to live in denial of lent, I’ll start with the resurrection article: “A Resurrection That Matters (36-39).” And who knows? If you get yours in the next week or so you might even have a chance to read it before Easter.

With a set-up to the effect that the Cross is all that most of our gospel presentations need, the article goes on to talk about the resurrection transforming Jesus himself. Jesus becomes king and lord over all.

The article then goes on to talk about how we share in Jesus’ resurrection life: we become children of God and are justified because we’re united with the resurrected Christ (38). Not only does this tie us inseparably to Christ, it ties us inseparably to the coming new creation that has already begun (39).

The article wraps up with a reflection on what I’d call our missional identity: “The vocation and mission of the church as a sent people depends on the resurrected Jesus as our sender” (39).

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Well… ok… so I really couldn’t have said it any better because it’s me who’s saying it.  So sue me. I’ll post a link when it goes online.

Feet of Clay?

March 22, 2010 in Book Reviews with 2 Comments

I’ve been slow on my reading of Douglas Campbell’s The Deliverance of God lately. Sorry to leave you all hanging. I’m currently going through the chapter where he critiques the traditional “justification theory” reading of Romans 1:18-3:20.

In general, I find in reading through this section that my fears from the earlier chapters are playing out. The critiques Campbell brings against “traditional” readings of Romans 1-3 are, in general, critiques of justification theory as he has presented it, coupled with the idea that Romans 1-3 has to be read in a particular way in order to uphold that theory.

The problem with this, as I mentioned earlier, is that I am not aware of anyone who holds to justification theory and its reading of Romans 1-3 in precisely the way that Campbell presents it. Or, perhaps I know of some people, but they’re not biblical scholars.

In my estimation, the “best” readings of Paul, and of Romans 1-3, recognize that, yes, Paul is what Campbell calls an “apocalyptic” thinker. Moreover, there is also a wide-spread estimation that though Rom 1-3 works as an argument that, in general, thinks “forwards,” rather than starting from the Christ event and reassessing everything else in its light, that these earlier passages still reflect Paul’s ex post facto thinking even though they are not making an ex post facto argument.

In short, there are numerous places where different ways of putting Paul’s argument together, or reframing our own estimation of what a tenable argument is, leaves those of us who haven’t come up with Campbell’s reading wondering who he is trying to dissuade of their own.

The other reason I am not finding the feet of the “traditional” reading so clay-like as the book would have me to is because the critiques leveled against the reading sometimes feel anachronistic. Is it really an argument against Paul to say that a would-be prophetic critique of non-Christian Judaism leaves “Judaism necessarily accused of depravity”? Maybe I’ve been spending too much time reading the OT Prophets recently, but such a criticism of an interpretation of Paul seems to be too dependent on modern sensibilities about what a person is or isn’t allowed to say about Judaism in light of the post-Jewish history of Christianity.

Put differently: Jewish prophets told the Jewish people in general that they were rebellious and depraved–even in their most pious acts of worship!–and that if they didn’t heed the voice of the prophet they were going to find themselves under God’s judgment. This might not always make them happy (cf. Habakkuk), but neither did it make them anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic, or the like. One might also compare the denunciations of the outsiders we find at Qumran.

Such parallels, one might argue, are no reason to think that Paul, who has a very different understanding of God’s work, is doing the same thing. Fair enough. But the parallels do show that there is no contradiction in Paul making the sort of arguments that, according to Campbell, are clear indications of “problems” in the traditional reading. My estimation is that these are greater problems for 21st century westerners than for a first century Jew.

Thus far, I continue to grow in my suspicions that the “straw man” critique is more or less fatal. There seems to be little reason for the wholesale reassessment Campbell has on offer. Without the exegetical problems, I see little need for a radical new solution. Yes, there are a few points at which some inconsistencies arise, a few places where a small problem or two should be hammered out.

In all, what I’m thinking as I run through the critique is that what’s needed is a robust articulation of justification within the union-with-Christ, ex post facto paradigm–not the radical reconceptualizing that awaits me on the future pages of DoG, but the position I wish Campbell had engaged with as he was making his proposal.

Redemptive Economy and Human Value

March 20, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 4 Comments

I’m grading a paper right now that is bringing some aspects of the NT’s picture of money into conversation with our American vision of “the good”. It has inspired a tangential thought…

A common way forward when talking about the value of human life is to begin with the idea of everyone being made in the image of God. There is something healthy about this, it reminds us that God cares about the people we would blow off, push over, and all-around blow by in our whirlwind, rat-race lives.

But when talking about the idea of common value before the face of God, I wonder if we wouldn’t do better to start closer to home. There is something to be said for starting with “redemption” even when talking about people being made in God’s image: Romans 8 talks about the image of the resurrected Christ as the image of God to which He desires to see us conformed.

