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| Sir Issac |
We live in a society as Americans that has, at its very core, a thorough going belief in "rugged individualism." Our heroes are singular. They are strong men (usually), some women, who at the right time took action to overcome obstacles. We love "superheroes" that "do justice in the American way". The list of our leaders and inventors, our explorers and conquerors are, for the most part, made of individual names and dates. Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Boone, Davy Crocket, Sergeant York, et alii, took a certain action and helped establish America as a great nation. In school, learning history boiled down to individuals doing solo acts of greatness or destruction. Sir Isaac's Newton's famous line, "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants," is a funny way of saying, "I am a great farsighted individual that because of other great individuals (like me) was able to see where lesser men could not."
But is this who we are as Americans, and as humans? Were we created to live life in "quiet desperation"(Thoreau), alone and solitaire? All our greatest efforts and failures left to rest upon our shoulders for good or bad, better or worse? Or is this "pure hokeum"?[1] Some say our puritan background helped lay a foundation in this country for Christian communities. The dream of America by many who pilgrimed here was to live in communities of love, examples of the kingdom of God. For this reason the community was prized above the individual. John Cotton said in his pamphlet, The Way of Life (1641): "If thou beest a man that lives without a calling, though thou hast two thousands to spend, yet if thou hast no calling, tending to publique good, thou art an uncleane beast."
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| Svitozar Nenyuk - Holy Trinity |
What this paper will show is that God, in His creation, did not make the individual except to belong to a faith based community. The individual finds his fulfillment in the out workings and varieties of the corporate. Even in the workings of the greatest of all "individuals" that walked en terra firma we see the dependence on the Father and the Holy Spirit as a sharing of roles to accomplish His goal, and by extension His Church here on earth. According to Buxton the church is "...the community of God's people which reflects the communal life of the Trinity".[2] The Christian life is a reflection of the triune God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit who live communally. This triune community is an interpenetrating being, ousia. Fiddes in his book Participating in God, says that "By the end of the fourth century (it was thought) that the nature of God, that is ousia or substancia, should be thought of as a communion of persons."[3] Christianity likewise is set up by God to be the same sharing community of believers. He is not sharing his glory with any other, except the whole body of Christ.
Christ did not give his life for any individual alone or to establish a fabulous televangelist and his ministry/business. He came and gave his life for His church, ecclesia, and His body, soma.[4] As Robert Banks reacts to Paul's "high esteem" of the body by saying "It is the body of Christ... wherever Christians are in fellowship this is the body of Christ in its entirety. Christ is wholly present there in the Spirit."[5] It is the life and ministry that flows from the unity of the body (Ephesians 4:13). "This overarching framework for understanding God's redemptive work, in which the community of the Trinity takes an active part on the economy of salvation, is helpful in thinking about the nature of the church's ministry...we are encouraged to interpret ministry as that which flows out of the corporate life of the church." [6]
The thesis of this paper will examine how this participation of God, defined as living communally as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, continues through the ministries of Christ in his body. Because God is vast and His earthly expression equally as vast, this paper has limited its examination to four or five areas of ministry in the corporate Christ. This participation in the corporate nature of the body will be shown in areas of community, worship, prayer, authority, and the missional aspect of the church. The purpose of this work will be to delve into what is being studied and written about participation of God with man. Drawing from a backdrop of the interpenetration of God and man informed by the scriptures and guided by the Holy Spirit.
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