I came across a new phrase this week while reading John Jefferson Davis’ Worship and the Reality of God: An Evangelical Theology of Real Presence. As you might have guessed from the title of this post it’s “ontic weight.” Here’s what he says:
The personal presence of God in the ecclesia, by virtue of his covenant promises, his Word, sacraments and Spirit, invests the ecclesia with an ontic weight that does not obtain with merely human organizations and assemblies. (63)
When the church gathers itself together intentionally as a church, in the name of the Lord Jesus…, as an assembly of God for the worship of God, then God himself is present, and the church can experience its full theanthropic and ontological weight – the transcendent Christ is then immanently and really present in the midst of the assembly, investing it with his own reality, authority and weightiness. (66)
Davis argues that the gathered church has greater ontological weight than the scattered church. This implies both sacred space and sacred time.
I agree with J. J. Davis!
Dr. Richard Barcellos is associate professor of New Testament Studies. He received a B.S. from California State University, Fresno, an M.Div. from The Master’s Seminary, and a Th.M. and Ph.D. from Whitefield Theological Seminary. Dr. Barcellos is pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Palmdale, CA. He is author of Trinity & Creation, The Covenant of Works, and Getting the Garden Right. He has contributed articles to various journals and is a member of ETS.
Courses taught for CBTS: New Testament Introduction, Biblical Hermeneutics, Biblical Theology I, Biblical Theology II.