But I want to go elsewhere.

A major theme of 1 Corinthians is that the gospel turns the economy of the world on its head: not only is the world’s vision of wisdom and power eschewed by God in the cross of Christ, the upsetting of the worldly-wisdom applecart is reinforced within the body as the Spirit calls the uncallable, gifts the ungifted, and in every way refuses to affirm the value system of the Greco-Romans world.

So when we see the man on the street, a person who is at the bottom of society’s ladder, unproductive and with nothing to offer according to our economies of capitalism, personal safety, public health and welfare–yes, we are seeing someone the loving of whom would be an extension of our love of God. Created in God’s image.

But the call of the church is not merely to proclaim what is there, but to be an agent of who we are and what the world shall be. Charity and generosity are an extension into the world’s economy of the upside-down economy of the gospel. To embrace them as full of value and worth is not merely to say who they are, but to say who God wants them to be–it is the gospel lived in a transforming act of grace.

Endorsing Imperfection

March 19, 2010 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

Today, the CEO of University of California San Francisco (a medical behemoth here in San Francisco) sent out this letter. I tend to steer clear of political topics here. Not my bailiwick. But thought it was an interesting perspective: why a large hospital system would endorse imperfection. In short, he thinks its worth it to secure access to healthcare for 30-50 million Americans.

Dear Colleagues:

One year ago, President Obama and Congress began work on reforming our system of healthcare.  The competing goals were to reduce the costs of the healthcare system, while providing affordable health insurance coverage to the nearly 50 million people in this country who do not have it.  As a result of the economic downturn in the past year, the number of people who lost their jobs and health insurance has only increased the need.

As healthcare reform was being debated, a group of 11 leaders from major academic medical centers – UCSF, Partners in Boston, NY Presbyterian, NY Beth Israel, University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins, Emory in Atlanta, University of Florida Shands, Barnes Jewish Christian in St. Louis, University of Michigan and University of Washington – began weekly phone conferences along with regular visits to Congress and the White House to help shape the legislation.  Along with the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), this group has advocated for the creation of “health innovation zones” (demonstration projects to provide care more efficiently with better quality), and supported an increase in the number of physician training slots, given projected physician manpower shortages. We’ve also opposed certain proposals like “geographic variation,” which would redistribute Medicare funds from seven large urban states to 17 smaller, rural states, and the creation of an independent Medicare rate setting organization.

Among the leadership of our academic medical center community are both Republicans and Democrats.  Over the past several months, many in our group voiced concerns that the Senate and House legislation did not go far enough relative to a public insurance option and did not cover all people residing in the United States, while others voiced concerns about the nearly $1 trillion cost and whether this reform would reduce or increase the deficit.

We worked with members of the House on their original bill last fall, and later with members of the Senate on their bill, and again in the last two months with the House on the bill that will be voted on this weekend.  We have had intense discussions among ourselves, with legislators and the White House over many, many provisions in the 2,500 page bill.

Last week, however, this group of  academic medical center leaders and the board of the AAMC came to a unanimous decision.  The choice was to endorse the current House proposal, which is imperfect, or oppose the current House proposal and urge Congress to start over on healthcare reform.  The overwhelming sentiment of both groups was that the nation will be better off with the legislation on the table now, enabling about 30 million of the 50 million uninsured Americans to gain access to healthcare. Both groups sent letters to President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid endorsing the healthcare reform legislation that will come before the House this Sunday.

This morning, the board of the California Hospital Association endorsed the legislation (contingent on geographic variation remaining out of the bill), and today, Dr. Jack Stobo, UC Senior Vice President for Health Sciences and Services, is sending a letter to President Obama expressing the University of California’s support for this legislation.

If this bill passes (as most Washington insiders believe it will) and is signed into law, a new era in American healthcare will begin.  It will be ragged, to be sure, and there are aspects of reform that will cause financial, operational and other challenges for UC, UCSF and academic medicine. But even so, my personal view is that with passage, our nation will have taken the first and most important step toward making certain that comprehensive healthcare is available to all people who live in the United States, employed or unemployed, indigent or aged.  If you know someone who has been without coverage and needed it, or needed it yourself, you know how important this is.

As always, I thank you for your hard work on behalf of UCSF Medical Center and the patients we serve.

Sincerely,

Mark R. Laret
CEO
UCSF Medical Center
UCSF Children’s Hospital

What is the Bible and What Are We Supposed to Do With It?

March 19, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 21 Comments

In yesterday’s post I made reference to a thousand years without doctrinal statements. What I was referring to was the ways that Jewish theological reflection is demonstrated to us in the Old Testament and the ways that it is shown to us in the New. For all the things that we can and cannot say about the Bible, and for all the difficulties inherent in trying even to talk about “the Bible” as a singular entity, some labels clearly do not fit and this is significant.

