ALIVE IN THE RIVER OF LIFE
28/12/24 08:03
‘And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth’ Eph 1.10 NLT.
Should we think that our Christ-life is just about forgiveness, we have short-changed ourselves. A real Christ-life is about being a true self and living in freedom and joy as a LIFE GIVER.
There is a Gospel of the Kingdom that began with Christ and the apostles, was established by the Church Fathers, was recovered by the Reformers and is being lived by those who live in the incarnation. The trinity in you is your inheritance and the difference between this body of death and the New Creation Kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is not something ‘out there.’ It is in you and is you. An excellently argued book about the fact that Kingdom Life is about more than grace is ‘Beyond Justification’. It argues for what we could have known – that spirituality is not about a Christian version of the knowledge of good and evil. It’s Christ expressed as you and as us.
IN CHRIST NOT IN ADAM
If we are informed by the incarnation our picture of what it means to fellowship with Christ and be one with God is different to that which comes to mind when law, sin/righteousness, and dualistic views of salvation are our life. The Nature of the cosmos is not that there is a great controversy between Christ and Satan. In Christ the cosmos is not bisected. The alpha is that all things have been made one in Christ and the omega is that Christ is drawing all things into the Oneness of Himself that already is.
In Christ we are one with God and with nature because Christ created both. We are not pantheists but we recognise that we have an affinity with life because it came from God.
The notion that the Church can be regenerated by re-inventing what we call the church – that all we need to do is to employ the latest church growth principles is as misguided as maintaining the law in this this post-cross age. It ignores the meaning of the cross, the atonement and life in the Spirit – the incarnated life of all Believers in which heaven invade earth because believers are sons/daughters of God..
RELENTLESS LIFE
We have an origin and a destiny in Christ beginning with creation and gaining impetus with the resurrection of Jesus and the New Creation and our awaiting the culmination of all things in Christ at His Second Coming.
Inclusion in Christ is much more than a legality. It’s a state of being. Belonging, inclusion and communion is the nature of our Christ-Life. The great peace and satisfaction of life is ‘to be’ and ‘to belong’. We have this in Christ. We celebrate it at the Lord’s Table.
FLOURISHING
Fullness of life is found in knowing God. Not making stuff up about God, or sliding into subtle forms of idolatry but knowing God as God in Jesus Christ. Myk Habets observes following Calvin and Torrance, ‘This evangelical conception of union with Christ governed Calvin’s teaching about justification and sanctification, Holy Communion, and the Church as the body of Christ’. (1)
All of the above are ours in Christ – not because we have attached ourselves to some definition of them or armed ourselves with proof texts or position statements - but because our state of being human is oneness with God. This is the achievement of Christ and His cross.
THIS GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM
We have union with the life of the triune God because Christ is our life. We are graced with His life and His communion with Father and Holy Spirit. Law as union with God as compared to Christ our life with union with God is entirely shambolic.
The essence of salvation is union with God in Christ. The church of Christ is the community for whom Jesus is life. Heaven gets to manifest on earth as the trinity is expressed in us. The most remarkable and persuasive manifestation of the Spirit is Christ your life, which is Christ as you, George and Sarah.
(1) Habets Myk, Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance, P.99