Bibliographic information:
Teer, Torey. “‘As the Father Has Sent Me, Even So I Am Sending You’: The Divine Missions and the Mission of the Church.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 63, no. 3 (September 2020): 535–58.
Description:
Description
Presentations advancing an ecclesiology that favors the church’s ontology before its function have become more common in recent years. Further, mission models employing a Trinitarian framework (viz., the missio Dei) have likewise become popular in contemporary conversation. This project explores the implications of the divine missions—of the Son and of the Spirit—upon the mission of the church while also drawing out some pneumatological emphases vis-à-vis ecclesiology. Specifically, I present a biblical-theological synthesis of the divine missions grounded upon Johannine language of “sending,” framed by Thomas Aquinas’s conception of the divine missions, and augmented by John Calvin’s notion of the “double grace” conferred via union with Christ. I then apply this synthesis to the mission of the church, showing that the church participates—analogically—in the Trinitarian agency carried out in the missio Dei. In so doing, I offer a unique line of reasoning that further supports the church’s ontology before its function as well as a Trinitarian framework for missions.
Publisher:
Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (website: https://www.etsjets.org/JETS)