W. Davd Phillips » Trinity

Christocentric theology amidst a Trinitarian framework

David Phillips — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 15:44:30 +0000

Recently, I had a comment on a post about The Jesus Manifesto. The comment was a question and I answered the question in the comment stream but thought it might also make a good post. The question was, “I’m wondering if you have found a conherent way in which to articulate Christocentricity from a Trinitarian framework?” Here’s my response:

Christocentricity from a Trinitarian framework actually stems from this week’s lectionary text from John’s Gospel (16:12-15) this past week for Trinity week. It’s the unselfishness of the Godhead.

There is a humble give and take within the framework of the trinity. All that the Father has has been given to the Son. All that the Son has is declared by the Spirit. The Spirit acts as the conduit for all things from the Father through the Son.

The word “take” or “receive” in vs 14 is lambano which can mean either take or receive and as such caries a dual meaning in this case I believe. The Father is selfless enough to give. The Son is selfless enough to receive (not take). As a result, they do not withhold what they possess but all that they have is for the benefit of them all. Not only do they share it amongst themselves, they are unselfish enough to share it with the community of Faith (at large) whose unselfishness is then to be shared with the world.

And yet, the Spirit points back to Jesus. Phil 2 tells us that the unselfishness of the Father redirects praise to the Son. It’s their selflessness that allows them to point the praise back to Word-Made-Flesh.

Your thoughts?

Copyright © 2008
This feed is for personal, non-commercial use only.
The use of this feed on other websites breaches copyright. If this content is not in your news reader, it makes the page you are viewing an infringement of the copyright. (Digital Fingerprint:
63d78be34e7054de080da99a50c72238 (38.107.191.114) )

Book Notes: The Jesus Manifesto

David Phillips — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 03:27:33 +0000

It was a weeknight in September, 2008. Brenna and I drove from our home in Delaware to New Jersey. We were going to get to spend some time with Len Sweet at a nice steakhouse in Morristown, NJ. I remember three things from that evening. First, the food was amazing. Second, Len told us that he has only one requirement when he treats people: he won’t pay for your chicken! Third, Len asked me if I had read much of Frank Viola. I told him that I hadn’t. I had heard his name floating around in my doctoral cohort and there was a disparity of opinions about his book with George Barna called Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices. But Len said something I haven’t forgotten. “Whatever you think about Frank,” Len said, “he always comes back to Jesus.”

That was entirely in line with what I had heard from Len in two years of doctoral work. “I’m not as concerned about what you believe as who you are in relationship with,” he told us. His point then is the same point he and Frank make in their new book, Jesus Manifesto: Restoring the Supremacy and Sovereignty of Jesus Christ.. Truth is a person and his name is Jesus. When we are in a relationship with Jesus, the Spirit will guide us into all truth, specifically, into a deeper relationship with Jesus. If we are centered around Jesus, then we are brothers and sisters, regardless of what we believe about eschatology, ecclesiology, or pharmacology. (Ok, that last one is not as important.) Len and Frank even mention in the book that they have not had discussions on these and other theological topics, and on some of these they may disagree. But they are deeply in love with Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, the incarnation of God, the creator and sustainer of all. He is what matters. And around Him, we can all join hands.

It reminded me of my own experience where I was challenged about who Jesus. It was a Thursday night during my latter college years. I went with three guys whom I had discipled earlier in my college years to restaurant called Shoneys. Three of us were committed to ministry full-time. In fact, at the time we all were either currently serving or had served on a church staff.

We sat there eating our meal and our discussion centered around the church. We were complaining about the church. We were frustrated by the church. We were experiencing what many who want to change their world experience. We had almost finished and the waitress dropped our check off beside me. Not long after she dropped it off, she returned to pick it back up and take it with her. I assumed that she had made a mistake and took the check to correct it. When she didn’t bring it back, I asked her for our check and she told me that someone had been taken care of the check. Stunned, we stood and in a louder than normal level said “Thank You!”. A voice from my right sounded: “Guys, got a minute?”. We turned to see a man sitting alone so we went over to talk with him.

