nate's incoherent babble

2025-12-19

ATONEMENT: How Christ makes us at-one with God

This is a sample chapter from my Systematic Theology project "Theology for Thriving". 📎MORE TO THE STORY notes are not part of the main text of the book, but additional resources, charts, or other materials from Biblical Theology class resources.

Colossians 1.15-20 [15] Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; [16] for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. [17] He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. [18] He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. [19] For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, [20] and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

🗝️ Key Concept: Atonement

We have now mapped the great drama of the Incarnation: the breathtaking story of how God entered our world, becoming one of us to heal us from the inside out. This leads us to the central question of salvation: How exactly does this work? How does the life, death, and resurrection of a first-century Jewish peasant from Nazareth heal the deep alienation between God and humanity? The theological term for this great work of healing is Atonement.

The word itself is a beautiful roadmap. It’s a term coined by the English Bible translator William Tyndale, who needed a word to describe the work of reconciliation. He simply smashed three words together: at-one-ment. The work of Christ is to make God and humanity “at one.” It is the ultimate act of reconciliation, bridging the chasm of sin that separates us from our Source.

Atonement is our salvation, our healing from the sickness of Sin. It is our liberation from the powers of death and evil that hold us captive. Ultimately, it is the path to theosis: Our journey into full participation in the divine life. Jesus is the living bridge between God and humanity, and atonement is the process of walking across that bridge into a healed and whole relationship with God, ourselves, and all of creation.

Different theologies try to focus on just one aspect of Jesus Christ as what made "at-one-ment" possible. Some focus on his life as a moral example, and say that he made atonement primarily by showing us a new way to live. Others focus on his death and say he made atonement primarily by dying on the cross for our sins. Still others focus on his resurrection and say atonement is mainly about his victory over the grave. There is truth in all of these images and perspectives. Rather than adopting an "either/or" view of atonement, we will do what we have been doing across most of this book and adopt a "both-and" approach. Atonement is NOT found "either his life or his death", but rather found in "both his life and his death".

GRACE: The unmerited gift of Love to make us lovable

Ephesians 2.1-10 [1] You were dead through the trespasses and sins [2] in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. [3] All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. [4] But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us [5] even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— [6] and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, [7] so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. [8] For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— [9] not the result of works, so that no one may boast. [10] For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

🗝️ Key Concept: Grace

We have now mapped the great drama of God’s rescue mission: A world infected with Sin, and a loving God who enters into our suffering through the Incarnation to bring about our At-one-ment. This brings us to the final piece of the Soteriology puzzle: How is this healing actually applied to our lives? The answer is a single, beautiful, and often misunderstood word: Grace.

Grace is the free, undeserved, and often unsought gift of God’s own life and love. It’s the power that makes salvation a reality for us. A common acronym for it is God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. While this rightly points out that grace is a gift that flows from Christ, the word “expense” can be problematic if it suggests a transaction with an angry God. A better way to frame it, more in line with the God we’ve come to know, might be God Reconciles As Christ Embodied, or even God's Restoring And Creative Energy.

Implied here is that Grace works in two interconnected ways. First, grace is a declaration: God speaks a new reality into being for us. Through grace, God declares us forgiven, adopted as children, and justified— made right— in His sight. Second, grace is an energy: it is the active work of the Holy Spirit within us, transforming us from the inside out to become the very people God has declared us to be.

Some have argued that for grace to be truly gracious, it must be limited, offered only to a select few. But this is to map God’s reality with a human-sized pencil. An infinitely abundant God is an infinitely gracious God. Grace does not need to be stingy to be special. Thus, grace is for all people, because all people are beloved. We could even use another acronym to express this: God's Grace is for every Gender, Religion, Ability, Culture, and Economic status.

THEOSIS: Partaking in the Divine Dance of Life

2 Peter 1.3-8 [3] His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godlikeness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. [4] Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature. [5] For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, [6] and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godlikeness, [7] and godlikeness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. [8] For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

🗝️ Key Concept: Theosis

What is the ultimate goal of salvation? Is it simply a ticket to heaven, an escape from punishment, or a legal declaration of forgiveness? The Christian tradition, especially in its early and Eastern forms, offers a far more breathtaking and transformative vision. The goal is not just to be saved from something, but to be saved for something: To be so filled with the life of God that we ourselves become godlike. This is the shocking and beautiful doctrine of Theosis.

