Friday, November 24, 2006

Sinlessness is a bloodless category, making an anemic savior. What matters is the reality of [Jesus’] struggles, that he was in all things like us, and that victory is possible with God and is indeed a reality in Jesus’ life as a “fragment of the future,” to use Cairns’s phrase. We, too, can find Christ in us. We, too, can find the new level of the Spirit and walk in its law, which is life and peace. That does not mean that we shall have serene and steady experiences of God. It may mean, humanly speaking, tremendous failures, struggles, and tensions. When, however, we constantly abandon all faith in ourselves and welcome God’s power and purpose in us, when we identify ourselves not with the sin which dwells and works in us, but with the living power of God, then the world can see that Christ still works and that the Holy Spirit still speaks with demonstration of power. For even as Christ had to fulfill the human life of Jesus, the life of self-drive and altruism which was lived under the Spirit of God—a fulfillment which yet made Jesus a truly integrated person—even so the same Christ must fulfill our lives.

... Nels F. S. Ferré (1908-1971), The Christian Understanding of God, New York: Harper, 1951, p. 201 (see the book; see also Heb. 4:15; 2:10;; more at Christ, Conversion, Faith, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Life, Savior, Sin, Struggle, Victory)

 
Compilation Copyright, 1996-2024, by Robert McAnally Adams,
        Curator, Christian Quotation of the Day,
        with Robert Douglas, principal contributor
Logo image Copyright 1996 by Shay Barsabe, of “Simple GIFs”, by kind permission.
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Last updated: 09/13/16

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