“Union in Christ: A Declaration for the Church”

“He is before all things and in him all things hold together”

(Colossians 1:17)

With the witness of Scripture and the Church through the ages we declare:

I.Jesus Christ is the gracious mission of God

to the world

and for the world.

He is Emmanuel and Savior,

One with the Father, God incarnate as Mary’s son, Lord of all, The truly human one. His coming transforms everything. His Lordship casts down every idolatrous claim to authority. His incarnation discloses the only path to God. His life shows what it means to be human. His atoning death reveals the depth of God’s love for sinners. His bodily resurrection shatters the powers of sin and death.

II. The Holy Spirit joins us to Jesus Christ by grace alone, uniting our life with his through the ministry of the Church.

In the proclamation of the Word, the Spirit calls us to repentance, builds up and renews our life in Christ, strengthens our faith, empowers our service, gladdens our hearts, and transforms our lives more fully into the image of Christ.

We turn away from forms of church life that ignore the need for repentance, that discount the transforming power of the Gospel, or that fail to pray, hope and strive for a life that is pleasing to God.

In Baptism and conversion the Spirit engrafts us into Christ, establishing the Church’s unity and binding us to one another in him.

We turn away from forms of church life that seek unity in theological pluralism, relativism or syncretism.

In the Lord’s Supper the Spirit nurtures and nourishes our participation in Christ and our communion with one another in him.

We turn away from forms of church life that allow human divisions of race, gender, nationality, or

economic class to mar the Eucharistic fellowship, as though in Christ there were still walls of separation dividing the human family.

III. Engrafted into Jesus Christ we participate through faith in his relationship with the Father.

By our union with Christ we participate in his righteousness before God, even as he becomes the bearer of our sin.

We turn away from any claim to stand before God apart from Christ’s own righteous obedience, manifest in his life and sacrifice for our sake on the cross.

By our union with Christ we participate in his knowledge of the Father, given to us as the gift of faith through the unique and authoritative witness of the Old and New Testaments.

We turn away from forms of church life that discount the authority of Scripture or claim knowledge of God that is contrary to the full testimony of Scripture as interpreted by the Holy Spirit working in and through the community of faith across time.

By our union with Christ we participate in his love of the Father, manifest in his obedience “even unto death on the cross.”

We turn away from any supposed love of God that is manifest apart from a continual longing for and striving after that loving obedience which Christ offers to God on our behalf.

IV. Though obscured by our sin, our union with Christ causes his life to shine forth in our lives. This transformation of our lives into the image of Christ is a work of the Holy Spirit begun in this life as a sign and promise of its completion in the life to come.

By our union with Christ our lives participate in the holiness

of the One who fulfilled the Law of God on our behalf.

We turn away from forms of church life that ignore Christ’s call to a life of holiness, or that seek to pit Law and Gospel against one another as if both were not expressions of the one Word of God.

By our union with Christ we participate in his obedience. In these times of moral and sexual confusion we affirm the consistent teaching of Scripture that calls us to chastity outside of marriage and faithfulness within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman.

We turn away from forms of church life that fail to pray for and strive after a rightly ordered sexuality as the gracious gift of a loving God, offered to us in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. We also turn away from forms of church life that fail to forgive and restore those who repent of sexual and other sins.

V. As the body of Christ the Church has her life in Christ.

By our union with Christ the Church binds together believers in every time and place.

We turn away from forms of church life that identify the true Church only with particular styles of worship, polity, or institutional structure. We also turn away from forms of church life that ignore the witness of those who have gone before us.

By our union with Christ the Church is called out into particular communities of worship and mission.

We turn away from forms of church life that see the work of the local congregation as sufficient unto itself, as if it were not a local representation of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church called together by the power of the Spirit in every age and time until our Lord returns.

By our union with Christ our lives participate in God’s mission to the world:

to uphold the value of every human life, to make disciples of all peoples, to establish Christ’s justice and peace in all creation, and to secure that visible oneness in Christ that is the promised inheritance of every believer

We turn away from forms of church life that fail to bear witness in word and deed to Christ’s compassion and peace, and the Gospel of salvation.

By our union with Christ the Church participates in Christ’s resurrected life and awaits in hope the future that God has prepared for her. Even so come quickly, Lord Jesus!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

_________________________________________________________

The Commentary is pretty amazing in this little, gem of a book.

Union in Christ: A Declaration for the Church (Paperback)

Pretty neat look at the Sistine Chapel. I think something gets lost when we only look at some of the paintings abstracted from the rest of the building. It is rather breathtaking…

Here’s some more info on it. 

HT: Jim Hamilton

They are just lines, circles, and dots upon paper. Artistically, they don’t make sense; they don’t communicate. But it sprawled the page, fragile enough to be destroyed by a tear, crumble, or rip.

They sit lifeless on the page, unable to do anything. Each mark connected to the next, part of an unfolding progression eagerly awaiting a receptor. Each mark awaits for a falling hammer.

