Dodd: Paul's change of heart

Saturday, September 23, 2017
Meditation:
    I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
    —Galatians 2:20 (KJV)
Quotation:
    The God of Pharisaism was like the God of the Deists, He stood aloof from the world He had made, and let law take its course. He did not here and now deal with sinful men. Paul lets us see how new and wonderful was the experience when God “flashed on his heart” in personal dealing with him. He had not suspected that God was like that. His theological studies had told him that God was loving and merciful; but he had thought this love and mercy were expressed once and for all in the arrangements He had made for Israel’s blessedness... It was a new thing to be assured by an inward experience admitting of no further question that God loved him, and that the eternal mercy was a Father’s free forgiveness of His erring child. This was the experience that Christ had brought him: he had seen the splendour of God’s own love in the face of “the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” [Continued tomorrow]
    ... C. Harold Dodd (1884-1973), The Meaning of Paul for Today, London: Swarthmore, 1920, reprint, Fount Paperbacks, 1978, p. 74-75 (see the book)
    See also Gal. 2:19-20; Rom. 5:6-8; 8:1-2,35-39; II Cor. 4:6; 5:14-15, 18-19; Eph. 1:4-7; 2:4-10; 3:18-19; 5:1-2; Col. 1:13-15
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are with me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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