“Does Christ come merely to improve our existence in Adam or to end it, sweeping us into his new creation? Is Christianity all about spiritual and moral makeovers or about death and resurrection — radical judgment and radical grace? Is the Word of God a resource for what we have already decided we want and need, or is it God’s living and active criticism of our religion, morality, and pious experience? In other words, is the Bible God’s story, centering on Christ’s redeeming work, that rewrites our stories, or is it something we use to make our stories a little more exciting and interesting?”
- Michael Horton, Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Baker Books, 2008), 24.
Wow.
Sounds to me like a false dichotomy. Either Christianity has everything to do with heaven and nothing to do with life as we know it, or it only has to do with life as we know it.
Seems to me that it’s both…
Paul, Horton is not raising a dichotomy between heaven and earth, but between recreation and renovation. It has everything to do with life as we know it.
[...] Todays’ quote from Of First Importance offers probing questions on how we view Jesus and the Bible. “Does Christ come merely to improve our existence in Adam or to end it, sweeping us into his new creation? Is Christianity all about spiritual and moral makeovers or about death and resurrection — radical judgment and radical grace? Is the Word of God a resource for what we have already decided we want and need, or is it God’s living and active criticism of our religion, morality, and pious experience? In other words, is the Bible God’s story, centering on Christ’s redeeming work, that rewrites our stories, or is it something we use to make our stories a little more exciting and interesting?” [...]
[...] (HT: Of First Importance) [...]