Salvation History as a Communication Process

Man's ability to communicate and having the concept of communication is the outcome that God has created man with intellect and will. As we all know, communication refers to the "transmission of ideas, attitudes, emotions from one person or group to another with the aid of extensions", and also, it is "a creation and exchange of meanings". With this ability, man is placed on higher from the animals and plants (as per the Hierarchy of Beings by Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas).

Man's destiny to achieve a wonderful life can be also analogous into a communication process. In fact, after man's creation, God has communicated himself to man through Divine Revelation, however, man has encountered many failures and rejections to received God's message. However, God didn't stop from there, He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to fulfill the message of Good News to man.

As we are in the season of reflection, we can reflect it through the use of two Communication theories -- God's Salvation History as a Communication Process and Jesus Christ as the Perfect Communicator.

God's Salvation History as a Communication Process

God initiated communication to man through Divine Revelation. He is the sender and the source of Love. He reveals Himself to many people, as stated in the Sacred Scriptures. He had normally used prophets and other people as channels of His message. Some people believed and accepted God's word, while other did not. There were many noises -- whether external or internal factors. Until today, God's salvation is still in the process. God's message and Love continues to be initiated to us unto this day. He even uses us as instruments and there are still noises, but as we accept this message. We continue to make the communication process flow in this world.

Jesus Christ as the Perfect Communicator

The Communication Process of God's Love, whatever profound it is and fulfilling to us as human, is still makes us hard to live with it and share it to other people. Human as we are, we may experience sin, frailty and limited understanding towards other people. Ideally, it is our human nature not to grasp fully the expression of sharing God's love to other people. But God still and certainly continues to helps us -- He send His son Jesus Christ. We can make an analogy by letting Jesus Christ as our Opinion Leader in this Communication Process.

Sometimes, it can be hard for us to direct our communication to God, because God is something that is too abstract for man to grasp. Though God reveals and initiates relationship, our humanity simply cannot fathom His majesty. That is why He doesn't only send His son to save us, but for us to have an image of God in our midst. "Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father." (John 14:9)

In order to fulfill God's message for us on how to live our lives, we use Jesus Christ as our Model, on how to live our lives. May we treat Him as the Opinion Leader, on how we share the Salvation of God's Love. Because after all, He is the Message of Love because He is Love Himself (cf. 1 John 4:8) which is relevant to Marshall McLuhan's "The medium is the message."

This blog post is a partial requirement in Advanced Communication Theory course under the tutelage of Atty. Elgene Feliciano at Holy Angel University (in partnership with Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication) under the program of Master of Arts in Communication.

#communication #communicationprocess #jesuschrist