He told us that he had come from Canada and owned a ski resort. He was in Huntsville, AL for a convention for a group of Christian men who worked in the marketplace. He had driven around the entire city of Huntsville and felt compelled to stop at this particular restaurant. He was seated two tables from us. And it was he who picked up our check that night.

He told us that he could hear our conversation. He noted that we talked a lot about the church. We griped and complained. We shared our frustrations. He also noted how we talked about the gospel. It was important and people were not sharing it with others. Then he noted specific people sitting around us. He told how they were listening as well. One lady, he said, was captivated by our discussion. Another was listening intently as well. I could see their faces in my head as he pointed where they had sat. Then he pointed out something that has haunted me and yet driven me ever since. He said to us four college guys, “You talked about the church and you talked about the gospel, but you never once mentioned the name of Jesus. You had the chance to point a whole section of people to the only one who could save them, the supreme sovereign of eternity and you didn’t. The church doesn’t save people. Jesus does. So guys, let me ask you, ‘What does Jesus mean to you’?” That night we went around the table and described what Jesus meant to us. He gave us a blessing and sent us on our way.

That experience transformed my life. Theology is great. The Bible is wonderful. But it is really all about Jesus. Nothing else. No one else. It is Jesus and Jesus alone. It is the name of Jesus that transforms life. No other name under heaven can do that. No other thing under heaven can do that. The most important thing we can do is have a deep and abiding relationship with Jesus. Everything in life flows out of that one relationship.

The book, Jesus Manifesto: Restoring the Supremacy and Sovereignty of Jesus Christ, is an expansion of a document the two released in 2009 with the same title. It is a call to come back to Jesus. Christianity is nothing without Jesus. Our lives are not to be centered around anything but Jesus. We should not be a gospel-centered, social-justice-centered, kingdom-centered church. We are to be a Jesus-centered community of Faith.

Len and Frank take the reader through the scriptures attempting to describe the indescribable person of Jesus, and they do a wonderful job. The authors challenge you to get a fresh vision of Jesus through the Old Testament and understand Him fully in the New Testament.

Christianity is, simply, Christ. Nothing more, nothing less. It is not an ideology, a philosophy, a social ethic, a cause, a core value or a worldview. Christianity is “the ‘good news’ that beauty, truth and goodness are found in a Person—a real and living Person who can be known, loved, and experienced—and that true humanity and community are founded on connection to that Person.”

Christians have lost sight of the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ, replacing the gospel with the language of gospel, justice, values, self-help and leadership. The authors point to Paul’s letter to the Colossians as the key Scripture that will help the church recover an understanding of Jesus Christ who “is all and in all.” The Jesus presented by Paul “smokes brain cells in one’s effort to grasp Him. He embodies the inexplicableness of almighty God. This is the same Jesus you have today.”

“In a church filled with leader-oholics, justice-oholics, commandment-oholics, and doctrine-oholics,” it is essential that Christians comprehend Paul’s message, the authors say. With this fresh glimpse of Jesus, Sweet and Viola challenge their fellow believers to reject the “bestseller Christianity” that wraps up self-centeredness in spirituality, and to start living as “walking, breathing Jesus Manifestos.”

This may be the most important book you read this year. If we can fall passionately in love with Jesus and let the Spirit form us into the image of Christ, a movement can be born as Christians passionately in love with the all-sufficient, unselfish Jesus pour life into a dead world longing to be reborn.

Where do you end up?

David Phillips — Tue, 18 May 2010 09:14:05 +0000

I had a conversation recently with a friend. He is considering moving his church calendar from being ordered by the American calendar to the Christian calendar. He is not trying to celebrate all the feasts and days of saints, but to get away from the influence of the American civil religion and the consumerism that accompanies it, and ordering the church around the Christian calender, which in effect orders the church around Jesus.

Our church moved that way last year. I have moved to using the lectionary for preaching and I talk about the major emphases that come with the Christian calendar. We celebrated Ascension day last week and I used the lectionary texts to talk about the theological importance of the Ascension. We will deal with Pentecost this coming week.

