Theology Must Be Lived

St. John the Theologian said:

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
 
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. (1 John 4:7-21)

Understanding Scripture With the Church

The best way to understand the Scriptures is in the context of what has been handed down in the Church from the beginning. The whole Church has been given the Holy Spirit, to teach us and lead us into all truth (John 14:26, John 16:13). This does not mean that each individual may come up with his own private interpretation with which to judge everyone else. It means precisely the opposite; we must learn to read and understand the Scriptures together, as one body, the body of Christ, the Church, being of one heart and mind.

The Church is not above the Scriptures, but the Church interprets the Scriptures. Without interpretation, the Scriptures yield no meaning to us. Even if we should say, “The Holy Spirit showed me this meaning,” it is an interpretation nonetheless. The Holy Spirit certainly reveals the meaning of Scripture to the Church, but to the whole Church, and not with contradictory interpretations to contradictory people. The Scriptures are multivalent, capable of many interpretations, but not mutually incongruous ones.

There are many new and varied interpretations that have arisen over the years, and they abound today. But where they are out of sync with how the Church has consistently understood Scripture from the beginning, they should be left to the side. They are independent voices that do not reflect the mind of the Church, the mind of the Holy Spirit who guides the Church. It is important, then, to pay careful attention to how the early Church understood the Scriptures. It is the safest and best way to proceed, and will help keep us from error.

Sin is the Soul Rejecting Itself

Sin is often thought of as the infraction of a law, the breaking of a commandment. But it is really the brokenness of a relationship. When Adam turned away from God to his own way, he turned away from the very source of his life and being — he turned away from his true self, toward non-being.

From the beginning, we are created in the image of God, to be like God. That is our true self, yet we continually resist it. Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God, in whom all the fullness of divinity dwells in bodily form, and in whom we are made complete and become partakers of the divine nature. This is the Incarnation, and it includes us all, for Jesus Christ is the image of God we were created to be. The good news of the gospel is that God is transforming us, conforming us to the image of Christ. In turning to Christ, through repentance and faith, we become reoriented to our true self, what God intended for us from the beginning.

The Gospel of Deliverance

Christ did not come to save us from God
but to deliver us from the power of death
and the darkness of sin.

“Therefore, since the children share in blood and flesh, Christ also in like manner shared in these same things , in order that through death he could destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and could set free these who through fear of death were subject to slavery throughout all their lives.” (Hebrews 2:14-15)

“For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17) 

Divine Being and Human Being

There is Divine Being
and there is Human Being.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is both,
and in Him we are all united,
with God and with each other.
This is the Incarnation
and this is the Gospel.

Christ Crucified and Risen is the Incarnate One.
The Incarnate One is Crucified and Risen.