Paul reminds me of one of my school friends, Martyn Moxon. I used to play cricket with Martyn. I took a few wickets in the Barnsley schools league. He went on to captain Yorkshire and play for England. Thing about Martyn was he was so good he could afford to be modest. Same goes for Paul.
In the spirit of this particular festblog here's a couple of quotes from Paul's Past Event And Present Salvation, the first of his books to find its way across my desk and deep into my head.
In creation God gives freedom to something over against himself; he limits himself by the freedom of others, his creatures, and becomes vulnerable to their decisions. In the very act of creation then, he must preserve it from wilfully drifting away into nothingness and the void. From the act of creation onwards he faces the tragedy of death, and seeks to win his own creatures into free and joyous fellowship with himself. (22)
Since he has identified himself with Jesus in both act and being, we may say that the Father himself embarks upon the agonising journey of discovery that forgiveness entails. Far from simply forgetting about the sins of the world he journeys deeply into the heart of the human tragedy. It is as if the Father is not content to go out on the road to await the return of the prodigal son, but actually takes the path into the far country to fetch the wayward son from the pigsty. (178)Past Event And Present Salvation (1989) London: Darton, Longman and Todd
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