VISION AND IMAGINATION IS CHRIST AS US
04/12/24 13:44
When I was a youth Liberals were open minded, and creative. Today they are the expositors of stagnation and self-entitlement. Hard right and hard left with its nihilism, cancel culture and drive to control were unknown. Certainly by me. When Christianity is real, penetrating below the surface labels - we can expect a kinder and more creative political culture. This is to say, one more imbued with the presence of the Real Jesus. The new creation is not based on exclusion and greed.
THE HUMAN AND ALIVE WAY
The living way is to follow Christ, the Way of Truth wherever he leads. This ‘living way’ means we are alive in our spirit. Jesus teaches us His Gospel by exposing false gospels for what they are – devious plots of the Enemy to undo the power of the cross. Thus, it is fruitful to change direction should we discover that the gospel we have followed all our lives is not Christ’s Gospel or the Gospel of the apostles but an aberration. It’s obedience and wisdom.
SLIGHT OF HAND ABERRANT TEACHING
Tim Keller wrote, “To change the gospel the tiniest bit is to lose it so completely that the new teaching has no right to be called a “gospel.” ..You will find this passage in Luther's Preface to the Galatians. “There is no middle ground between Christian righteousness and works righteousness. There is no other alternative to Christian righteousness but works righteousness; if you do not build your confidence on the work of Christ you must build your confidence on your own work. (Martin Luther, Preface)”
This is the difference between the Gospel of Jesus and the apostles and decayed gospels that dull our spirit and life. It is the difference between union with God versus the continuation of the era of the knowledge of good and evil in a Christian disguise. Both hard right and hard left will lead to the decay and implosion of what we know as society. But the Living Way is Christ our Life. This is incarnated living.
IT’S CHRIST YOUR LIFE
Kingdom life is not defined by moralism. It’s about belonging and union with God. Jesus presents Himself as life. Not a moral program. If we have been taught to the contrary we have been taught wrong. Bent gospels and their culture are theft. The whole person approach is a whole of society approach were people grow in the fullness of their humanity and do not live in denial while raping and killing the earth. But truth is revealed by its effects.
You are the branches of the Vine. This means that our belonging is basic and our humanity is the expression of Christ in us. This is the impartation of Christ’s righteousness and His spirit of life. Noy just for healed limbs but for the healing of politics and society.
UNION WITH GOD IS OURS NOW
In Christ we are alive in His life personally and the life of the trinity. In old covenant revisionist gospels, we remain separated in our minds from God, even though we have been made one with God by God. There’s a reason why we are urged to follow this gospel of the Kingdom rather than formulations of our own: This is life versus death, deadness of spirit and fragmented lives and polity. We are not re-born in the law and religion. We are not of Christ because we style ourselves ‘born again’. We are not born again if we are living in religion when we could be living Christ come in our flesh.
CAUSE AND EFFECT
The anointing and the gifts are the effect of new covenant union with God – never an endorsement of the law or a substitute for the incarnation. The truth is that some who walk in the gifts are the walking wounded. They suffer from emotional disease and are in need of the ultimate healing which is had by living in what is already theirs: Union with God.
PLACE OF MIRACLES AND GIFTS
If Christ had done a bunch of miracles and there had been no cross – there would be no salvation and no incarnation. There would be no human life worth the name. Salvation, the gifts and the anointing flow from the cross and it’s atonement. Not the other way around.
ONE SUBSTANCE
Myk Habets following Torrance writes, “The doctrine of the homoousion speaks to the fact that Jesus is both ‘of one being with the Father’ (Nicene Creed) and of one being with us in our humanity. This double homoousion# forms the hinge upon which Torrance’s development of incarnation and reconciliation turns. ‘The homoousion is the ontological and epistemological linchpin of Christian theology.” (1) Christ is God and one with Father. Christ in you joins you to God and make you Godly. This is the Living Way of transformed lives.
Atonement is the linchpin because it brings oneness with God. Adamic separation is undone. Our starting position is union with God. From here we grow from glory to glory as sons/daughters of God. Graces is not an abstraction to help is cope with the law. Grace is Christ for you and as you to God and to the world.
OTHER GOSPELS
We may be sure that reconciliation in fullness with God is the difference between the truth of God’s Gospel and specious doctrinal revisions that linger in the law. These make us think we are at least partially responsible for our own atonement. They imply a separation between the Believer and God that no longer exists.* Christ is your life in every way.
In deviant gospels the fall is continued as some form of a separation mindset. Your union with God is complete in Christ who is your Messiah. You do not have to make yourself worthy of Christ to be in Christ. There’s no tricky double-jeopardy involved. It’s not yes and no. It always yes in Christ. The cool thing about being a better person in Christ is this: You do it by agreeing with Christ that He lives in you by the Spirit and His life becomes your life.
‘Other gospels’ as Paul called them are a curse because they suffocate the infinite life that is ours in union with Christ. We can choose whether to live cursed or to live blessed.
# (Gr. homoousion - from homos, same, and ousia, essence; Latin consubstantialem, of one essence or substance), the word used by the Council of Nicaea (325) to express the Divinity of Christ.
As in N.T. Wright, law based sects and moralistic versions of Pentecostalism.
(1) Myk Habets, Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance, p. 60.
