INTRODUCTION
Anderson notes that Jesus' mission "was not entirely completed in his death and resurrection" (p. 189). He understands that Jesus' missional activity continues as he sends the Spirit to form and gift the church to participate with him in his ongoing paracletic ministry on earth.
The Eschatological Nature of Apostolic Ministry
Anderson’s position in chapter 12 is Jesus' ministry has a distinctly "eschatological nature" in that it brings into the present, piece-by-piece, and through the church, the future fullness of the kingdom. Paul refers to the church as God's "new creation"---the in-breaking of what God has done to reconcile the world through Christ and the Spirit continues through the church's ministry of reconciliation. Anderson remarks: “Paul…argued that with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ a new age had broken into the old, so that these eras now overlapped.” (191)
In Anderson's perspective, it’s not historical precedence and institutions that unifies the church, it’s the Spirit who releases the imminent church to join Jesus in his present and ongoing mission to the world. Regrettably, the church has emphasized the
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Never forgetting, Jesus, "is the advocate of all persons, not only those who are 'in Christ’” (200). Through the Spirit, Jesus is present with all and as the Paraclete, he is ministering to all. Anderson's reference to the paracletic ministry of Jesus: “Christ is not first of all contained by the nature of the church so that only when Christ is shared by the church does the world encounter him. Rather, as Thomas Torrance has put it, ‘Christ clothed with His gospel meets with Christ clothed with the desperate needs of men’” (201). The church is to engage with Jesus in what he is doing in the world. With this direction, the church will embrace what Jesus has done and walk in the