[We are] not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. (Romans 1:16)

Monday, September 10, 2007

Who else is on the throne?

by Matthew

Let me quote C.H. Spurgeon:

To me Calvinism means the placing of the eternal God at the head of all things.
This is all well. But we must go beyond this. God has also put a man on the throne as the head of all things. That man is Jesus Christ.
He is exalted above all. Those who are in Christ positionally share in His glory. In Him, they have a title to the government of the universe. If they overcome the world and serve their Lord faithfully, they may enjoy that privilege, sharing in the sovereign rule of God over all things.

Hebrews 1
God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,

2 hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;

3 who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

4 being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
8 But unto the Son he saith,
Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever:
a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.

9 Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity;
therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee
with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
Hebrews 2
6 But one in a certain place testified, saying,
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
or the son of man, that thou visitest him?

7 Thou madest him a little lower than the angels;
thou crownedst him with glory and honor,
and didst set him over the works of thy hands:

8 thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.
For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him.

9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.

10 ΒΆ For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

11 For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,
Calvinism is weak in its anthropology because of its lack of a doctrine of deification. The Calvinists may deride the idea of free-will as the enthronment of man, but this is in actuallity the glorious truth of the Word of God! The goal of the Christian should be to be lifted up onto the throne of God and to share in His sovereign rule over all things.

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4 Comments:

  • The goal of the Christian should be to be lifted up onto the throne of God and to share in His sovereign rule over all things.

    With a controversial statement like that, I am surprised that this post has no comments!

    By Blogger Rose~, at Tuesday, September 11, 2007 11:28:00 AM  

  • Then again Christians sing that Graham Kendrick song with the line 'lifts our humanity to the heights of his throne' without realising that is a clear statement of deification.

    By Blogger Matthew Celestine, at Wednesday, September 12, 2007 12:18:00 AM  

  • Matt,

    Deified? That makes me feel weird. I can't help but think of the Mormon belief that we become gods and rule over our own planet. I believe that we will corule with Christ if we endure, but deify seems like you're saying we will be made to be like God himself. Am I misunderstanding?

    Tom <><

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Thursday, September 20, 2007 11:48:00 AM  

  • Tom

    Thankyou for your question.

    "I can't help but think of the Mormon belief that we become gods and rule over our own planet."

    The Mormons make God out to be not much more than a glorified human being, so I suppose their view of deification is actually not that far from what orthodox Christians ought to affirm!

    It is possible that a Christian might have her share of the kingdom (her five or ten cities) in the quantity of one planet. But such speculation is fruitless.

    I am guessing you are not familiar with the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of deification. That is a teaching that I certainly affirm.

    Athanasius said that 'God became man, that man might become God'.

    Theosis or Deification does not maintain that man ontologically part of God. We will always be creatures and not the creator.

    What it does hold is that through the incarnation of Christ, we are united to God's divine energy (His eternal display of grace toward the creation) whereby our nature is transfigured. We participate in God through Christ's vital union of manhood and deity. We do not have our own hypostasis, but we participate in Christ's hypostasis by virtue of our position in Him.

    We come to share in the eternal bond of love between the members of the Trinity.

    As it says in 2 Peter 1:4, we are partakers of the divine nature.

    In eternity, all of creation will be deified, that is when God is all in all (1 Cor 15:28).

    I would go further than this and say that not only do have we become God or become one with God, through our union with Christ, but also if we are faithful we can be said to become a god.

    That we shall rule with Christ if we are faithful is enough for us to know that deification of some sort is involved. Natural man was made in the image of God that he might have dominion over the earth. Man is created to be a small god.

    Likewise human government is a delegated exercise of the divine likeness, as we see in Psalm 82:6, where the judges of Israel are called gods.

    The acceptance of redeemed men and women into a position of reigning over creation with Christ is the ultimate realization of God's purpose in deifying man.

    Every Blessing in Christ

    Matthew

    By Blogger Matthew Celestine, at Thursday, September 20, 2007 1:32:00 PM  

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