ABSTRACT
This loving commitment is traceable in God’s maintenance of creation, his sustaining of creaturely time and space, his gracious preservation of the universe from absolute implosion, his exquisitely variegated macro-and micro-cosmic work of engendering all that is authentically beautiful, good, just and true. It is evident in God’s freely-chosen involvement in human history, in the generosity with which he establishes relations with unworthy human subjects, pledging himself to be their God, keeping faith with them in spite of all their infidelities, promising to make his presence with them a source of blessing to all the nations of the earth. Climactically, the divine commitment means the unveiling of the wonder that stands behind the entire course of God’s covenantal self-binding as it unfolds in time: God’s gracious determination to come among humans in person, in the life, death, resurrection and ascension of his incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. In
the history of Jesus of Nazareth, God is present with us as nowhere else, living a finite, fleshly existence, suffering and dying as human himself.
