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Big Picture Unifiers and the Glory of Christ
By Jay Wegter
- The cosmos and its contents are the thought of God
- The creation is a perfect co-mingling of physical and moral order
- The Son of God is Creator: all things were made by Him and for Him, both material and immaterial
- All things are upheld and sustained by Christ (the Logos) and exist for Him
- God is energizing a clash between worldviews: between human wisdom and divine wisdom (the cross)
- God is redeeming individuals by, and amidst this clash of worldviews
- God has an infinite propensity to delight in His own glory
- The ground of the creature’s happiness is the eternal unbroken communication of God to the creature
- Christ brought everything into harmony with God’s holiness (by redemption, and by judgment)
- Sinners can only regain the true knowledge of the divine by God’s glory in the face of Christ
- God’s glory in the face of Christ connects God’s essential glory to the salvation of sinners
- Christ’s Lordship is both personal and cosmic
- Christ is the consummation of all things; it is the Father’s intent that He have first place in everything
- God reveals Himself in the ground, terms, and benefits of the new covenant
- Romans 11:33-36 is the ‘Mount Everest’ of theology
- The elect are chosen by God and called so that they might gain the glory of Christ
- Beholding the glory of Christ changes us into the likeness of our Lord
- The church, in order to be healthy, must regularly feed on the glory of Christ
- Christ has all power for the sake of the church and to subdue all of His enemies
- Christ is the forerunner and the prototypical heavenly man
- Christ as the last Adam is our probationer
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- The formation of a new humanity in Christ by the reclamation of the image of God is God’s glory story
- By God’s grace Christ gives the elect His own right relatedness to the Holy Trinity so that the elect which form His Body are given the glorious benefits of the communal life of the Trinity
- The new nature granted by the Spirit through the Person and work of Christ enables the elect to behold the glory of the Lord—this entranced vision of the Lord changes us into His likeness
- Salvation is inseparable from receiving the Father’s testimony concerning the lordship of His Son—He (Christ) is exalted to God’s right hand—God has made Him both Lord and Christ
- Believers are so close to Christ in their union with Him, that God the Father contemplates them in the Son
- The incarnation was to fulfill the eternal covenant of redemption, to save those given by the Father to the Son
- The gospel gives us the greatest gift imaginable, God Himself
- Our affliction now is completely disproportional to the weight of glory that is to come
- Beholding the glory of Christ now is beholding God in our nature; in beholding the Lord we see by faith the destiny of redeemed humanity
- The world to come will not be subject to angels but to redeemed human beings
- In the new heavens and the new earth we will have perfect dominion (no more curse), and perfect nearness to God (He will dwell among us)
- The glorified church will perfectly express God’s image since she will possess God’s communicable attributes
- Every virtue of a perfect family: love, belonging, uniqueness, dignity, order, discipline and complementarity will forever be our experience in the Kingdom of God; thus the elect will be members of an immutable family
- The elect will inherit the world
- Prayer communes with God as Creator, Lord of providence, Lawgiver, Redeemer, covenant Father, Mediator, and Paraclete
- God will not glorify His grace apart from setting the pre-condition of eliminating the possibility of all human merit