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Ephesians 2:11-22

 

Remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called "the uncircumcision" by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands - remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (ESV)

The Economical God

Friday of Pentecost 6

5 July 2013

God is economical. Economical? God? What does that mean? Are we talking about God being a careful shopper at the local grocery store, shopping in such a way that He saves as much money as possible? Well, no. What we mean when we talk about the divine economy is that God arranges His inner life to be of service to His poor sinful creatures. "Economical" in this context means that He arranges His activity for the benefit of those whom He seeks to redeem. The Nicene Creed puts it so succinctly: "who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven." The mystery of our faith is that God the Lord was willing to become incarnate of the Virgin, becoming man that He might redeem us from our sin. God acts decisively by taking our flesh to cleanse the flesh which He has taken. In the divine economy God arranges all that is necessary to bring us into His kingdom through the work of His only begotten Son. This is the divine economy.

 

Notice that God does what He sees fit to do for our salvation. He does not arrange the divine life in accordance with our own canons of behavior. If He had there would never have been an incarnation, because we are ever deluded into thinking that we can manage to get right with God by means of our own efforts and works. We think that our doing will suffice for us to create a right relationship with God.

 

In Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts exclaims, "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." God does not merely consider the impossible or believe it, but He has done it. What we have considered impossible, our Father has long ago accomplished in His Son, who by becoming man for us, took away our sin and put death to death; all things thought so foolish by us as to be impossible. In the divine economy He did what we needed whether or not we think it true, possible, or even believable. Here we must place the statement that Mary is the mother of God. It just seems plain impossible.

 

The contention that Mary is the mother of God revolves around the divine claims about what it takes to accomplish our salvation. In the divine economy the Word became flesh of a specific young Jewish woman. Who is this Word who became flesh, humbling Himself even to death? He is God of God. None other. That makes this specific young Jewish woman none other than the mother of God. It is only impossible in your limited mind. God is willing to go to the extraordinary length of being named the son of Mary, so that He might save all the sons and daughters of Eve. When we say that God is economical we actually mean that God has expended His greatest and dearest treasure for us poor sinners, pouring out an abundance of His grace. It certainly doesn't mean that God has stinted or begrudged us anything. He is not "cheap." No, He goes to the most extraordinary and costly lengths to save us and make us His own children in His blessed Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. This is economical abundance.

 

Cyril of Alexandria

 

"While tracking the aim of the inspired Word and in no way stepping beyond the definition of the faith, we say that He who is from God by nature, the Only-begotten, He who is in the bosom of the Father, He through whom are all things and in whom are all things (Jn 1:3), albeit having before every age and time His own existence, and ever co-existing with Him who begot Him, descended into voluntary nothingness (Phil 2:7) in the last times of the world, and took the servant's form, that is, became in our condition and man economically, and was made in all things like His brothers (Heb 2:17), by partaking similarly of blood and flesh (Heb 2:14), and that He thus underwent birth with us and like us, and took into Himself the passing into being of His own flesh, not as though He needed a second beginning into being (for the Word was in the beginning and was God) but, that He might gather together the human race, a second first-fruits of all things after that first one, born after the flesh of a woman, according to the Scriptures. For being rich, He became poor, bringing us again into His own wealth and having all in Himself through the flesh which was united to Him. We have been buried with Christ through holy baptism (Rm 6:4) and have been raised and seated with Him in heavenly places (Eph 2:6). For so wrote most-wise Paul, the steward of His mysteries, the herald and Apostle, and minister of the Gospel oracles.

 

"The fact of the true union of person is necessary therefore, both to the faith of the mystery and to the exact demonstration of it, that the mode of generation according to the flesh of the Only-begotten may be without blame, who was called to no second existence (for He is the maker of the worlds), but lowered Himself economically to manhood for our sakes, and despised not the laws of human nature but chose rather to have together with his flesh His own fleshly generation too. Therefore we say that He was born after the flesh, who is ever co-existent with the Father. For thus He condemned sin in the flesh and He brought to nothing the might of death in us, since He was made like us, though He knew no sin (2Co 5:21), in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28).

 

"But some (I know not how they could) wrong the most sacred beauty of the dogmas of the Church and wrinkle the holy and pure virgin, bringing her down to the unseemly rottenness of their own ideas and arming against us a multitude of new-fangled inventions. For they accuse, as something bastard and uncomely, yes and as going beyond all proper language, the word Mother of God, which the holy fathers before us have constructed for the holy Virgin. By doing so they split, dividing into two sons, the one Lord Jesus Christ, and take away from God the Word the sufferings of the flesh, though not even we have said that He suffered in His own nature, as God, but we attribute rather to Him along with the flesh the sufferings that happened to the flesh, that He too may be confessed to be Savior (for with His stripes we were healed, as it is written, and He has been wounded for our transgressions, although not recipient of suffering any wound): and have been saved by His undergoing death for us through His own body. 

 

Cyril of Alexandria, Five Tomes, 1.0  
 
Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, only begotten Son of God, You took on our flesh of Mary that You might return to us cleansed what we had so horribly perverted by our fall. Grant us to believe the impossible, confessing that You have done all to make a full salvation for us poor sinners, providing for our adoption into Your Father's family by Your substitution under death. Amen.

 

For Brad Deluca, who has been released from the hospital, that his homecoming would be restful and lead to a full recovery

 

For all LCMS youth as they travel home from the National Youth Gathering and as they travel to Higher Things conferences, that they would be kept safe and more firmly confess the grace of Christ

 

In thanksgiving for the gifts of freedom of speech and of religion as unalienable rights guaranteed, not by men, but by our Creator

Art: D�rer, Albrecht  The Adoration of the Trinity (1515) 

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