Cosmic Sacrifice

John Dunnill’s summary of the interconnections of gift, creation, covenant, sacrifice, and Trinity is lovely (Sacrifice and the Body, 29):

“To say that the world is gift, and that human life fulfills itself when it responds by giving, is more than a perception or ungrounded assertion about the world. It makes a claim about the fundamental being and character of God. The doctrine of the world’s createdness leads directly to Israel’s perception of itself as a people called by God to enjoy a special relationship, and to the gospel story that into this created field, and into this covenantal relationship, God himself has entered, in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ. If the One who is Gift gives himself in this way, reflection on the nature of God as Trinity finds this giving to spring from God, not only in time but eternally, in the self-giving of the Father to the Son and the Spirit, and of the Son and Spirit to the Father. As far back as we can take it, God is love and Being is gift. It turns out that sacrifice is not a strange and primitive activity better dispensed with in a rational world but a principle underlying all things, recognized widely in religious perceptions and practices and revealed supremely, Christians would say, in the incarnation of Christ.”