Augustine, On The Trinity

For the purpose of meditation and God willing sanctification into the image of the Son I am reading Augustine On the Trinity. I am always amazed at the articulate use of language Augustine was able to write with. I have read bits and pieces of On The Trinity before but I have never sat down to read it through and through. There is a section of Chapter II in the eighth book that I read on the bus this morning that has been running through my head. Augustine proposes that our thoughts and imaginations are limited due to not only our fallen state, but our finite state. He argues that the Trinity which is wholly God, wholly Truth, and wholly Good, can not be understood by bodily means. After extolling introductory thought concerning the character of the Godhead he writes concerning truth; it is precisely the following statement that has held my mind for the past hour:

Behold and see if you can, O soul bowed down by the corruptible body [Wisdom 9:15] and laden by many and various kinds of earthly thoughts, behold, and see if you can that God is Truth. For it is written that "God is light" [1 John 1:5] not as eyes see it, but as the heart sees it when it hears: "He is Truth" [John 14:6]. Do not ask: "What is Truth?" [John 18:38]. For at once the mists of bodily images and the clouds of phantasms will obstruct your view, and obscure the brightness which shone upon you at the first flash when I said "Truth." See, remain in that first flash in which you were dazzled as it were by its brightness, when it was said to you "Truth." Remain in it, if you can, but if you cannot, you will fall back into those wonted earthly thoughts. And what weight, pray, will finally cause you to fall back, if not the tenacity of the sinful desires that you have contracted and the errors of your earthly pilgrimage.

Augustine, On the Trinity, Book 8. Ch III

That is the central theme of my meditation today, not "What is Truth?", but "Truth!" God have mercy upon us as we strive to understand all that is love, truth and good, not that we may be great, but that we will recognize Your greatness. You are wholly God, plurality in unity; wholly love understood through Your Son; wholly good in all that you bring to pass. Make us holy as you are holy, grant that we may obey the Law of Christ in lives, action and motive. All to the glory of You, in the name of Your begotten Son, Jesus Christ, Amen.

Jonathan Edwards, Light after Darkness

I was reading a sermon by Jonathan Edward entitled "Hope and Comfort Usually Follow Genuine Humiliation and Repentance"; I was moved by the following words as I think over the condition of the Christian life, namely my own.

"... As the children of Israel, before they came to sing with joy after they came out of the land of Egypt, were under great trouble from their taskmasters, and sighed by reason of the hard bondage, and then were pursued, and put into dreadful fear at the Red sea. It was their taskmasters who made them all this trouble. So it is sin which makes all the trouble which a sinner suffers under awakenings. Their trouble for sin is no gracious, godly sorrow for sin; for that does not arise merely from fear, but from love. It is not an evangelical, but legal, repentance of which we are speaking, which is not from love to God, but only self love.

The end of this trouble in those to whom God designs mercy is to humble them. God leads them into the wilderness before he speaks comfortably to them, for the same cause that he led the children of Israel into the wilderness before he brought them into Canaan, which we are told was to humble them."

Jonathan Edwards, Hope and Comfort Usually Follow Genuine Humiliation and Repentance

Bavinck on Catholicism and Christian Living

I read this interesting citation from Dutch Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck regarding relations with Catholicism:

“[W]e must remind ourselves that the Catholic righteousness by good works is vastly preferable to a protestant righteousness by good doctrine. At least righteousness by good works benefits one’s neighbour, whereas righteousness by good doctrine only produces lovelessness and pride. Furthermore, we must not blind ourselves to the tremendous faith, genuine repentance, complete surrender and the fervent love for God and neighbour evident in the lives and work of many Catholic Christians. The Christian life is so rich that it develops its full glory not just in a single form or within the walls of one church.”

(HT: CRCM-UWO)

St. Irenaeus on Scripture

"We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith."

Against Heresies III.i.i, St. Irenaeus

"Our fathers...ate the same spiritual meat" - Part 2

I am glad I still have this copy of this commentary which I borrowed from someone.
St. Augustine on Spiritual Meat

Now about the departure of Israel from Egypt let the apostle speak instead of me. I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ. By explaining one passage he gives the key to the others. For if the rock was Christ because of its firmness, is not the manna also Christ since it is the living bread which came down from heaven (John 6:42)? Those who truly eat of it are spiritually alive. For those who received this figure only in the carnal sense are dead. But when the apostle says that all ate the same spiritual food, he shows that the manna is to be understood spiritually as Christ. Similarly, he explains why he calls their drink spiritual when he says the Rock was Christ, an explanation that clarifies the while...

Kovacs, Judith L., Corinthians: Interpreted by Early Church Commentators

"Our fathers...ate the same spiritual meat"

Calvin and the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper (Eucharist)

1 Corinthians 1:1-5
For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

Commentary on verse 3

Farther, when he says that the fathers ate the same spiritual meat, he shows, first, what is the virtue and efficacy of the Sacraments, and, secondly, he declares, that the ancient Sacraments of the Law had the same virtue as ours have at this day. For, if the manna was spiritual food, it follows, that it is not bare emblems that are presented to us in the Sacraments, but that the thing represented is at the same time truly imparted, for God is not a deceiver to feed us with empty fancies. A sign, it is true, is a sign, and retains its essence, but, as Papists act a ridiculous part, who dream of transformations, (I know not of what sort,) so it is not for us to separate between the reality and the emblem which God has conjoined. Papists confound the reality and the sign: profane men, as, for example, Suenckfeldius, and the like, separate the signs from the realities. Let us maintain a middle course, or, in other words, let us observe the connection appointed by the Lord, but still keep them distinct, that we may not mistakingly transfer to the one what belongs to the other."

There seem to be so many debates raging among some contemporary blogs regarding the sacrament of the Lord's Table where we partake in his body and blood. Some prefer to side with the Jews of Christ's day ignoring His teaching and seeking the physical, whereas St. Paul and Holy Scripture teach just as Christ does that the flesh avail nothing whereas His words are Spirit. Praise God that we are lifted into the heavenly places not just by faith, but through His Spirit as we feast upon His very body and blood.

St. Paul on Anxiety and Prayer

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
Philippians 4:6-7