Dogmatic Ecclesiology: The Priestly Catholicity of the Church

by Tom Greggs

Overview

Ecclesiology is a key issue for the present age of church history. This groundbreaking work by one of today's leading theologians offers a major Protestant ecclesiology for the church catholic. This volume, the first of three, considers the priesthood of the church in light of the priesthood of Christ. Tom Greggs shows the connection between Christ's work as high priest and the universal church's role in salvation. All together, the three volumes will offer a major statement on the doctrine of the church for Christians from a variety of backgrounds.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801097898
Publisher:	Baker Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/19/2019
Pages:	560
Product dimensions:	6.25(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Tom Greggs, FRSE (PhD, Cambridge University), is head of divinity and holds the Marischal Chair of Divinity at the University of Aberdeen in Aberdeen, Scotland, and is a founding codirector of the Aberdeen Centre for Protestant Theology. He has written several books, including Theology against Religion: Constructive Dialogues with Bonhoeffer and Barth.

Table of Contents

Contents
How to Read This Book
Preface: A Brief Prospective Theological Prolegomena to Ecclesiology
Why the Church?
"I Will Be Their God, and They Will Be My People": Issues of Method, Approach, and Dogmatic Topography
Which Church?
The Church of the Spirit, Not the Spirit of the Church
Chart of Prospective Chapter Topics
Abbreviated Chapter Theses for Volume 1
1. The Spirit: The Lord of and the Giver of Life to the Church
The Church as Creature of the Spirit: An Act of Divine Grace
A Reformation Church: An Event of God's Act
A Truly Pentecostal Church Whose Life Comes from the Living Holy Spirit
Pneumatologically Actualistic Ecclesiology
The Mediation of the Spirit: God's Vertical Act in the Horizontal Axis of the Medium of Creaturely Space-Time
"To Your Advantage That I Go Away": The Spirit's Continuing Work of Salvation in the Horizontal Axis of Creaturely Existence
The Love of the Other in Her Givenness as a Salvific Event of the Spirit's Act
The Essential Given Variety with the Church in Its Life of Love
2. The High Priesthood of Christ: The Essential Hierarchy of the Church (1)
The Rule of the Only Priest: The Lordship of Christ over the Church
The Priesthood of Christ in Hebrews
The Gospel Form of Christ's Priesthood
The Modality of Christ's Priesthood
3. Participative Ontology and the Church's Internal Priesthood: The Essential Hierarchy of the Church (2)
The Uniqueness of Christ, Who Is Head of His Body
Participation in Christ by the Spirit
The Church as an Active Participation in Christ's Spirit-Filled Humanity
The Church as Participating in Christ's Priesthood in Its Internal Sociality: Priesthood Internal to the Church
Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus Est?
4. The Priestly Ontology and the Church's Life for the World: The Essential Hierarchy of the Church (3)
The Corporate Priesthood of the Church in the World
Challenging Traditional Accounts of Essential Hierarchy
A Clergy That Demarcates Church from (and Not for) the World: The Damned for the Sake of the Saved
A Priestly Church for the World
A Boundary Fundamentally for the Sake of the World
Orders Exist for the Sake of Church
Intensity of the Church's Priesthood Is Its Fringe
5. Baptism: Entry into the Priesthood of the Church
A Note on the Genus "Sacrament"
A Note on the Language of "Means of Grace"
Sacrament, Sign, and Semiosis
Baptism as a Sign
Baptism as Entry into Corporate Priesthood
Subsistent Identity in Christ: The Internal Priestly Dynamics of the Community of the Baptized
The Positive Challenge of the New Identity in the Quotidian Givenness of the World
Infant or Adult Baptism?
The Worldliness of Water: One Baptism
6. Holy Communion
A Semiotic Commemoration
A "High" Memorialist Interpretation of Zwingli
The Question of Agency
No Further Sacrifice
The Temporal Semiotics of Participation
Participation in the Body: Bound to One Another in Space-Time
Bound to One Another in Holy Communion for the World
Celebrating Holy Communion Together in the Givenness of a Church Service
7. The Communion of Saints
The Provisionality of the Passing Church in Time
The Everlasting and Universal Communion of Saints
Subsisting in the Communion of Saints: A Protestant Account of the Tradition of the Church
8. Intercessory Prayer
Prayer in Christ the Unique High Priest
The Internal Priestly Act of Prayer within and for the Church
Intercessory Prayer as an Expression of Salvation in the Horizontal Sphere of Spatiotemporality
Intercessionary Prayer as a Priestly Act for the World
9. Thanksgiving and Praise: Participating Graciously in Grace
"Less Quid Pro Quo Than Overflow"
Creator-Creature Distinction and Relation: A Creation of Sheer Grace
Caught Up in God's Movement: Living Thankfully in the Divine Willing for the Other
Justification by Grace Alone: No Works, Only Gratitude for Divine Mercy
The Forms of Gratitude for Grace in the Church
10. Congregation: Priestly Polity
The Congregation as Foundational
The Givenness of the Community in Space and Time
The Congregation, the Great Congregation, and the All in All
Priestly Congregating
11. Sanctification
Sanctification as an Act of the Grace of God
Sanctification in Christ by the Spirit
The Non-interior Form of Sanctification
Communal and Corporate Sanctification for the World
12. Love
Love as a Participation in God's Love, Both Economically and in God's Internal Life
Love as the Concrete Form of the Sanctified Life
The Individual Exists for the Sake of Love
Church Exists for the Sake of the World
13. Priestly Catholicity
Why Do Priesthood and Catholicity Belong Together?
A Catholicity of the Spirit and the Son's Unique and Universal Dynamics
Active, Loving, and Dynamic Catholicity
Principles of the Forms of Priestly Catholicity
14. Coda: The Church as One
Oneness and Catholicity
One Irreducible Narrative
Oneness of God
Indexes