November’s Unspoken Sermon is “Abba, Father”. It, along with “Justice”, “Creation in Christ” and “The Child in the Midst” reveal root aspects of MacDonald’s theology perhaps more than anywhere else. It’s an interesting work in that he does not hesitate to delve into the Greek and he quotes a ton of Scripture. In fact I’d be willing to bet that he directly quotes and alludes to Scripture in this sermon as much or more than any other. (Though I haven’t made a count!)
My personal encounter with the sermon is interesting – at least from my perspective. At first exposure I thought to myself, “Gee, this just doesn’t really hit home with me” - which kinda surprised me as the other sermons I’d read had really struck a chord. Probably this had something to do with the fact that I am adopted and thus never thought of the doctrine of adoption (which the sermon is combating) as anything alien. However, upon further pondering GMD’s thrust began to sink in and I began to get a hold of his thoughts. In a nutshell, “The consequence [of adoption] might be small where earthly fatherhood was concerned, but the very origin of my being—alas, if he be only a maker and not a father! Then am I only a machine, and not a child—not a man! It is false to say I was created in his image!” Of course it hardly needs to be said that MacDonald was in no way speaking against adoption in family life. I understand that he and his wife adopted two children. Also he states, “… much love may lie in adoption…”
Audio: upload.librivox.org/share/upload … donald.mp3
Video: youtube.com/playlist?list=PL … re=viewall
Annotated Outlines - georgemacdonald.info/unspoken_sermons.html (to be posted in a day or two)
Cool quotes:
*A devout and honest scepticism on God’s side, not to be put down by anything called authority, is absolutely necessary to him who would know the liberty wherewith Christ maketh free. Whatever any company of good men thinks or believes, is to be approached with respect; but nothing claimed or taught, be the claimers or the teachers who they may, must come between the soul and the spirit of the father, who is himself the teacher of his children.
As no scripture is of private interpretation, so is there no feeling in human heart which exists in that heart alone, which is not, in some form or degree, in every heart;
The refusal to look up to God as our Father is the one central wrong in the whole human affair; the inability, the one central misery: whatever serves to clear any difficulty from the way of the recognition of the Father, will more or less undermine every difficulty in life.
…if he be only a maker and not a father! Then am I only a machine, and not a child—not a man! It is false to say I was created in his image!
God can no more than an earthly parent be content to have only children: he must have sons and daughters — children of his soul, of his spirit, of his love—not merely in the sense that he loves them, or even that they love him, but in the sense that they love like him, love as he loves.
It can come only of unbelief and not faith, to make men believe that God has cast them off, repudiated them, said they are not, yea never were, his children
Because we are the sons of God, we must become the sons of God.
When God can do what he will with a man, the man may do what he will with the world; he may walk on the sea like his Lord; the deadliest thing will not he able to hurt him:
We are the sons of God the moment we lift up our hearts, seeking to be sons—the moment we begin to cry Father. But as the world must be redeemed in a few men to begin with, so the soul is redeemed in a few of its thoughts and wants and ways, to begin with: it takes a long time to finish the new creation of this redemption. Shall it have taken millions of years to bring the world up to the point where a few of its inhabitants shall desire God, and shall the creature of this new birth be perfected in a day? The divine process may indeed now go on with tenfold rapidity, for the new factor of man’s fellow-working, for the sake of which the whole previous array of means and forces existed, is now developed; but its end is yet far below the horizon of man’s vision:—
When we are the sons of God in heart and soul, then shall we be the sons of God in body too: ‘we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.’
Right opinion on questions the most momentous will deliver no man. Cure for any ill in me or about me there is none, but to become the son of God I was born to be.
Until such I am, until Christ is born in me, until I am revealed a son of God, pain and trouble will endure—and God grant they may!*
In Christ,
David