The word Theosis (also known as deification or divinization) comes from the Greek word theos, meaning "God." It is the process of becoming, by grace, what Christ is by nature. This was not a fringe idea but was the assumed understanding of salvation for nearly all major Christian thinkers in the first centuries. As St. Athanasius famously declared, “God became human that humans might become divine.” This doesn't mean we usurp God or become individual deities. Rather, it means we are invited to become participants in the divine nature, to be so fully integrated into the life of the Trinity that we radiate God’s own love and glory.

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, this is understood through the distinction between God’s unknowable essence and God’s knowable energies. We can never become God in His transcendent essence, but we can fully participate in His immanent, life-giving energies. Think of an iron rod plunged into a fire. The rod never becomes the fire itself, but it takes on the properties of the fire, glowing white-hot with its light and heat. In the same way, through Theosis, our human nature is permeated by the divine life, yet we remain distinctly ourselves. This is the ultimate expression of a panentheistic vision where God is in all things, inviting all things to share more fully in the divine life. It is our destiny to be caught up in the divine dance of the Trinity, sharing in the love that flows eternally between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

FAITH(FULNESS): Actively receiving God’s Grace

Hebrews 11.1-3, 6-10 [1] Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. [2] Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. [3] By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible... [6] And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. [7] By faith Noah, warned by God about events as yet unseen, respected the warning and built an ark to save his household; by this he condemned the world and became an heir to the righteousness that is in accordance with faith. [8] By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. [9] By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. [10] For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

🗝️ Key Concept: Faith(fulness)

If Theosis is the ultimate destination on our spiritual map— the journey of participating in God’s own life— then how do we take the first step? How do we actively receive the grace that makes this journey possible? The answer is found in our key concept: Faith(fulness).

In our modern world, "faith" has often been reduced to a purely intellectual exercise. For many, it simply means believing a list of correct ideas about God, an assent to a set of facts. While what we believe certainly matters, this definition is a pale shadow of the rich, dynamic, and life-altering reality the Bible describes. To grasp the biblical concept, we have to see faith not just as a noun, but as a verb; not just as a belief, but as a way of being.

The Old Testament builds its understanding of faith on God’s own character. The Hebrew words for faith, emet and emunah, are rooted in the idea of firmness, reliability, and trustworthiness. Before the people of Israel are ever asked to have faith in God, the story first demonstrates that God is faithful to them. The LORD is the one who keeps promises, who shows steadfast love to a stubborn and unfaithful people. The prophets’ primary job was to call Israel back to a life of faithfulness that mirrored God’s own. The great hero Abraham is the prime example. His “faith” was counted as righteousness not because he passed a theology exam, but because his inner trust in God issued forth in the outward action of leaving his home and journeying into an unknown future, guided only by God’s promise.

The New Testament builds on this foundation. The Greek word for faith, pistis, carries this same dual meaning of trust and loyalty. Following the work of scholars like N.T. Wright, we can see that the gospel is not primarily about our faith in Jesus, but about the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the embodiment of God’s own covenant faithfulness, the perfectly loyal Israelite who succeeds where all others failed. It is His faithfulness that saves us and restores our broken relationship with God. Our response, then, is to participate in His faithfulness with our own.

This is why the key concept for this chapter is the dual word "faith(fulness)": Because Jesus' faithfulness calls us to not only have faith in him, but practice faithfulness to him. This rich, biblical faith(fulness) has at least three interconnected dimensions:

Cognitive: It includes our beliefs, the "what" of our faith. It is the intellectual assent to the good news that God, in Christ, has acted to save the world.
Affective: It involves our hearts, the "who" of our faith. It is a radical trust in God’s goodness, a confident reliance on His presence and providential care in our lives.
Volitional: It engages our will, the "how" of our faith. It is active loyalty, an obedient journeying with God as we seek to co-write our chapter of His redemptive story.

RIGHTEOUSNESS: Being made right with God

Galatians 2.15-16, 3.26-29, 4.4-6 [15] We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; [16] yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law... [26] For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. [27] As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. [28] There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. [29] And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise... [4] But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, [5] in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. [6] And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”

🗝️ Key Concept: Righteousness

What does it mean to be a “good person”? For most of us, the question revolves around our actions. Do we tell the truth? Do we help others? Do we follow the rules? These are important questions, but they only scratch the surface of a much deeper, more transformative idea: Righteousness. This may feel like an irrelevant "churchy" word, but it is actually a key to unlocking the kind of thriving, abundant life we were all created for.

