I’ve been reading through some traditional evangelicals, hunting for their understanding of embodiment. Along the way, I came across this gem from Andrew Murray:
That there is a glorying in Christ Jesus that is accompanied by much confidence in the flesh, all history and experience teach us. Among the Galatians it was so. The teachers whom Paul opposed so earnestly were all preachers of Christ and His cross. But they preached it not as men taught by the Spirit to know what the infinite and all-pervading influence of that cross must be, but as those who, having had the beginnings of God’s Spirit, had yet allowed their own wisdom and their own thoughts to say what that cross meant, and so had reconciled it with a religion which to a very large extent was legal and carnal. And the story of the Galatian Church is repeated to this day even in the Churches that are most confidently assured that they are free from the Galatian error. Just notice how often the doctrine of justification by faith is spoken of as if that were the chief teaching of the Epistle, and the doctrine of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling as received by faith, and our walking by the Spirit, is hardly mentioned.
There’s been a huge debate among Protestants the last decade over the nature and meaning of justification, a debate which has reached its apex in the clash between N.T. Wright and John Piper.
Somehow, I doubt either side would be much satisfied with this.
Matthew Lee Anderson
Matthew Lee Anderson is an Associate Professor of Ethics and Theology in Baylor University's Honors College. He has a D.Phil. in Christian Ethics from Oxford University, and is a Perpetual Member of Biola University's Torrey Honors College. In 2005, he founded Mere Orthodoxy.
