Summing up

Let me take this end-of-year opportunity to sum up what this blog has been about...

 

Christ the Truth means Jesus is not just the one Way or one Life, but the one Truth of God.  Truth - all truth - is in Jesus. This means all our thinking about God must begin with Him.  Not some Christ-principle but Jesus of Nazareth.  Not some divinized ideal but the actual Jesus of the Gospels.

When we do this we realize the cruciformity of the Christian God.  The Lamb is at the very centre of the throne.  His glory is the glory of self-giving and not the glory of self-centredness. 

How can this be?  Our God is trinity.  He is One and Three.  God's One-ness and Three-ness are not un-coordinated perspectives.  Rather the Oneness of God simply is the communion of these concrete and particular Persons.  To approach God's oneness in this way guards against many errors and brings many benefits.

Of course this christocentric, trinitarian approach is not a New Testament novelty.  Christ has always been the object of faith and hope for Old Testament believers.  Revelation has always been on a trinitarian dynamic.  The Hebrew Scriptures themselves give us a trinitarian witness on their own terms and in their own context. 

From this it becomes obvious that there are no true understandings of God that are not Christ-centred, trinitarian revelations.  Neither reason, nor creation, nor religion (be it biblical or unbiblical) can offer us stepping stones towards true knowledge.  We either begin with the Christ, the Son of God or we don't begin at all.  Yet from Christ we can reason truly and understand the wealth of God's revelation in all the universe.  This is faith seeking understanding and is the proper method for all enquiry.

All of this is to say that the God with Whom we have to deal is never an abstract deity but always the very concrete Jesus with His Father and Spirit - He is always and at all times irreducibly the God of the Gospel.  And His being is unfolded and expressed precisely in the gospel economy.

From the Father has come His Son to lay hold of our humanity in incarnation, and to die our death in crucifixion.  This has always been the way of the LORD.  He rose again as Head over creation and ascended to the Father's right hand in glory. 

Humanity is not free to choose participation in this life.  Rather we are freed by the Son to enjoy His status.  We find ourselves as those already embraced by this triune God.  We find ourselves participating in this divine nature - loved with the eternal love of the trinity.  

Faith is not a thing we contribute to this salvation. It is a looking unto Jesus - the very opposite of self-regard. 

In this we find our identity - not in personality types but in Jesus.  We find our assurance - not in personal piety but in our perfect Priest.  We find our encouragement - far above and beyond ourselves, in Christ who is our righteousness. Since this is so, sinning really isn't the worst thing - refusing His forgiveness is.   We respond to sin by looking away from self to our Champion.  This is not cheap grace, but the true grace of God. 

Such a gospel overflows in our hearts with singing.  And with proclamation - we believe therefore we speak.  Preaching is basically the heralding of our Champion's victory.  This proclamation is itself the Word of God.   And it is our sole task as we await the return of Jesus - not the moral, social or political reformation of society (or even ourselves), but the proclamation of King Jesus.  And its point (it's application if you will) is not moralism but always to look to Him.

That's basically what I'm on about. 

.