In our discussions, I told him that he needs to know that moving in this direction, utilizing a prayer book, ordering your life and the life of the church around the Christian calendar, and employing resources and readings found in other denominations could lead you to being something other Southern Baptist. Part of that has to do with a complete lack of engagement by Southern Baptists with the Christian calendar and the theological meaning behind it, as well as the historical implementation of it by the early church. Another reason is that you have to go outside of Southern Baptist thought to find good, Christ-centric resources for spiritual formation.

I described my own journey through that process. The Christian calendar forms you and the church by centering your life around Jesus. It does not center you life around the gospel or the scriptures, but around Jesus. That is by design. And when you center your life around Jesus, you begin to see and think about things differently than what exists in most denominational frameworks.

I described for my friend a conversation I had with my coach in which he challenged me on where I was theologically. I told him:

I am not Methodist (or other forms of Weslyan theology) because I believe in eternal security and I still believe in immersion as the mode of baptism.
I am not Charismatic because I don’t believe in a second blessing or that tongues are required for salvation.
I am not Presbyterian because I do not believe in infant baptism.
I am not of the more liturgical denominations because I do not believe the sacraments convey grace.
And I am not a typical Southern Baptist, or should I say the current mode of Southern Baptist, because I am far too flexible in my relationships with others who center their life around Jesus, not a specific, hardline, Baptist theology and practice. I would like to think I am a historical Baptist connecting with the historical church of the first four centuries and helping my own church find a similar connection.

But I have no problem celebrating Jesus with people from each of these different backgrounds.

So my friend asked me, as I described my own journey, “Where do you end up?”

I said to him, “you end up where the Spirit takes you. And he always takes you to Jesus. And he wants to form you into a reflection of Jesus.” That is always where a Christo-centric shaped spiritual formation takes you. It always takes you to Jesus.

Those led by the Spirit are the Sons and Daughters of God. We are part of a new people being formed into the image of Christ by the Spirit. As such, our lives to be Christo-centric, not gospel-centric or kingdom-centric, or social justice-centric. We order our lives around a relationship with Jesus.

Whether you are Methodist or Baptist or Presbyterian or something else, when you order your life around Jesus and not denominational practices, or esoteric ideas, you end up talking and thinking and acting like Jesus. And that’s not a bad place to be.

The First Son of God was Adam. Now it’s us.

David Phillips — Mon, 17 May 2010 11:47:57 +0000

It hit me like a ton of bricks. I have read this passage many times, but this time it was there in front of God and everyone. It shook me to the core, so much in fact that I had to pause and ponder its implications.

Going through the genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3, Luke makes an astounding statement: the son of God is Adam. Read it with me:

34 the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, 35 the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Heber, the son of Shelah, 36 the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, 37 the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan, 38 the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. (NAS emphasis mine)

Adam is called the son of God. But that was Jesus’ title! But wait, that is our title! At least those of us with the male genes. The women, of course, are called the daughters of God. (See I John 3:1, Romans 8:14)

So the first son of God (Adam) failed. The second son of God (Jesus) succeeded. Now the sons and daughters of God, those of us led by the Spirit, are being formed by the Spirit into the same nature as the Son of God, namely Jesus!

We really need to relearn that biblical anthropology!

Hello, Hello, Hello, Lord God Almighty

David Phillips — Sun, 16 May 2010 20:55:09 +0000

A friend of mine on facebook posted that at the beginning of church today, her 5 year old daughter looked over the Bulletin and comments, “this says we are going to sing ‘Hello, Hello, Hello, Lord God Almighty’ “. Of course the song they sang was most likely, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty,” but what a precious statement by her daughter.

If only we could open up all of our worthship gatherings with this attitude. If only we could open our lives to this statement! If we could invite Christ into every aspect of our life, and be led by the Spirit in all we do, life would be different. We would be different. Maybe you could awaken in the morning with those words on your lips: “Hello, Hello, Hello, Lord God Almighty.”

Thank you my 5 year-old prophetess and her mother who shared it with the world! What a beautiful reminder!