The result is not found in the notes themselves. The music was never intended to be constrained to an inanimate, lifeless page; it misses the experiential dimension. The various notes produce empty sound if they merely stay on the page. They indicate something more, with the power to envelop the listener and even elicit tears. It could never be a complete work without a falling hammer.

It began as a soft solo, a divine promise. It unfolded, slowly crescendoing more and more. Growing louder as others joined the chorus in resounding forte. The musical notes in the Score of Redemption found their finale and completion in Christ, on whose hands the hammer fell.

A very interesting article contrasting the T4G conference with the Wheaton conference. 

For the T4G folks, protecting disputed doctrines against heresy is where good theology is born. Clear thinking comes from friction and protestation, from Hegelian dialectics (R.C. Sproul spoke on this), but not from compromise. The Patristic Fathers got it right whenever they were ironing out disputed doctrines and fighting against heresy, said Ligon Duncan in his talk. But on matters that were not disputed, he said, their thought sometimes got muddled up.

The exact opposite point was made at the Wheaton Conference by Kevin Vanhoozer, professor of systematic theology at Wheaton, who suggested that theologians like Wright (and, presumably Christians in general) are more often correct in matters they collectively affirm than in matters they dispute. This statement reflects the contrasting spirit of the Wheaton Conference as regards unity: It’s what we affirmthat matters. Are we on the same page on the core issues? Can we agree on the claims of the creeds? Yes? Then let’s hash out the details of theological minutia (which is definitely important) in a spirited, friendly debate as the people of God exercising the renewal of our minds (Rom. 12:2).

A follow up to the profound message of Crazy Love, Pastor Francis Chan offers a compelling invitation to understand, embrace, and follow the Holy Spirit’s direction in our lives. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We pray in the name of all three, but how often do we live with an awareness of only the first two?

This is probably the best introduction to the various schools of Christian Counseling

Andrew Purves on “The Trinity: God’s Love Overflowing”

One of the controversial issues facing the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is a report entitled “The Trinity: God’s Love Overflowing.” At a recent PFR Conference in Cincinnati, Professor Andrew Purves from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary offered a summary of his concerns about this report. Here Purves speaks extemporaneously, elaborating on some points made in his recent article in Theology Matters, which is entitled “A Name is Not a Metaphor.”

Q: In what ways do you think ministry is lacking today?

Andrew Purves: Far too many ministers cast their ministry back upon themselves. The danger is ministerial messianism. The fact is, we can’t raise the dead, heal the sick, forgive the sinner, comfort the afflicted and so on. It comes as a shock, I think, when we finally discover we are not the Messiah. When we think it is all up to us, our ministries have become a hindrance to the work of Christ because we have put ourselves into the place where only he should stand. When we do that, God kills our ministries—the crucifixion of ministry. But that’s good news, for us and for our parishioners. Ultimately, they need a savior more than a minister. Jesus Christ is Lord, and as such he is the true and only minister. The real failure in practical theology is timid and limited Christology. Our perception of a living, acting, reigning Lord is just not vigorous enough. Generally, we have turned Jesus into a long-gone moral influence whom we have to imitate, rather than a living Lord who is at work in every aspect of the world’s life.

Q: What are the effects of this lack in Christian ministry?

Andrew: Burnout, depression, exhaustion, loneliness, etc. By mid-career it can become a major crisis—the burden is too heavy to carry. We come to the ministerial Jordan, so to speak. The Lord, in effect, says to us, “Let me carry you across and henceforth let me do the ministry, while you bear witness to what I am up to; or stay here, keep trying to do it by yourself, and you’ll work your way to retirement embittered and weary.” Thus I have developed the classical doctrine of our union with Christ: he joins us to himself so that we share in what he is up to.

Q: What made you decide to write a book on the crucifixion of ministry?

Andrew: Frankly, in part my own sense of inadequacy—I can’t pray like Peter or preach like Paul. I am weary of people attempting to guilt me into ministry. I have also watched my wife, a Presbyterian pastor, struggle with big questions: How can I preach hard and true year after year and nothing seems to change? Why do the sore heads remain sore-headed? Why is ministry so terribly draining and as such becomes joyless? It is only when one is long in the tooth in ministry that one comes to see, to know in a deep way, that Jesus—in the freedom of his love and in the power of the Spirit—has to show up. So this has become the principal hermeneutical question for ministry: What is Jesus up to, here in this hospital room, with this congregation this Sunday morning, with this couple whose marriage is struggling? What does it mean to reframe ministry as bearing witness to a living, reigning and acting Lord at work among us? This means, of course, that at its core ministry is therefore a theological act.

