Thankful Thursday

We got the first real snow of the year last night, and it looks like it will stay, at least for a few days. I’m not thrilled, but the dogs love it, and it does give everything a pretty winter light. So I’m thankful for snow to make the dogs happy and snow to brighten things up. And I’m thankful for the beautiful, long fall we had. 

Granddaughter Amelia and her mother spent the afternoon with me. They’ll get the new furnace in their house on October 17, but until then, they have no heat, so they came here to be warm. I’m thankful I can provide a warm place for them, and I’m thankful for little Amelia, who entertained us all afternoon with her squeals and giggles.

I’m thankful the dog’s foot seems to be healing. He cut it badly on Sunday afternoon right before our big Thanksgiving dinner. We had to delay everything while we stopped the bleeding and bandaged it up. He’s still hopping around on three legs, but the wound looks good. I’m thankful for the my daughter-in-law the nurse who helped us bandage him up. 

I’m thankful for all God’s material provisions for me, but most of all, I’m thankful for the provision of salvation in Christ for me.

Always Being Together, and Always Working Together

Quoting from Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith by Michael Reeves: 

Before creation, before all things, … the Father was loving and begetting his Son. For eternity, that was what the Father was doing. He did not become Father at some point; rather, his very identity is to be the one who begets the Son. That is who he is. Thus it is not as if the Father and the Son bumped into each other at some point and found to their surprise how remarkably well they got on. The Father is who he is by virtue of his relationship with the Son. Think again of the image of the fountain: a fountain is not a fountain if it does not pour forth water. Just so, the Father would not be the Father without his Son (whom he loves through the Spirit). And the Son would not be the Son without his Father. He has his very being from the Father. And so we see that the Father, Son, and Spirit, while distinct persons, are absolutely inseparable from each other. Not confused, but undividable. They are who they are together. They always are together, and thus they always work together.

So the Father could not exist without the Son or the Spirit. His very identity comes from his relationship with them. Same thing for the Son and the Spirit. The are who they are because they are eternally in relationship with the other members of the Trinity.

Round the Sphere Again: Concerning Christ

And His Incarnation
I recently posted at Out of the Ordinary on what it means that “Christ upholds the universe by the word of his power.” One question I didn’t answer is “How did he do this while he was a baby in the manger?”

Justin Taylor answers this question by quoting Calvin, Augustine and Athanasius. For instance, here’s a bit from Athanasius in On the Incarnation of the Word:

For he was not, as might be imagined, circumscribed in the body, nor, while present in the body, was he absent elsewhere; nor, while he moved the body, was the universe left void of his working and providence; but, thing most marvelous, Word as he was, so far from being contained by anything, he rather contained all things himself; and just as while present in the whole of creation, he is at once distinct in being from the universe, and present in all things by his own power—giving order to all things, and over all and in all revealing his own providence, and giving life to each thing and all things, including the whole without being included, but being in his own Father alone wholly and in every respect—thus, even while present in a human body and himself quickening it, he was, without inconsistency, quickening the universe as well, and was in every process of nature, and was outside the whole, and while known from the body by his works, he was none the less manifest from the working of the universe as well.

Read the whole post.

And the Gospel
From Jared Wilson, a few of the “all things” that come to us along with Christ:

When you have Christ, you have everything. You have him and therefore all: the eternal riches of his glory. So we receive not just that hell insurance and ticket to heaven, but union with Christ by which we are seated with him in the heavenly places and hidden with him in God forever. We receive the adoption as sons and daughters. We receive the indwelling Spirit. We are totally justified. We are cleansed, declared holy, set apart, and we receive in addition the promise of the fruit of the Spirit and more holiness to come. We receive the promise of the blessed hope, the glorification we will share with Christ, and the resurrection of the body to everlasting bliss in the new heavens and new earth.

Read the whole post.