A Review – Manifold Witness: The Plurality of Truth

David Phillips — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:01:30 +0000

Manifold Witness

" width="155" height="240" />

Manifold Witness

Dr. John Franke is the Lester and Kay Clemens Professor of Missional Theology at Biblical Theological Seminary in Hatfield, PA, a suburb of Philadelphia. A couple of years ago, I had the privilege of having lunch with him just to talk about theology, faith, and the emerging church. He was a gracious host. In addition, he challenged me with a question regarding the Trinity that changed my whole perspective of ministry and of God. He asked me, “What does it mean to hold to a Trinitarian theology?” In other words, what are the practical implications of a trinitarian theology? That set me on a journey that ended in me looking at all of ministry through the lens of the character, nature and function of the Trinity. I have called that concept the MIROR.

Dr. Franke has written a new book called Manifold Witness: The Plurality of Truth (Living Theology). The title is quite provocative and alone causes concern for many. However, if people will take the time to read the book, they will find a treasure chest full of wisdom, theology, and insight that can help them understand God, Truth, and knowledge. It will also cause them to consider the gospel and how it operates in culture.

Franke’s thesis is this: “the expression of biblical and orthodox Christian faith is inherently and irreducibly pluralist. The diversity of the Christian faith is not, as some approaches to church and theology might seem to suggest, a problem that needs to be overcome. Instead, this diversity is part of the divine design and intention for the church as the image of God and the body of Christ in the world.”

His thesis is an attempt to deal with this issue: “if the Bible is the Word of God, given so that all God’s people may be thoroughly equipped for every good work, and if God gives wisdom liberally to those who ask, and if the Holy Spirit is at work guiding the church into all truth, how are we to account for and make sense of the plurality of the church? Why is it that Christians from across time and around the world, seeing guidance and understanding concerning the mysteries of life, and the hope of the gospel, have come away from their study carrels and their prayer meetings with such different conclusions on nearly every aspect of the one faith?”

The word that gets everyone’s attention is the word plurality. Franke asserts that all human knowledge involves interpretation – that is is shaped by the conditions and situations from which it emerges. However, Franke also asserts that just because human knowledge and perceptions of truth are always formed in the midst of particular situations, this does not mean that ultimate truth does not exist. God has been revealed in the person of Jesus Christ and thus the reality of ultimate or transcendent truth is to be affirmed despite the acknowledgment of the interpretive character of human knowledge. In this, Franke follows the line of contemporary brain research on how we understand ourselves and our world as well as frameworks in epistemology, though these disciplines in general ignore the metaphysical.

In the book, Franke develops this theme in the areas of church history, church tradition, and church mission. He also indicates that his view of plurality can be expressed even in the orthodox view of God. God is both plural and singular. He is plural as in the three persons of the Trinity and yet singular in the Godhead. Therefore, truth and knowledge hold in tension plurality-in-unity and unity-in-plurality. Diversity of belief is thus an expression of the Trinity.

The implications of this plurality are found in the various denominations that have developed throughout church history. It also finds itself in the very different expressions of theology within the church. Franke’s idea is that if there is plurality, the full expression of understanding about God can be found in learning and appreciating various theological constructs. This is because theology is not a universal language. It is situated within the the reflections, goals and culture of a particular people and community. White, Western, reformed people view theology from that cutlure. White, Western, arminian people view theology differently. Theology formation is born out of the experiences and stories of the people doing theology. A black man or women may have a different understanding of theology based on whether they grew up in the ghettos of New York or in the suburbia of the Midwest or the in the homes of those who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King in South. And we can learn from their perspective. That doesn’t necessarily require agreement; yet at the same time, it may open us up to a different understanding of the heart of God.

It also finds its expression in the gospel. The gospel is an enculturated story. Franke agrees with Leslie Newbiggin who says, “Every interpretation of the gospel is embedding in some cultural form”. (118) The challenge for faithful Christian witness is not to arrive at some form of unenculturated gospel or theology but to be able to discern between legitimate and illegitimate enculturations of the gospel and theology.

The church engages in the task of theological reflection through the development and articulation of models of Christian faith. The sources of construction for these models “are the Bible, the thought-forms of the contemporary setting, and the traditions that make up the tradition of the church. The intent of this constructive process is to envision all of life in relationship to the living God, revealed in Jesus Christ by means of biblically normed, historically informed, and contextually relevant models and articulations of Christian faith that communicate the Christian story and its invitation to participate in the reconciling and liberating mission of God.” (120)

I do have a couple of criticisms of the book. First, I would have appreciated Franke giving us some examples of legitimate and illegitimate enculturations of the the gospel and theology. I understand that this was not primarily a practical theology book, but some practical expressions of this thought would have been helpful. I appreciate that he may want us to do the hard work of figuring those out for ourselves, but an example or two would have been nice.

