Status Updates From Holiness

“‘Grace’ — which is, of course, nothing other than a shorthand term for the great history of God’s mercy, at whose centre is the passion and resurrection of Christ and his sending of the Spirit — is the gift of life, and life is active holiness in company with the holy God.”

“Sanctification in the Spirit’ means: it is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And ‘Christ lives in me’ means: by the Spirit’s power, I am separated from my self-caused self-destruction, and given a new holy self, enclosed by, and wholly referred to, the new Adam in whom I am and in whom I act.”

I continue to read and then re-read and think through this slim constructive theological work. I find this great food for prayer.

I havent read this for a month. Holiness is always a tricky topic to think through for me. Should i work to continue to re-habilitate this word for my own spiritual journey. I think so, but not easy. Just re-read most of chapter 2. Webster is doing good trinitarian work here and showing how holiness is part of the life of the trinity and also the life of Christ on earth.

"God is what God does." 39 Sounds like a forest gumpism :).
"God's identity is enacted in his works." 40
"Reflection on God's attributes is to proceed on the basis of the given reality of God's making himself known as Father, Son and Spirit." 40

I have read page 8-21, three times. This is a very helpful theology of revelation and how to reason about the nature of God. Namely a holy God. There is alot of well deserved bad press on the word holy and its moralistic use. But Webster gives it a positive theological definition that rescues it from the moralists. Yay!