This neo-platonic idea that one cannot escape his nature, including God (!) Himself led eventually to Anselm saying: Why did the Incarnation happen? So that the Son of God could be punished in the place of man.
Meanwhile, Gregory the Theologian said: Incarnation happened, “because humanity must be sanctified by the Humanity of God”. The exact contrary if you stop and think about it. And he continues: the only thing God wants, is this:

“to stop ‘wear’ “.

It is impossible to build legalism on a position such as that…

Do you think God can be unloving? I assume not. So what, then? Is he “bound to some ‘cosmic law’ instead of utterly free”? Of course not. Loving is simply what He does. It is His nature. Similarly, being just is God’s nature. Indeed, just as He is Love, so He is Justice. He was not obeying an outside necessity, but acting in harmony with His own nature, which contains the perfection of everything good, justice included.

Points taken, and agreed with, about the rather limited portrayal of the gospel in certain circles.

@dinoship
You know, I agree with what you say and especially like the quotation about the fountain of questions never running dry. They should not become a distraction. In my own experience, I am firmly convinced that the God, who raised Jesus from the dead, has delivered me from despair, depression, alcohol abuse, a foul mouth and an arrogant almost cruel heart, lasciviousness and laziness (to list my more likeable qualities). None of this happened by my understanding certain points of doctrine, or by my pathetic efforts to be obedient to the law, or by my self-regarding humility, but by weeping on my knees and crying with the Reverend Toplady:

Nothing in my hand I bring;
Simply to thy Cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for Dress;
Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly :
Wash me, Saviour, or I die!

“A more healthy view of how God is present and the Orthodox idea of theosis would do protestants good I guess…”

Many Protestants do indeed espouse theosis.

Others find it flatly diabolical. They say that the creature should not desire to be the Creator, for that is the sin of Satan. They will furthermore point out that Scripture is almost entirely silent on the subject, save a couple highly debatable verses.

The fight against idolatry is a constant battle. I am grateful to my Reformed brethren for helping me stay vigilant, keeping my eyes on the Creator rather than the creature, although they occasionally overreact.

Dee,

***If it WAS all about some legal payment given to the Father (as if He was “insult-able” like a human), then we wouldn’t even NEED Christ united to us anymore! (which even Calvin describes by the way)***

I’ve explained this more than once in this very discussion: If one is not united to Christ, one does not receive the benefit of his vicarious suffering, death, and resurrection. That is why all Protestants, however thoroughgoing their attachment to PSA, possess a doctrine of union with Christ.

“We must now examine this question. How do we receive those benefits which the Father bestowed on his only-begotten Son–not for Christ’s own private use, but that He might enrich poor and needy men?

First, we must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from Him, all that He has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us.

Therefore, to share with us what He has received from the Father, He had to become ours and to dwell within us. For this reason, He is called ‘our Head’ (Eph. 4:15), and ‘the first-born among many brethren’ (Rom. 8:29). We also, in turn, are said to be ‘engrafted into Him’ (Rom. 11:17), and to ‘put on Christ’ (Gal. 3:27).

For, as I have said, all that He possesses is nothing to us until we grow into one body with Him. It is true that we obtain this by faith.”

–John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, John T. McNeill, ed, Ford Lewis Battles, trans, Library of Christian Classics (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960 [1559]), III.i.1.

Very interesting. Protestants sometimes seem to be obsessed with ‘how do I get forgiven’ without going further, as if only forgiveness is the goal… And modern evangelicals are quite individualistic in that forgiveness…

I would think the bible teaches more than just forgiveness of the individual the restauration of Creation, in which God will be ‘all in all’ (through Christ). So Union might be more important than just the substitution evangelicalism seems to place at the heart of the gospel… I think the problem here is that we’ve made everything so abstract, or postponed it to the next life, that we’ve put the omnipresent God at quite a distance, only there in the bible. A more healthy view of how God is present and the Orthodox idea of theosis would do protestants good I guess…