Sunday, January 08, 2006

Unusual And Unexpected Love

"This early Christian emphasis on God actively seeking to restore to himself, at great cost to himself, those alienated from him by their rebellion was a distinctive position in Mediterranean antiquity of this period….By contrast, pagans often feared that the gods would abandon the world because of its wickedness (Wicker, 'Defectu,' 142); Jewish people felt that the Shekinah could withdraw for the same reason" (Craig Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, Vol. 1 [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003], p. 571 and n. 354 on p. 571)