pedadidact

2 Jan. 2010
Avalon, Santa Catalina Island, CA

[1] Sonship in Christ. [2] "Chippers are cheaters!" [3] Candy apple farewell. [4] Bejeweled skies [5] Brotherhood [6] Sonship & brotherhood continued.

[1]
My final day on Catalina began with a relatively late rise at 9:00 AM. Being the only one up, I listened to Andrew Scourby read the book of Galatians, and found in my mind an array of new thoughts on the passage, "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." [Gal. 4:6] What a sublime thought, to be sons of God! [Further notes on this subject at bottom of this post]

The Hancock family. 2 Jan. 2010

[2]
Soon the Hancocks began to stir. Charity prepared a fantastic breakfast of strawberry pancakes. Then we all -- including their twelve month old son, Benjamin Bravery -- walked down to the newly landscaped miniature golf course. Avalon's Lilliputian loop features native and endemic plant life, with informational placards posted along the way. Ironically, out of all the attractions on the island, mini-golf is presently the most profitable tourist stop. I take this fact to mean the economic slump is making glass-bottomed boat rides and back country bus tours prohibitively expensive for most families.


In case you don't know, in miniature golf it is common for a single phase, or "hole", to involve putting past certain obstructions or into one of three leader holes, each of which deposits the ball more or less near the actual hole at which one is ultimately aiming. For instance, putting into leader hole #1 might drop the ball down a tube which rolls out several inches from the point cup. This would be ideal. Hitting into leader holes #2 or #3, however, might send one's ball into the center of a brick maze or ten feet away from the final cup, significantly damaging one's point average. No one told me otherwise, but apparently chipping the ball clear over obstacles and leader holes to land all the way at the final cup is not an acceptable strategy, though one I admired myself for having come up with and executed proficiently. Three rather animated young women who had joined us, however, immediately remonstrated that my conduct was less than sportsman-like. "Chipping is cheating! Only cheaters chip!" they bleated in unison. All the same, my efficient ideas were to no avail and I still lost royally. Par: thirty-six. My score: upper eighties. You know what they say on Catalina, "chippers never prosper."


Russian ballet? Crime fighting hero? No: Super dad. 2 Jan. 2010


Strolling. 2 Jan. 2010


Avalon from the Hancock home. 2 Jan. 2010

[3]
Late afternoon sun began at last to nudge my heart, reminding me to gather my packs and return to the boat landing. But first, as a going away treat, the Hancocks generously bought me one of Lloyd's exquisite caramel apples -- tart enough, but balanced masterfully with a double layer of blissfully sweet and crisp chocolate. Telling you this will ensure that such delights continue to be hungrily yearned after the world over.


Candy apple from Lloyd's confectionary. 2 Jan. 2010


Sweetly surprised. 2 Jan. 2010


Goodbyes to dear friends. 2 Jan. 2010

[4]
Bidding farewell, I mounted the ramp to the Express and once again took a seat top-deck. The inclement weather had cleared since four days earlier. Gone were the steel chandeliers of storm clouds, flung away like past fashions and exchanged for the growing luster of a bejeweled sunset sky. As it fell, Earth's star became an amber orb set in a bezel of ruby clouds. The whole atmosphere shone as if an heavenly Artisan had blown his gemstone grindings right off into space.


Avalon sunset. 2 Jan. 2010


Aerial trails sew threads in the sky. 2 Jan. 2010


Santa Catalina Island, sunset. 2 Jan. 2010

[5]
Spurred by the morning reading, my heart and mind began to fill with thoughts of sonship and brotherhood in Christ; of lasting, spiritual kinship such as I have enjoyed with the Hancocks. Riding upon the wake of all my travels skims the hope of establishing and nourishing relationships with others, a unity in faith founded upon the gospel of blood-bought and freely-given grace. What shores of love I shall light upon are determined, I trust, by the sovereign breath of God whose winds fill the sails of my soul.


Passengers on the Express. 2 Jan. 2010


Poor photo, rich experience. 2 Jan. 2010

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On the sonship of believers
2 Jan. 2010
Avalon, Santa Catalina Island, CA

Somehow I never previously considered the language and tenses used by the apostle Paul concerning spiritual sonship in chapter four of the epistle to the Galatians,

"Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." [Gal. 4:6]

The apostle seems to indicate that prior to receiving divine testimony of one's sonship, the Elect are in a sense already adopted of God into Christ, possessing Spirit-wrought faith and union with Jesus. Practically, this means that one does not become a son of God by trusting God to be his father, as if one's will precedes or merits adoption; rather, one becomes a son of God through Spirit-wrought faith and union with Jesus, sovereignly decreed and freely given. Knowledge of one's sonship, however, is received through the Spirit's testimony that one has in fact been made a son of God through faith, entirely of grace. To say it crudely, one cannot "faith himself into the family of God." Instead, through the illumination of the Spirit the Elect discover in themselves the voice of Christ, crying, Abba, Father. The see in their spirits a new semblance to God's children, particularly the unmistakable birthmark of faith towards Christ as the perfect satisfaction of God's laws on their behalf.

I found this idea echoed in Calvin's commentary on the passage, when he writes,

"The elect, though they are the children of God from the womb, yet, until by faith they come to the possession of freedom, remain like slaves under the law; but, from the time that they have known Christ, they no longer require this kind of tutelage." [Commentary on Galatians, 4:1-6]

Calvin continues,

"This adoption must have preceded the testimony of adoption given by the Holy Spirit; but the effect is the sign of the cause. In venturing, he says, to call God your Father, you have the advice and direction of the Spirit of Christ; therefore it is certain that you are the sons of God ... the Spirit is the earnest and pledge of our adoption, and gives to us a well-founded belief that God regards us with a father’s love ... We are the sons of God, because we have received the same Spirit as his only Son. And since, therefore, Gentiles are reckoned among the sons of God, it is evident that adoption comes not by the merit of the law, but by the grace of faith." [Ibid]