One, the Bible is not a guide to living. Yes, there are rules and instructions, but that’s not what the Bible is. Yes, we are to apply much of the wisdom it contains to our lives, but even its commands are tied to particular people in particular moments. Meat sacrificed to idols? Not a big deal (Paul)? Or damnable offense (everyone else)?

Two, the Bible is not a work of doctrine or systematic theology. Yes, it does contain theological claims. But how are those claims expressed and what does that tell us about what we should be doing with the Bible?

One route has proven to be a dead end, and I’d suggest it must inherently be seen as a dead end because it depends on a mistaken idea of what the Bible is. The idea promoted by J. P. Gabler in his famous “Oration on the Proper Distinction between Biblical and Dogmatic Theology and the Specific Objectives of Each” is that the task of Biblical theology is to distill the timeless truths from the Biblical texts and hand these to the theologians to order into their proper logical sequence and results.

This is a bad idea on several grounds.

First, it presumes that the point of biblical theology is to create something else. Yesterday I voiced some hesitation about the idea that we should see systematic-type theology as an inherent product of Christianity. That presupposition has been too often accepted without question. In fact, the Bible is neither a systematic theology nor a refrigerator full of ingredients placed there for the purpose of being made into a theological cake.

The true end of Biblical theology should be to articulate a theology that corresponds to the historical and narratival dynamics that make theology biblical. In Biblical theology, God must always be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God and Father who raised Jesus from the dead. God need be neither of those things in systematic theology, where timeless truths are the order of the day.

Gabler plays into the mistake that in order to be “true” something must be “timeless”. The abstracted is therefore to be prized as the “goal” of such investigations. But again, what the Bible actually is argues strongly against such an idea. We have stories of Jesus–told four times over without any concern for distilling a timeless truth from it. No, it seems in fact that biblical theological reflection moves in much the opposite direction–recontextualizing the message in order to show how it is true rather than decontextualizing it.

What is the Bible? I am committed to a generally narratival shape to scripture: it is a dynamic story that moves from creation and fall through Israel’s story of patriarchs and law and judges and kings and exile and failed return and messiah and church and return. I am committed to this, not because I think it is a problem-free story that runs easily from start to finish, but because even where we find theology and instruction and wisdom and law it is all deeply shaped by the moment of the story within which it is found.

The whole points in one direction: the Bible is storied. Therefore, our calling is to tell the story well so that we learn to live and love and worship well within the narrative that determines our identity.

The question I’m perennially wrestling with is this: is there a way to do theology that will conduce to faithful living? Is there a storied theology that can succeed in drawing people along the way of the cross, a way to express theological commitment that would never, for example, allow someone to claim the church’s blessing on a vision that said, “By this cross you will conquer”?

To be continued…

Hitchens Rejects Atheism! (ok, it’s the other Hitchens…)

March 18, 2010 in Book Reviews with 1 Comment

It seems that the infamous atheist Christopher Hitchens has a brother–whose got a bone to pick with New Atheism. An article summarizing his journey is in The Daily Mail.

The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith is about to be released in the US by Zondervan. It tells his story from Bible-burning teenager (20-something?) to a return to Christian faith.

Here’s a video promo:

Should make for fascinating reading.

HT: Paul Burkart in Patrol Magazine.

How Necessary is Doctrine?

March 18, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 6 Comments

A comment on yesterday’s post raised the question of whether I was really talking about theology or whether doctrine was more the source of my own fears and the exercise that, itself, operates out of certain fears. The question of theology or doctrine is a good one, and perhaps a good segue into some further reflections on what biblical theology is and how it’s useful to the theology of the church.

The first thing that’s been on my mind for the past couple of weeks as I’ve wrestled with these questions here is that Christians tend to assume that doctrine is inevitable, that something resembling systematic theology will always be the outcome of our engagement with the Bible, and that these doctrinal statements will inevitably determine what it is to faithfully speak of God and live in the world.

But I don’t think this is the case.

In the Jewish and Christian traditions, the move toward doctrine and systematic theology has been much more of a Christian enterprise than a Jewish one. Yes, Jews believe things, and there are things that they will say are wrong to believe. But “doing theology” has never become the dominant way of expressing faithful Judaism.

I have heard it said on several occasions (although, of course, this is a generalization amenable to numerous counter examples) that early Judaism was a religion of orthopraxis rather than a religion of orthodoxy. Again, even if this is not entirely true, it is an indication that there is a different way to judge the faithfulness of a religion other than the doctrines put down on paper. Whereas evangelical Christianity tends to live as though we can do any old thing we want to as long as we believe the right things, there is no inherent reason why it couldn’t be the opposite–that a group could pretty much decide that you can believe any old thing you want to as long as you do the right things.

