The Mystery of Christ Quotes

“For the glory of the human being is God, while the vessel of the workings of God, and of all his wisdom and power is the human being.”
― John Behr, The Mystery of Christ

“It is not the mark of a dead man, he continues, to persuade others to believe in him, to persuade them to live a righteous life and despise the idols they formerly worshipped: it is Christians themselves who are the witnesses of Christ’s resurrection”
― John Behr, The Mystery of Christ

“For antiquity, on the other hand, the truth of Christ is eternal, or better, timeless: the crucified and risen Lord is the one of whom scripture has always spoken. Yet, as the disciples come to recognize him, as the subject of scripture and in the breaking of bread, he disappears from their sight (Lk 24.31). The Christ of Christian faith, revealed concretely in and through the apostolic proclamation of the crucified and risen Lord in accordance with scripture, is an eschatological figure, the Coming One.”
― Fr. John Behr, The Mystery of Christ

“the original divine intention of fashioning the creature made from mud into the image and likeness of God.”
― John Behr, The Mystery of Christ

“As paradoxical as it might sound, one can say, theologically, that creation and salvation were effected simultaneously”
― John Behr, The Mystery of Christ

“St Athanasius begins with the given fact of the revelation of God in Christ, that which is, and, on this basis and in its terms, develops a theology and cosmology in which Jesus Christ is truly the beginning and end, and the glory which he receives and exhibits as the crucified one is the glory which he had with the Father from all eternity—for there is no other glory.”
― John Behr, The Mystery of Christ

“For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. (Eph 1.3–10)”
― John Behr, The Mystery of Christ

“If there were [only] one meaning for the words [of scripture], the first interpreter would find it, and all other listeners would have neither the toil of seeking nor the pleasure of finding. But every word of our Lord has its own image, and each image has its own members, and each member possesses its own species and form. Each person hears in accordance with his capacity, and it is interpreted in accordance with what has been given to him.30”
― John Behr, The Mystery of Christ

“it is only when Christ himself opens the scriptures, to show how they all speak of him and his Passion, that the inspired meaning of the scriptures is brought to light, the inspiration of the scriptures cannot be separated from the opening of the sealed book by the slain Lamb”
― John Behr, The Mystery of Christ

“The main concern of early Christians was not to determine the exact boundaries of sacred scripture; this only acquires the importance it has today if we assume that meaning and authority reside within the text itself. But given what we have seen, that “meaning” resides in the person of Christ, who is himself the truth (Jn 14.6), it is not surprising that there was instead a continual debate, from the beginning, about the person and work of Christ—how he relates to God and to us, how he is made known, through the Spirit, and how it is that scripture speaks of all this.”
― John Behr, The Mystery of Christ

“Meaning” resides in the person of whom the text speaks, and our task is to come to know this person by understanding how the text speaks of him.”
― John Behr, The Mystery of Christ

“The focal point for the revelation of the Word of God is not simply the Word’s “becoming flesh,” to be something other than what the Word eternally is, but rather it lies in the becoming Word of the flesh.”
― John Behr, The Mystery of Christ