While God can, and often does, appear to people face to face, he also often employs the use of several types of messengers.
The “further up and further in” we go, the table keeps getting bigger, the guest list keeps getting longer, and the grace keeps on flowing.
Christianity does not locate freedom in radical autonomy. It does not tell either men or women that happiness consists in escaping obligations arising from relationships we did not entirely choose.

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To repent in his name is done thus: in those who believe in Christ God through the same faith works a change for the better, not for a moment, nor for an hour, but for their whole life.
For Luther, Erasmus’ Christ-less, Spirit-less theological conclusions demonstrated that behind his supposed humanistic optimism lay a profound despair and pessimism.
The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.
For Erasmus, it would be better for people in general to bear the disease of moralism and choice than to be cured of it by the preaching and teaching of God’s unconditional election of sinners in Christ.
While all Scripture is the self-revelation of God, not all Scripture should be read in the same way.
Jesus’s freedom is different. It isn’t meant to indicate that the moorings which tether men and women to what is true, beautiful, and holy are unfastened, liberating them to do anything they please.
The upright, in whom the law has exercised its work, when they feel their sickness and weakness, say: God will help me; I trust in him; I build upon him; he is my rock and hope.
The Second Edition of “The Christian Life: Cross or Glory?” by Steven Hein is now available from 1517 Publishing.
For all mankind, the answer is terrifically simple and remains the same: God wants to turn us towards the cross and then turn us back to our neighbors.
Although God is always closer to us than the nose on our face, he has not taken the wraps off and given any sinful and mortal human being a full-measure, face-to-face meeting.
In writing City of God, Augustine sought to demonstrate that the events of 410 were but a glimpse of all history.
When explaining that sinners were saved by grace alone Erasmus would not go so far as to say that the reception of God’s grace erased human responsibility.