With by Jethani Skye

Author:Jethani, Skye [Jethani, Skye]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2011-08-21T16:00:00+00:00

To use Tolkien’s language, the coming of Jesus Christ was a eucatastrophe. He is the light that gives us a sudden glimpse of truth. Our humanly devised ways of relating to God that never seem to satisfy are revealed to be out of joint. But in Christ things suddenly snap into place, and the result is joy. His coming also shines a light onto a truth about the cosmos previously hidden from our sight. If you recall, each of the four popular postures has a different way of seeing the universe. LIFE UNDER GOD sees the world as governed by the capricious will of God. LIFE OVER GOD places immutable natural laws at the center. Life from God assumes the world orbits around the self and its desires. And LIFE FOR GOD sees a divine mission at the core of all things.

But in the opening words of John’s gospel, which speak of Jesus’ divinity and incarnation, we are given a very different vision of the universe. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” 3 It is one of the enduring paradoxes of the Christian faith—Jesus (the Word) existed before all things, and he was both with God and was God. From this passage, and numerous others, comes the Christian doctrine of the Trinity: one God eternally existing in three persons—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. While a fuller exploration of the Trinity is beyond the scope of this book, 4 a basic understanding of the doctrine is critical toward understanding the Christian view of the cosmos.

If we peeled back the physical and metaphysical layers of time and space and peered into the very core of the universe, we would not discover divine will, natural law, personal desire, or global mission. Instead we would find God existing in eternal relationship with himself. This changes our view both of the world and why God created it. I like how Kevin DeYoung explained it: “With a biblical understanding of the Trinity we can say that God did not create in order to be loved, but rather, created out of the overflow of the perfect love that had always existed among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who ever live in perfect and mutual relationship and delight.” 5

The LIFE WITH GOD posture is predicated on the view that relationship is at the core of the cosmos: God the Father with God the Son with God the Holy Spirit. And so we should not be surprised to discover that when God desired to restore his broken relationship with people, he sent his Son to dwell with us. His plan to restore his creation was not to send a list of rules and rituals to follow (LIFE UNDER GOD ), nor was it the implementation of useful principles (LIFE OVER GOD ). He did not send a genie to grant us our desires (LIFE FROM GOD ), nor did he give us a task to accomplish (LIFE FOR GOD ).

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.