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Revealed in Jesus
We
meet the Living God only in Jesus. He is the sole point of contact between
God and the creation. Theology cannot begin without Him nor continue
outside of Him. We must be radically and self-consciously
Christ-obsessed. This is the mark of Christian theology,
distinguishing it from all human philosophy and theistic supposition.
Taking every thought captive to Christ is the means by which we will
defend true knowledge of God against the countless philosophical
accretions which threaten the Church. click here for more
Three Persons United
Our
Christian life begins when we meet the Father in the Son and by the
Spirit. The Christian life is, from first to last, a life lived in and
by the Three. The Trinity is not special information for the advanced
believer. The God we know is the Three Persons united in love.
There is no 'more basic' truth to God than the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit. There is no real God beneath or beyond the Persons. All
talk of the Living God must therefore be about the Persons. Understanding
them and deepening our fellowship with them in their relations and roles
will be the very stuff of our Christian lives. click here for more
Bigger than you think
Since
God is the Three Persons united, we must not imagine some fourth
'substance' that is somehow more foundational than the Father, Son and
Holy Spirit. We must not enquire into impersonal 'attributes' or
'essences' as though they are the bedrock realities upon which the
Persons are founded. We understand God's attributes only when we
understand His Triune ways and works as revealed in Jesus. We must not
come to the Word of God with our philosophical notions of God's
attributes and then fit the Persons into these idolatrous moulds. As the
Father reveals His character in the Son and by the Spirit then we
can see the power, love, wisdom etc of the Living God. Allowing our
doctrine of God to be shaped in this way will open our eyes to a God who
is bigger than we could ever conceive. click here for more
Love
The
Living God is Persons in loving, committed relationship. His will for our
life is to be swept up into this eternal love affair and to be agents of
His love for the creation. If our doctrine of God is fundamentally
impersonal, our Christian lives will consist of duty-bound Pharisaism. If
we understand the Passionate God then our lives will begin to conform to
the total love of heart, soul, mind and strength which Jesus models and
commands. click here for more
Proclaimed by Moses
The
Scriptures do not introduce us to God and then to the LORD and then to
Christ and the Trinity. Revelation does not progress towards
Christ - it begins with Him. Moses and the Prophets proclaim the same
Triune God as Jesus and the Apostles. From Genesis 1, the Trinitarian
Gospel of the LORD-Messiah is front-and-centre as the focus of all
Biblical revelation. In this paper we will briefly run through Genesis
and Exodus to see how Christ is proclaimed as the One and Only revelation
of the Unseen LORD. click here for more
Click here for a sermon
on the Trinity
Click here for other
papers
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