Seeing in 2D

Dave Bish mentioned that Tim Keller says that we need to console as well as confront our culture. It reminds me of David Powlison’s observation in his excellent seminars on Biblical Counseling at Bethlehem Baptist Church that a failing of the early Biblical Counseling movement was an emphasis on counselees as sinners to the exclusion of their experience as sufferers.

It helps me a lot to remember both these two dimensions:

We are:

Actors	AND	acted upon
Sinners	AND	sinned against
Under the penalty of our sin	AND	under the power of Sin
Sinners	AND	sufferers
People with misdirected desires	AND	with unfulfilled good desires

We need:

Confrontation and forgiveness	AND	consolation
Mercy	AND	justice
Penal substitution	AND	Christus Victor

Augustus Toplady knew both dimensions when he wrote:

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.

Any more terms to add?