For those who may not know who Abelard is, here is a short from Wikipedia, if you wish to know more, look him up. Interesting fellow he was.
Wikipedia reference:
Peter Abelard (Latin: Petrus Abaelardus or Abailard; French: Pierre Abélard) (1079 – April 21, 1142) was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, theologian and preeminent logician. The story of his affair with and love for Héloïse has become legendary. The Chambers Biographical Dictionary describes him as "the keenest thinker and boldest theologian of the 12th Century".[1]
-------------------------------------------------------------------- My thoughts---
I was thinking why so many theologians still miss the overall picture of the effect of Christ upon us. They have for so long left out the real story, and that is things didn’t end at the crucifixion of Christ, though, it was the end to sin and death for mankind, by this one gracious and loving act of our Saviour, it didn’t end with the Resurrection, that was proof that he had defeated sin and death, It all ended when he gave the Holy Spirit to fill our lives with the very resurrected life of him in us.
Most theologians never get past even the Pentecost event to really comprehend the total work and consummating act of Christ, that was completed upon his sitting down at the right hand of the Father.
It is from his throne, whereby He poured out gifts upon men, and from there we can boldly go before the throne of God for He represents the new humanity, the new creation to which He has transposed us, by His very presence within us, and making us partakers of his Divine nature as Peter writes, it is in this that I want to write here to make Abelard's illustration of the Doctor and medicine, and bring that illustration into full conception for us as Believers.
Here it is:
A quote from Abelard,
"One needs divine grace even to accept divine Grace".
If God didn't offer sinners the grace they needed in order to accept his saving grace, it isn't their fault that they aren't saved.
God would be like a Doctor who brings in the medicine that would cure a desperately ill patient who is too weak to sit up and take the medicine, it is hardly the patient's fault that he isn't cured, and the doctor deserves no praise for bringing in medicine, if he doesn't take the necessary steps to ensure that it effects it's cure". END OF QUOTE.
Now I see this more everyday, in that the worst things that can happen to us individually is that we think that somehow we conjured up the faith, and therefore are responsible for our salvation and it's continuance into eternity. What a farce, and it is that which is totally against the work of Christ and makes it nothing more then self-salvation, and produces pride, selfishness and all that Christ came to set us free from. We cannot glory, in how we got to Christ, nor can we glory in how He carries us into eternity. It is all His work, His faith, His Grace, His compassion and His love alas that breaks down the doors of hadies and releases us to be in Him, carried all the way into glory!
Let us never forget, it is the faith of Christ to which we have been restored unto the Father, not our own faith.
So say I, "who then shall boast, let him boast in the Lord", for it is His grace delivered once and for all to us, that has delivered us from sin and death, and not something we can look down on others for not having, or hold over others for us having it and not them.
For it is by His divine grace we have been saved.
Thus we praise him, because in the example above, our Doctor not only created the medicine, but brought it to us here on earth, and delivered it to us, then lifted us up to take it, and because of that act of both willingness and the compassion of Christ our physician, we have been restored.
All of mankind has been cured by the cross and the resurrection.
It is the preaching of this word of reconciliation, that God has reconciled men unto himself, that will bring Christ's faith to others.
It is men that had the problem, not God with sin.
Do we think for a moment He could not see for which the future would go for men. Do we think for a minute that Adam's choice surprised God, alas it did not, it was all part of the plan that we might come to know what Grace and love really is, as He has delivered the full comprehension of it, by us looking at the life of Christ, He was the Father in human form showing forth to whom the Father is. LOVE, pure unadulterated love.
We lack often to only ask, for his Divine life to come inside, and cure us from the inside out, contrary to the way religion perceives the cure, they would have you pour the medicine all over the man's mouth on the outside, never parting his lips for him so that some may go within. Not one drop would go inside to cure the poor man from the sickness of sin and death.
Christ in you, is the hope of glory. It is His resurrected life in us, that gives us deliverance, and health from sin.
We tend to want to act like the Doctor, making the effort to give medicine, but then instead of giving men the medicine to take inside, we chide them and condemn them for being sick in the first place. Is that mercy? Is that God's kind of love?
That's exactly what religion does, it makes us self conceited, and self worshippers, while we deliver a toxin and no medicine at all to the hurt and the dying.
Let us remember, "but for the Grace of God, there goes I", and let us not use this in thinking we are better or luckier then those in pain, let us get down, on our knees, and bind up their wounds and take up the injured and load them onto our horse, and take them to town, and purchase them a room, and offer to do more if necessary. Thus the good Samaritan didn’t walk by on his way to his fueling station at the synagogue, or go to the other side of the street, less he be affected by the flies that must have been swarming by now in the heat of the desert around this poor men that was left for dead, injured and beat up by the robbers.
For in truth, if it not for the act of Christ who is the "Good Samaritan" in our lives, we would have wasted away by the roadside and died with our wounds as well for we were ravaged by sin, and left for death, but it was the act of Christ to take us and bound up our wounds, and carry us, to safety and shelter from the storms of life in His wonderful arms, and then to say, "I am not through yet in seeing you are completely restored, body soul and spirit. I will continue to give myself of which is of value until you are with me, in the heavenlies."
What a wonderful God we have, Oh! Mighty God, how can I ever express praise that would be worthy of you!
Doctor J.
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