God the Trinity by Yarnell Malcolm B. III;

Author:Yarnell, Malcolm B., III;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion/Theology
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Published: 2016-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

8

The God Who Is Coming:

Ἐν μέσω

Then I saw One like a slaughtered lamb standing between [ἐν μέσω] the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent into all the earth.

Revelation 5:6 (HCSB)

In Painting the Word, John Drury, former dean of Christ Church in Oxford, demonstrates how orthodox Christian art operates from a “two-world cosmology” composed of eternity and time.575 Eternity, where the Trinity dwells, is inaccessible to humanity except through the “bridge” provided by the cross of Jesus Christ, who continues to reveal God through the Holy Spirit. The cross is both historical and eternal. It is historical in that it occurred once within time; it is eternal in that it has universal effect.576 Tracking the progress of Christian art into ever more incarnational forms, Drury shows how artists have represented the twofold nature of reality in different ways. One of the most effective has been captured visually in the long flight of stairs at the Sainsbury Wing of London’s National Gallery, which ascends upward to Botticini’s painting of this world being opened further into a threefold heaven. The artistic idea of access into the transcendent dwelling of God was prompted in part by “apocalyptic” literature, wherein the concealed kingdom of heaven is unsealed for believers to perceive.577

If Christian artists through the centuries have attempted to put into visual expression the apocalyptic related in biblical literature, perhaps it is a response to the apostle John’s Apocalypse originally being a literary record of something he saw. When the apostle was “in the Spirit” as he worshipped on the Lord’s Day, he heard the voice of “One like the Son of Man” command him, “Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches” (Rev 1:10–13). Write what you see—the book of Revelation is a literary record of John’s visual encounter with God. It depicts a lengthy vision of how eternity and history are populated and of how the former guides the latter from its beginning to its end. The beautiful style and content of John’s resulting circular letter has prompted commentators to refer to it in highly imaginative terms, from a philosophical perspective as “artistry” of the transcendent,578 from a historical perspective as a “tapestry”579 or an “unforgettable heavenly landscape,”580 and from a literary perspective as a product of “literary genius”581 or “one of the great masterpieces of early Christian literature.”582

This book began with theological expositions of three passages from both the Old and New Testaments, which were placed in the context of worship. If the Christian life begins with the love of God transforming human beings through the grace of Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit (chap. 2), it is publicly manifested in the first act of Christian worship, baptism (chap. 1). This God, with whom Christ Jesus is incorporated into Christian worship is, moreover, the one God of the Hebrew Bible (chap. 3). It is

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