I know, I know, believing and doing are not so neatly separated. But (I hope) you get my point. There are cultural and historical factors at work in generating a sense of plausibility around claims that doctrine is inevitable. Given the Bible we have, I’d say that stories are inevitable. Given the Bible we have, I’d say that good enactments and bad enactments, good responses and bad responses, are inevitable. But I’m not as certain that doctrine is inevitable–necessary in the sense of something that will be inherently generated by this collection of texts.

Among the myriad things it testifies to is this: the people of God did not feel any particular compulsion to create a [systematic] theology for over a thousand years. I’m not sure we take that seriously enough.

This is bringing us right up to the edge of what the Bible is (and isn’t) and what that might tell us about what we should (and shouldn’t) be doing with it. I’ll save that question for tomorrow, at which point I’ll mourn and lament the work of J. P. Gabler.

Theology & Fear

March 17, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 6 Comments

I am pondering a series, in partial response to Adam’s request for some sort of positive depiction of what I think theology is good for, and where it fits into the life of the church. Part of my response to that plea is to invite you to reread the first several posts where I talk about God and the structure of the universe. But I do need to keep moving this thing in a positive direction and, perhaps, explain a bit why some of the pleas for theology strike a raw nerve.

Why do the sorts of claims that I engaged last week about the benefits of theology set me off into a “down with theology” type of posture? Several reasons, some personal some historical.

First, I know from the personal experience of learning theology and watching others learn theology that there is no connection between theological knowledge and personal or corporate piety. Simply put, learning theology does not make very many people more loving and humble Christians, and  denominations deeply saturated in their theological traditions do not stand forth as beacons of light shining in the darkness. I also know that my personal theological knowledge often has and does make me more of a jerk.

Second, historically the discipline of biblical studies separated itself from theology because theology was keeping biblical scholars from saying what the text says. A somewhat analogous thing happened in the Reformation. Having lived through a denominational experience where scripture was not allowed to correct the theological tradition, I can attest to the fact that theology can, and will, be used to silence the voice of scripture. I never want to walk into a position where it is given that kind of power.

This last point is why I reacted so strongly to the contrast between our subjective experience and theology. Yes, at its best theology is a corrective standing outside ourselves. But theology is, and always will be, even at its best, the corporate, subjective wisdom of a given person or people at a given time and place. It is sanctified subjectivity, but no less subjective for that.

Theology finds its power to silence scripture (and people) from this claim to its standing as objective truth. But while objective truth exists, we can always only at best approximate it. The challenge for theology is not only to confess this in word but to live like it in deed: to treat itself as provisional, always subject to change and development and correction.

While I fear theology exercising its power, I know that theologians fear slipping into a morass of relativism. I don’t think that the appeal to the objective strength of theology is the only way to keep us from such a slippery slope. I think there’s a better way forward.

I’ll see what I can do to articulate this vision a bit more in the days ahead.

Grace on the Ground

March 16, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 3 Comments

A final foray into this month’s Christianity Today takes us to the moving story of Chris Rice, chronicling the low-point and turning-point of his famous partnership (and friendship) with Spencer Perkins.

Their efforts at leading an interracial Christian community had pushed them to the breaking point in their relationship with each other. Before chucking everything and parting ways, they called in some mediators to help hold them together. Spencer had an epiphany:

“Yeah, yeah, I know all about grace, I thought… Grace is God’s love demonstrated to us, even though we don’t deserve it. But in all my 43 years of evangelical teaching, I never understood until now that God intended grace to be a way of life for his followers… Sure, I knew that we were supposed to love one another as Christ loved us. But somehow it was much easier for me to swallow the lofty untested notion of dying for each other than simply giving grace to brothers and sisters on a daily basis, the way God gives us grace” (36).

I take two things away from this. First, all the talk about “dying” might not have the payoff that I might hope. Of course, if someone “gets it,” it will be a powerful motivator and metaphor, but someone can hold onto the idea that we’re supposed to die for each other and use that as an excuse not to live for one another. Spencer confesses to such a short-changing of the gospel here.

The other thing, though, is that we must keep coming back to the idea that means by which God forms us into a people when he calls us to himself in Christ determines our identity as God’s people, which in turn delineates what it means to live as God’s faithful people. We are a people saved by grace–and therefore we are to be grace to one another. We are a people saved by the self-giving love of Christ and therefore we are to give up our lives in love of one another. We are a people saved as God lavishes forgiveness upon us, and we are called in turn to be a forgiveness people, forgiving one another from the heart.

Any idea of “grace” or “forgiveness” or “self-giving” or “cruciformity” that does not immediately call us to be for others what we have received from Christ is a selling-short of the faithful life to which God calls us. If we have received grace from above, we are called to be grace on the ground here below.

Page 96 of 106« First...708090«9495969798»100...Last »