A Quaker Understanding of Jesus Christ, Part 2
and to know Christ in them." (Apology Prop. VI, XXVIII, Freiday, pp.123ff.) The early Friends did not denigrate nature but sought to recover a Biblical unity between God as creator and God as redeemer. This unity they envisioned as divine election through an accessible logos, Christ, rather than through a limited, predestined, redemption.
9. God's Spirit is intrinsically linked to Christ (filioque).
Early Friends referenced their usage of the term Spirit to Jesus Christ. This was the case whether they used the term Christ, or metaphors such as light and seed, or the word Spirit. In short, they had a Christo-centric doctrine of the Holy Spirit. This doctrine conveyed an understanding of the universal and saving light graciously available to all persons. It was clearly linked to the spiritual nature of baptism. Of the Pentecostal experience recorded in the Acts George Fox wrote, "Baptized by one spirit into one body. . . is the answer of a good conscience toward God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. . . Christ is the substance, whereby we are baptized into his death." Fox quotes Paul approvingly, "those that are baptized into Christ have put on Christ." (Galatians 3:27). (Saul's Errand to Damascus, cited in Early Quaker Writings, p. 258.)
10. Christ's presence in the world does not foreclose a fuller future coming.
In his often-reprinted Apology, Barclay refutes accusations that theiremphasis upon the contemporary presence of the Kingdom implies no belief in a future life. The Quaker insistence upon accepting judgment of the Light now doesn't imply disbelief in a final judgment, or in heaven or hell. Just talking about the outward life of Christ, he wrote, won't redeem or justify people, they must know "Christ resurrected in them." If people partake of the first resurrection, i.e., inward redemption from sin, they are better able to judge the second resurrection. We are called, he said, to be the first fruits of those who serve and worship Christ not "in the oldness of the letter but in the newness of the Spirit" until "all the kingdoms of the earth become the kingdom of Christ Jesus."(Apology, Freiday ed., p. 439. See also Barclay's Catechism, Chap. XIV, cited in Early Quaker Writings, p. 348).
11. The church, as the body of Christ, witnesses to God's kingdom.
Writes Fox: "Now Christ is the heavenly, living, spiritual head of these his heavenly, living, spiritual members: and he that sanctifieth and they that are
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