Eternal Existence,

Religious Art by Colin McCahon

      In the eighth chapter of John, a chapter filled with discourse between Jesus and the Pharisees, Jesus makes a bold statement. He says flatly "before Abraham was born I was"(v 58). One of the verbs used here is ginomai meaning "to be born". John uses it in reference to the birth of all the mortal realm.
       The other verb used in contrast here is ei∆mi√, meaning "to be". This verb is often used to describe God's existence. These two verbs are used by John to set up a contrast. This contrast is seen clearly in the prologue to John's gospel. It is between mortal birth and heavenly existence (John 1:1-3). The Word was, but everything else came into being (Brown, Anchor Bible, p.360).  John is not the only writer who makes this distinction.  Biblical writers often use the verb to be to express the existence of God. God Himself used it.  The classic case was God introducing Himself to Moses on Sinai (Exodus 3:15). Moses asked what is your name? God answered using this to be verb,  h¡RyVh`Ra r∞RvSa h™RyVh`Ra "I am who I am." (This is of course the Hebrew).This is a name that some Jews called "no name." It is simple, straight forward, eternal and well, undefensive.  It is similar in tone to Jesus' response to the Jews, "Before Abraham was born, I am". Wow. Did that smack them in the face!  There is a variant reading here from some of the Western evidences that states it even more emphatically, "Before Abraham was, I am".
   John is famous for his "ego eimi" responses from Jesus. I am the vine, I am the bread, at this feast I am the light and I am. This use in comparison to Abraham's existence ends the discourse with distinctive meaning. This discourse, since verse 30, has been about Abraham. Jesus puts a bottom line on the arguement with this statement of existence and authority, "I am".
     The next verse lets us see that the Jews got the comparsion. "They picked up rocks". This was an instinctive response. Right there on the temple mount, where according to tradition Abraham sacrificed Issac. "How dare he!"  But Jesus encryted  (e∆kruvbh) Himself and escaped.

Great I Am by Colin McCahon

     Finally we see the Psalmist use this great eternal verb in chapter 92:2, "before the mountains came into being ... from age to age You are." This again is simple, direct and undefined. But God who may have wanted to stay undefined and eternal,  rethought His position. Instead of telling the Jews that "I am " sent Moses, God came Himself. The Great undefined became defined. Since we could not handle that concept we picked up stones. I guess in the last analysis God is easier to deal with if He stays "out there", in the eternal ether, massless, matterless, is-less. When He becomes the "I am" in front of us, we have to face our unbelief. "He is" became one of me. Can I become an "I am" like Him? Is that right?   Can I become eternal? Can the Great  "I am" become the Great(er) "We are?"

The Body of Christ, Part Two

      Before examining the ministry areas of the body of Christ, we will look at this expression called,  participation. We need to unpack some of the terms that are germane to this paper. Participation of the Father, Son and Spirit are described by Fiddes as perichoresis. Even though St. Augustine in the 4th century, wrote of the "mutual interpenetration and interdwelling" of the triune nature of God, it was Pseudo-Cyril, who first coined this term.[1]  But it was John of Damascus, an eastern theologian that advanced its description. John described the action of perichoresis (Greek) or circumincession (Latin) as agreeing with the Nicene Creed where the Father, Son and, added later, Holy Spirit are one ousia or one essence. This to John naturally leads to the perichoresis, as they are all one essence.[2]  Paul Fiddes continues this tradition by unpacking further the application of this meaning to the church eternal, here on earth. Fiddes says "according to the workings of the trinity, God the father with Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit working together in oneness to create not just the earth but the salvation offered it and the life we have together in the perichoretic dance."[3] This dance according to Fiddes is not about the movers but about the movement.[4]  Thus we see in the body of Christ that two or more participants can occupy the same "social spaces" in this interpenetration or perichoresis of love. Thus imitating on earth and in the community of Christians the very act and semblance of the triune nature of God. Countering Kant's criticism of the trinity as nothing practical, Boff, in his book Trinity and Society, says it is the "prototype of human community dreamed of by those who wish to improve society" the "model for any just, egalitarian ... social organization." Further he says, "each person receives everything from the other and at the same time gives everything to the others."[5]  All though he does not take the implication and application to where Fiddes does he points to the communal aspect of God with man.

            The idea that the participation, the interpenetration, the "social spaces" of the Christian community is a reflection of God himself is seen clearly in 1 John 4:7. Here John points out that the love that is shared between members of the community is the point at which we come to know God and are "born of God". Is this the same as being one with God?

               =Agaphtoi√, a˙gapwÇmen a˙llhvlouß,

                  o{ti hJ a˙ga◊ph e∆k tou: qeou: e∆stin,

         kai… paÇß oJ a˙gapwÇn e∆k tou: qeou: gege√nnhtai

                  kai… ginw◊skei to;n qeovn.[6]

            Certainly the author (here taken to be John) is saying that to know God one has to love. This love has to have an object as it target. If the loving is the knowing then Fiddes is correct in saying it is in these "social spaces" that God happens. The word for 'knowing" ginosko is a deeper knowing than an intellectual understanding. It is the same word used by the Septuagint (LXX) for when Adam knew Eve in sexual relationship (Genesis 4:1). This is in every way an interpenetration of knowing. The interrelatedness of this love (perichoresis) is not necessarily about the movers but the movement. This equates fully, not only to John's works, but also in Paul's description of how the body moves and grows. We see in Ephesians 4:16,

            e∆x ou| paÇn to; swÇma sunarmologouvmenon kai… sumbibazovmenon

       dia˝ pa◊shß aÓfh:ß th:ß e∆picorhgi√aß kat= e∆ne√rgeian e∆n 

       me√trw/ eÔno;ß eÔka◊stou me√rouß th;n au[xhsin tou: sw◊matoß

       poieiætai ei∆ß oi∆kodomh;n eÔautou: e∆n a˙ga◊ph≥

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[1] Fiddes, 71.

[2] Rev. Angus Stewart, John of Damascus and the Perichoresis; Covenant Protestant Reformed Church, (Balleymena, Northern Ireland) http://www.cprf.co.uk/articles/covenant4.htm.

[3]  Fiddes, 72

[4]  Ibid. 72

[5] Leonardo Boff, Trinity and Society, (Maryknoll, N.Y., Orbis Publishers, 1988) 146-47.

[6] Greek New Testament , American Bible Socieity.

The Body of Christ, Part One

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."

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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     [1] Essay: The Rugged Individual Rides Again, Rodger Rosenblat, 10/15/84,

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,923739,00.html#ixzz0yldujhAi

    [2]  Graham, Buxton, Ministry as Praxis, (hand out from Class number, Fuller Seminary, 2010) 1.

     [3]  Paul Fiddes, Participating in God, a Pastoral Doctrine of the Trinity (Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press, 2005) 71.

     [4]  For the purposes of this writing, the terms soma, and ecclesia, will be interpreted as meaning the community of Christians as well as the body of Christ which is the full representation of Christ on the earth.

     [5]  Robert Banks, Paul's Idea of Community,(Peabody, Mass., Hendrickson Publishers, 1994) 59.

     [6]  Buxton, 3.