Friday, February 25, 2011

eternal life as interactive, intimate relationship which conceives something (Dallas Willard)

From  Keith Giles' subversive interview w/Dallas Willard:


DALLAS: ...What it means to be saved is to be living a life of interaction with Jesus and that’s the only description of Eternal Life in the New Testament is John 17:3 where Jesus
says, in his prayer, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent”. Now again, “Know” does not mean “to know about him”.
          KEITH: “It’s not about knowledge”.
DALLAS: “Biblically ‘Knowledge’ is interactive relationship. As Mary said to the angel, “But how can this be since I know not a man?” See that word ‘know’ is different than knowledge. What she meant is that she had not had sexual intercourse with a man, that is called ‘Carnal Knowledge’.

KEITH: “So, it’s an intimacy that conceives something then?”

DALLAS: “It most certainly does. The intimacy is one of interaction. When the prophet says, on the behalf of Jehova to Israel, ‘You only have I known or all the peoples on the Earth’,
he’s not saying he doesn’t know “about” the others, he’s saying ‘You’re the only one’s that I’ve entered into a covenantal relationship with, an interactive relationship’. So eternal life then
is an interactive relationship with God. That’s what salvation is.

"Subversive Interviews" by Keith Giles pp 76-77 here

No comments:

Post a Comment

Hey, thanks for engaging the conversation!