Thursday, July 10, 2008

Bert Waggoner on Hope

Berten Wagonner, head of The Vineyard USA, said, "...What is our object of hope? The eschatological community." (In Building a Community of Hope in a Despairing World).

What does he mean by this? I'll read on, but my guard is up. Where is Scripture? Where is God? I smell the worship of the Church which you find rampant in the big ecclesiastical organizations.

He then says, "the ultimate goal of history in the eschatological future is the revealing of God’s eschatological community at the consummation of the age (Revelation 21)." But Ephesians 1 says, "9. He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him 10. with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth...". How about 1 Cor. 15:28: "When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all." Who is the primary object of our hope here?

Okay, later on he says, this: "The primary sign of the Kingdom, other than the coming of the Messiah, is the community of God." So at least he's putting Jesus in. But the message is a bit confused. Who gets the glory? In whom do we hope?

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