The Doctrine of Grace in the Apostolic Fathers
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
In this book, T. F. Torrance aims to discover how and why an enormous difference came about in the early history of the Christian Church between the faith of the New Testament and that of the second and third centuries. He explores how the concept of grace is distinctively characteristic of every doctrine of the New Testament, and yet at the same time is the most changeable.
Top Highlights
“Jesus Himself was the deed of God’s unspeakable grace, God in a self-giving to men that was infinitely lavish.” (Page 28)
“and in its original and fundamental sense is applied to what awakens pleasure or secures joy” (Page 1)
“God’s ḥesed does not change. ‘Though man himself will not turn to God, yet God Himself can bring this to pass. God’s sure unswerving love will find a way by which even stubborn, unrepentant Israel can turn. It will mean new hearts, but God will accomplish even this. Then there will be a turning to God in all sincerity, and loyal obedience to His Law.’” (Page 16)
“Thus ḥesed is really the self-giving of God to Israel, a promise which is confirmed by an oath and established in a definite covenant.” (Page 15)
“In the Apostolic Fathers grace did not have that radical character. The great presupposition of the Christian life, for them, was not a deed of decisive significance that cut across human life and set it on a wholly new basis grounded upon the self-giving of God. What took absolute precedence was God’s call to a new life in obedience to revealed truth. Grace, as far as it was grasped, was subsidiary to that. And so religion was thought of primarily in terms of man’s acts toward God, in the striving toward justification, much less in terms of God’s acts for man which put him in the right with God once and for all.” (Page 133)
