TRUE CHRISTIAN UNITY

'...the expression of true unity is not necessarily about the absence of conflict but about the proper evaluation of those whom we have dismissed as "lesser."'

Grant Macaskill, Living with Union with Christ, p.92.

UNION WITH CHRIST DRIVES SEXUAL ETHICS

'...the problem with sexual immorality is precisely that it is incompatible with the holiness associated with the believer in union with Christ. It actively defiles the sacred.'
Grant Macaskill, Living in Union with Christ, p.89.

IDENTITY SHAPED BY MEMORY

'Our identities are very closely linked to our memories. Who we are is shaped by what we remember because our identity is, at least in part, narratival, and our memories constitute our story.' 

Grant Macaskill, Living in Uniion with Christ, p,73.

BAPTISM & UNION WITH CHRIST

'...baptism signifies that the Christian life involves donning the identity of someone else and not simply improving our own. What we clothe ourselves with is not a new set of attitudes or practices but another person, Jesus Christ.'
Grant Macaskill, Living with Union in Christ, p.71.

THE TRUE IMPORTANCE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY

'We frequently approach Christian unity as something that follows from what we are or what we do: we see Christian unity as constituted by doctrinal agreement or by moral alignment. We consider there to be no meaningful between someone who takes a different position on this or that doctrinal issue or this or that moral position. The way we approach evangelical ethics often reflects this. Even if we have a good emphasis on unity, it is often understood as an imperative modeled on Jesus' willingness to love the other, which still needs a move toward agreement by dialogue. But proper reflection on the sacraments confounds this: for Paul, our unity is a function of our union with Christ, which is a union with the one God, whose oneness becomes ours. Our attempts to draw a circle around those who think like us is fundamentally wrongheaded and, frankly, sinful. Now, this is not to say that it is wrong to pursue moral and theological agreement in the truth; it is important to do so, but we do it to bring the highest glory to God, not to define who is in and who is out. I am united to the believer whose doctrine is dreadful and to those whose life I find abhorrent; it is precisely because they share in Christ's body that I am compelled to speak to both problems, but to do so in brotherly love and affirmation. For Paul, the sine qua non of inclusion seems to be limited to the confession "Jesus is Lord," which can be made only by the acting presence of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor.12:3).'

Grant Macaskill, Living in Union with Christ, p.70.

OUR IDOLATRY PROBLEM

'...we are constitutionally idolatrous...'
Grant Macaskill, Living in Union with Christ, p.8.

CHEAP WORDS?

'Although we throw the word "sin" around easily and often, especially within evangelicalism, we do not take seriously enough the extent to which it will afflict and subvert our piety - both our practice and our doctrine - if it is not always challenged by the gospel.'
Grant Macaskill, Living in Union with Christ, p.7.

OUT OF TUNE EVANGELICALISM?

'For various historical reasons - good reasons, at that - evangelicals from diverse backgrounds have committed themselves collectively to defending certain truths in the face of their critics. But while we have maintained these notes carefully and sounded them loudly, gaining a sense along the way of what we hold in common that is distinctively "evangelical," we have allowed other truths to fall into silence. Our ability to sound those other notes where appropriate has been lost. At some point, we must ask ourselves whether we are still playing the original tune or are, perhaps without recognizing it, playing something else, something different. Have we sounded certain good notes so loudly and exclusively that they have come to constitute a different melody? Have we lost so much from our theological scales that what we proclaim is, in fact, a different gospel, much as Paul speaks of somethings as a "different gospel" in Gal.3:16?'

Grant Macaskill, Living in Union with Christ: Paul's Gospel and Christian Moral Identity, p.5.

GRADUAL SANCTIFICATION

'...it pleases God gradually to restore his image in us, in such a manner that some taint always remains in our flesh.' 

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.20.25 (Editor John T McNeill), p.911.

IRRATIONAL SEXUALITY

'...sexual interactions do not constitute the most rational area of most individuals' lives.'

Veronique Mottier, Sexuality: A Very Short Introduction, p.84.

THE PROSPERITY GOSPEL OF DECISION MAKING

'One of the things I am always telling my children is that doing the right thing often comes with painful consequences. We like to believe in a sort of prosperity gospel of decision making: if you do the right thing, blessings follow. Life will be the way you think you deserve. However, doing the right thing often comes with the pain of self-discipline, as well as consequences such as being left out, rejected, or as we see with the early church, persecuted.'

Aimee Byrd, Recovering from Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, p.201.