God With Us Exploring God's Personal Interactions with His People Quotes

“God was under no obligation to create and, when his creatures rebelled, he was under no obligation to continue to sustain them. His creatures continue to rebel against him; his preservation of them is surely due only to his grace.”
― Glenn R. Kreider, God with Us: Exploring God's Personal Interactions with His People throughout the Bible

“If God is going to teach us about things we do not know by direct experience (such as his attributes), he has to teach us in terms of what we do know. This is why all that Scripture says about God is “anthropomorphic” in a broad sense (speaking of God either in human terms or in terms of the creation we know).29”
― Glenn R. Kreider, God with Us: Exploring God's Personal Interactions with His People throughout the Bible

“in his grace, God condescended to care for his creation. He has taken the initiative to bring healing. He entered into the world and brought redemption to it. God’s work of redemption required the incarnation of God the Son. The eternal second person of the Trinity came to earth as Jesus of Nazareth and assumed full humanity. As the God-man, he submitted to the limitations of the created order, yet without ceasing to be fully divine. As a substitute for the sin of the creatures, he submitted to death in order to defeat death through the resurrection of the dead. This act of condescension was not a temporary one; having become incarnate, Jesus will remain human forever.”
― Glenn R. Kreider, God with Us: Exploring God's Personal Interactions with His People throughout the Bible

“The third act of the biblical story is the completion of God’s work of redemption, the culmination of his plan for his creation in the re-creation of all things in a new heaven and a new earth. Rather than destroying the earth and replacing it with a new earth, God plans to re-create the earth he had cursed.26 In the culmination of his plan of redemption in the eschatological state, God does not take his creatures to be with him; rather, he moves into their world. Rather than taking us to be with him in heaven, God will bring heaven to earth. The Creator will move into our neighborhood forever (Rev. 21–22).”
― Glenn R. Kreider, God with Us: Exploring God's Personal Interactions with His People throughout the Bible

“only the last two chapters of Revelation are devoted to the new creation, although it is the goal toward which the biblical story is moving, and it is the implicit focus of every word of the biblical text. The trajectory of the biblical story is toward the new creation.”
― Glenn R. Kreider, God with Us: Exploring God's Personal Interactions with His People throughout the Bible

“it is not just the incarnation that reveals God by means of condescension. Any involvement of God in his world is an act of condescension. Further, that God humbles himself and interacts with his creation is the major plotline of the Bible and of each of the biblical stories.”
― Glenn R. Kreider, God with Us: Exploring God's Personal Interactions with His People throughout the Bible

“if God is most clearly revealed in his Son, and if this revelation is humble and sacrificial, and if God wants his followers to be like him, then surely understanding God in this way compels his followers to give up their rights, privileges, and prerogatives for the sake of others.”
― Glenn R. Kreider, God with Us: Exploring God's Personal Interactions with His People throughout the Bible

“I suspect that the humility of God is difficult to accept because of the implications that such a doctrine would have for us. If God is humble, then his people ought to be humble. If God submits himself, by giving up the rights and prerogatives of his transcendence, then his people ought to submit to one another. If God condescends to look out for the interests of his creatures, then his people ought to care for one another.”
― Glenn R. Kreider, God with Us: Exploring God's Personal Interactions with His People throughout the Bible

“Rather, the incarnation of the eternal Son of God was prefigured or foreshadowed in God’s appearances on earth, his active involvement in the created order from the beginning, and his engagement with his creatures in their world.”
― Glenn R. Kreider, God with Us: Exploring God's Personal Interactions with His People throughout the Bible

“The term condescension is used in two significantly different ways in contemporary discourse. It evokes negative emotions when it is used in the sense of “a patronizing attitude or behavior,” but the connotation is much different when it indicates “voluntary descent from one’s rank or dignity in relations with an inferior.”10”
― Glenn R. Kreider, God with Us: Exploring God's Personal Interactions with His People throughout the Bible

“In order to redeem humanity and to bring to completion the regeneration of all things, God himself came to earth, became a creature, and submitted to the created order—even to the power of sin and death—to defeat evil and subdue it.”
― Glenn R. Kreider, God with Us: Exploring God's Personal Interactions with His People throughout the Bible

“In short, the self-sufficient, wholly other, transcendent, and holy God condescended to create a world and creatures, knowing that they would reject him and rebel against him and that he would, because of his love, condescend to provide for their redemption.”
― Glenn R. Kreider, God with Us: Exploring God's Personal Interactions with His People throughout the Bible

“Forgiveness is rooted in the character of God. Jesus’ opponents correctly noted that no one can forgive sins except God (Mark 2:7). At the heart of the character of God is love for sinners, mercy and compassion that is manifested in forgiveness (Ex. 34:6–7). God condescends toward rebellious humans when he forgives them.”
― Glenn R. Kreider, God with Us: Exploring God's Personal Interactions with His People throughout the Bible

“Because grace is unmerited favor, it cannot be earned or deserved. Thus, forgiveness can never be forced or mandated. Yet the Scriptures teach that the recipients of grace should be good stewards of it. Having received grace from God, we have the privilege and the responsibility to extend that grace to others.8”
― Glenn R. Kreider, God with Us: Exploring God's Personal Interactions with His People throughout the Bible

“Forgiveness is extravagant. In fact, the more one has been forgiven, Jesus teaches, the more one will love.”
― Glenn R. Kreider, God with Us: Exploring God's Personal Interactions with His People throughout the Bible