“…independence such as Paul showed in his religion is only what every Christian must be able to claim, if his Christianity is to be real and vital and significant.  Second-hand piety has always been the Church’s bane and a lamentable source of weakness to the Christian cause.  Indeed, we might put it in the form of a paradox and say that the more original a man’s Christianity is, and the more the personal equation enters with it, the more likely is it to be true to Christ.  This is what we see in Paul.  It is ‘my Gospel,’ as he says; and just in the degree in which it is his own, it is more than his own—it is Christ’s”

(James Stewart, A Man in Christ, 278)

Thanks Dan for the quote!

Eric Metaxas on “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy” from Socrates in the City on Vimeo.

There is no such thing in Paul’s epistles as a mechanical imputing of the righteousness of Christ to sinners.  Everything turns upon faith.  Justification does not happen in a vacuum.  It happens in a faith-pervaded atmosphere. … The sinful soul, confronted with God’s wonderful self-disclosure in Christ, and with the tremendous and subduing fact of the cross where the whole world’s sins were borne, responds to that divine appeal and abandons itself to the love that stands revealed: and that response, that abandonment, Paul calls faith.  This is what God sees when He justifies the ungodly.  Far from holiness and truth and all that makes a son of God, the sinner may yet be: but at least his face is now turned in a new direction. … It may be that the sinner is still woefully entangled in his sins; it may be that there is a long, weary road to travel before he can finally escape from the far country which he has made his home.  But that matters comparatively little.  What matters supremely is that his life has found a new orientation. … His position may not have altered much, but his direction has been changed completely; and it is by direction, not position, that God judges.  Once the sinner had his back to Christ: now his face is Christward.  This is faith, and it holds the potency of a glorious future.  This is what God sees; and seeing it, God declares the man righteous.  God “justifies” him.  Is this a “legal fiction”?  The question answers itself.  There is nothing fictitious about it whatever.  It is the deepest most genuine of realities.

(James S. Stewart, A Man in Christ, 256-257)

Here is an amazing research tool. The Oxford Bibliographies Online looks like it will be the definitive place to begin when writing papers. Although Biblical Studies aren’t up yet, they should by the end of the year.

What Is It?

• Broad range of subject modules from Buddhism to Criminology
• Every subject area has an Editor in Chief and Editorial Board, ensuring scholarly accuracy, relevance, and authority
• Each subject launches with 50-100 entries - equivalent to a 4-volume print encyclopedia
• Each individual entry is a guided tour through the key literature on a specialized topic, moving from the general to the specific, with scholarly annotations and context-providing introductions
• Each entry receives multiple peer reviews and board vetting
• Updated quarterly, with 50-75 entries added per year to each subject area, as well as revisions to existing entries

How Is It Different?

Oxford Bibliographies Online combines the best features of a high-level encyclopaedia and a traditional bibliography in a style tailored to meet the needs of today’s online research. Each subject module includes a full set of entries covering a range of topics from general overviews to highly-specialized themes. Each entry provides a synoptic, bibliographic guide to the key literature and most useful online resources in given area of research. Entries are written by world-class experts and carefully reviewed by scholars in the field to ensure that they provide reliable, worthy coverage.

Oxford Bibliographies Online entries constitute an entirely new type of born-digital content, conceived and developed in the editorial offices of Oxford University Press with the advice and counsel of an international group of scholars and librarians. Entries combine selective lists of annotated citations with guiding commentary to help users understand the significance of a given resource in the context of the field.  All citations have Open-URL connectivity, allowing users to click through Oxford Bibliographies Online’s thousands of citations to quickly access the full-text of essential, authoritative, sources. 

• It is selective, directing researchers to only the most essential, core sources
• More than just links, it includes specially-commissioned expert recommendations with critical supportive text and annotation, providing full context for understanding connections between citations
• More sophisticated than a full-text search, it directs users to results within context of larger entries, given perspective within any given topic
• Cataloging of non-print material, especially online resources, makes this a truly modern research tool 
• Linking on multiple levels facilitates movement to other resources, whether online or available through a library’s catalog, both grounding the service within the discipline and integrating it with both scholarship and library collections

What Will It Do?

Oxford Bibliographies Online is a tool designed to help busy researchers find reliable sources of information in half the time by directing them to the best scholarship available, whether it be a chapter, book, website, archive, or data set. It is a springboard for new research that facilitates fluid movement between texts and databases within a given institution’s collection and beyond. Oxford Bibliographies Online is a starting point for organizing a research plan, preparing a writing assignment, or creating a syllabus. The style and approach will be accessible to student readers; in-depth coverage it will ensure that it is of great use to professional scholars, as well.

• Saves research time by vetting a given subject under the direction of Oxford’s editors and scholars
• Makes research more productive, skipping several steps in literature reviews and source searching
• Encourages debate and creates new connections between subjects and topics, making scholarly innovation easier than ever before

When?

Classics, Islamic Studies, Social Work and Criminology are now available, and an additional 10-12 subject areas will be launching later this year, including Biblical Studies, Philosophy, and Atlantic History.