Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Plantinga Chapter 4: Redemption

After reading Chapter 3 ("The Fall") of Plantinga's Engaging God's World, it was easy to feel down and caught up in all of my mistakes and shortcomings. However, I turned one more page and was met with a wonderful title: "Redemption". This chapter talks about the grace that God was able to give us through the death of His son, Jesus Christ. Plantinga reminds us that this had been predicted for thousands of years before Jesus was even born. One of the Bible verses in the beginning of the chapter reminds of this: "But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed." Plantinga says that although he never did anything wrong, "Jesus acted like a repentant sinner." He was baptized, he endured ridicule and accusations, and ultimately ended up dying on the cross. We deserved every bit of this but Jesus took it all.

One thing that Plantinga makes very clear is the fact that all of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There aren't people who are more holy or less holy than others; we are all guilty of our sins, and so Jesus came to save each one of us because we all deserve to die. Planting says, "The world isn't divided into a sacred realm and a secular realm, with redemptive activity confined to the sacred zone. The whole world belongs to God, the whole world has fallen, and so the whole world needs to be redeemed."

Now, what can we do with this unbelievable gift that God has given us? Plantinga says, "By opening his heart to the grace of God and by striving to obey God's will, a Christian may acquire the virtues that fit a Christian life and may begin to perform the good works that flow from them." He goes on to say, "It's not that good works save anybody. It's just that they demonstrate God's saving grace in a person's life." I think that Plantinga is saying that because we've been given this gift, we need to show our thankfulness through our actions. Maybe because of our actions, people will want to know why we do the things we do, which is a perfect opportunity to share the love and the grace of Jesus Christ that we have been given. 

1 comment:

  1. Good thoughts... and you are right!

    Grace gives joy and opportunity for sharing - do we not all like to tell others about the good things that happen to us?

    as long as we do not forget to hear them too... That's egoism...from the enemies kingdom...
    Adriana

    ReplyDelete