Salvation According to the Fathers

One Word

There is one body and one Spirit- just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call- one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Eph 4: 4-6

The oneness of our faith and our God has been the main focus of every post thus far. I have stressed that there can be no internal or temporal changes within the godhead. This means that God cannot change His mind about anyone or anything, and that the persons of the godhead cannot think differently, they must all be of one mind. See: “One God, One Mind, One Mission.”

I also stressed the oneness that can exist between our One God and mankind. We saw that scriptural witness is that it is not only possible, but necessary for persons to participate in the work or energy of God, and that it is through this participation that we are restored to the image and likeness of God, see “Energy and God.”

In the next series of posts I would like to compare and contrast this one God of the ancient church, and this one salvation to that of the contemporary western church by the way that the two treat the interpretation of scripture. I intend to compare the way we in the contemporary west understand the scriptures as compared to those who came before us. My goal is to make plain the reality that scriptural interpretation is the church’s gift to mankind, and to point out what happens when individuals set their personal interpretation against that of the undivided church. There is only one God, one faith, and one word!

No prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. 1 Pet 1:20-21