The second paper was given by former LTS Principal Philip Eveson. This was in part a reprise of his paper on the psychological life of our Lord given at a previous Affinity Conference but fairly different. This time after a careful statement of the orthodox doctrine of Christ's humanity he proceeded to look at Christ at 12 years old, at his baptism and at other times.
He spoke of Christ's thorough knowledge of Scripture and his comitment to always doing the will of the Father he loved. It is this commitment to the Father that fuelled his very human emotions evidenced in various places in Scripture - anger, joy, etc. He was never emotionally out of control, having the Spirit at all times.
He made use of the means of grace. Behind his life of obedience was a continual delight in prayer. He was very often in prayer. In prayer intimacy and respect combined.
Christ was no loner. He saw the benefit of human companionship. His pracitce and teaching meshed. As he taught so he lived.
Finally, we looked at the death of Christ. His humanity is seen no more clearly than in Gethsemane. Like any man he recoiled from it and prayed to be delivered if possible. He had always resisted the Devil and even here he does the same. His human knowledge was finite adn he made real choices. It was not unnatural for him to want to escape the cross if he could. He placed his hope in God. The horror of death and the ardour of his obedience were meeting together (Bengel). We ended at the cross but did not go on to look at Christ's humanity beyond that point. It was quite a moving paper in some ways.
He spoke of Christ's thorough knowledge of Scripture and his comitment to always doing the will of the Father he loved. It is this commitment to the Father that fuelled his very human emotions evidenced in various places in Scripture - anger, joy, etc. He was never emotionally out of control, having the Spirit at all times.
He made use of the means of grace. Behind his life of obedience was a continual delight in prayer. He was very often in prayer. In prayer intimacy and respect combined.
Christ was no loner. He saw the benefit of human companionship. His pracitce and teaching meshed. As he taught so he lived.
Finally, we looked at the death of Christ. His humanity is seen no more clearly than in Gethsemane. Like any man he recoiled from it and prayed to be delivered if possible. He had always resisted the Devil and even here he does the same. His human knowledge was finite adn he made real choices. It was not unnatural for him to want to escape the cross if he could. He placed his hope in God. The horror of death and the ardour of his obedience were meeting together (Bengel). We ended at the cross but did not go on to look at Christ's humanity beyond that point. It was quite a moving paper in some ways.
We discussed mainly Christ's miracle working and it may be that some other subject would have been better.
1 comment:
Gary,
I thoroughly agree that there were many subjects arising from Philip's address which we could have beneficially followed up, but the discussion of 'miracles' was not so out of place. The point was - what do the miracles reveal about who the Lord was - God, or Spirit inspired man? If the latter, should Spirit filled men be able to do the same thing today? I have in the past had to deal with the same issue Graham Beynon raised in his original question on this.
Sadly we ran very short of time after the address to discuss anything much.
It would be interesting to know your assessment of the conference as a whole some time.
Mostyn.
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