tou θeoῦ Λὀγoς (The Logos of God)

"...by the grace of the resurrection banishing death from them as straw from the fire."

For this purpose, then, the incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial Word of God (tou θeoῦ Λὀγoς) comes into our realm, although He was not formerly distant. For no part of creation is left void of Him; while abiding with His own Father, He has filled all things in every place. But now He comes, condescending towards us in His love for human beings and His manifestation. For seeing the rational race perishing, and death reigning over them through corruption, and seeingf also the threat of the transgression giving firm hold to the corruption that was upon us, and that it was absurd for the law to be dissolved before being fulfilled, and seeing the impropriety in what had happened, that the very thing of which He Himself was the Creator were disappearing, and seeing the excessive wickedness of human beings, that they gradually increased it to an intolerable pitch against themselves, and seeing the liability of all human beings to death--having mercy upon our race, and having pity upon our weakness, and condescending to our corruption, and not enduring the dominion of death, least what had been created should perish and the work of the Father Himself for human beings should be in vain,He takes for Himself a body and that not foreign to our own.

For He did not wish simply to be in a body, nor did He wish merely to appear, for if He had wished only to appear He could have made His divine manifestation through some other better means. But He takes that which is ours, and that not simply, but from a spotless and stainless virgin, ignorant of man, pure and unmixed with intercourse with men. Although being Himself powerful and the creator of the universe, He prepared for Himself in the Virgin the body as a temple, and made it His own, as an instrument, making Himself known and dwelling in it. And thus taking from ours that which is like, since all were liable to the corruption of death, delivering it over to death on behalf of all, He offered it to the Father, doing this in His love for human beings, so that, on the one hand, with all dying in Him the law concerning corruption in human beings might be undone (its power being fully expended in the lordly body and no longer having any ground against similar human beings), and on the other hand, that as human beings ha d turned towards corruption He might turn them again to incorruptibility and give them life from death, by making the body His own and by the grace of the resurrection banishing death from them as straw from the fire.

St.Athanasius, "On the Incarnation" , (Translation by John Behr)

Yes, God is Impassible and Impassioned...

Having just finished reading God is Impassible and Impassioned by Rob Lister, I thought about writing a review. I find that other Amazon reviewers have more than covered anything I could say regarding the merits of this work. Below I am posting a link to one of those reviews. All I can say is "ditto". On a personal note I found Chapter 10 "Impassibility and Incarnation: A Concluding Christological Reflection" to be a real "mind-bender" that has helped clarify and sharpen my own understanding of the Incarnation. For this I am humbly grateful.

I first became aware of Lister's book through a passing dismissive comment on another blog. As I have posted in a previous note, the nature of the comment was such that one wondered if the blog writer had ever read Lister's book, but was merely dismissively reacting to the title. I now believe that to be the case. Also I found this book was recommended by Dr. Ardel Caneday, a man whose theological judgement I respect. In reading this book, I found my own preliminary thoughts on the impassibility and passion of God were pretty much headed in the same general direction as Lister's thesis and argument. I have no hesitation in recommending this work to anyone having an interest in the discussion and controversy over God's impassibility and His passions.

A Review of Rob Lister's "God is Impassible and Impassioned".

Defining the True Theologian

“First, Owen lived before the concept of a theologian was scaled down to its current, intellectualized, and relatively narrow dimensions, Two centuries ago Enlightenment thinkers set up the curriculum for theological student’s in universities and seminaries as consisting of four distinct fields of inquiry: history and exegesis of the Bible, analysis of the church’s beliefs, church history, and ministerial practice. The new thing in this arrangement, the separation of the studies from each other, opened the door to specialization, which has been acidly but not unfairly described as getting to know more and more about less and less. Specialization produced exegetes who were not theologians, dogmaticians who were not exegetes, and practical theologians to whom past patterns of Christian life and pastoral care were a closed book. Unity was lost, fragmentation set in, and theology as a study came to mean no more than exploring facts and arguments in any or all of these departments from some personal standpoint or other, never mind what. This, of course, exactly fulfilled the freethinking intellectual ideal of the Enlightenment. Today, we children of the Enlightenment are so used to it that we can hardly believe mainstream Christians ever thought of theological study differently. But they did.

From the first Christian centuries down to, and past,Owen’s day, people conceived of theology as wisdom and in personal rather than academic terms: that is, as wisdom of those in whose head and heart, through the power of God’s Word and Spirit, true understanding of God’s revealed truth had taken root. The idea of a theologian was of a wise, godly pundit. Gregory Nazianzus and John Calvin were both called “the theologian” in their own lifetime, and in each case the title meant all of the above. On this view, real theologians embodied the unity of thought and modeled the reality of worship, obedience, and care that together amount to what the Bible means by knowing God. They would use exegesis to buttress their exposition of the faith: their exegesis would reflect and responsibly relate to, their believing sate of mind. They would read historical theology as narrating the wars of the Word in and with the world, and church history as recoding successes and failures in faithfulness to the gospel. The application of truth to life would be their constant concern. Intellectually and attitudinally, the theologian’s wisdom would thus be a single ball of wax, the product of all the disciplines of divinity and devotion operating together in one man’s life. In this sense John Owen aimed to be, and truly was, a theologian.”

Excerpted from: J.I. Packer, “A Puritan Perspective: Trinitarian Godliness according to John Owen”; God the Holy Trinity: Reflections on Christian Faith and Practice; Edited by Timothy George, Baker Academic, (2006)

As I read this, I could not help but think of a man who passed away a little over a year ago, who in his life and ministry was a true theologian of the caliber described above. Rest in peace Dr. James Grier.

Some Thoughts on the Trinity

"In one sense the doctrine of the Trinity is our admission--as beings created and finite, fallen and flawed--that we simply cannot fully grasp all that God is... ...The doctrine of the Trinity represents a chastened admission that we are unable to master God."

"The doctrine of the Trinity gathers together the richness of the complex Christian understanding of God; it yields a vision of God to which the only appropriate response is adoration and devotion. The doctrine knits together into a coherent whole the Christian doctrines of creation, redemption, and sanctification. By doing so, it sets before us a vision of God who created the world, whose glory can be seen reflected in the wonders of the natural order; a God who redeemed the world, whose love can be seen in the tender face of Christ; and a God who is present now in the lives of believers."

(Allister E. McGrath; "The Doctrine of the Trinity: An Evangelical Reflection"; God the Holy Trinity: Reflections on Christian Faith and Practice; Timothy George, Editor; (Baker Academic, 2006)