Does God’s grace grab you and stir you to purposeful, Spirit-filled living? Or is the gospel that you hear and preach big on belief and short on embodiment? Do you see a need for change, whether personal, ecclesial, or social, that transcends ‘us’ (righteous) vs. ’them’ (wicked) polarizations? Beginning with every person’s participation in Christ as a keystone to creation, Jeff Mc Swain introduces the vibrant reality of Trinitarian community and shows us the dangers of losing sight of the belovedness we share as humans hidden with Christ in God. Avoiding simplistic categories, Mc Swain exalts the total goodness of every person in this world (by virtue of creation in Christ) while also acknowledging the simultaneous contradiction–the total depravity of every person (by virtue of the fall). If ignoring our human duplicity contributes to relational fractures at every level, Mc Swain’s dimensional view of human agency urges us to embrace the redemptive truth of our identity in Christ and to refuse our false, destructive selves that have been crucified with Christ. Filled with scriptural exegesis and practical illustrations that pastors and teachers will especially appreciate, this project is a refreshing application of Christology to anthropology and everyday life–an inspiring work of systematic theology aimed at systematic change.
Over de auteur
Chris Tilling is Lecturer in New Testament Studies at St Mellitus College and Visiting Lecturer in Theology at King’s College, London. He is the author of Paul’s Divine Christology (2012), the editor of Beyond Old and New Perspectives on Paul (2014) and author, together with Michael Bird, Craig Evans, Simon Gathercole and Charles Hill, of How God Became Jesus (2014). He also runs the biblical studies blog, ‘Chrisendom.’