A Very Practical and Inspiring Gospel Quote

Let’s face it! To think of theology as practical, inspiring and full of Good News is quite a stretch for most people these days! As one man said “most of us would rather have a root canal than listen to something called theology!” 🙂

Part of this is the fault of theologians who have not done a good job of putting theology in everyday and relational terms for the man on the street. Far too often, theology has gotten stuck in the ivory tower of dry, professorial analysis and speech, and become a battle of pride in knowing “learned words”.

Make no mistake though! Theology is important! It has been called into being by the Triune God because something has gone wrong (John 1:1-5, 14!) We have forgotten Whose we are, and therefore don’t know who we are, and we are suffering a huge crisis of identity! Something HAS to break through our darkness and clutter so that we can experience life as it really is (Eph 1!) The Gospel is Good News BUT it is not a game (just look at the wrecked relationships and broken lives that come from not knowing or believing the truth of our Inclusion in the Life of Triune God!) Therefore, theologians aren’t to be easily dismissed just because they sometimes use “big words” we can’t always understand up front!

Theologians should be considered like the expert behind any “simple” product. For instance, aren’t we glad there are engineers that understand and know the terminology and technical building process behind a “simple” microwave oven (which I use practically almost daily by the way)? Of course we are! But we are also glad that they make the complexity behind the “simple” microwave as easy as pushing a button, right?! We don’t want them to get rid of the complexity behind a microwave (because we want to be safe – saved – when figuring it out and messing with it!) We only want them to make it simple to live with the complexity, right?! 🙂

I’ve said all of this to help broaden your mind about the serious function and nature of theology! The Father doesn’t want you to misconstrue His Good News just because there is some complexity in it, and you are “just a simple person!” He is both simple AND complex!!! I, personally, want you to understand more fundamentally why the theology of our Inclusion in Jesus MUST and DOES sound so different and complex as it cuts through our preconceived ideas and faulty notions about Who God REALLY is! The Father wants us out of the fog of our illusions and “to show which of you have God’s approval” (1 Corinthians 11:19!)

I’ve also said it because I now want to quote a theologian that many people call “inaccessible”. I want you to see how practical, inspiring, IMPORTANT, and accessible theology can be when it is put in simpler language that the average man on the street can understand. After many years of studying and teaching the Nature of the Triune God and Jesus from scripture and the historical church, and after having a firm grasp on complex Hebrew and Greek languages,  here is what theologian Thomas F. Torrance has to say about the Good News of Jesus Christ, Our Mediator,  in his book entitled, “The Mediation of Christ”, p.94:

“In Jesus Christ God has actualized his unconditional love for you in your human nature in such a once for all way, that he cannot go back upon it without undoing the Incarnation and the Cross and thereby denying himself. Jesus Christ died for you precisely because you are sinful and utterly unworthy of him, and has thereby already made you his own before and apart from your ever believing in him. He has bound you to himself by his love in a way that he will never let you go, for even if you refuse him and damn yourself in hell his love will never cease. Therefore, repent and believe in Jesus Christ as you Lord and Saviour.  

From beginning to end what Jesus Christ has done for you he has done not only as God but as man. He has acted in your place in the whole range of your human life and activity, including your personal decisions, and your responses to God’s love, and even your acts of faith. He has believed for you, fulfilled your human response to God, even made your personal decision for you, so that he acknowledges you before God as one who has already responded to God in him, who has already believed in God through him..in all of which he has been fully and completely accepted by the Father, so that in Jesus Christ you are already accepted by him. Therefore, renounce yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus as your Lord and Saviour.”

Now THAT is both the complexity AND the simplicity behind the Father’s Good News! None of us really knows how that technically works out BUT we sure can relax in the liberating SIMPLICITY of knowing we are liked and loved and will always be embraced and accepted by the Father and the Spirit, in Jesus, NO MATTER WHAT!!!