“We are saved by His faith.” I’ve found over the years most evangelicals can agree with this statement. But what they often mean is that faith is a power or force that God gives, which can be either refused or embraced. And it is precisely here that “faith” has become a non-Christological abstraction. A vague magic. You’re still saved by your choice (which for anyone who wants to red pill is called “semi-pelagianism”). No, we are saved by the “faithfulness” of Jesus Christ. Jesus enters the humanity He was kind enough to assume, and in His incarnation faithfully rescues us by His own perfect fidelity and obedience to the Father, bending our corporate humanity back into vicarious alignment with the Father. Collectively restoring us in His own Person. It is His unwavering love for us that has rescued us. Not our own feeble attempt at trusting an invisible sky god when a Bible-toting jerk in a plastic smile comes knocking at your door. Christ, the True Believer, is within us, and He has brought His Father and Holy Spirit with Him, turning on the lights in our darkened thinking about God and about ourselves. (fb)

Wrath (θυμός) is a work of the flesh, and those who practice it don’t inherit the Kingdom (Gal. 5:19-21). But it’s okay for God to have “wrath”? He gets a pass not to be holy? God’s “wrath” must be redefined in the light of Christ as an opposition to the disease of sin that afflicts His children. Not divorced from His love, but a hot facet of Love. The incarnation is God’s wrath against sin. God’s “holiness” has nothing to do with our concept of malevolent fury or utter decimation of the non-compliant. *Holiness* looks like bearing the fruit of *Holy* Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. (fb)