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Reflection
on
A
New Creed
INTRODUCTION
Christianity's relevance to the
world without losing its identity is
closely relate to our confession of God.
God is the event of agape and
this event of God is revealed in coming of Jesus. When we talk about God, we have to be careful not to describe God
in a human concept since there is a danger of fossilizing the living God into a
projection of the human concept of a fixed image. The method of the traditional theology was to find God "up
above" and tried to expalin God only of the Almighty and henceforth unable
to find God in our crisis of humanity and nature. To solve the Christianity's identity involved dilemma in our
life, we have to adopt the dialectical way of both "from above" and "from
below", and ask another question what God was doing in the cross event.
In
confession of faith, church must reflect the image
of Christ, and transform the "spirit of the age": the political
circumstances, and cultural and social conditions in which the churches are
situated. Scripture, as the witness to
God's revelation in Jesus Christ, sets the basic guide line for the Christian
community to reflect the Christian image in the society and for the
society. To reflect cultural-religious
diversity, enormous scientific development, socio-economic development, the
church's traditional application of Scripture to advocate the dogmatics and the
doctrine of the church must be re-examined to ensure the church's identity is
relevant to the world as it exists in the world and for the world.
The solution to this "identity involved dilemma" is to answer
the questions of "how": How
do we approach the meaning of Scripture?; How do we apply the message of
Scripture to our context?
We experience that when
theology and church attempt to become more
relevant to the problems of the
present day, the more deeply they are drawn into the crisis of their own
Christian identity. The more they attempt
to assert their identity in traditional dogmas and moral notions, the
more irrelevant and unbelievable they become.
To be relevant to the society, the Christian community should reflect
their faith upon the reality of a social, political, economic and cultural
order.
Non-traditional
theologians say that
our context should be a starting point.
However we cannot eliminate the Christian view when we see our
context. The most crucial factor here is
that we should not read Scripture from the point of view of a certain dogma
since the dogmatic approach always is related to a certain political
ideology. Any political idealogy cannot
replace Scripture as an authoritative source.
Therefore, non-dogmatic approach is an important factor, through which
we are able to engage the Bible as foundational authority as we seek to live
the Christian life in this changing world and for the world.
GOD THE
CREATOR
The creation narrative in Gen. 1:1
suggests us where we live. The Hebrew
word bareshit which means "in the
beginning" points to something
coming from the future thus forces us to ask question in the beginning of
"what". The whole creation is
God's world which is open to the glory of the kingdom of God, therefore we can
have its full meaning by saying "in the beginning of God's world.” From this reason we confess
our faith in God, the Creator, "We live
in God's world."
Bara,
a Hebrew word used uniquely only in God's creation, points to creation as
"creatio ex nihil" (cration
out of nothing). However the openness
of the creation suggests "creatio ex
nihilo" (creation out of nothingness). We can draw the meaning of nothingness from the dynamic of the
trinitarian event of the cross (Col. 1:15-16).
The perichoresis of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is the
dynamic of God-event which is the origin and the power of God's creation: creatio originalis; creatio contiua; and
creatio nova. These three modes of creation is the same
creation by one God through the same Spirit.
In talking about God's creation, we
should not limit God's creation only in physical creation, rather we have to
count seriously on God's redemption, creation into a "new
being." God's creating Spirit is
the power of the resurrection, creation of "new life." With the Spirit, God created the world in
the very beginning of God's world, and this same Spirit is creating and
continues to create. Therefore, we can
say that "God created, is creating and continues to create with the Spirit
as revealed in Jesus Christ."
AN URGENT ISSUE: ECOLOGICAL CRISIS
Traditional theology of creation
taught God as the one and absolute subject; and the world as the object of
God's creation, preservation and redemption, hence caused misinterpretations
(cf. Gen. 1:26, 28). As a result, God
and the world became apart from each other, and the human being who was created
by God's image was to dominate over the creation, thus we are confronting
present ecological crisis. The
theological solution to the present ecological crisis is to understand God in a
trinitarian sense as the unity in the intersubjective relationship of the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. An
appropriate understanding of the passage in Gen. 1:26 "having dominion
over the creation" is to interpret within the context of preceding passage
"creation of human beings in God's image": human beings' domination
is on the foundation of God's image and likeness (here I propose image and
likeness as "openness to each other and intersubjective relationship"), and
their participation in God's ongoing creation.
This communicative and integrative way of understanding enables us to
recognize the presence of "God in the world" and "the world in God."
JESUS CHRIST
Jesus is fully human and fully
God. The writer of John's gospel
identifies the Christ with the term "Word" which means, in the
creation narrative, the source of all creation. However what we confess is not the definition of the nature about
Jesus, but rather what Jesus means to us.
The most appropiate way to talk about
Jesus is: Jesus in the context of trinitarian event of the cross and resurrection. It enables us to attribute "creatio originalis, creatio continua,
and nova creatio" to Jesus Christ (Col. 1:15-16). Therefore it is our confession that Jusus
Christ is the central figure not only of Christianity, but also of all
history.
