8.2. The Life-Giving Imitation of the Son
For centuries, our notion of God and divinity has been colored by philosophy, especially Greek philosophy leading to a Gnostic tendency in our interpretation. Karl Barth made the radical claim that The Bible is the only source for our understanding of God, independent of any philosophical claim. That led to confusion about what is God and what we can know.
The Gospel Changes Our View of God. If Jesus’ claims that he is acting and saying how God would act and what God would say, then we have to reinterpret our image of God in light of how Jesus acted and spoke. And, there is no hint of violent retribution in Jesus. "The conclusion we must draw from this is that whatever we may think we know about God or say about God cannot be different from what we know and say about Jesus.”
To Love One Must Renounce Violence. "John prefers verbs to nouns, so the word ‘love’ is found much less than the verb ‘to love.’ Love is not a thing but an action of one party for another, a way of existing in relationships.” "The Anabaptist maxim “to know Christ is to follow him, to follow Christ is to know him” is our valid starting point. To follow Jesus is to be like God, for God and Jesus have one and the same character."
Quotes from Hardin, Michael (2013-09-26). The Jesus Driven Life: Reconnecting Humanity With Jesus, 2nd Edition Revised and Expanded (Kindle Locations 7169-7170). JDL Press. Kindle Edition.