Secondly, Franke notes the following:

The Spirit engages in the ongoing work of speaking to the church in its varied setting through the appropriation of the text. This does not eliminate the importance of exegesis in an effort to engage the voice of the author, but it does point to the idea that the speaking of the Spirit is not bound solely to the original intention of the biblical authors. Literary theorists note that one an author writes a text, it takes on a life of its own as it is read and interpreted in new and constantly changing situations. The speaking of the Spirit through the texts of Scripture means that while the intention of the author is an important concern, it is not the only concern. It does not represent the fullness of the speaking of the Spirit, since this always involves the response of the reader. (77)

I find this statement discomforting. In part because I have been taught that it can’t mean today what it didn’t mean when it was written. That was the mantra of my New Testament professor. I would have appreciated Franke unpacking this further, providing some practical expression of this that would enable me to get a more complete picture of what he was trying to communicate.

Overall, I think this book has great value.

Note to the FTC: I bought this book myself!

Theosis

David Phillips — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 01:44:15 +0000

" width="226" height="316" />

The Ladder of Divine Ascent

I was reading the other day and came across an idea called Theosis. The author of the book I was reading referred to a quote by C.S. Lewis talking about the topic. So I am interested in its meaning. Here is information from Wikipedia:

In Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholic theology, theosis (written also: theiosis, theopoiesis, the?sis; Greek: ??????, meaning divinization, or deification, or making divine) is salvation from unholiness by participation in the life of God. According to this conception, the holy life of God, given in Jesus Christ to the believer through the Holy Spirit, is expressed beginning in the struggles of this life, increases in the experience of the believer through the knowledge of God, and is later consummated in the resurrection of the believer when the power of sin and death, having been fully overcome by God’s life, will lose hold over the believer forever. This conception of salvation is historically foundational for Christian understanding in both the East and the West, as it has been developed directly from the apostolic and early Christian teachings concerning the life of faith…

St. Athanasius of Alexandria wrote, “God became man so that man might become God.” (On the Incarnation 54:3, PG 25:192B). His statement is an apt description of the concept. What would otherwise seem absurd—that fallen, sinful man may become holy as God is holy—has been made possible through Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate. Naturally, the crucial Christian assertion, that God is One, sets an absolute limit on the meaning of theosis: it is not possible for any created being to become (ontologically) God, or even part of God (the henosis of Greek Neoplatonic philosophy).

Through theoria, the contemplation of the triune God, human beings come to know and experience what it means to be fully human (the created image of God); through their communion with Jesus Christ, God shares Himself with the human race, in order to conform them to all that He is in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. As God became human, in all ways except sin, He will also make humans god, in all ways except his divine essence. St Irenaeus explained this concept in Against Heresies, Book 5, in the Preface, “the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through his transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.”

Wikipedia contributors, “Theosis,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theosis&oldid=250872419 (accessed November 29, 2008).

Have any of you heard of this and understand what it means?

MORPHE: Eternal Subordination and Male/Female Roles

David Phillips — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 19:57:48 +0000

In this episode of MORPHE, David and Todd Littleton discuss the issue of Eternal Subordination. They provide a definition from the CBWM and why it has arisen in this time period.

Duration: 45 minutes

The MIROR: An Indwelling Incarnation

David Phillips — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:23:06 +0000

" width="237" height="319" />

MIROR: Indwelling and Incarnating

In this post, I want to expand on the “I” in MIROR, which is Incarnational. The aspect of the incarnation that we need to explore deeper is the concept of indwelling. The idea of ‘living in’ or ‘indwelling’ is connected to Michael Polanyi’s ideas of tacit and focal awareness. (1)

Polanyi’s Tacit Knowledge

Almost two years ago I was faced with the prospect of reading Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy by Michael Polanyi. Polanyi (1891-1976) was a Hungarian-British polymath whose thought and work extended across physical chemistry, economics, and philosophy. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. (2) Len Sweet has every one of his doctoral students read Personal Knowledge either in the first or second semester. It is the only book he requires to be read by every doctoral student. It is a very difficult book to read and it felt like having a root canal without drugs. It was so difficult that I had to read Lesslie Newbigin to understand just part of what Polanyi was saying.

