Notes

2. “The concept of God’s wrath”: Albrecht Ritschl, Die Christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versöhnung (The Christian Doctrine on Justification and Reconciliation), vol. 2 (Bonn, 1889), p. 154.

3. “the wrath of Yahweh”: “Wrath of God,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Gary A. Herion, Astrid B. Beck and David Noel Freedman, vol. 6 (New York: Doubleday, 1992), p. 989.

4. “God’s wrath must be understood”: Ibid.

5. “God’s wrath in the Bible”: J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove., Ill: InterVarsity Press, 1973), p. 151.

6. “Would a God who took”: Ibid.

7. “love loves unto purity”: George MacDonald, “The Consuming Fire,” in Unspoken Sermons, first series (Eureka, Calif.: Sunrise Book, 1988), p. 27.

8. “He is always against sin”: Ibid., p. 38, italics added.

9. “Would a God who did not care”: Packer, Knowing God, p. 143.

10. “It is not a question”: C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillan, 1962), p. 127.

11. “The conditions of modern-day living”: Richard Swenson, Margin (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1992), p. 32.

1. Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria: Athanasius was present at the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325), where the standard doctrine of the incarnation (Jesus was fully God and fully human) was defined. The later Nicene Creed is the orthodox (correct) understanding of the person of Jesus and the nature of the Trinity. During his lifetime Athanasius maintained that the doctrines established at Nicaea were correct, and firmly held his position against great opposition. He was exiled five times for his beliefs.

2. I turned my questions . . . into a dialogue: The following dialogue is, of course, fictional. But the answers Athanasius gives are taken straight from the book On the Incarnation. In the interest of making it sound like an actual discussion, I have added some dialogue. But this was actually easy to do because Athanasius raises the questions I ask.

3. “Why did the Father will [the crucifixion]?”: Edward Yarnold, “The Theology of Christian Spirituality,” in The Study of Spirituality, ed. Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright and Edward Yarnold (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 15.

4. “The key, then, to loving God”: Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), p. 334.

1. “What could be more frustrating”: David C. Needham, Birthright (Portland, Ore.: Multnomah Press, 1979), p. 69.

2. “To be forgiven by God”: L. Gregory Jones, Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), p. 159.

3. This is why we struggle: Regeneration is a theological term used to describe the infusion of new life into the person who has been “born again.”

4. The word flesh (Greek sarx): I am intentionally using sarx instead of flesh because “flesh” is too closely associated with our physical bodies, which can lead to a too negative view of the body. I have also avoided using the NIV’s “sinful nature” for sarx, because the idea of a “sinful nature” can lead people to assume that sarx is fundamental to our nature.

5. The battle between sarx and spirit: Before coming to Christ we have no real conflict between sarx and Spirit—sarx is in complete control. But when we give ourselves to Christ and are indwelt by the Spirit the battle begins. Now our new identity is in conflict with the old identity. Even though we are new, the remains of our old identity are still very much with us.

6. “Every babe in Christ is holy”: John Wesley “On Sin in Believers,” in The Works of John Wesley 3.4.3, 7, ed. Albert Outler, vol. 1 (Nashville: Abingdon, 1984).

7. “For so long as we remain”: John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion 4.15.11, ed. John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960).

8. “inseparably linked to”: Needham, Birthright, p. 79.

9. “cuts off all watching”: Wesley, Works of John Wesley 13.5.1.

10. “‘Christ in me’ means”: James S. Stewart, A Man in Christ (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 1935), p. 169.

11. Country dogs and city dogs: I am indebted to Bob George and his ministry, People to People, for this illustration, which I heard at a Classic Christianity conference in 1993.

12. “The spiritual life is not”: Panayiotis Nellas, Deification in Christ (New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997), p. 136.

13. “The question is not”: Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership (New York: Crossroad, 2002), pp. 37-38.

14. “When we go into solitude”: Dallas Willard, foreword to Invitation to Solitude and Silence, by Ruth Haley Barton (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004), pp. 10-11.

15. “We need to find God”: This quote is taken from Jan Johnson’s wonderful little Bible study Solitude & Silence (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2003), p. 27.

16. Bible verses about identity in Christ: Many of these verses are excerpted from Neil Anderson’s Ministering the Steps to Freedom in Christ (Ventura, Calif.: Gospel Light, 1998), p. 38. I have added a few.

1. “We are a nation in love”: Jeremy Rikfin, Time Wars (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), p. 71.

2. “It is ironic that”: Ibid., pp. 19-21.

3. The clock was invented by monks: Sebastian De Grazia, Of Time, Work and Leisure (New York: Random House, 1994), p. 44.

4. “Idleness is the enemy of the soul”: The Benedictine Handbook (Norwich: Liturgical Press, 2003), p. 69.

5. clock time began “gaining the upper hand”: Carl Honoré, In Praise of Slowness (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004), p. 22.

6. We “invented the machine”: Ibid., p. 16.

7. “In the past, man has been first”: Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The Atlantic, July-August 2008, p. 62.

8. “ ‘Taylor’s system’ is still very much with us”: Ibid.

9. “tyranny of the urgent”: See Charles E. Hummel, Tyranny of the Urgent (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1994).

10. In 1967, futurists told a Senate subcommittee: Richard A. Swenson, Margin (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1992), p. 148.

11. In a lifetime today’s average person: Ibid., pp. 149-50.

12. the average working parent: Honoré, In Praise of Slowness, p. 9.

13. One-Minute Bedtime Stories: Ibid., p. 2.

14. “Hurry,” said Carl Jung: Quoted in Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978), p. 13.

15. “In every waking hour”: Robin R. Myers, Morning Sun on a White Piano (New York: Doubleday, 1998), p. 67.

16. “Life is really nothing more”: Richard Bailey and Joseph Carlson, Slowing Down to the Speed of Life (New York: HarperCollins, 1997) pp. 80-81, 164.

17. “Spiritual renewal is”: Taken from Miles J. Stanford, Principles of Spiritual Growth (Lincoln, Neb.: Back to the Bible Broadcast Publication, 1974), p. 13.

18. “A student asked the President”: Quoted in ibid., pp. 11-12.

19. “The emerging picture”: Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success (New York: Little, Brown, 2008), p. 40.

20. Mozart “developed late”: Ibid., p. 41.

21. “The deepest part of the soul”: Robert Barron, Heaven in Stone and Glass (New York: Crossroad, 2000), p. 149.

22. “Today the combat is not the same”: Paul Evdokimov, Ages of the Spiritual Life (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998), p. 64, italics added.

23. “It seems that most believers”: Stanford, Principles of Spiritual Growth, p. 11.