Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Sunday, December 29, 2013

(Rev. Roger Salter, Ch. of Eng.): John 1.1-14

John 1:1 – 14

In this season we contemplate the Wonder that leaves us awestruck.

  On a silent night in Bethlehem of Judea an indescribable wonder occurred.  It is too huge to comprehend.   Human language stammers to give witness to the event.  Our minds are addled and our tongues are tied, so God positioned a special star in the sky and despatched a choir of angels to announce with supernatural emphasis the marvel of what was happening.  Heaven itself heralded the advent on earth of heaven’s Prince and Darling - the Lord Jesus Christ - God’s Son and our Saviour.

  John the apostle, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, reaches out to pluck words sent from heaven to speak of the exceptional birth that we celebrate.  God himself opens the lips of the beloved disciple to express the mystery - the mystery of the Incarnation which tells us that with God all things are possible (it is the seal of this truth) and that all things recorded in Scripture concerning Jesus from nativity to ascension are credible.

  The One ordained to be the expression of God’s self and the embodiment of his power and love is aptly identified as the Word - God’s speech, God displayed in human form to the world of humanity.  The reality is breathtaking.  John tells us of the glory of the Eternal Word in the timeless beginning - the majestic, sovereign, almighty Son of God, and in the brief prologue of his gospel moves on to the unimaginable self-abasement of the Word made flesh, and God made man - not merely to stupify us but to salvage us from ruin.

  John’s thought concerning Jesus is unsurpassably exalted.

  The Word, the Son, hails from forever, before the cosmos was created and the ages began to be counted.  He commenced all that ever was and now is.  He never “clocked in” - for he proceeded eternally from the Everlasting Father, and preceded any notion of chronology.

  Throughout immeasurable eternity past he was beside the Father - the Word was with God, equal in deity and excellence, and the delight of angelic hosts when he deigned to give them being at some point unknown to us.  The Word was God enthroned in dominion with the Father and the Spirit as the agent of God’s creative word, the craftsman of the universe, the shaper of the spheres, the source of living spirits.  John establishes the inestimable dignity of the Son, the supreme loftiness of his person, his status at the acme of all that exists.  This is the Lord Jesus before whom we bow so willingly, and soon shall all creation bow before him when its predetermined duration is spent.  We cannot help but adore.

For more, see:

http://www.livingoracles.org/1/post/2013/12/the-splendid-and-saving-miracle-of-the-incarnation.html

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