Polanyi proposed the idea of Tacit Knowledge. With tacit knowledge, people are not often aware of the knowledge they possess or how it can be valuable to others. Tacit knowledge is considered more valuable because it provides context for people, places, ideas, and experiences. Effective transfer of tacit knowledge generally requires extensive personal contact and trust.

Tacit knowledge is not easily shared. One of Polanyi’s famous aphorisms is: “We know more than we can tell.” Tacit knowledge consists often of habits and culture that we do not recognize in ourselves. In the field of knowledge management, the concept of tacit knowledge refers to a knowledge which is only known by an individual and that is difficult to communicate to the rest of an organization. Knowledge that is easy to communicate is called explicit knowledge. The process of transforming tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge is known as codification or articulation. (3)

Two examples of tacit knowledge include:

1. If I use my hands to feel something in the dark, I am only tacitly aware of my hands; I am focusing my attention on the surface I am exploring, not my hands. I am aware of my hands only in the fact that they are instruments being used to feel what is in the darkness.

2. The words we speak, the actions we take are not conscious for us. They become conscious when someone or some thing shows us what we are doing. As a result, we are only tacitly aware of our words and actions as we have indwelled our words and actions. They are part of who we are.

Indwelling in Jesus

In John’s Gospel, Jesus defines for his followers what is to be their relationship to him. They are to “dwell in” him, as he “dwells in” his father. Jesus was not to be the subject of their observation, but the body of which they were a part. By “indwelling” him in his body, they will both be led into a deeper understanding of the Truth and become the means by which God’s will is done in the world. (4)

The indwelling in the life of Jesus means that Jesus’ life becomes our life. In doing so, Jesus’ life flows out of our own, so much so that people see our life as a reflection and expression of the life of Jesus. We are tacitly aware of what we say and do because we are focally aware of whom we encourage, love and minister.

Jesus was “in the father”, indwelling and incarnating the father, to such great depths, that people understood his words and actions as being God’s words and actions despite the fact that Jesus never explicitly stated for our western minds, “I am God”. While Jesus understood his indwelling and incarnation, he expressed it tacitly; it just flowed from him.

Indwelling in the Church

As the Old Testament unfolds, we begin to see God’s undying love for Israel. Yet, this love and commitment is to Israel the instrument of God’s love for the rest of the nations. It becomes clear that to be God’s chosen people means not privilege but suffering, reproach, and humiliation. Israel was called to embody or indwell in her own life God’s agony over an unbelieving, disobedient world. In the New Testament, that manifestation was found in the one who would suffer the ultimate agony of death on a cross on behalf of all peoples. (5)

Where is the body of Christ is now found? In the Church. Therefore, the body of Christ is called to indwell or incarnate in its own life, both locally and universally, the love and agony of God for this unbelieving and disobedient world.

Unfortunately, we have distorted that privilege just as Israel did. We have taken the love that we should be directing to the world and we have redirected it onto ourselves. We have become the focal point of our awareness. We have become primary, not the world for which God weeps.

So what must we do?

1. Fall in love with the Godhead all over again. In our churches, we are proclaiming principles, not relationship. We preach practices, not relationship.
2. We must retell the stories of Israel as they redirected the MIROR onto themselves instead of the world they were called to love. We have done the same thing in USAmerican churches.

As Christ-followers, we have to live IN the Christian story in the living narrative of a living Jesus. When we embody, incarnate and indwell Jesus, people begin to see not the church or the person by the Godhead behind the person. And when people see Jesus for who he really is, like the woman at the well, they embrace him and run and tell all those that they know.

Notes

1. Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, 98.
2. Wikipedia contributors, “Michael Polanyi,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michael_Polanyi&oldid=243647741 (accessed October 17, 2008).
3. Wikipedia contributors, “Tacit knowledge,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tacit_knowledge&oldid=245462216 (accessed October 17, 2008).
4. Newbigin, 99.
5. Newbigin, 84.