RESURRECTION
We belive in the resurrection of
the Lord Jesus Christ both body and soul as the unique event of God's cosmic
revelation of Godself. We believe that
there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust,
through the power of the Holy Spirit, by Jesus Christ who shall come to judge
the living and the dead; that the finally impenitent shall go away into eternal
punishment and the righteous into life eternal in the kingdom of God.
Without talking about the
resurrrection of Jesus which is the unique event of God, we cannot talk about
any resurrection of humankind. The
resurrection of humankind is not an anology of the resurrectoin of Jesus, but
rather it is powered by God-event which means the event of Jesus Christ on the
cross. This event was revealed through
Jesus' crucifixion and
resurrection.
The substance of the resurrection
is the cross event which is open to the future coming kingdom of God. The apocalyptic expectation of the
resurrection from the dead, through the unique resurrection of Jesus Christ,
became the End-time process of 'raising from the dead' already begun (Col.
1:18). The resurrection of Jesus from
the dead does not merely mean that Jesus revive after death or his soul became
alive, but rather it means the full dignity as the Son of God, the Lord.
To talk about the resurrection as
new creation into the whole new being, the perfect death of Jesus preceeds the
resurrection into the whole new being.
Without perfect death of soul and body, we are not able to say the
perfect resurection. Therefore the
perfect resurrection means the resurrection of both body and soul. If we deny the resurrection of the body, we
deny the death of Jesus' physical death which results in nullifying of Jesus'
passion and God's suffering with his Son Jesus on the cross. Therefore we must count on Jesus' physical
resurrection seriously since the pain and suffering of the crucified God in the
death of Jesus is significant in the Christian faith. We cannot overlook the significance of physical death and the
resurrection as well as that of soul.
The resurrection of Jesus is the
source of hope in Christian faith and is the prolepsis of 'what he really will
be' in the coming kingdom of God. The
cross and resurrection event is an "already" realization of God's
word of promise, and is the coming of a "not yet" existing reality
from the future of the truth. It is not
merely anticipating the realm of realistic possibilities, but rather it is adventus which fulfils and satisfies the
promise of God.
TRINITY
(In the following discussion, the term
Father and Son denotes relationsip not the gender)
We believe that the trinitarian
event of the cross is the unique event of God's revelation. This event is the trinitarian history of the
kingdom of God. From the passion
narrative we learn: God the father abandoned the Son Jesus Christ and this
abandonment was the Father's perfect love of self-withdrawal; the Son Jesus
voluntarily offered himself of us and suffred the very bottom of human reality;
in this event of unconditional self-giving, the Holy Spirit was with the Son
Jesus; the Son experienced death in the Father, and the Holy Spirit united the
Father and the Son.
In the Son's offering of himself,
the Holy Spirit was with Jesus thus it was also the Spirit's self-giving of
herself. In his self withdrawal, we
learn the Father's self-giving. What
then the Father did in the Son's suffering?
The Father was together with the Son in Jesus suffering to death. From this event, we learn the trinitarian
God's openness to each other and to us; and the intersubjective reciprocal
relationship. This whole event is the
trinitarian God' self-giving of Godself for us, and form this event we can say
"God is love." The dynamic
of this event - we can say "nothingness" which refers to "cratio ex nihilo" in the beginning
of creation - is the power of the new creation of the resurrection in to the
"new being" of Jesus Christ.
The Spirit in the beginning of
creation is the same Spirit in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In this same life-giving Spirit continues to
create in our present world for the coming glory of the kingdom of God.
CHRIST-CENTRED
CHURCH
What then is the eschatological
mission of Jesus Christ? We are able to
answer in other words "messianic mission" which means that the
mission enabling the people to experience the foretaste of God's kingdom. Our confession thus should include koinonia of God's grace which was
revealed in the cross and resurrection event.
What does it mean, then, to say the church as messianic? It is an eschatological community which is open
towards koinonia in the coming glory
of the kingdom of God. When we talk
about the "church," therefore, we mean the church as a messianic
church. The church without koinonia on the cross can never be a
true church. Our confession thus should
include koinonia of God's grace which
was revealed in the cross and resurrection event. Therefore we can say that this community is a foretaste of God's
kingdom. Where then can we find the
messianic church?
We are called to love each other
and care for the world which leads us to koinonia
in the coming kingdom of God which is revealed in the open trinity. We are called into the church as the body of
Christ to have koinonia of the coming
kingdom of God. We find the identity of
the true church's mission, which is relevant to the world, in our confession of trinitarian God. The life and teaching of Jesus should be
understood through the trinitarian event of the cross and it tells us that the
church must have continuing friendship with the poor. When we understand "ubi
Christus ibi ecclesia" in the context of the trinitarian event of the
cross, we are able to participate in koinonia
with the life-giving Spirit of the cross and resurrection event of Christ,
through which we encouter triune God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
in our life. This is the reason why we
call the true church as "the church under the cross," which is
"in the world", "with the world" and "for the
world" through the power of the life-giving Spirit.
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