God is the very content of all that He does. The divine
action (whether salvation, justification, sanctification, etc.)
is necessarily derived out of, and is the vital expression of,
the divine Being in Christ. Those who would know God's
benefits and God's blessings must recognize that God's
benefits to man cannot be known apart from His functional
Being. God's blessing is to bless us with Himself. God "has
blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places
in Christ" (Eph 1:3), who is the "summing up of all things"
(Eph. 1:10).
Who God is and what God does are inseparable. His
Being and His act must ever remain united. This is the
point that epistemology fails to understand. Inherent in the
rationalistic approach is a "separated concept" that detaches
the divine Actuator from the divine activity. When natural
theology deals merely with "ideas" and "concepts," then the
"idea of God" cannot be equated or conjoined with the
"idea" of divine effects (ex. salvation, sanctification, etc.).
They stand alone, autonomously self-existent with
independent functions. There is an isolation of divine effect
that is explainable only as the mechanical result of the
"idea of God." Separated into such constituent parts,
Christian activity is construed as conferment or endowment
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