The divine revelation cannot be detached from the divine
reality of the living Lord Jesus. The revelation of the gospel
is the revelation of Himself. The “good news” is Jesus! The
gospel revelation of God in Christ is not a differentiated
philosophy with fragmented principles of belief and
behavior. German martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, wrote,
“Christ is not a principle in accordance with which the whole
world must be shaped. Christ is not the proclaimer of a system of
what would be good today, here and at all times. Christ teaches no
abstract ethics such as must at all costs be put into practice. Christ
was not essentially a teacher and legislator, but a man, a real man
like ourselves. It is not therefore His will that we should in our
time be the adherents, exponents and advocates of a definite
doctrine, but that we should be real men before God. ...What Christ
does is precisely to give effect to reality. He is Himself the real
man and consequently the foundation of all human reality.” 10French author, Jacques Ellul, concurs,
“There are no such things as ‘Christian principles.’ There is the
Person of Christ, who is the principle of everything. If we wish to
be faithful to Him, we cannot dream of reducing Christianity to a
certain number of principles, the consequences of which can be
logically deduced. This tendency to transform the work of the
Living God into a philosophical doctrine is the constant temptation
of theology, and their greatest disloyalty when they transform the
action of the Spirit which brings forth fruit in themselves into an
ethic, a new law, into ‘principles’ which only have to be
‘applied.’” 11The divine work of God in Christ has been dualistically
objectified and historically detached from the living person
of the resurrected Lord. Based upon those historical and