Righteousness is not simply a list of moral behaviors; it is the state of being in a right relationship with God, with other people, and with ourselves. This restored relationship, which is a gift from God, becomes the foundation for justice, which is the work of doing what is right for others. In short, we are Made Right (Righteousness) so that we may Do Right (Justice).

This concept is rooted in the Hebrew word for righteousness tzedakah. It includes ideas of fairness and charity, but its core meaning is relational. It describes fulfilling the obligations of a covenant, a sacred partnership. A righteous person was someone who was faithful to their commitments to God and their community. Similarly, the key Greek word in the New Testament is dikaiosune. In the ancient world, this word meant behaving in a way that was respectable, upright, and just. Early Christians used this word to mean being restored to a right relationship with God through Jesus.

This is where the idea of justification comes in. To be "justified" is to be made righteous. It’s a legal term that means to be declared “not guilty,” but its theological meaning is far richer. It’s about more than just a clean slate; it’s about being welcomed back into the family. A helpful way to remember it is that to be justified is to be treated by God "just as if" I had never sinned.

The crucial point is this: We are not made right so we can stay the same. The moment of justification— when we are put in a right relationship with God— is the starting point for a lifelong process of sanctification, of growing in justice and becoming more like Christ. God makes us right with him so that, empowered by his Spirit, we can begin the work of making things right in the world.

VIRTUE: Forming Godlikeness within ourselves

Galatians 5.16-25 [16] Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. [17] For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. [18] But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. [19] Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, [20] idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, [21] envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. [22] By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, [23] gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. [24] And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. [25] If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

🗝️ Key Concept: Virtue

We have explored what it means to be made right with God through righteousness. But this is just the beginning of our journey. Being made right is the foundation for becoming right: For growing into the person God created us to be. But how does this happen? How do we move from a legal status of forgiveness to a lived reality of goodness? The answer is through the cultivation of virtue. This isn't about becoming a stuffy, self-righteous person. Virtue is about becoming more fully, vibrantly, and joyfully human. It’s about forming Christlikeness within ourselves.

Virtue can be defined as Christlike character. More specifically, virtues are habits of the heart and dispositions of the mind that are lived out in our decisions, words, and actions, to lead us to thriving. They are the practical, tangible ways we become our truest and best selves as creative children of a creative God. The Apostle Paul gives a great summary of virtue when he encourages the Philippian church to focus their minds on whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise (Philippians 4:8).

In Christian thought, virtue is not something we achieve through sheer willpower. Instead, it is the natural result of God's own Spirit living and working within us. This is why Paul doesn’t call these character traits the "achievements of the disciplined" but the "Fruit of the Spirit." They are the evidence that Christ's life is taking root in our own. Paul’s deepest desire was to see this transformation happen in the communities he served. He tells the Galatians, “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20), and he writes to them like a loving parent, saying he is “in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19). This is the ultimate goal of the Christian life: To have the character of Jesus himself formed in us by the power of his Spirit.

Two ways of framing Scripture: Privilege-Performance versus Spiritual-Ethical

Introduction: The Interpretive Power of the Frame

In the study of art, psychology, and cognitive science, "framing" refers to the way a specific context influences the perception of an object or idea. Physically, a frame separates a picture from the rest of the world, directing the eye and telling the viewer, "Look here; this matters." But the frame is more than just the gilded wood bordering a canvas; it is the lighting, the room, the building, and the cultural moment in which the art sits. A Renaissance Madonna placed in a 15th-century cathedral invites worship; the same painting placed in a 21st-century secular museum invites critique or historical appreciation. The content of the image— the brushstrokes, the colors, the subject— has not changed, but the viewer’s relationship to it has been fundamentally altered by the frame.

This dynamic is even more potent when applied to literature, and specifically to the Bible. We never come to the text naked. We come clothed in our assumptions, our cultural baggage, and our subconscious desires. We place a metaphorical frame around Scripture that determines what we see and what we miss. If we frame the Bible as a rulebook for a club, we will find rules. If we frame it as a love letter from the Creator, we will find grace. The tragedy of much of religious history is that we have often chosen a frame that distorts the image of God, turning the Prince of Peace into a mascot for our wars, and the Bread of Life into a stone of judgment. To understand the Bible, and to understand our own spiritual lives, we must interrogate the frames we use to look at the Bible through. Two of the most powerful frames we can choose between are the Privilege-Performance Frame, which serves the selfish power, and the Spiritual-Ethical Frame, which serves God's Kingdom.