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Document Details :

Title: Apostolic Continuity , Apostolic Succession and Ministry from a Reformation Perspective
Author(s): MEYER, Harding
Journal: Louvain Studies
Volume: 21    Issue: 2   Date: summer 1996   
Pages: 169-182
DOI: 10.2143/LS.21.2.583431

Abstract :
God's saving act in Christ was performed once, at a certain point in history, and yet it was performed for all time. Both its historicity – the 'once' – and its finality – the 'for all time' – become fused in the eschatological 'once and for all,' the 'eph' hapax' of the event (Heb 7:27). This eschatological 'once and for all,' however, does not leave behind time and history. It is not elevated to an a-historical and metaphysical level or realm. Its continuity is not the continuity of a nunc aeternum. It rather remains embedded in our human time and history. In this way God's saving act in Christ becomes the object of a process of transmission by which the 'once' is continually converted into 'for all times' and the 'there and then' into 'here and now.'

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