‘For this reason the Father loves me’: Drawing Divinity into Himself to Minister Divinity to us

John Behr

doi:10.1111/ijst.12614

‘For this reason the Father loves me’: Drawing Divinity into Himself to Minister Divinity to us

John Behr^* (Corresponding Author)

^*Corresponding author for this work

Divinity

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Abstract

'Restore to me the joy of your salvation’ (Ps. 50/51:12). With this verse Khaled Anatolios opens his magnificent book Deification through the Cross: the verse captures exquisitely both the issues that he addresses and their resolution in ‘doxological contrition’.1 The primary issue he addresses is that despite the fact that salvation is right at the heart of the gospel proclamation, there is a complete ‘befuddlement’ in contemporary theology regarding in what this salvation consists, resulting in a lack of joy. The salvific efficacy of Christ’s suffering and death is identified as ‘atonement’, and this in turn (despite the occasional reminder that etymologically it has the sense of ‘at- one- ment’) is equated with ‘penal substitution’, vigorously affirmed by some as the primary content of the gospel, or rejected by many as irreconcilable with the God of love and forgiveness so clearly proclaimed in the New Testament.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	47-59
Number of pages	13
Journal	International Journal of Systematic Theology
Volume	25
Issue number	1
Early online date	26 Sep 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/ijst.12614
Publication status	Published - 1 Jan 2023

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10.1111/ijst.12614Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

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© 2022 The Author. International Journal of Systematic Theology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Final published version, 107 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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abstract = "'Restore to me the joy of your salvation{\textquoteright} (Ps. 50/51:12). With this verse Khaled Anatolios opens his magnificent book Deification through the Cross: the verse captures exquisitely both the issues that he addresses and their resolution in {\textquoteleft}doxological contrition{\textquoteright}.1 The primary issue he addresses is that despite the fact that salvation is right at the heart of the gospel proclamation, there is a complete {\textquoteleft}befuddlement{\textquoteright} in contemporary theology regarding in what this salvation consists, resulting in a lack of joy. The salvific efficacy of Christ{\textquoteright}s suffering and death is identified as {\textquoteleft}atonement{\textquoteright}, and this in turn (despite the occasional reminder that etymologically it has the sense of {\textquoteleft}at- one- ment{\textquoteright}) is equated with {\textquoteleft}penal substitution{\textquoteright}, vigorously affirmed by some as the primary content of the gospel, or rejected by many as irreconcilable with the God of love and forgiveness so clearly proclaimed in the New Testament. ",

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‘For this reason the Father loves me’: Drawing Divinity into Himself to Minister Divinity to us

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