The Surprising God

The antithesis of the gospel of the grace of the tri-personal God extended to us in the person and work of Jesus, is a widely believed, though false gospel that some refer to as  moralistic therapeutic deism.  This misconception of the gospel posits a distant God whose relationship with humanity is grounded in a system of moral religion. According to this viewpoint, Jesus is the Savior in an historic sense, but now, in heaven, relates to us as a great moral teacher whose perfect moral example he calls upon us to emulate. The Holy Spirit is then sent to help us do so. To learn more, watch these videos:

This post features lengthy excerpts from an article by Gerrit Dawson in the March/April 2001 issue of "Theology Matters." The article addresses Jesus' ascension and continuing incarnation---a timely topic with Ascension Day drawing near. To read more by Dawson on this topic, I recommend Jesus Ascended: The Meaning of Christ's Continuing Incarnation . Gerrit Scott Dawson In a time when the church is fiercely debating the uniqueness of Jesus...the ascension is an absolutely crucial part of the gospel story to recover. Through the ascension we discover that the incarnation continues. Jesus remains united to our human nature. Thus, he cannot be spiritualized into a principle of life, or collapsed into one manifestation of a God who is known many ways. Moreover, the presence of our brother Jesus in heaven dramatically affects how we see our lives and place in the world today. The Story The second article of the Apostles’ Creed is actually a narrative. In a ...

Some time ago,  Preaching magazine ran a four-part series by Michael Quicke that advocates an approach to preaching grounded in and expressive of Trinitarian worship. In the series, Quicke references the writings of various Trinitarian theologians, including brothers T.F. and J.B. Torrance. Here are links to the articles in the series: Part one: Beware Tuneless Preaching Part two: Thinking as Trinitarians Part three: Preaching and Trinitarian Worship 1    Part four: Preaching and Trinitarian Worship 2 For additional information on Trinitarian worship, I recommend Mike Hale's posts at GCI's  Trinitarian Worship  blog (inactive, but still accessible).