Ellis Hein's Blog – 9thMo. 2017 Archive (2)

The main challenge to this vision of a holy church is the church’s own sinfulness...Luther’s understanding of the church as simul justus et peccatore, or “simultaneously justified and a sinner,” is helpful for describing the paradox of the church’s “now and not yet” struggle with sin. Luther’s perspective affirms the reality of the sin of the church, yet also allows that God’s sanctification is in fact at work and progressively enacting real change in the hearts, minds, and actions…

The christians were called a "city set on a hill, the light of the world, and the salt of the earth;" but when they forsook the power of God, and their faith stood in words and men, and not in the power; then their walls fell down, though the power in itself stood; and they lost their hill, their saltness, and their shining. (Works of Fox, Vol. II, p.172)

...[Jesus] began asking His disciples, saying, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they…