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Scott R. Swain Profile picture
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30 Dec 21, 6 tweets, 1 min read
Many culturally adjacent reasons for John to call Jesus “the Word.” Platonism. Hellenistic Judaism. Etc.

Without discounting those, best suggestion remains Isaiah 55:11: the Word goes out from God, returns to God, after having accomplished the purpose for which God sent him.
“Isaiah … saw his glory and spoke of him” (Jn 12:41)
And don’t even get me started on how the Word, by descending like rain, gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater.
Ok fine: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Jn 12:24
John’s Isaianic theology: Jesus is YHWH the Word who goes forth from God’s mouth, descends to become YHWH’s suffering servant, and returns to God as the first fruits of a promised eschatological harvest.
RETVRN (sorry)

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More from @scottrswain

Scott R. Swain Profile picture
30 Dec 21
Augustine interprets John’s references to the Son “seeing” or “hearing” the Father as ways of describing what theologians call the Son’s “passive generation” (i.e., his being eternally begotten of the Father).

I used to regard that interpretation as clever, but probably wrong.
I am now inclined to think that this is a very attentive and probably correct interpretation.

Here are a few reasons why.
1. John regularly describes the Son’s (preincarnate) *relation* to the Father with these terms, and he regularly describes the Spirit’s relation to the Son in similar terms.
Read 7 tweets
Scott R. Swain Profile picture
30 Dec 21
The Word eternally turned toward the Father in loving contemplation (Jn 1:1-2) returns to the Father with us in tow as redeemed siblings: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (Jn 20:17).

First and last uses of *pros ton theon* in John’s Gospel.
True neighbor love is doing whatever it takes to share with them the thing you love the most. What does the Son love the most? The Father, being the Son of the Father (see Jn 17:24).

True neighbor love is motivated by something higher than neighbor love.
John’s great contribution is his teaching that you can’t fully appreciate God’s love for the world unless you appreciate God’s love for God. And that we can’t truly participate in God’s love for the world unless we are filled with God’s love for God.
Read 4 tweets
Scott R. Swain Profile picture
25 Nov 21
An outline of moral theology based on Titus 2:11-14

1. The grace that *saves* also *trains*. But the order here matters: God trains those he saves; he doesn’t save those he trains.
2. Grace trains us to deny vice and to cultivate virtue. This is the form that the Christian life takes between its inauguration by grace and its consummation in glory.
3. The life that grace trains us to cultivate may be summarized under three virtues, three forms of free and excellent human action: piety, justice, and moderation.
Read 9 tweets
Scott R. Swain Profile picture
23 Nov 21
That God is impassible means at least three things.

1. God is the uncaused cause of all that exists, the unmoved mover of all that happens. From him and through him and to him are all things.
2. God has no appetite to acquire anything (Maximus the Confessor). He is all-sufficient in and of himself, the blessed and only Sovereign. God does not receive gifts from his creatures; he is not enriched by his creatures. He is the absolute giver of every good and perfect gift.
3. God has no disordered desires. Unlike the gods of Olympus, the true and living God is not subject to passions. He is not tempted nor can he be tempted. Morally speaking, God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.
Read 7 tweets
Scott R. Swain Profile picture
9 Jun 21
Good question! Folks in my Presby neck of the woods sometimes worry about Wesley's hymn for two reasons. Thread.
(1) Their first (legitimate) worry is that the hymn might imply the idea, popularized in 19th century Kenoticism, that the Son of God "emptied" himself of certain divine attributes when he became incarnate.
However, whatever Charles Wesley may have meant by that particular line, I don't think Kenoticism is necessarily implied by the hymn, which can be taken in a very straightforward Pauline sense (a la Phil 2).
Read 7 tweets
Scott R. Swain Profile picture
1 Jun 21
In addition to a good night’s rest, one benefit of going to bed early is that you miss late night Twitter.

But let me tell you a little story. I am a Florida man, born and bred, but I went to seminary in NC. In my last year in seminary, I married a girl from NC.
One day, while my wife was at work teaching second graders and I was at home working on my thesis, I decided to send her some flowers. I called the florist. She took my information. Then she asked me a question: “Is this fornication?”
Now, dear reader, I was raised on the KJV and I knew very well what fornication was.

And I was offended.

No. This was not fornication, I thought to myself. I have taken a wife by upright and honest means.
Read 15 tweets

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