Clare73
Blood-bought
- Jun 12, 2012
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How about this notion:Yes, all of that. We can differentiate between creation and recreation, but it is all one divine intention. The Augustinian idea that everything was perfect, and then not perfect makes it seem like God flubbed the first try and will get it right on the second try. I'm more inclined to Irenaeus's notion that creatures, by necessity, must begin less than perfect and come to perfection by a process of maturity.
If, however, any one say, "What then? Could not God have exhibited man as perfect from beginning?" let him know that, inasmuch as God is indeed always the same and unbegotten as respects Himself, all things are possible to Him. But created things must be inferior to Him who created them, from the very fact of their later origin; for it was not possible for things recently created to have been uncreated. But inasmuch as they are not uncreated, for this very reason do they come short of the perfect. Because, as these things are of later date, so are they infantile; so are they unaccustomed to, and unexercised in, perfect discipline. For as it certainly is in the power of a mother to give strong food to her infant, [but she does not do so], as the child is not yet able to receive more substantial nourishment; so also it was possible for God Himself to have made man perfect from the first, but man could not receive this [perfection], being as yet an infant. And for this cause our Lord in these last times, when He had summed up all things into Himself, came to us, not as He might have come, but as we were capable of beholding Him. He might easily have come to us in His immortal glory, but in that case we could never have endured the greatness of the glory; and therefore it was that He, who was the perfect bread of the Father, offered Himself to us as milk, [because we were] as infants. He did this when He appeared as a man, that we, being nourished, as it were, from the breast of His flesh, and having, by such a course of milk nourishment, become accustomed to eat and drink the Word of God, may be able also to contain in ourselves the Bread of immortality, which is the Spirit of the Father.
Why Man was not Made Perfect from the Beginning.
The NT reveals that God chooses to show forth his glory through the glorification of his Son, who with his own life shall purchase from condemned mankind (Romans 5:18) a remnant to be God's own personal inheritance (Psalms 33:12; Ephesians 1:18) and treasured possession (Exodus 19:5; Deuteronomy 7:6, Deuteronomy 26:18; Malachi 3:17); i.e., the church, which is his body, the fullness of him (Ephesians 1:22-23), God counting himself incomplete (!) without his inheritance and treasure.
If that doesn't light your fire, your wood's wet.
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