The Trinity, the Incarnation, and the MIROR

David Phillips — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:53:23 +0000

The incarnation may be the pivotal point in all of scripture. Next to the creation that opens the Bible and the re-creation that closes the Bible, the incarnation stand as the point where the re-creation and restoration of all of creation begins.

The Trinity requires that we consider the importance of the incarnation.

In the incarnation we find the sending God arriving to meet his creation in their own form. The Godhead puts on human flesh so that evil can be conquered and redemption can be offered. In the incarnation, we find the nature and character of the godhead embodied in Jesus Christ. In Christ, we are presented with the character and nature of God in a way that we can understand and experience – the physical touch of the very real Godhead. It is in the incarnation that we realize the depth of love the Godhead has for us and that we have a great high priest who not only understands our life but can intercede for us on the basis of that understanding. We can identify with them through the incarnation as we see the great lengths that the Godhead would go through to identify with us.

The incarnation was not just about saving people from their sins. The incarnation was about the Godhead conquering evil, restoring creation and redeeming mankind. All of creation is under re-creation because of the incarnation, resurrection and ascension. The impact of sin affects all of creation, from the birds of the air to the ground on which we walk (Hosea 4:3). The incarnation, however, is working to see the purity of the Garden of Eden restored all over the earth. This includes humankind. And it is in the incarnation that the restorative process begins.

The incarnation is the embodiment of the nature and character of the Godhead.

The incarnation provides us with an indication of the nature and character of the Godhead. Through the incarnation we see how the Godhead related together (the perichoresis). In the incarnation we see that God so loved the world, and that love was focused primarily on those whose lives were enslaved to sin and to religious legalism. Jesus lived among the fringe of society, those who knew the pain and struggle of life and wanted to be free of the consequences evil had brought upon them and that they had brought upon themselves. He touched those who had not felt a human touch in years. He healed those whom society believed was living in sin. He wept over the suffering and evil that was rampant in the world. And he offered hope from it all. He offered healing and love. He offered the presence of God to those who were longing for for it.

The MIROR church is the expression of the incarnation in its context.

The MIROR church is a reflection of the Trinity and as such has an incarnational aspect. The purpose of the MIROR church is to be the embodiment of the Godhead in the church’s context. The same nature and character of the Godhead is reflected outward as the church incarnates the loving, healing, freeing and restoring nature of the Godhead. It is part of the restorative and re-creative process that began with the original incarnation.

What does this mean for the church? It means that its focus is on those outside the community. It takes the faith community into the world, feeding off the sending (or missional) aspect of the Trinity. It works among the hurting, starving, broken, and dying of society, partnering with the Spirit to bring healing, forgiveness, hope, and the overwhelming provision and love of God.

This also means that the primary goal is not to draw them into the church’s own specific community of faith but to allow communities of faith to sprout where the church has touched the world. This can be across the road or across the ocean.

W. Davd Phillips » Trinity

Christocentric theology amidst a Trinitarian framework

Related Posts:

Related posts:

Book Notes: The Jesus Manifesto

Related Posts:

Related posts:

Where do you end up?

Related Posts:

The First Son of God was Adam. Now it’s us.

Related Posts:

Related posts:

Hello, Hello, Hello, Lord God Almighty

Related Posts:

Related posts:

A Review – Manifold Witness: The Plurality of Truth

Related Posts:

Related posts:

Theosis

Related Posts:

Related posts:

MORPHE: Eternal Subordination and Male/Female Roles

Related Posts:

Related posts:

The MIROR: An Indwelling Incarnation

Polanyi’s Tacit Knowledge

Indwelling in Jesus

Indwelling in the Church

So what must we do?

Related Posts:

Related posts:

The Trinity, the Incarnation, and the MIROR

The Trinity requires that we consider the importance of the incarnation.

The incarnation is the embodiment of the nature and character of the Godhead.

The MIROR church is the expression of the incarnation in its context.

In living an incarnational life, the MIROR church is a reflection of the heart of Trinity.

Related Posts:

Related posts: