With my studies on Adoption, I came across a very complex yet however amazing quote from a guy called Irenaeus, an early church theologian. He is commenting on the signigicance of the incarnation has to being Adopted as God's Children. I wanted to share it with you. Read it slowly and maybe twice, since it is not the easiest to read.......
"For it was for this end that the Word of God(Jesus) was made man, and He who was the Son of God became the Son of Man, that man....recieving the adoption, might become the son of God. For by no other means could we attain the incorruptibility and immortality. But how could we be joined to incorruptibility and immortality, unless, first, incorruptibility and immortality had become that which we also are, so that the corruptible might be swallowed up by the incorruptibility, and the mortal by immortality, that we might receive adoption as sons."
Genius!
Interesting. C.S. Lewis makes a similar point about the crucifixion in ``Mere Christianity''. He says that we can love, because love is in God. We can be creative, because creativity is in God. Similarly we can only humble ourselves and die to self because Christ humbled himself and died.
ReplyDeleteWhich is quite similar to what Irenaeus said here, centuries earlier. Except that he's talking about the Incarnation.